Dangerfield went over to ring the bell for room service. “You sure they didn’t hit you on the head?”
“The only thing I’m sure of,” I said, “is my wild anticipation of events yet to come.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Such as phase two of the Dangerfield Plan and how we put it into operation.”
“Simple,” Dangerfield said and borrowed another cigarette from my pack. “We tell Angelo what I told you we’d tell him.”
“We?”
“You get in trouble, Cauthorne. You need a chaperone.”
“I won’t argue that. But where do we find Sacchetti if he doesn’t want to be found?”
“He lives on that yacht, doesn’t he?”
“So I understand.”
“Then we go out to the yacht.”
I was sitting on the edge of the bed by then. Another hour or so and I’d make it into the bathroom. “All right,” I said. “We go out to the yacht. They don’t like visitors out there, but we go anyway. What makes you think they’ll let us aboard?”
Dangerfield sighed and then yawned. “Sometimes, Cauthorne, I think you’ve got shit for brains. He knows about the three guys and the telegram. You told his wife about that, right?”
“Right.”
“He won’t believe it. But he’ll want to know why we want him to believe it.”
“So he’ll see us?”
Dangerfield cast an exasperated glance at the ceiling. “I swear to God they must have hit you on the head last night.”
It took me a while in the bathroom. The shower drove needles into my back and the razor seemed to weigh ten pounds. When I finally came out Dangerfield looked up from the remains of what seemed to have been an immense breakfast.
“You look real pretty,” he said. “Clean, too. I signed your name to the bill.”
“With a little more practice, you can sign my checks. Any coffee left?”
“Plenty.”
The telephone rang and I crossed over to answer it. When the voice said “Mr. Cauthorne?” I recognized it immediately. It belonged to Mrs. Angelo Sacchetti, and she didn’t bother to identify herself.
“I gave my husband your message,” she said.
“I got his after you left last night. It was just as you promised: most sincere.”
That didn’t seem to require any comment from her. “My husband has changed his mind, Mr. Cauthorne. He would like to see you as quickly as possible.”
“This morning?”
“If possible.”
“It is,” I said. “Where?”
“At my father’s house; it’s more convenient than the yacht.”
“All right. What’s the address?”
She told me and we set the time for eleven o’clock. After I hung up the phone, I turned to Dangerfield who was pouring himself another drink.
“That was Sacchetti’s wife,” I said.
“He wants to see us, right?”
“Right.”
“The Dangerfield Plan,” he said with a contented smile. “It seems to be working out just fine.”
After Dangerfield borrowed my razor and poured himself another drink we caught a cab at the hotel and headed out Orchard Road past the Instana Negara Singapura.
“Who the Christ lives there?” Dangerfield said.
“It used to be the residence of the British governors, but now it’s home to Singapore’s president.”
“That’s not this guy Lee, is it?”
“No. He’s the prime minister. The president is Inche Yusof bin Ishak.”
“How do you remember all that?”
“I like foreign names.”
“That’s some lawn,” he said.
Another mile or so and the driver turned around and said, “This is Tiger Balm King’s house. Over there.”
It was a huge, white, two-story house that featured round Moorish turrets on either end and some Corinthian pillars to hold up the roof. It perhaps was the most flamboyant mish-mash of architecture that one could hope to see. On top of the roof were two-foot-high letters that read: “Tiger Balm House of Jade.”
“What’s Tiger Balm?” Dangerfield asked.
“It was very powerful medicine that was manufactured by Aw Boon Haw,” the driver said as he nipped past a Honda. “He made many millions of dollars. Then he bought newspapers and when he died they turn his house into a museum.”
“Why is it called ‘House of Jade’?” I said.
“Over one thousand pieces of jade inside. Very, very valuable. Very ancient, too.”
The house of Angelo Sacchetti’s father-in-law, Toh Kin Pui, was about a mile and a half past the patent medicine king’s mansion and located in the Tanglin residential section which, the driver informed us, featured more millionaires per square mile than anyplace else in the world. He may have exaggerated, but the neighborhood looked as if it were trying to live up to the reputation. Toh’s house, set well back from the road, was a rambling white two-story stucco structure with a red tile roof and a five-sided cupola that stuck up an extra story for no apparent reason at all except that the architect may have thought that it would lend a nice touch. The lawn was smooth and green and well-tended, and flowers bloomed everywhere. The asphalt drive curved up to a covered verandah across from which a fountain played lazily into a rocked-in pool. A Rolls-Royce Phantom V limousine was parked in the driveway and a chauffeur was running a dust cloth over its antelope brown finish. I don’t know why he bothered because it looked as if it were going to rain.
I paid the driver and Dangerfield followed me up the three steps of the verandah. I pushed a button and I suppose that a bell rang somewhere in the house because the door was opened almost immediately by a Chinese man in a white jacket.
“I’m Mr. Cauthorne,” I said. “Mrs. Sacchetti is expecting me.”
We followed the man in the white jacket down a hall and despite the air conditioning the palms of my hands began to sweat and I felt drops of perspiration form in my armpits and trickle down my sides. I held out my right hand to admire its quiver. The pain came in short stabs with every step and breath, but the pain didn’t cause the tremor or the perspiration. That came from my obsession, which was finding Angelo Sacchetti so that I could collect whatever it was that he owed me. The end of my obsession, I thought, lay just behind the door that the man in the white coat opened.
I went through the door first with Dangerfield following. “Don’t be so eager, pal,” he said. “He’s not going to run away.”
It was a living room and the furniture was ordinary, impersonal and utilitarian. There were a couple of sofas, some armchairs, a rug on the floor, and some pictures on the wall.
Several tables held vases filled with flowers, the only bright spots in the room. Angelo Sacchetti’s wife sat in one of the armchairs, much as she had sat the night before, leaning slightly forward, her hands resting on the chair’s arms, her knees together and her feet crossed at the ankles, as if it were a lesson she had learned in finishing school and she wanted to demonstrate how well she remembered it. A middle-aged Chinese in a white shirt and dark slacks, the island’s universal business uniform, rose as we entered.
“Mr. Cauthorne, this is my father, Mr. Toh.”
He bowed slightly, but did not offer to shake hands. “My associate, Mr. Dangerfield,” I said. “Mrs. Sacchetti and Mr. Toh.”
Dangerfield wasn’t much for formalities. “Where’s your husband, Mrs. Sacchetti?”
She ignored him and directed her next remark at me. “You didn’t mention that you were bringing an associate, Mr. Cauthorne.”
“No, I didn’t, did I? But Mr. Dangerfield has a rather personal interest in this matter. In fact, his interest runs almost as deep as mine.”