“But… I do not understand.”
“I’m not in the business anymore.”
The smile came back. “You are joking, of course. Ah, you were always one for the jokes. But at a time such as this-”
“I’m not laughing, am I?”
Again, the smile vanished. It was like watching one of those comedy-tragedy mask things you see in neon bar signs, blinking first one and then the other. A tic started high on his left cheekbone, jumping in a steady rhythm. He said something in rapid French in a hoarse, stricken voice, and his eyes seemed to be looking at something distant and frightening. Finally, he gave himself a small shake and looked at me and said, “Please, mon ami! You must help me, I beg of you. If I were to tell you of-”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” I said. “Listen, La Croix, I don’t fly any longer. I haven’t flown in two years and I have no intention of starting it up again. That’s all there is to it.”
“But how-?”
“How do I make my living? Simple enough: I work for it. Coolie labor down on the docks, and when I can’t get that, road construction or as a kaboon worker on one of the rubber plantations here or in Malaya. The days of the Eurasian girls and the gin pahits and the Ponggol villa are gone-dead and buried.”
There was incredulity on La Croix’s pale face. He was sweating profusely. “I cannot believe this!”
“You’d better believe it, all right.”
“What of your air freight concern? You no longer…?”
“That’s right,” I said. “There isn’t any more Connell and Falco Transport. The Singapore government and the Federation revoked my license two years ago, closed down our quarters, and forced me to sell what they didn’t confiscate. They were almost able to kick me out of Singapore as an undesirable. Didn’t you hear about it in Macao? I understand it made most of the papers in the South China Sea.”
He shook his head in a numb way.
I didn’t offer to go into the reason behind the revocation of my license; I had no desire to discuss the incident with him or with anyone else. I said, “So that’s it, La Croix. I couldn’t help you, even if I wanted to. I hope you find somebody else. There are others on the island who’ll take you out for a lot less than five thousand dollars.”
La Croix caught up the bottle of Anchor Beer and drained it; foam bubbled whitely at the corners of his mouth and ran down over his chin, onto the front of his soiled Hong Kong shirt. He didn’t seem to notice. Very softly he said, “But I have already-” Abruptly, he broke off and gained his feet. He stumbled across to the door in a manner that was almost somnambulistic.
I rose from the armchair and went over there. I felt a little sorry for him at that moment, perhaps because we had once been friends of a sort. “Listen,” I said, “there’s a Swede named Dinessen who runs an air freight service off Bukit Timah Road. You can try him. I’ve heard it said that he’s in the business.”
“Dinessen,” La Croix said. “Yes, I will see him.”
I reached out and opened the door. “I hope you make it all right.”
A trace of the smile returned, fleeting, humorless. “I will make it,” he said. “Au revoir, mon ami.”
“Good luck, La Croix.”
I stood there for a moment, listening to his footsteps fading on the wooden stairs outside, and then I closed the door and went back to the armchair. I lit another cigarette and took the pewter mug of tea into the half-bath and emptied it into the sink. In the bedroom, I looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was almost nine.
I thought about La Croix as I put on a thin gray bush jacket and a pair of white canvas shoes. Whatever he was involved in this time must have been a major league activity — and one that had gone at least a little sour, judging from his agitated state-for him to have offered as much as ten thousand dollars for a flight out of Singapore. He had always been one of the little men, fronting for big money, skirting the fringes of it, but never really holding any of his own; now that he had gotten in on what appeared to be a large score, he was, ironically, out of his element. I wondered briefly what kind of thing it was, and then decided I did not particularly want to know. All the scores, big and small-and the kind of life that went with them-were behind me now, dead and buried, and I wanted to keep it that way.
I finished dressing, locked the flat, and went out into what the Dutch call the roote hond — the oppressive, prickly heat-that was the island and city of Singapore by day.
Chapter Two
I walked down to the waterfront.
South Bridge Road was quiet, except for those of the ever-present European and Pacific island tourists who had gotten up early to take in the sights. They were walking in pairs or in groups, talking animatedly, taking pictures the way they do-like giant dolls running through a programmed series of maneuvers. Ever since Singapore became an independent island republic in 1965, the government has made a concentrated effort to lure more visitors and thereby increase the primary contributor to the gross national income. This program, to the bitter disgust of a minority of inhabitants-myself included-has been an overwhelming success.
I walked along South Bridge Road for two blocks and then turned left, passing the Hong Lim Green. After a while I could see the river. The water was a dark, oily bluish-green, and sampans and prahus and small Chinese junks huddled together under their bamboo awnings like old men in a village square. There were dozens of the heavily laden, almost flat-decked tongkangs or cargo lighters that shuttle between the godowns and the freighters waiting in the Inner Roads of Singapore Harbor, and a multitude of smaller, motorized barges similarly laden. The perennial smells of rotting garbage, intermingled with those of salt water, spices, rubber, gasoline, and the sweet, cloying odor of frangipani, were thick and palpable; and the rust-colored tile roofs which cap most of Singapore’s buildings shone dully through the thick heat haze on both sides of the river.
I followed the line of the waterfront for a short way, passing some of the larger godowns. In the shade beneath their sloping eaves, Chinese and Tamil coolies squatted in silent stoicism, or gambled with small, shiny coins, or worked sluggishly among crates and boxes and barrels and skids. Finally, I came upon one of the smaller godowns and found Harry Rutledge-a large, florid-faced, good-natured Englishman; he was supervising the unloading of a shipment of copra from one of the lighters.
“Hello, ducks,” he said affably as I approached.
“Harry.”
“Another effing scorcher, ain’t it?”
I admitted that it was, and then asked him, “Can you use me today, Harry?”
“Sorry, ducks. Plenty of coolies on this one.”
“Tomorrow?”
He rubbed at his peeling red nose; it glistened like the polished hood on one of the government limousines you see parked before the Legislative Assembly Hall on the other side of the river. “Got a cargo of palm oil coming in,” he said musingly. “Holdover, awaiting transshipment. Could use you, at that.”
“What time is it due?”
“Ten, likely.”
“I’ll be here.”
“Right-o, ducks.”
I retraced my steps along the river. It was damned hot, all right-I’ve been in the South China Sea since the end of the Korean War, but I’ve never been able to get used to the heat-and I decided an iced Anchor Beer would taste just fine, early as it was. I walked back along South Bridge Road to a connecting alley and a place called the Seaman’s Bar, which catered mostly to the waterfront types. It was deserted now except for the bartender and three German seamen who were drinking stout at one of the tables in the rear.
I ordered my beer, and while I sat drinking it I wondered if it might not be a good idea to drop in on a man named Samuels, who was the tuan besar of a huge rubber plantation in Selangor and who had an office in Collyer Quay. I had worked for him some months previously, and the last time I had seen him, three weeks ago, he had invited me to check back with him “after a fortnight or so” about an assistant overseer’s position that was supposed to open up on one of his kaboons.
