So she was a taxi-girl, the Inspector was thinking. The American gave her money to pay Blackie Lee his fee so they could go off together. Blackie Lee had been lying when he said he knew of no regular girl.
“You are sure you haven’t seen the girl before?”
“They all look alike. I might have seen her before.”
“Is that all you have to tell me?”
Cheong-Su looked indignant.
“What more do you want?” he demanded. “I have come for the reward.”
The Inspector signalled to the uniformed policeman who gave Cheong-Su a quick hard dig in the ribs with his white baton.
“Move on,” he said.
Cheong-Su’s eyes bulged.
“But the reward?” he spluttered. “Don’t I get anything?”
The policeman gave him a hard crack on his shin with the baton, making the old man hop and howl with pain. The waiting queue laughed delightedly to see the old man hopping and rubbing his shin. The baton fell again, this time on the old man’s skinny buttocks, and holding his seat in both hands, he bolted down the room and out through the exit.
The Inspector pushed back his chair and stood up. He signed to one of his men to take over. He had to see the Colonel at once. The Colonel might think it was time to pick up Blackie Lee and bring him in for special questioning. The Inspector’s face hardened when he thought of how Blackie had lied to him. He looked forward to meeting Blackie in the bleak tiled room set aside for special questioning. The fear that would be on that oily fat face, the Inspector told himself, would be worth seeing.
The subject of the Inspector’s thoughts had had a siesta and now went back to his office to see what was happening to his brother. He found Charlie smoking another cigar with his feet up on Blackie’s desk.
The two men looked at each other.
“Anything?” Blackie asked hopefully, sitting in his desk chair.
“I think so,” Charlie said. “But we’ll need more money. The money the diamonds will sell for won’t be enough. There is only one way to get him out: on the opium flight.”
Blackie lifted his hands helplessly. Why hadn’t he thought of that? he asked himself. So simple once you did think of it. That was the difference between Charlie and himself. Charlie had more brains: there was no doubt about that and because he had more brains he had horned in on two million American dollars.
“Who is doing the run now?” he asked. He hadn’t been in the opium racket now for a couple of years and he had lost touch. He knew Charlie still smuggled opium from Laos into Bangkok.
“Lee Watkins,” Charlie said. “He’s a newcomer. He hasn’t been long in the game, but he’s a good man. His father was English, his mother Chinese. He was a pilot with C.P.A. but he got fooling with an air hostess and they threw him out. He drifted into the Opium game. He’s earning big money. He won’t look at this job unless we pay him well.”
Blackie pulled a face.
“How much?”
“At least three thousand American dollars, then there will be other expenses to take care of. He will have to use a helicopter to get the American to Kratie. There’s no safe airstrip here for a plane to land. It’ll have to be a helicopter. It’ll cost around five thousand American dollars.”
Blackie whistled.
“Well, if he has the diamonds, he can pay. If he hasn’t got them, then it’s no good.”
Charlie chewed his cigar.
“He has them.” He thought for a moment, then, “When are you seeing him?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Better make it tonight. Find out if he’ll pay five thousand. If he offers you more diamonds, take them. Once he has agreed to the price, I’ll get in touch with Watkins. He’ll have to come to Phnom-Penh. I haven’t a visa for Laos.”
Blackie looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes past three.
“I’ll tell the girl to go to him at once and fix it.”
Charlie said, “He must be told you want more money. He might not bring the diamonds with him.”
Blackie nodded and went out.
In Colonel On-dinh-Khuc’s study, the Inspector was making his report.
“Blackie Lee was lying as I thought he was lying,” the Inspector said. “He knows who the girl is. I asked permission to bring this man in for special questioning.”
The Colonel pulled at his moustache. He had learned from the police at the airport that Charlie Lee had arrived. He had known Charlie in the past: he knew he was a trouble-maker with influence. If Blackie were picked up, Charlie would make trouble. The Colonel knew that Charlie supplied one of the leading members of the opposition group with opium. The Colonel had no doubt that Charlie would go to this man and demand an inquiry as to why his brother had been spirited away for special questioning.
“Not yet,” he said, “but have him watched. Put two of your best men onto him.”
“This man can tell you who the girl is,” the Inspector said. “I have questioned over two hundred people today without being able to find out who she is. Blackie Lee knows. If it is so important to find her, he can tell us.”
The Colonel stared coldly at him.
“You heard what I said - not yet. Have him watched.”
Shrugging his shoulders, the Inspector went to detail two of his men to watch Blackie: a trifle late for Blackie was by then returning from seeing Nhan, and she was hurrying to catch the five o’clock bus to Thudaumot.
Watched by Yo-Yo, Blackie parked his car and entered the club. YoYo was hungry. He looked around for Cheong-Su from whom he always bought his soup. The old man wasn’t in his usual place but Yo-Yo saw him coming down the street, his oven and soup tin balanced on a bamboo pole which he carried on his shoulder.
Cheong-Su took up his position on the edge of the kerb, and after rubbing his bruised shin and groaning to himself, he blew up his charcoal fire and set the soup tin on top of it.
Yo-Yo joined him.
The old man immediately launched into a whining angry complaint about the police and how they had swindled him out of the reward. YoYo had no idea what he was talking about and told him to shut up. But Cheong- Su felt his grievance too deeply to pay any attention to Yo-Yo’s lack of interest. While he stirred the soup, he continued to complain until the word “American’ awoke Yo-Yo’s interest.
“What are you talking about?” he snarled. “What American? What reward?”
Cheong-Su fetched out the crumpled newspaper and showed it to Yo-Yo.
Angrily, because he hated to have to admit he couldn’t read, Yo-Yo told him to read it to him, but three customers arrived at this moment for soup and Cheong-Su left Yo-Yo to stare at the unintelligible print, seething with vicious fury at his own illiteracy.
The supper rush-hour was now on and Yo-Yo had to wait. He listened to Cheong-Su’s account of his unfair treatment at Security Police Headquarters as the old man recounted it over and over again to every new customer who came along.
Could the American, Yo-Yo was thinking, who he had seen at the window of the villa at Thudaumot be the man the police were inquiring about? If he was, then the girl, Nhan, and Blackie Lee were involved. Surely this might be the opportunity to blackmail Blackie for which he had been looking.
He was so absorbed in listening to Cheong-Su recount his experiences for the twentieth time that he failed to notice Blackie leave the club. The time was now twenty minutes past seven. Before setting out for Thudaumot, Blackie wanted to call on a wealthy Chinese jeweller who he was sure would buy the two diamonds Jaffe had given him. It would be a long transaction. The jeweller would try to convince Blackie the stones were of little value. Before Blackie could squeeze three thousand American dollars from the jeweller several hours would be wasted in polite but bitter haggling. Blackie was making sure he had plenty of time before his meeeting with Jaffe at eleven o’clock.
When Yo-Yo finally got Cheong-Su to read him the newspaper account of Jaffe’s kidnapping, he felt pretty confident that Jaffe was the American he had seen at the window. His immediate reaction was to rush around to
