Hambley shifted from one foot to the other. He found the black almond-shaped eyes extremely disconcerting. She was looking him over the way a farmer would examine a prize bull.
“What does that mean? Do you know her or don’t you?” She leaned forward to pick up a cigarette. Her breasts tightened their grey silk covering. She put the cigarette between her heavily-made-up lips and looked expectantly at him.
Hambley fumbled for his lighter, found it and had trouble to light it. It irritated him as he lit her cigarette to be aware that he was confused and acting like a teenager.
“Why do you want to know?” she asked, leaning back and releasing a long stream of tobacco smoke down her nostrils.
“We’re trying to check his last movements up to the time he was kidnapped,” Hambley explained. “We think his girl could help us.”
“If she could, she would have come forward, wouldn’t she?”
“Not necessarily. She might not want to get involved.”
Ann Fai Wah picked up the newspaper and glanced at it.
“I see there’s a reward. If I told you who she is, will I get the reward?”
“You might. Security Police are paying the reward. You’d have to talk to them.”
“I don’t want to talk to them. I prefer to talk to you. If you will give me 20,000 piastres, I will tell you who she is.”
'So you know?”
Again the painted eyebrows lifted.
'Perhaps.”
“I haven’t the authority to give you the money,” Hambley said. But I’ll put your claim forward through the proper channels. Who is she?”
Ann Fai Wah shrugged her shoulders.
“I forget. I’m sorry. Is that all? You must excuse me.”
“Look, baby,” Hambley said, suddenly becoming the tough cop, “you can please yourself about this but you either tell me or Security Police. You’ll tell one of us!”
Ann Fai Wah’s expression didn’t change, but her quick shrewd mind warned her of her danger. If this American told Security Police he thought she had information, she would be taken to Headquarters and questioned. She knew what happened to people who were reluctant to talk. She had no intention of having her back lacerated with a bamboo cane.
“And the reward?”
“I told you: I’ll put in a claim for you. I don’t promise you’ll get it, but I’ll do my best for you.”
She hesitated, looking at him, then seeing he was determined, she said, “Her name is Nhan Lee Quon. I don’t know where she lives. Her uncle tells fortunes at the Tomb of Marshal Le-van-Duyet.”
“Thanks,” Hambley said. “What’s the uncle look like?”
“He is a fat man with a beard.”
Hambley picked up his cap.
'I’ll go talk to him,” he said and started towards the door.
Ann Fai Wah crushed out her cigarette and sauntered to the door with him.
“You won’t forget the reward, Lieutenant?”
“I won’t forget.”
“Perhaps you will come and see me again one evening?” He grinned at her.
“I might at that.”
She took hold of the top button of his tunic and examined it. Her face was very close to his.
“Her uncle won’t be at the temple until three o’clock,” she said. “You have plenty of time. Perhaps you would like to stay a little while now?”
Hambley removed her hand. The touch of her cool fingers made his heart beat a little faster. She certainly was attractive, he was thinking. He wanted to stay.
“Some other time, baby,” he said regretfully and he smiled. “I’ve work to do.”
He half-opened the front door, paused and looked at her again. She stared steadily back at him; her black eyes were alight with suggested promises.
Slowly he closed the door and he leaned against it. “Well, maybe I could stay awhile.”
She turned and walked slowly across the room to a door. Hambley, his eyes on her heavy, rolling hips, followed her.
2
The food vendor whose name was Cheong-Su had a long wait before he finally stood before Inspector Ngoc- Linh, but he didn’t mind the wait. The activity in the big room fascinated him and there was the suspense of wondering if someone in this long queue waiting to give information would get the reward before his turn came.
When Cheong-Su came to rest before the Inspector, he said simply and firmly that he had come to claim the reward.
“What makes you think you are going to get it?” The Inspector asked, looking at the old man, his little eyes screwed up, a bitter expression on his tired face.
'I saw the American on Sunday night,” Cheong-Su said. “He was sitting in his car outside the Paradise Club. The time was after ten o’clock.”
The Inspector pricked up his ears. This was the first piece of information bearing on Jaffe’s last movements he had had during the five hours he had sat at the table.
“What was he doing?”
Cheong-Su blinked.
“He was sitting in his car.”
“What kind of car?”
“A small red car.”
“How long did he sit in the car?”
Cheong-Su blinked.
“Not long.”
“How long? Five minutes? Ten? A half an hour?”
“Maybe half an hour.”
“Then what happened?”
“The girl came and he got out of the car,” Cheong-Su said slowly, thinking hard. “He gave her some money and she went into the club. Then she came out and they got in the car and drove away.”
The Inspector shifted his eyes. He didn’t want the food vendor to see how excited he was.
“What girl?” he asked indifferently.
Cheong-Su shrugged his skinny shoulders.
“I don’t know… a girl.”
“You don’t know who she was?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen her before, entering and leaving the club?”
Again Cheong-Su shrugged his shoulders.
“Many girls enter and leave the club. I don’t look at girls any more.”
The Inspector could have strangled him. He said in a carefully-controlled voice, “The American gave her some money and she went into the club? How long was she there?”
“Not long.”
“Ten minutes? Half an hour?”
“Maybe five minutes.”
