by Ross Thomas
Lim paused and smiled again. “I suppose one could say that I am Singapore’s secret service.”
“Then it doesn’t seem to be much of a secret.”
“Oh, it isn’t. It isn’t at all. Everyone knows it and sometimes we all joke about it. But someone had to do it and the Prime Minister decided that I was the one.”
“Why you?”
“Because, I would say, I can afford it.”
I took a deep breath. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Lim, but does this bring us any closer to Angelo Sacchetti?”
He nodded. “Indeed it does. I became interested in Mr. Sacchetti when he turned up here a year and a half ago after he had drowned in our harbor.” Lim reached into his desk and brought out a manila folder and flipped through it. “I believe you were involved in that so-called accident, Mr. Cauthorne?”
“You know I was.”
“Yes. There’s a report on it here and then Dickie refreshed my memory when I spoke to him last night. Refreshed my memory! My word, I’m beginning to sound like a policeman or a spy or something equally sinister.”
“What about Sacchetti?” I said.
“He turned up here, back from the dead, as it were, a year and a half ago. He arrived on a flight from Hong Kong and his perfectly valid passport indicated that he had spent some time in the Philippines. Cebu City, I believe. Yes, here it is in the file.” Lim moved his finger down the page of the file he held before him. “He opened a rather large account with a draft from a Swiss bank, rented a luxurious apartment, and proceeded to become quite social.”
“Then what?”
“Then a most curious thing happened. It seems that almost everyone in Singapore began to select a combination of three numbers and wager small sums that this number would turn up the following day as the last three digits on the totalizators either at the Singapore Turf Club or the race courses in Malaya or even in Hong Kong.”
“Totalizators?” I said.
“Yes,” Lim said. “I believe you call them pari-mutuel machines in the U.S.”
“I believe we do.”
“Well, up until then our gambling (and we Chinese are incurable gamblers) had been dominated by our so-called secret societies. At last count, I think there were about three hundred fifty of them. They not only ran the gambling, but also prostitution, what’s left of the opium trade, most of the smuggling, and just about everything else that might be described as illegal—even a bit of piracy.”
“You said up until then.”
“Yes, I did,” Lim said. “It seems that these small bets on the combination of race course digits are now being collected by hitherto unemployed youngsters, juvenile delinquents, I think one could call them, who have banded together in packs and describe themselves as the Billy the Kid Gang or the Yankee Boys or even Hell’s Angels.”
“We try to spread our culture around.”
Lim smiled. “The films do it: that and television. At any rate, our Criminal Investigation Department has got onto it and they’ve found that an extraordinary amount of money is being collected daily by these youngsters.”
“How much?” I asked.
“Around one hundred thousand dollars a day.”
“That’s about thirty-three thousand, American.”
“Yes.”
“Are there payoffs?”
“I beg your pardon,” Lim said.
“Does anyone ever win?”
“Oh, to be sure. People win every day.”
“What are the odds?”
Lim turned to his file again. “I’ll have to look it up. Yes, here it is. The payoff, as you call it, is four hundred to one.”
“That’s low,” I said.
“How?”
“The real odds are about six hundred to one. Whoever’s running it is skimming about two hundred dollars off the top of each hit.”
“Interesting,” Lim murmured. “I’ll make a note of that.” And he did.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You found that the numbers racket was set up by Angelo Sacchetti.”
Lim nodded. “Yes, and he has it quite well organized. Not only that, but he’s gone into several other activities. For instance, if a merchant doesn’t pay a certain weekly sum, he finds his establishment vandalized.”
“What about your secret societies? Don’t they resent an outsider moving in?”
The Lucky Strikes were offered again by Lim and once again I accepted one because it made him feel better. “At first,” he said. “Then there were a couple of mysterious deaths and the societies’ opposition seemed to diminish. Considerably. The deaths were, I believe, most painful.”
“Why don’t you just throw him out?” I said.
“Sacchetti?”
“Yes.”
Lim inhaled his cigarette and blew out a thin stream of smoke. “I’m afraid, Mr. Cauthorne, that it’s not as simple as that.”
“Why? He’s a foreigner. Just don’t renew his visa.”
“Yes, he is a foreigner, but Mr. Sacchetti married just after he arrived here.”
“So I heard.”
“Did you hear whom he married?”
“No.”
“It was the daughter of one of our leading citizens who is quite active in politics. He has used his considerable influence to prevent any move being made against his new son-in-law.”
“What was it, love at first sight?”
Lim shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t believe so. I understand that Mr. Sacchetti paid a little over three hundred thousand American dollars for the hand of his bride.”
CHAPTER XIII
Lim told me the rest of it. After Angelo Sacchetti came back from the dead, via Cebu City and Hong Kong, he gave what amounted to a marathon party that lasted for almost a month. It went on night and day in his fashionable apartment, an open house for friends who brought friends who, in turn, brought their friends and eventually Sacchetti met the persons that he wanted to meet, the minor politicians who might be bought and the hard cases who were not at all averse to expanding their activities if there were prospect of a tidy profit. Sacchetti simply showed them how to make it faster.
He also made a few enemies along the way, but opposition melted after two of his more intransigent opponents were found, floating face-down in the Singapore River. The secret societies, badly fragmented, backed Sacchetti as long as he didn’t interfere with their indent graft and as long as they received a cut from the proceeds. The only real opposition was the Singapore government and Sacchetti fixed that by marrying the youngest daughter of Toh Kin Pui, a politician who had a large and extremely left-wing following, and who just happened to be down on his luck at the time.
“Mr. Toh now espouses his rather China-oriented political philosophy from the back seat of a handsome Rolls-Royce which his son-in-law gave him for his birthday,” Lim said. “Although we can’t prove it, we strongly suspect that a percentage of Mr. Sacchetti’s profits are being channeled into his father-in-law’s political war chest. By now, I rather think that the chest is almost full.”
“What will he do with it—buy votes?”
Lim shook his head. “No, there’s no election for another four years and the Prime Minister’s party now controls every seat in Parliament—fifty-one out of fifty-one, a most regrettable situation.”
“Why?”
“You need some opposition, you know. Otherwise your own politicians will have nothing to rail against. Suppose, for example, that your Democrats suddenly won every seat in your Congress.”
“They’d fight with each other,” I said.
“Exactly. That’s why Toh is useful to the government. He provides a target, a whipping boy, and Lord knows one is needed.”
“But he has no real power?” I said.
“Yes, Mr. Cauthorne, he has power. With the money he now controls he can launch a full-scale race riot whenever he chooses. That’s the threat that Angelo Sacchetti’s father-in-law holds over our government, and it’s a gravely serious one. We simply c
annot afford another riot at this time.”
“You had one some time ago, as I recall.”
“Two. Back in 1964.” Lim shook his head and turned to stare at the ships in the harbor again. “We in Singapore like to pride ourselves on our multi-racial harmony. We like to think that despite the preponderance of Chinese we are Singaporeans first, and that all of us—Chinese, Malay, Indian, Pakistani, Eurasian and what have you—can live in harmony and peace. This is what we like to think, but in 1964 we had race riots—bad ones. The first started in July and another in September and thirty-five persons were killed, hundreds injured, and the property damage was enormous. The first riot began over a small incident: there was a Malay religious parade and a Malay spectator got into a fight with a Chinese policeman. In September, a Chinese trishaw operator was murdered. But I suppose I don’t have to tell you how race riots start, Mr. Cauthorne. Your country has had its share.”
“More than our share.”
Lim spun around from his study of the harbor. “Then you realize what a powerful weapon the threat of a riot can be.”
“A form of blackmail, isn’t it?”
“One could call it that, I think. But the price we pay is far cheaper than a riot.”
“Couldn’t you get the U.S. Embassy to revoke his passport?”
“Sacchettti’s?”
“Yes.”
Lim shook his head again and closed the file on his desk. “Passports or citizenship don’t mean very much to men like Angelo Sacchetti. If your government were to revoke it, he would acquire a new one the next day from another government that is in the business of selling them. I can name you four or five who would be most eager to supply him with any credentials that he might need. You see, Mr. Cauthorne, for a person without money, citizenship is most important. But for a person with virtually unlimited funds, and who is inclined to live outside or above the law, one country is very much like another. Although again I have no proof, I seriously doubt that Mr. Sacchetti ever intends to return to the United States. But I’ve talked enough. Now tell me, what is your interest in him? Your real interest, I mean.”
“I thought I had killed him,” I said. “It bothered me. It still does.”
Lim looked at me searchingly and then smiled. It was a tight, thin smile, not his usual happy grin. “It’s really a pity that you didn’t. It would have saved everyone a great deal of bother.”
“Everyone but me,” I said.
“When did you learn that he was still alive?”
“Only a few days ago.”
“Really?” Lim sounded surprised. “It’s strange that your State Department didn’t notify you.”
“Not so strange, considering our State Department.”
This time Lim smiled happily. “I hesitate to confess that I agree with you. But apparently you wish to find Sacchetti and see for yourself that he is alive and well.”
“Just that he’s alive,” I said. “Do you have an idea where I can find him?”
Lim reached into his desk and brought out a pair of powerful-looking binoculars. “I can do better than that; I can show you where he lives—at least most of the time.”
He rose and moved to the window where he gazed down at the harbor through the binoculars. I joined him and he pointed with his forefinger. “The rather large, white one with the raked stack.”
He handed me the binoculars and I looked. It was a white yacht, not more than 150 feet long, that probably cost no more than a million or so. But then I hadn’t priced 150-foot yachts lately. It rode nicely at anchor in the basin, and I could see some figures moving around its main deck, but the binoculars weren’t strong enough for me to tell whether they were crew or passengers. I handed the glasses back to Lim.
“Nice,” I said.
“Yes, isn’t it? It formerly belonged to the Sultan of Brunei. Sacchetti bought it for a song, I understand.”
“How much does a song bring in North Borneo?” I said.
“Around two million Singapore dollars. I believe it cost four originally.”
“The Sultan hard up?”
“His oil reserves are playing out and I understand that he needed some ready cash.”
“Mr. Lim,” I said, extending my hand, “you have been most helpful. Thank you.”
“Not at all, Mr. Cauthorne,” he said as we shook hands. “Just one thing. As head of Singapore’s Secret Service—” This time he did giggle. “I really should ask you what your plans are as far as Mr. Sacchetti is concerned. Just a matter of form, you understand.”
I looked out at the yacht again. “I suppose I’ll go calling.”
“Would you like one of my staff to accompany you? When I say staff, please don’t misunderstand. I have three good men and when they are not busy with their counter-espionage duties—if you’ll pardon the term—and that’s most of the time, they work here in the office. One is office manager, and the other two are accountants.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “But I appreciate the offer.”
“The reason I made it is that Sacchetti’s open house has long been over. He’s not at all as social as he once was and I understand that unexpected callers are turned away, often in the most abrupt manner. On the other hand, a more or less official visit …” Lim made a slight gesture as his sentence trailed off.
“I understand what you’re saying. But I’m sure Angelo will see an old friend—especially an old friend who once helped him die for a while.”
I was looking for a cab in Raffles Place, not too far from Change Alley, a kind of a joyous Thieves Market, when a four- or five-year-old Chevelle sedan that looked like a cab pulled over towards me. The driver slowed to three or four miles an hour and the passenger in the back seat rolled down a window. The closed car indicated air conditioning and I was just getting ready to say how happy I would be to share it with him when I saw the revolver pointing at me. A voice behind me said, “Watch it, buddy!” but he needn’t have bothered. I was already dropping and the shove that I got may have helped. I hit on my right shoulder with my hands breaking the fall and my chin tucked down into my chest. I landed hard, but that was all right. I had landed hard lots of times before when the star was too hungover to try it. The revolver went off and something seemed to smack into the pavement beside me, but it may have been my imagination. I continued the roll and came up on my feet. There weren’t any more shots and the cab, with the window rolled back up, was busy losing itself in the thick traffic. I brushed myself off while the pedestrians flowed around me on the sidewalk with only an occasional curious glance. No one said anything; no one yelled for the police; no one wanted to know whether I’d torn my slacks. But then they may have thought that the shot was a firecracker. Firecrackers go off night and day in Singapore and the citizens mere, like every place else in the world, put a very high premium on personal involvement.
“You did that real nice,” a voice said behind me. It was the same voice that had told me to watch it. I turned and saw a compact, deeply sunburned man who could have been either thirty-five or fifty-five. He wore a faded khaki shirt with officer epaulets, white duck trousers that were held up by a wide leather belt with a brass buckle, and grimy white tennis shoes, the kind that come up to the ankles.
“You give me the shove?” I said.
“You didn’t really need it.”
“I’m not so sure. An inch or two either way could have made a difference.”
The man jammed his hands in his trouser pockets and squinted his green eyes up at the sun. “I was just heading across the square for a beer. You look as if you could use one.”
“You’re probably right.”
We settled ourselves at a table in a bar that was air-conditioned, not too brightly lighted, and almost empty. The waiter brought us a couple of beers and then went back to his newspaper. The man in the khaki shirt ignored the glass and drank his out of the bottle, a long, gulping drink. When he finished he put the bottle back on the table and took out a flat tin of tobacco,
some papers, and rolled himself a cigarette. He rolled it quickly, not concentrating on it, just doing it as automatically as I would if I were to shake one out of a pack. When he had the cigarette going, he squinted at me through the smoke and I noticed that the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes didn’t disappear when he stopped squinting. I put his age at closer to fifty-five than thirty-five.
“I’m Colonel Nash,” he said.
“Colonel in what?” I said and told him my name.
“The Philippine Guerrilla Army.”
“That goes back a few years.”
He shrugged. “If you don’t like Colonel, you can call me Captain Nash.”
“Of the Philippine Guerrilla Navy?”
“Of the Wilfreda Maria.”
“What’s that?”
“A kumpit.”
“And a kumpit is a what?”
“It’s an eight-ton ship. I bought it from a Moro pirate. I’m a smuggler.”
“We all have to make a living,” I said, “but I don’t know if we have to be so explicit about how we do it.”
Colonel or Captain Nash took another drink of beer from the bottle. “What the hell,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “we’re both Americans, aren’t we?”
“You have me there.”
“Anyhow, I don’t smuggle anything into Singapore. I just sell stuff here.”
“What?”
“Timber, mostly from Borneo, out of Tawau. I load up a cargo of copra in the Philippines, sell it in Tawau where I get a good price for it in U.S. dollars, take on a cargo of timber, and sell it here. They use it for plywood.”
“When do you find time to do your smuggling?” I said.
