“Why didn’t they kill me as soon as they found out I wasn’t really Sally Hyde? I have been wondering about that.”

“They would have used you the way I’m going to use Wentworth. For a trade.”

“Oh.”

“But now, the shoe’s on the other foot.”

“Progress?”

“Considerable progress. They’re out in the open now. And we’ve got one of their top men.”

“You can’t be sure of that. He might be...just a nobody.”

“Ming’s operation is mostly Chinese, Macanese, Japanese. It’s at least a likelihood that an American would automatically be one of the upper echelons. Good old American know-how, all that jazz.”

“Yes, I suppose so. And Ming?”

“By now he knows I’ve got Wentworth. And he’ll trade, because I’m not asking much in return. I’m making it worth his while.”

Mai said suddenly: “A man like Ming, Mr. Cain, he’ll be a better trader than you are. You’ll have to be careful, and you’ll still get the worst of the bargain.”

“The worst is all I need. One step at a time. It all hinges, really, on just how Wentworth figures in all this, doesn’t it?”

“And that’s something you don’t know.”

I said gently: “That’s what I’m going to find out as soon as I’ve had my supper.”

CHAPTER 9

The ecrivisses a la nage were excellent, and they put me in just the right frame of mind for my talk with Wentworth. But first, I stretched out on the floor after my supper and did two hundred quick pushups to aid the digestive system a trifle, and then sat back in the over-decorative chair in the room Bonelli had given me, put my feet up on a silk-covered hassock all decked out with embossed dragons, and did some serious thinking.

My antagonist was a man named Alexander Ming, whom I’d never met. Nor could I possibly know enough about his thinking processes to make more than a guess at what he’d do now, now that I’d got one of his men; the thought occurred to me glumly that perhaps Wentworth had nothing whatever to do with Ming but was merely looking for his ex-wife for some reason or other entirely unconnected with me, and that he was using Bettina brutally because he was a brutal man, and that this was a brutal place where the finer nuances of decent behavior were more easily pushed aside than in most parts of the world.

And yet, if so, what was he doing on The Blue Orchid? They’d made him comfortable there, but it still could be nothing more than a hideout for a man who wanted desperately not to be seen. And if he was having baggage sent there, then his stay was probably going to be a long one; unless—I wished I’d had time to open up those suitcases with his name on them and find out whether they contained the usual ran of two smart suits and a change of socks, or if perhaps...Well, too late now, but I chalked up the mental note of a minor goof: I’d been too worried about Mai holding those Wuh-keis at bay, not knowing how long she would have been able to get away with it.

And another thing. Speed is the best weapon a determined man has, and maybe speed alone counted for my extraordinary success on The Blue Orchid; but were those men, then, Ming’s? Would he have had more efficient minions? Perhaps not; the barge was merely a hideout, after all, and a well-enough known one at that. It was never meant to be a closely guarded fortress; and but for the fortuitous fact that I’d seen those suitcases, there’d never have been any indication that Wentworth was there at all, even if he really were tied in with all this.

Back to the starting point again...

I went down to the cellar to find him regurgitating a little because of the ecrivisses.

Ericeira had chained him in the storeroom where the overflow of cases of Bonelli’s counterfeit Johnnie Walker were stored when the distilling was done; it was a smallish room with whitewashed walls and almost no furniture, and a small barred window high in the wall that gave, on the other side, onto the edge of the water. The window had a length of canvas tacked over it, and hanging down from under it, was a long chain with a padlock; the other end was padlocked around Wentworth’s neck, not tight enough to harm him, but not loose enough to be comfortable either; apart from this, Ericeira had made no effort to confine him, but he was sitting outside the small locked room on an apple box, smoking a black cheroot and cleaning a revolver with an oily rag—a British-Army Smith and Wesson .38.

He grinned at me silently, and handed me the keys, and I unlocked the chain from around Wentworth’s neck and said pleasantly: “Let’s go to my room, we’ve a lot to talk about.”

He was still trembling, and there was a pasty bruise under one eye that had not been there the last time I’d seen him. He said hesitantly: “What are you going to do to me, Cain?”

“You know my name?”

He looked away. “Yes. Yes, I know who you are.”

“Good. That already answers one of my questions.”

“Is it any good telling you...I’m sorry about that...that woman?”

“No. No good at all.”

“We had to find out who she was, what she wanted. Surely you must realize that?”

“Sure, it’s a tough game, isn’t it? You’re just going to find out how tough.”

He was about to answer with a shudder, and then there was the sound of shattering glass, and a scraping sound; and we both looked up at that window together. That damned canvas, stretched tight against the wall, had stopped the bomb from coming right through, and it was lodged there; it might have taken a long time to rip the canvas away, retrieve it, and hurl it back through the window again, and it occurred to me to wonder how long the fuse was.

Not long. I had closed the door behind me, and there was just time for me to charge into it with my shoulder and knock it right off its hinges, so that it went crashing down beside an astonished Ericeira out there in the corridor; and then, as I grabbed Wentworth with one hand and lugged, the bomb went off with a dreadful sound in the confined space. But we were already under the cover of the wall. Wentworth screamed, whether with fright or pain I didn’t immediately know. I lugged him to his feet and said calmly:

“You see what I mean? A tough game. Don’t say you didn’t know that. I wonder what it is they don’t want you to tell me?”

Ericeira was staring into the storeroom. The shattered canvas was still burning and had a gaping hole in it, and I said: “Don’t worry. No damage.” I shepherded Wentworth up the stairs and into my room, sat him down on the floor in a corner, took a comfortable chair myself, poured a drink, leaned back, and watched him for a while as he sat there, looking smaller than ever and somehow lost.

I said: “I can get sodium pentothal, or I can get someone to stick needles under your nails. All that sort of non-sense. Or we can just chat like civilized human beings, even if you’re not one. Now, which is it to be?”

He licked his lips. The black eyebrows were a straight, heavy line under his forehead; they were also surprisingly bushy. The dark eyes were alert and cautious, and at the same time reflected considerable fear. He said, shaking: “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

I said: “Good. Just sit there for a moment.”

I went out of the room, leaving the door half-ajar, and there was Ericeira standing guard, just as I’d expected. I said to him: “Get Mai for me, will you?”

He went off and I went back into the room and sat down again; I sipped my drink and waited, and when Mai came in—there was a questioning look in her eyes—I found her a chair and said: “I want you to listen to at least part of this, Mai. Pour you a drink?” She shook her head and sat down primly, her hands in her lap; she looked at Wentworth with no expression at all on her face.

I said: “Now, off the top. Who told you to pick up Bettina Harkan?”

He waited a long time before answering, and I wondered if he was plucking up courage to tell me the truth or deciding just how much he could fool me—or might dare to. He was gauging my temper and finding that perhaps I wasn’t really a very violent man; but he couldn’t be sure. He said at last, his voice a whisper: “Alexander Ming.”

“And your relationship with him is...?”

“I work for him.”

“Doing what?”

A long pause again. Then: “Marketing.”

“Drugs?”

“Yes. I’ll make a deal with you, Cain.”

“No deals.”

“You’d better wait till you hear what I have to offer.”