17

Bennett woke late, feeling languorous. It was a delicious feeling of physical contentment. He stretched and turned in the hotel bed, feeling the good sheets, the fluffy pillow, the light blanket, and the pleasant cool dryness of air-conditioned air. He felt like a man who’d just finished a long and complicated job and could now think of it as a job well done.

Of course, in truth, the job wasn’t done, not yet. Diedrich would certainly have talked about Daniel Foster with his German friend, the tall blond fellow, and with the girl. So long as they were in Singapore, so long as they existed, they were a danger to Colin Bennett, because the circumstance just might arise in which they could tell that story to Richard Curtis, and Curtis would have to believe it.

What about Mark Hennessy? He certainly must know the story, too, and he was physically closer to Curtis, he could blab it at any time. But would Curtis be likely to believe Hennessy now, to believe anything Hennessy might say? Hennessy could easily already know the story of Bennett’s downfall—most people in the company had heard about his destruction of the turbines— and Curtis would simply think Hennessy was making up the rest, to get even with the man who’d exposed him.

No, it was the other two who were the problem, Luther Rickendorf and Kim Baldur. They were the ones who had to be gotten rid of, before Bennett could report to Richard Curtis on the demise of Jerry Diedrich.

Bennett had decided, at last, that the way to handle the Diedrich matter with Curtis was to tell him a modified version of the truth. That he’d captured the fellow, and brought him home, and trussed him up, and forced him to reveal the name of the spy in RC Structural. But then, he would say, it turned out he hadn’t been a very efficient interrogator, he hadn’t realized exactly how much pressure he was putting on Diedrich, and the fellow had died before he could describe his grievance against Curtis.

Yes, that ought to do it. It wasn’t a murder, it was an accidental death, done in Richard Curtis’s service. Curtis hadn’t asked for it, but he could only be pleased by the result. No more Jerry Diedrich to pester him, ever and ever. Who cares what his grievance was. It died with him.

Last night, when he’d finished talking with Diedrich, Bennett had gone out to a nearby Chinese noodle shop for dinner, a place where they knew him by sight. Then he’d gone to a kung fu movie in the neighborhood, and after that, when he got home, Diedrich was dead. In the darkness of night, it hadn’t been too difficult to carry the body back down the stairs to his Honda and stuff it under the hatchback, the same as he’d brought him here, though this time not breathing. (He’d reclaimed his sock, and now it had definitely gone into the garbage.)

It was a long drive he’d then taken, over to the Central Expressway to get out of central Singapore, then west on the Ayer Rajah Expressway all the way to the end, and on out Jalan Ahmad Ibrahim past the Jurong Bird Park to the Jurong Industrial Estate, the new area reclaimed from swamp and filled with manufacturing and housing.

Down in here, at night, there were quiet dark streets leading south to the water’s edge and the Straits of Jurong. Here is where Bennett stripped Diedrich of all identification, finally removed the lengths of duct tape from his wrists and ankles, and rolled him into the water. He would float or sink or whatever he might do, and eventually be discovered and would most likely be a natural death.

True, there wouldn’t be water in his lungs, so he wouldn’t be thought to have drowned. But he could have fallen into the water and hit his face against something and died that way. In any event, what was there to link this body to Colin Bennett? Nothing.

The other two would be more complicated. Lying in bed, in no hurry to rise, he thought about ways to kill them, and then smiled at his own thoughts. He’d never deliberately considered killing anybody before, and hadn’t originally intended (so far as he knew) to kill Diedrich, but now that it had been done, something new had opened up inside Bennett, because now he saw what a solution this was. How easy, and how permanent. The solution to so many problems.

Well, he should get to it, shouldn’t he? They’d be missing Diedrich, they might have already reported his disappearance to the police. Before they made too many waves, before they did too much talking to too many people, he should stop them. The good new permanent way.

Bennett rose and dressed. The hotel had no restaurant, but they put out a simple breakfast buffet in a corner of the lobby every morning. Bennett went down there to have coffee and a pair of pastries, then crossed to the desk, not expecting any messages, but just to be certain, so long as he was here.

“Yes, Mr. Bennett, one message, it came in this morning.”

Call Richard. Bennett’s pulse jumped, he squeezed the slip of paper tight. He felt like a dog who’s been called by his master, but it wasn’t a bad feeling, a humiliating feeling, it was good, it was positive, it meant he was wanted and useful and productive again.

What should he do first? Call Richard, or take care of the other two? He was tense with the pressure to take care of the other two, not even knowing where they were, if they were in the hotel, who they might be talking to. But how could he not respond to this call, from Richard?

He hurried back to his room, and made the call, and was immediately put through to Curtis, who said, “Colin, I’m going to want you to take a trip.”

Bennett hardly heard that; his own news was so pressing. He said, “Sir, you don’t have to worry about that fellow anymore.”

There was a brief startled silence, and then: “Oh?”

“He’s gone, sir,” Bennett said. “He won’t be back.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about it,” Curtis said. “Later. What I want you to do, Colin—”

“Yes, sir.”

“—is check out of that hotel, but keep your luggage in your car. You have your passport?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s a foodstall at Changi named Wok Wok, do you know it?”

“I can find it, sir.”

“Good man. One o’clock. Be ready to travel.”

“Yes, sir,” Bennett said, thinking, it isn’t even ten now. I’ll have almost three hours to find them and deal with them, no problem, no problem.

“See you then.”

“Thank you, sir,” Bennett said, and hung up, and got to his feet. Pack first. Pack, check out, load the car, then come back in and deal with them.

He moved quickly, but not scrambling; he was very sure of himself. He packed his one large bag, carried it downstairs, paid the rest of his bill in cash, and took the bag out to the Honda, putting it where Diedrich had recently been. Then he was ready.

He wished he had a gun. The best he had was the length of iron pipe he’d used on Diedrich. Well, it had done the job with him, it would do the job with the other two. When he went back into the hotel, his shirt hung outside his pants, so that the pipe stuck under his belt would not be seen.

He’d kept his room key, and the clerk hadn’t thought to ask for it. He went through the lobby, quietly, attracting no attention, and took the elevator to the fourth floor, where his room had been.

It felt a little odd, to enter a hotel room after one has quit it. As though he’d been wrested, for just a minute, out of the normal movement of time, been jogged back or to the side, like a knight’s move in chess.

His former room was at the back of the building, overlooking a tumble of shed roofs and the rears of other buildings. The rooms of Rickendorf and Baldur were down one flight and also at the back. When he’d installed the listening device in the telephone, he’d come down the fire escape, a quick and simple route. The doorlocks were too good, beyond Bennett’s capacity to pick, but the windows at the back of the hotel had not been changed when the place was refurbished, and were locked with merely an old-fashioned latch that Bennett could open with a tableknife stuck between the sashes. That was the way he’d done it last time, and that’s the way he’d do it now.

The girl first. If she were there, Bennett would find some way to get in and kill her. If she weren’t there, Bennett would go in and search, maybe find out where she was, or wait for her to come back.

He opened the window, and leaned out, and one flight up two Chinese men in white coveralls were painting the fire escape. Painting it shiny black enamel. They saw Bennett and waved and smiled at him, and Bennett waved and smiled back, then withdrew into the room and shut the window.

Damn. Painting the fire escape; who ever heard of such a thing? Yes, fire escapes must be painted, like anything else, but no one’s ever seen a fire escape being painted.

So it meant he couldn’t do it that way, that’s all.

Another way. All right, let’s do it.

Bennett felt increasing urgency and increasing determination. He would do it, and now. He left his former room, now truly for the last time, and took the stairs down one flight.

He hurried to Baldur’s room, pulled the pipe out from under his shirt, and knocked on the door.

“Hello?”

Close to the door, imitating Diedrich’s voice and accent as best he could, he called, “Kim? Have you seen Luther?”

“Jerry?”

The door opened, and Bennett cocked the length of pipe up by his shoulder, and in the doorway was the girl. He hesitated, just a second—but in that second, she recognized him, and saw the pipe in his hand, and understood what he planned.

They lunged at the same instant, she to shut the door, he to push it open. She almost managed to slam it shut, but he wedged his foot in the space, ignored the pain when the door hit his foot, and shoved against it with his whole body.

She was strong, surprisingly so, and she was screaming helphelphelp! but he was stronger, and slowly he forced the door farther open.

Noise down the corridor. The elevator door was opening down there. Bennett heaved, and the door sprang open, and he leaped inside.

She was still screaming. She ran across to the bathroom as he slammed the front door and followed. She got into the bathroom before he could reach her, and he heard the snick of the lock, but he didn’t care. A bathroom lock?

Pounding on the door they’d just left. A male voice yelling KimKimKim! The German fellow? Deal with him next, deal with the one in the bathroom now.

He lifted his foot and kicked the bathroom door next to the knob, and at the same time he heard the German kick at the front door. But that door was much stronger than this one. He could finish here with plenty of time to take care of the German.

He kicked the bathroom door again, and it snapped open, and he sprang forward, and she sprayed hairspray into his eyes, pressing hard with both hands on the top of the aerosol can, spray shooting into his startled eyes and into his nose and into his open mouth.

He couldn’t see! It burned his eyes and he couldn’t see, but she was still in the confines of the bathroom, and he moved forward, arms spread, and she kicked him between the legs.

He felt her brush past him, but could do nothing about it. Bent, the pipe dropped, he scraped at his face, turning, trying to see, wiping at his eyes, and the first thing he saw was the girl opening the door, and then some man he’d never laid eyes on in his life before came running into the room.

Bennett raced out of the bathroom to the window, flung it open, rolled over the sill and out onto the fire escape just before the man could reach him. Rolling on his back on the fire escape, he kicked up with both feet into that face as the man started out after him, and the man fell back into the room.

Bennett tore down the fire escape and in among the sheds, running the maze, finding a way out of here to the street, while the Chinese painters watched him in amazement.