East of Suez

by Howard Engel

  FOURTEEN

  I TOOK A SHOWER as soon as I got back to my hotel. I needed to clear my head; I had to be able to think straight. I’d left the jackpot where I’d found it, apart from one stone I’d pocketed to get checked by a jeweler. Although I was pretty sure what he’d tell me, I was just doing my job, covering all the exits.

  Even after a cold finish to my cold shower, I still felt I needed a nap. I needed time. I needed to think. I needed a way in which to tone down the pressure. I tried to assess where I stood: I had come across what looked like many thousands of dollars’ worth of diamonds. They belonged to my client. Whether the diamonds came from whatever was going on at the reef, I had no way of knowing with any certainty. Should I catch the next plane home with the loot or what? How? In a suitcase with a false bottom? And where was Jake? I still hadn’t discovered what had happened to him. There was still much to do.

  On the good side was the fact that I hadn’t yet blown my cover. A few people may have been suspicious, but nobody knew for sure what I was up to. While I had been lucky so far, I hadn’t expected to turn up this loot at all, nor had I imagined that I would hit pay dirt so quickly. It was a fortune I was sitting on and no mistake, but who else knew that such a fortune existed? I’d found the key in Vicky’s apartment, which must mean it was hers or Jake’s. News of the existence of such a treasure was not widely known or the flat would have been searched before I came along. I didn’t have to look with suspicion on everybody I had met quite yet. Later? I’d think about later, later.

  I tried to recall exactly what Vicki had told me about the offshore operation. My mind contained fragments of what she said. In trying to bring back into focus what she told me, I began to forget the items that I thought were fixed in my head. I began to work it out on my fingers, like a schoolboy with a problem in mathematics.

  If drugs were coming to Takot and money was leaving, or maybe the other way around, then there had to be at least two groups involved. One got the drugs and took them out to the reef from the harbor here in a midnight speedboat running without lights or on a diving boat like the one I’d been on. Another group, offshore, picked up the drugs and left the cash, unless the payoff was being made in gemstones. How did the two sides communicate? Maybe they used the phone, maybe they were in touch through their computers. Maybe there was another system. I thought of the calendar in the kitchen at Vicky’s apartment where no pencil jottings, no underlined or circled dates stood out. Someone involved in taking out tourists to dive the reef, I could understand, needed a calendar with good tidal information. And the moon phases? They were an extra, nothing to worry about.

  Nothing to worry about! What was I saying? What was the name of those police? The Bim-bams, Yuk-yuks, the Tucktucks? No! The Tam-tams. They sounded like that bunch from Haiti. If I was found with the diamonds, and the diamonds were traced to drugs, I could be looking at a long term in a prison I didn’t even want to think about. Some of these countries down here were touchy about things we don’t worry about back home. Wasn’t there a place where they take spitting on the street as a major crime? And chewing gum? And others were touchy about drugs. I didn’t want to lose my head, literally lose my head, over a missing persons case. How could that be good for business?

  I stewed about that for some minutes. I could feel that nap getting closer. Since coming out of the hospital, I took a lot of naps. They refreshed me. They also gave me an excuse for running away from my problems. Problems like the sort I was facing could lead to a lot of naps if I wasn’t careful. The nub of my problems sometimes jumped at me from a nap, and sometimes naps were simply naps. But, however tempted I was, I could see that alertness and sobriety were my friends. Sleep was the enemy. A nap couldn’t save me from what ailed me this time. I tried to work my way through it. As usual, the practical side of things came to my rescue: deal with the mess on your plate. The rocks are in the bank. They’re not even in your name. Go back to the drugs-for-money arrangements; they’ll calm you down. Figure out who did what to whom. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be good at?

  How did each side know when the time was ripe for another exchange? Maybe they made an exchange on the first or last of the month, but that would be a pattern the cops might quickly catch on to. Maybe the fifteenth of the month. That could work. Let’s suppose that they made the exchange then. But it could be any arbitrary date. Don’t let the details hobble you. It wouldn’t need extra personnel, especially if there was any degree of trust. But just for safety’s sake, an exchange of dope and cash or gems would require an alert team on each side. They had to be trained scuba divers, because the exchange would likely have been made underwater. The boats might be quite far apart; perhaps one, the onshore boat, might be anchored or tied up to the same float I’d just visited. The other boat could lie off almost anywhere within swimming distance.

  I had no idea what sort of shore patrol Takot mounted or even whether there was some kind of coast guard. A half-alert coast guard should spot lights offshore. If lights offshore formed a pattern once a month, somebody would be sure to get wise. Maybe they doused the glim. Working around that reef without lights sounded dangerous to me. I hadn’t noticed whether there was a buoy or light out there. What did Father What’s-his-name tell me? I’d have to check on that. The wreck of the James O’Reilly might have a light or a marker of some sort. I wasn’t even sure that a light could be seen from shore. The reef was a few miles north of the town and a few miles offshore. It could be that no lights could be seen, even if there was a lookout on shore directly opposite the reef.

  I shook my head. I’d chewed on this bone long enough. I couldn’t do more with it until I had better facts. To that end, I should get myself out on the street. That’s where the information was hiding.

  I wandered through the boiling heat to the café I was beginning to think of as my local. I recognized the temptation to go in, but I resisted it. Too much to think about. I gave a coin to a vendor. I forgot to see what he was vending. It was not one of my bigger coins.

  My streetwalking didn’t have a useful payoff, but I made a phone call when I got back to my hotel. At least that idea had come to me as I made my way along the streets. It was Vicky’s lawyer, Hubermann. I called his number and a woman gave me an appointment for later in the day. I was lucky—there was a cancellation. A client had died, the woman said. “Not everybody is so lucky,” she told me before disconnecting.

  I could feel the beginnings of what in Takot passed for a breeze when I got up to my room. Nobody I knew at home would call it that. But it was all we had in this town to take the pressure off the worst of the heat. The slats of the venetian blinds were warm to the touch. I wondered what to do to put in the time, and while I was wondering, I stretched out on my bed and fell sound asleep.

  FIFTEEN

  I HAD NOW BEEN IN TAKOT four days. Five days! I checked the pages of my Memory Book. Time was one of my problems. Yesterday and a month ago stood equally large in my memory. As I lay stretched out on the bed, trying to order the rest of the day, I tried to imagine what had or hadn’t happened to my client. Was she alive or dead? Had she been straight with me or not? Was it healthy to be in doubt about such a question? I thought about that as I went down the stairs to the lobby.

  There had been no change in the heat. My sweat glands responded at once. I found the cab stand. It was a tom-tom, or a yuk-yuk. Once again memory failed me. (I suspect that there is nothing in this world as boring to its owner as a disability.) This time I got the loudest, smokiest three-wheeler in town. For the most part, the streets all looked the same. They could have come out of any old movie about this part of the world. I had a secret notion that if I asked the driver to turn down a side street, he’d quickly encounter a dead end, the back of a sound stage or a studio’s back lot crowded with dusty old sets and bits of weathered scenery. Every once in a while a splash of color reminded me that I wasn’t in a black-and-white movie.

  Still wearing crumbs from a stale croissant
I hadn’t gotten around to eating at breakfast, I was the only person waiting in the outer office of Bernhardt Hubermann, Attorney at Law, Licensed Bondsman, and the local equivalent of justice of the peace. All this was announced on round brass plaques on either side of his door. Another plaque announced him to be the local representative of Lloyd’s of London. A tiny young woman, probably his secretary, who guarded the door to the inner chamber, looked about twelve or thirteen.

  “It is Mr Cooperman, yes?” she said without cheer. “You will take a seat, please, will you not?” I did so and watched as she continued typing the letter she was working on when I’d come in. Another man entered and took a seat, placing a clothwrapped parcel in his lap. He was followed by a middle-aged couple. The secretary welcomed each of them with nearly the same words and inflections she’d used with me. Had she learned her English from a disc or tape? Her long, black hair came around her shoulders. You could have heard a pin drop. A bowling pin. Her typewriter was a venerable Remington. I didn’t even reach for a magazine.

  The office was a fine imitation of a British law office, circa 1950. Post-Dickensian. Everything was in its place, from the set of annual law reports to the leather of the chairs and bookbindings. The lamps were heavy-based metal lights right out of an old catalogue. A couple of large, elaborately engraved brass trays on the wall reminded me that I was somewhere south of Bangkok and north of Singapore. This sanctuary could have been part of the same movie set I had imagined on my way down here. It had everything, all the props and trappings of an inventive stage manager. The stage was set for a bead-curtain movie on the old back lot at Warner Bros. On the corner of the secretary’s desk a statuette of a dancing goddess with extra arms to wear extra bangles and rings looked like the sort of accent a designer might have chosen. Only, a designer might have opted for gold or silver. This looked like lead, and was probably valuable and old. All the room needed was a lighting man and the director. A glance at my fellow clients told me that this was not a major epic. We were all too House and Garden. We didn’t look like a million-dollar cast. But who knows?

  Bernhardt Hubermann, when I was escorted into the inner chamber, turned out to be a tall, middle-aged, senatoriallooking man wearing a well-pressed expensive Shantung suit, starched cuffs with ebony cufflinks, revealing immaculate grooming. He rose and extended his hand as I crossed the patterned carpet. Then I noted his trim mustache, and the half-moon glasses over which he smiled at me.

  “Mr Cooperman, sit down. You will have a cup of coffee and a cigarette, yes?” He sounded exactly like his secretary; now I knew where she got her English. As he indicated a chair and went around behind a large trophy desk, I looked for a plaque. Couldn’t find one. He went on: “This is one of the few places on earth where I can still make you that offer. What do we not hear of the ravages of tobacco? The times are changing, yes? Like they say in the song. This used to be an open city. The dollar was king. Ha! Look at it now! For every businessman in Takot, we have five government supervisors. All with their hands out. It’s criminal, yes? And now, of course, since the tsunami, I’m more busy than ever. You have no idea! The insurance companies alone! Sorry to bore you with this kind of thing, but if you’re here to do business, you can’t hear about it too soon. How can I help you, Mr Cooperman?”

  “You don’t know why I’m here? You’ve never heard of me?”

  The lawyer stopped himself in the act of sitting behind his desk to look at me again. His eyes opened wider as he studied me. I felt under a microscope. “No. No,” he said, shaking his head, “I don’t recall your name. Have we met before?”

  “No, but I believe you know my client, Victoria Grange.”

  “Victoria Grange! You represent her? Little Vicky Grange?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then there are two of us!” he said, allowing himself to relax again and, at last, to sit down. “You say you represent Vicky herself, not her estate?”

  “We both know she’s alive, Mr Hubermann. And I’m not her lawyer, just her agent in some business matters.”

  “Sooooo! You’re a lawyer? From London? New York?”

  “Grantham, Ontario, Canada. She came to see me about three, four weeks ago. I just got here.”

  “Ah, so: the little town she came from. Near the U.S. border, yes?”

  “Yes. How did the story get started that Vicky was dead?”

  “It was the silent lie. I did not speak up when the authorities finally asked me. They told me she was dead and I believed them. Later, when I knew better, I didn’t make any telephone calls to the police or to the government people. The Canadian who came here, from the High Commission in Singapore, was hopeless. He was like a young priest in the Bourse or the bordello, with no past, no common sense. He thought he was in Bali most of the time. Where, please, do you recruit these innocents?”

  “I’ll let you know when I find out. I think they come plasticwrapped from private schools. What about the girl whose body they mistook for Vicky’s?”

  “In a short time, you’ve unraveled all of the mysteries. That’s good.”

  “Not quite all, I think. For instance, tell me about the girl.”

  “The …? I don’t follow you.”

  “The girl? The body?”

  The lawyer rubbed his thumb over his chin, and adjusted the corners of his mustache. “Well, Mr Cooperman, I have to admit to you frankly that I don’t know all of the story.”

  “I like what you’ve said so far. Do you know why Vicky and Jake’s apartment is still furnished but unoccupied?”

  “I hope that all of your questions will be as easy to answer, Mr Cooperman. The lease is paid up for the next six months. When Vicky was reported drowned, I thought that some member of her family would come to claim the body. The landlord wouldn’t make a deal about subleasing the place or returning the rent money. This might surprise you, but it is a normal practice here.”

  “So, it remains empty.” He wasn’t going to tell me anything I didn’t know already. If he had seen Charles de Gaulle walking down Ex-Charpentier Avenue painting windows, he wouldn’t tell me.

  “Would you like to make use of it yourself while you are in Takot? I don’t see why not. It’s clean, furnished, and centrally located. Why not? Be my guest!”

  “It sounds like a good idea. Let me sleep on it overnight. You know I don’t intend to be here very long.”

  “As you wish. Next question?”

  “Who now owns and runs their business? The scuba-diving business?”

  “Ah, yes! There you have a problem. The government has taken it over.”

  “For what reason?”

  “Their story is this: They have moved in to fill the vacuum created by the unfortunate deaths of the proprietors. Before their disappearance, the same government people were badgering them to sell the operation to the state. The price they offered was insulting and, of course, was rejected. They had been getting the tourist tax money, but that wasn’t enough.”

  “Did this shock and amaze you, Mr Hubermann?”

  “Shock? No. I’ve been here too long for shock. I was appalled, naturally, and protested to the ministry, but …”

  “What about further up the line? In the capital?”

  “This is a small country, Mr Cooperman. Takot is the capital.”

  “Sorry. Remember, I just got here. But, all the same, what about going right to the top?”

  “That would be too simple and logical for this place. One should read Machiavelli before coming out here, Mr Cooperman. In official circles, nothing happens directly by cause and effect, problem followed by solution. Here there are palms to grease, presents to be given. The International Olympics is nothing to this country. The gilt of generations of diplomacy is flaking from the ancient arches and ceilings, my friend. Welcome to Byzantium! The air is full of flecks of gold leaf. We may be still capable of gentility and good manners, Mr Cooperman, but look for the loaded Parabellum under it. Even I have to try to understand their language of
backstairs deals just to negotiate the freehold of a modest weekend house in the hills above the city.”

  “I see.”

  “What can I do but shrug and say to you: ‘This is the way of the world.’”

  “Yes. Can you tell me what is known about Jake’s disappearance?”

  “Jake was a more enthusiastic diver than Vicky was. But he got caught up in the business: placing ads in magazines, getting the texts ready, getting photographs taken, usually of himself with Vicky, both wearing Tilley hats. I’m sure you’ve seen them, yes? All the big magazines.”

  “Was it success that did him in? I’ve heard that.”

  “Well, yes, my friend. The government became jealous. They asked for a piece of the action.”

  “Through you?”

  “I wish it had been so. But they contacted him directly; I would have tried to make him see things through local eyes. When the government wants something, they take it. The courts here are a charade. You wouldn’t believe half of what I could tell you.”

  “So they nationalized his business and then tried to get him to run it for them. That’s like nibbling the ear of your dentist’s wife with the dentures he has provided. Vicky told me some of this. Who was the go-between? Who was the government’s agent?”

  “His name is Yonyung. Soli Yonyung. He used to be an accountant for the Miranam Oil Company.”

  “Oil! I’d forgotten that there was oil here as well as everything else.”

  “Mr Cooperman, the oil is not here, but the companies and banks are located here. They look after the various oil interests for much of the peninsula. But these interests have the government buffaloed.”

  “The local hoods, then, haven’t tried to muscle in on the oil business?”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying! You can’t push your way into the oil business. You have to be a member of the club.”