“For a few minutes.”
“Did you tell him about tonight?”
“I mentioned it.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing,” Trippet said. “Nothing at all.”
The knock on the door came promptly at seven and I didn’t jump as much as I thought I would. I put my drink down, crossed the room, and opened the door. Mrs. Angelo Sacchetti had been right when she had said that I would know him. I did. It was Captain Jack Nash.
“I don’t have any choice in this thing, Cauthorne,” he said as he moved quickly into the room, flicking a brief glance at Trippet.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Just what I said.”
“How much did she offer, since you and Angelo are both Americans and all?”
“Who’s he?” Nash said, jerking his chin at Trippet.
“I haven’t changed that much, have I, Jack?” Trippet said.
Nash turned for another look. A long one. “Hey, I know you.”
“You should.”
“Sure, I know you,” Nash said, more slowly this time. “It was a long time ago up in North Borneo. Jesselton. You’re — let me think a moment — you’re Trippet, that’s it. Major Trippet.” He turned to me again. “How come you brought in British Intelligence, Cauthorne?”
“He didn’t,” Trippet said.
“I think it’s nice that you two know each other,” I said.
“Your friend, Captain Nash, was Colonel Nash when I knew him,” Trippet said. “Actually lieutenant-colonel in the Philippine Guerrilla Army until he was court-martialed.”
“They wiped that out, friend,” Nash said.
“He was using his good office to run guns to North Borneo when I knew him,” Trippet said.
“You never proved it.”
“He was buying them on the black market in the Philippines, or so he said. Actually, we had quite a bit of evidence that he stole them from various American Army installations. It was just after the war, in 1946.”
“Ancient history,” Nash said.
“During the war,” Trippet went on, “Nash captured a Japanese vice-admiral and then set him free. That was on Cebu, wasn’t it, Jack?”
“You know why I turned him loose.”
“For one hundred thousand dollars, according to my information.”
“Bullshit,” Nash said. “I turned him loose because the Japs were going to wipe out every Filipino on the entire island.”
“It was an excellent story; even most of the Filipinos believed it,” Trippet said. “Jack was quite the hero. It seems that the admiral’s seaplane was forced down by engine trouble and he and nine top-ranking staff officers walked right into Jack’s arms carrying with them, curiously enough, a complete set of plans for the defense of the islands. So Jack made a deal with the admiral. In exchange for the defense plans and one hundred thousand dollars, the admiral could go free providing he arranged for the phony massacre threat.”
“It wasn’t phony and there wasn’t any hundred grand,” Nash said. He produced his tin box and began to roll a cigarette. “What the hell,” he said after he got his cigarette lit, “it all happened more than twenty-five years ago anyway.”
“Go on,” I said to Trippet.
“All right. It seems that when the American command in Australia learned that Jack was planning to release the admiral, they ordered him to ignore the alleged Japanese threat. But Jack disobeyed orders, managed to get the defense plans to Australia, somehow collected the hundred thousand, released the admiral, and got a citation from the Philippine government for gallantry, and a court-martial from the Americans.”
“You want a drink?” I said to Nash.
“Sure,” he said.
“Gin all right?”
“On the rocks.”
I poured the drink and handed it to him. “That’s a phony story,” he said. “The Flip government gave me a medal, not any citation.”
“Why tell it now?” I asked Trippet.
“Because I don’t trust the good ex-colonel,” Trippet said.
“They gave me my rank back,” Nash said. “They only busted me to major anyhow.”
“Back up to my first question, Nash,” I said. “How much is she paying you?”
He looked into his drink as if the amount were written on one of the ice cubes. “Five thousand bucks. American.”
“For what?”
“For letting Sacchetti cool off.”
“Where?”
“On my kumpit. That’s where I’m going to take you.”
“And Sacchetti’s there?” I said.
“He was an hour ago.”
“Where’s your kumpit?”
“Across the island south of the naval base just off Seletar in the Johore Strait.”
“Why there?” Trippet asked.
“Look, this limey isn’t coming along, is he?” Nash said.
“He’s an American and all now,” I said. “He’s coming along.”
“Sammy was right,” Trippet said. “A hand does need to be lent.”
“What kind of crack is that?” Nash said.
I told him it was a private joke and he said that his kumpit, the Wilfreda Maria, was anchored in the strait because it had been “moving around.”
“Where’d she find you?” I said.
“Sacchetti’s wife?”
“Yes.”
“At Fat Annie’s.”
“When?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“And they’re paying you five thousand just to give him bed and board for a few days?”
Nash ground his cigarette out in an ashtray and then glanced at his watch. “Them? Not hardly. As soon as he’s through with you I’ve got to rendezvous with his yacht.”
“Where?” I said.
“They’re paying me five thousand to do it. It’ll cost you five thousand to find out where.”
“Seeing as how we’re both Americans and all,” I said.
“Yeah,” Nash said. “There’s that, too.”
Chapter XXIII
A small herd of middle-aged sweaty-looking American tourists, necks festooned with cameras, were being channeled towards the registration- desk in the lobby by their leader, a fussy man in an electric blue shirt, who stamped his foot when one of his charges wanted to know why they weren’t staying at the Singapura like her sister, Wanda, did last year.
Trippet and I followed Nash through the crowd and out the door where he turned towards the trishaw stand. “I thought we were going to the other side of the Island,” I said.
“Just do it my way,” Nash said. “You take the second trishaw in line and tell him to follow mine.”
“To where?” I said.
“To Fat Annie’s.”
I said “Fat Annie’s” to our Chinese pumper and he grinned wickedly.
“Why didn’t you say ‘follow that trishaw?’” Trippet said, as we climbed in. “Would have lent some atmosphere, don’t you think?”
“I thought it was your line.”
We had traveled about a hundred yards when I poked my head around the canvas top of the trishaw and looked back. There was another trishaw about fifty feet behind us, but I couldn’t make out either of its occupants.
“I think we’re being followed,” I said. “Which is a pretty fair line itself.”
“Who?”
“Can’t tell.”
“Difficult to request more speed.”
“We might as well enjoy the ride.”
Fat Annie’s still didn’t look like much and Trippet said so when we arrived right behind Nash’s trishaw. “It’s got a nice parlor,” I said, and paid off our driver.
Nash was waiting at the door. “Let’s go,” he said.
The old woman with the long-stemmed pipe was still sitting on the low bench in the cubicle of an entrance. She ignored us as we went into the room with the rattan bar which held the new National cash register and the abacus. Fat Annie sat on her stool, three hundred pounds of joy, and called, “Hello, Snooky,” at Nash.