King Rat

  Peter Marlowe wandered up the hill listlessly. His feet were mud-stained like his legs, for he had let the tempest surround him, hoping that the wind and the rain would take away the brooding hurt. But they had not touched him.

  He stood outside the King’s window and peered in.

  “How do you feel, Peter, buddy?” the King asked as he got up from his bed and found a pack of Kooas.

  “Awful.” Peter Marlowe sat on the bench under the overhang, nauseated from the pain. “My arm’s killing me.” His laugh was brittle. “Joke!”

  The King jumped down and forced a smile. “Forget it—”

  “How the hell can I forget it?” Immediately Peter Marlowe regretted the outburst. “Sorry. I’m jumpy. Don’t know what I’m saying half the time.”

  “Have a cigarette.” The King lit it for him. Yep, the King told himself, you’re in a spot. The Limey learns fast, very fast. At least I think so. Let’s see. “We’ll complete the deal tomorrow. You can get the money tonight. I’ll cover for you.”

  But Peter Marlowe didn’t hear him. His arm was burning a word into his brain. Amputate! And he could hear the saw shrieking and feel it cutting, grinding bone-dust, his bone-dust. A shudder racked him. “What—about this?” he muttered and looked up from his arm. “Can you really do something?”

  The King nodded and told himself, There, you see. You were right. Only Pete knows where the money is, but Pete won’t get the money until you’ve set up the cure. No cure, no dough. No dough, no sale. No sale, no loot. So he sighed and said to himself, Yes, you’re a pretty smart cookie to know men so well. But when you figure it right, like you did last night, it wasn’t a bad trade. If Pete hadn’t taken the chance we’d both be in jail with no money and no nothing. And Pete had brought them luck. The deal was better than ever. And apart from that, Pete’s all right. A good guy. And hell, who wants to lose an arm anyway. Pete’s got a right to put the pressure on. I’m glad he’s learned.

  “Leave it to Uncle Sam!”

  “Who?”

  “Uncle Sam?” The King stared at him blankly. “The American symbol. You know,” he said exasperatedly, “like John Bull.”

  “Oh, sorry. I’m just—today—I’m just—” A wave of nausea surged over Peter Marlowe.

  “You beat it back to your bunk and relax. I’ll take care of it.”

  Peter Marlowe got up unsteadily. He wanted to smile and thank the King and shake his hand and bless him, but he remembered the word, and he felt only the saw, so he half nodded and walked out of the hut.

  For Chrissake, the King told himself bitterly. He thinks I’d let him down, that I wouldn’t do nothin’, unless he had the screws on me. Chrissake, Peter, I would help. Sure. Even though you didn’t have me by the shorts. Hell. You’re my friend.

  “Hey, Max.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Get Timsen here on the double.”

  “Sure,” Max said and left.

  The King unlocked the black box and took out three eggs. “Tex. You like to cook yourself an egg? Along with these two?”

  “Hell no,” Tex said, grinning, and he took the eggs. “Hey, I took a look at Eve. Swear to God she’s fatter today.”

  “Impossible. She was only mated yesterday.”

  Tex danced a little jig. “Twenty days an’ we’re all daddies again.” He accepted the oil and headed outside for the cooking area.

  The King lay back on his bunk, scratching a mosquito bite thoughtfully and watching the lizards on the rafters hunt and fornicate. He closed his eyes and began to drowse contentedly. Here it was only twelve o’clock, and already he’d done a hard day’s work. Hell, everything’d been sewn up by six o’clock this morning.

  He chuckled to himself as he remembered. Yes sir, it pays to have a good reputation and it pays to advertise …

  It had happened just before dawn. He had been soft asleep. Then a cautious, muted voice had interrupted his dreams.

  He awoke at once and looked out of the window and had seen a little weasel of a man staring at him in the shadowed contrails of the dawn. A man he had never seen before.

  “Yeah?”

  “I got somethin’ yer wanter buy.” The man’s voice had been expressionless and hoarse.

  “Who’re you?”

  In answer the little man had opened his grimy fist with its broken, dirt-flecked finger nails. The diamond ring was in his palm. “Price’s ten thousand. For a quick sale,” he added sardonically. Then the fingers had snapped tight as the King moved to pick the ring up, and the fist was withdrawn. “Tonight.” The man had smiled toothlessly. “It’s the right one, never fear.”

  “Are you the owner?”

  “It’s in me ’and, ain’t it?”

  “It’s a deal. What time?”

  “You wait in. I’ll see yer when there ain’t no narks abart.”

  And the man had gone as suddenly as he had appeared.

  The King settled more comfortably, gloating. Poor Timsen, he told himself, that poor son of a bitch’s got egg on his face! I get the ring for half price.

  “Morning, cobber,” Timsen said. “You wanted me?”

  The King opened his eyes and covered a yawn with his hand as Tiny Timsen walked up the hut.

  “Hi.” The King swung his legs off the bed and stretched luxuriously. “Tired today. Too much excitement. You want an egg? Got a couple cooking.”

  “Too right I’d like an egg.”

  “Make yourself at home.” The King could afford to be hospitable. “Now let’s get down to business. We’ll close the deal this afternoon.”

  “Na.” Timsen shook his head. “Not t’day. Tomorrer.”

  The King was hard put not to beam.

  “The heat’ll be off by then,” Timsen was saying. “Hear that Grey’s got himself out’ve hospital. He’ll be eyeing this place.” Timsen seemed gravely concerned. “We got to watch out. You an’ me. Don’t want anything to go wrong. I got to watch out for you, too. Don’t forget we’re cobbers.”

  “To hell with tomorrow,” the King said, feigning disappointment. “Let’s do it this afternoon.”

  And he listened, shouting with laughter inside, listened while Timsen said how important it was to be careful; the owner’s scared, why he even got beat up last night, and why, it wuz only me and my men what saved the poor bastard. So the King knew for sure then that Timsen was bleeding, that the diamond had slipped through his slimy mitts, that he was playing for time. Why, I’ll bet, the King told himself ecstatically, that the Aussies are going out of their skulls trying to find the hijacker. I wouldn’t like to be him—if they find him. So he allowed himself to be persuaded. Just in case Timsen did find the guy and the original deal stood.

  “Well, okay,” the King said grudgingly. “I suppose you got a point. We’ll make it tomorrow.” He lit another cigarette and took a drag and passed it over and said sweetly, still playing the game: “On these hot nights few of my boys sleep. At least four of them are up. All night.”

  Timsen understood the threat. But he had other things on his mind. Who, for the love uv God, who bushwhacked Townsend? He prayed that his men would find the buggers quick. He knew he had to find the bushwhackers before they got to the King with the diamond, for then he’d be out of luck. “I know how it is. Just the same with my boys—lucky they’re so close to my poor old pal Townsend.” Stupid bastard. How in the hell could a bugger be so weak as to allow himself to be jumped and not holler afore it was too late? “Man can’t be too careful these days, either.”

  Tex brought in the eggs and the three men ate them with lunch-rice, and washed it all down with strong coffee. By the time Tex took out the dishes, the King had the conversation just where he wanted it.

  “I know a guy who’s in the market for some drugs.”

  Timsen shook his head. “He’s got an ’ope, poor bastard. Ain’t possible! Too right.” Ah, he thought. Drugs! Who’d that be for? Not the King, certainly. He looks healthy enough, an’ not for resale either. The King never
deals in drugs, which is all right, for that leaves the market in my hands. Must be for someone close to the King, though. Otherwise he’d never get involved. Drug trade’s not his meat. Old McCoy! Of course. I heard he wasn’t so well these days. Maybe the colonel. He ain’t been lookin’ too well either. “I heard of a Limey who’s some quinine. But Jesus wept, he wants a bloody fortune for it.”

  “I want some antitoxin. A bottle. And sulfonamide powder.”

  Timsen let out a whistle. “Not an ’ope!” he said. Antitoxin and sulfa! Gangrene! The Pommy. Christ, gangrene! And the whole pattern fell neatly into place. Got to be the Pommy! Not through cunning alone had Timsen cornered the drug market. He knew enough about drugs from civvy street, where he had worked as an assistant druggist, which no bastard but him knew, because then the bastards would’ve put him in the Medical Corps, and that would’ve meant no fighting and no killing, and no self-respecting Aussie’d let his country down and dear old Blighty down by being just a stinking noncombatant medical orderly.

  “Not an ’ope,” he said again, shaking his head.

  “Listen,” the King said. “I’ll level with you.” Timsen was the only man who could get it in the whole world, so he had to get his help. “It’s for Peter.”

  “Tough,” Timsen said. But inside he sympathized. Poor bugger. Gangrene. Good man, lot of guts. He still felt the smash the Pommy’d given him last night. When the four of them had fallen on the King and the Pommy.

  Timsen had found out about Peter Marlowe when he had been taken up by the King. A man can’t be too careful and information’s alw’ys important. And Timsen knew about the four German planes and about the three Nips, and he knew about the village and how the Pommy’d tried to escape from Java, not like a lot who’d meekly sat and taken it. And yet, when you thought about it, it was pretty stupid to try. So far to go. Yes. Too far. Yes, this Pommy’s a beaut.

  Timsen wondered if he could risk sending a man into the Japanese doctor’s quarters to get the drugs. It was risky, but the quarters and the route had been pegged. Poor bugger Marlowe, he must be sick with worry. Of course I’ll get the drugs—and it’ll be done for free, or just for expenses.

  Timsen hated selling drugs, but someone had to, better him than someone else, for the cost was always reasonable, as reasonable as possible, and he knew he could make a fortune selling to the Japanese, but he never did, only to the camp and really only for a slight profit, when you thought of the risks involved.

  “It makes you sick,” Timsen said, “when you think of all that Red Cross medical supplies in the go-down on Kedah Street.”

  “Hell, that’s a rumor.”

  “Oh, no it ain’t. I’ve seen it, mate. On a work party I was. Stashed full of Red Cross stuff—plasma, quinine, sulfa—everything, from floor to ceiling and still in their cases. Why, the go-down must be a good hundred yards long and thirty wide. An’ it’s all going to those bugger Nips. They let the stuff in all right. Comes through Chungking, I’m told. The Red Cross give it to the Siamese—they turn it over to the Nips—all consigned for POW’s, Changi. Christ, I’ve even seen the labels, but the Nips just use it for their own monkeys.”

  “Anyone else know about this?”

  “I tol’ the colonel and he tol’ the Camp Commandant, who told that Nip bastard—what’s ’is name, oh yus, Yoshima—and the Camp Commandant, see, well, he demanded the supplies. But the Nips just laughed at him and said it was a rumor and that was the last of it. No work parties ’ave ever gone again. Lousy fuckers. Ain’t fair, not when we need the drugs so bad. They could give us a little. My cobber died six months back for want of a little insulin—and I saw crates of it. Crates.” Timsen rolled a cigarette and coughed and spat and was so incensed he kicked the wall.

  He knew there was no future in getting upset about it. And there was no way to get at that go-down. But he could get antitoxin and sulfa for the Pommy. Oh, my word, yes—and he’d give it to him for nothing.

  But Timsen was much too clever to allow the King to see through him. That would be childish, to let the King know he’d a soft spot, for sure as God’s country was Down Under, the King’d use that as a lever sometime later on. Yus, an’ he had to have the King for the deal of the diamond. Oh bugger! I’d forgotten about that dirty bushwhacker.

  So Timsen named an extortionate figure and allowed himself to be beaten down. But he made the price steep, for he knew the King could afford it, and if he said he’d get the goods for a low price, the King’d be very suspicious.

  “All right,” the King said glumly. “You got a deal.” Inside he wasn’t glum. Not too glum. He’d expected Timsen to soak him, but although the price was higher than he wanted to pay, it was fair.

  “It’ll take three days,” Timsen said, knowing that three days would be too late.

  “I’ve got to have it tonight.”

  “Then it’ll cost another five hundred.”

  “I’m a friend of yours!” the King said, feeling real pain. “We’re buddies and you stick me for another five C’s.”

  “All right, cobber.” Timsen was sad, doglike. “But you know how it is. Three days is the best I can do.”

  “Goddammit. All right.”

  “An’ the nurse’ll be an extra five hundred.”

  “For Chrissake! What the hell’s the nurse for?”

  Timsen enjoyed seeing the King squirm. “Well,” he said agreeably, “what’re you going to do with the stuff when you’ve got it? How you going to treat the patient?”

  “How the hell do I know?”

  “That’s what the five hundred’s for. I suppose you’re going to give the stuff to the Pommy and he’s going to take it up to the ’ospital and say to the nearest sawbones, ‘I got hantitoxin and sulfa, fix my bleedin’ arm up,’ and then the doc’s going to say, ‘We ain’t got no hantitoxin so where the ’ell did you get this from,’ and when the Pommy won’t tell, the bastards’ll steal it off him and give it to some stinking Limey colonel who’s a slight case of piles.”

  He deftly took the packet of cigarettes out of the King’s pocket and helped himself. “And,” he said, but now completely serious, “you have to find a place where you can treat him private-like. Where he can lie down. These hantitoxins’re tough on some men. An’ part of the deal’s that I accept no responsibility if the treatment turns sour.”

  “If you’ve got antitoxin and sulfa, what can go sour?”

  “Some folks can’t take it. Nausea. Tough. And it mayn’t work. Depends how much of the toxin’s already in his system.”

  Timsen got up. “Sometime tonight. Oh yes, an’ the equipment’ll cost another five hundred.”

  The King exploded. “What equipment, for Chrissake?”

  “Hypodermics and bandages and soap. Jesus!” Timsen was almost disgusted. “You think hantitoxin’s a pill you stick up ’is arse?”

  The King stared after Timsen sourly, kicking himself. Thought you were so clever, didn’t you, finding out what cured gangrene for a cigarette and then, nut-head, you forget to ask what the hell you did with the stuff once you got it.

  Well, the hell with it. The dough’s committed. And Pete’s got his arm back. And the cost’s all right too.

  Then the King remembered the foxy little hijacker and he beamed. Yes, he felt very pleased with the day’s work.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  That evening Peter Marlowe gave his food away. He did not give it to Mac or Larkin as he should, but to Ewart. He knew that if he had given it to his unit they would have forced him to reveal what was the matter. And there was no point in telling them.

  That afternoon, sick with pain and worry, he had gone to see Dr. Kennedy. Again he had almost been crazed with agony while the bandage was ripped away. Then the doctor had said simply, “The poison’s above the elbow. I can amputate below, but it’s a waste of time. Might as well do the operation in one time. You’ll have a nice stump—at least five inches from the shoulder. Enough for an artificial arm to be strapped to. Quite enoug
h.” Kennedy had templed his fingers calmly. “Don’t waste any more time, Marlowe,” and he had laughed dryly and quipped, “Domani è troppo tardi,” and when Peter Marlowe had looked at him blankly without understanding, he had said flatly, “Tomorrow may be too late.”

  Peter Marlowe had stumbled back to his bunk and had lain in a pool of fear. Then dinner had come and he had given it away.

  “You got fever?” Ewart said happily, filled by the extra food.

  “No.”

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “For Christ’s sake leave me alone!” Peter Marlowe turned away from Ewart. After a time he got up and left the hut, regretting that he had agreed to play bridge with Mac and Larkin and Father Donovan for an hour or two. You’re a fool, he told himself bitterly, you should have stayed in your bunk until it was time to go through the wire to get the money.

  But he knew that he could not have lain on his bunk, hour after hour, until it was safe to go. Better to have something to do.

  “Hi, cobber!” Larkin’s face crinkled with his smile.

  Peter Marlowe did not return the smile. He just sat grimly in the doorway. Mac glanced at Larkin, who shrugged imperceptibly.

  “Peter,” Mac said, forcing good humor, “the news is better every day, isn’t it? Won’t be long before we’re out of here.”

  “Too right!” Larkin said.

  “You’re living in a fool’s paradise. We’ll never get out of Changi.” Peter Marlowe did not wish to be harsh, but he could not restrain himself. He knew Mac and Larkin were hurt, but he would do nothing to ease the hurt. He was obsessed with the five-inch stump. A chill dissolved his spine and pierced his testicles. How the hell could the King really help? How? Be realistic. If it was the King’s arm—what could I do, however much I’m his friend? Nothing. I don’t think there’s anything he can do—in time. Nothing. You’d better face it, Peter. It’s amputate or die. Simple. And when it comes down to it, you can’t die. Not yet. Once you’re born, you are obligated to survive. At all costs.