King Rat (3 page)

The King was thinking about the diamond. It would not be easy to swing this deal, and this deal he had to swing. Suddenly as he approached the hut, he noticed beside the path a young man sitting on his haunches, talking rapidly in Malay to a native. The man’s skin was heavily pigmented and beneath the skin the muscles showed. Wide shoulders. Slim hips. The man wore only a sarong, and the way he wore it, it seemed to belong. His face was craggy, and though he was Changi-thin, there was a grace to his movements and a sparkle about him.

The Malay — black-brown, tiny — was listening intently to the man’s lilting speech; then he laughed and showed teeth abused by betel nut, and replied, accenting the melodious language with a wave of his hand. The man joined his laugh and interrupted with a flood of words, oblivious of the King’s intent stare.

The King could catch only a word here and a word there, for his Malay was bad and he had to get by with a mixture of Malay and Japanese and pidgin English. He listened to the rich laugh and knew it was a rare thing. When this man was laughing, you could see that the laugh came from inside. This was very rare. Priceless.

Thoughtfully the King entered the hut. The other men looked up briefly and greeted him amiably. He returned their greetings without favor. But he knew and they knew.

Dino was lying on his bunk half asleep. He was a neat little man with dark skin and dark hair, prematurely flecked with gray, and veiled liquid eyes. The King felt the eyes and nodded and saw Dino’s smile. But the eyes were not smiling.

In the far corner of the hut Kurt looked up from the pants he was trying to patch up and spat on the floor. He was a stunted, evil-looking man with yellow-brown teeth, ratlike, and he always spat on the floor and not one of them liked him, for he would never bathe. Near the center of the hut Byron Jones III and Miller were playing their interminable chess. Both were naked. When Miller’s merchant ship was torpedoed two years before, he had weighed two hundred and eighty-eight pounds. He was six feet, seven inches. Now he turned the scale at a hundred and thirty-three, and the folds of belly skin hung like a pelt over his sex. His blue eyes lit up as he reached over and took a knight. Bryon Jones III quickly removed the knight, and now Miller saw that his castle was threatened.

“You’ve had it, Miller,” Jones said, scratching the jungle sores on his legs.

“Go to hell!”

Jones laughed. “The Navy could always take the Merchant Marine at anything.”

“You bastards still got yourselves sunk. A battleship yet!”

“Yeah,” Jones said thoughtfully, toying with his eye patch, remembering the death of his ship, the Houston, and the deaths of his buddies and the loss of his eye.

The King walked the length of the hut. Max was still sitting beside his bed and the big black box that was chained to it.

“Okay, Max,” the King said. “Thanks. You can quit now.”

“Sure.” Max had a well-used face. He came from West Side New York and he had learned the lessons of life from those streets at an early age. His eyes were brown and restless.

Automatically the King took out his tobacco box and gave Max a little of the raw tobacco.

“Gee, thanks,” Max said. “Oh yeah, Lee told me to tell you he’s done your laundry. He’s getting chow today — we’re on the second shift — but he told me to tell you.”

“Thanks.” The King took out his pack of Kooas and a momentary hush fell upon the hut. Before the King could get his matches out, Max was striking his native flint lighter.

“Thanks, Max.” The King inhaled deeply. Then, after a pause, he said, “You like a Kooa?”

“Jesus, thanks,” Max said, careless of the irony in the King’s voice. “Anything else you want?”

“I’ll call you if I need you.”

Max walked down the hut to sit on his string bed beside the door. Eyes saw the cigarette but mouths said nothing. It was Max’s. Max had earned it. When it was their day to guard the King’s possessions, well, maybe they’d get one too.

Dino smiled at Max, who winked back. They would share the cigarette after chow. They always shared what they could find or steal or make. Max and Dino were a unit.

And it was the same throughout the world of Changi. Men ate and trusted in units. Twos, threes, rarely fours. One man could never cover enough ground, or find something edible and build a fire and cook it and eat it — not by himself. Three was the perfect unit. One to forage, one to guard what had been foraged and one spare. When the spare wasn’t sick, he too foraged or guarded. Everything was split three ways: if you got an egg or stole a coconut or found a banana on a work party or made a touch somewhere, it went to the unit. The law, like all natural law, was simple. Only by mutual effort did you survive. To withhold from the unit was fatal, for if you were expelled from a unit, the word got around. And it was impossible to survive alone.

But the King didn’t have a unit. He was sufficient unto himself.

His bed was in the favored corner of the hut, under a window, set just right to catch the slightest breeze. The nearest bed was eight feet away. The King’s bed was a good one. Steel. The springs were tight and the mattress filled with kapok. The bed was covered with two blankets, and the purity of sheets peeped from the top blanket near the sun-bleached pillow. Above the bed, stretched tight on posts, was a mosquito net. It was blemishless.

The King also had a table and two easy chairs, and a carpet on either side of the bed. On a shelf, behind the bed, was his shaving equipment-razor, brush, soap, blades - and beside them, his plates and cups and homemade electric stove and cooking and eating implements. On the corner wall hung his clothes, four shirts and four long pants and four short pants. Six pairs of socks and underpants were on a shelf. Under the bed were two pairs of shoes, bathing slippers, and a shining pair of Indian chappals.

The King sat on one of the chairs and made sure that everything was still in place. He noticed that the hair he had placed so delicately on his razor was no longer there. Crummy bastards, he thought, why the hell should I risk catching their crud. But he said nothing, just made a mental note to lock it up in future.

“Hi,” said Tex. “You busy?”

“Busy” was another password. It meant “Are you ready to take delivery?”

The King smiled and nodded and Tex carefully passed over the Ronson lighter. “Thanks,” the King said. “You like my soup today?”

“You bet,” Tex said and walked away.

Leisurely the King examined the lighter. As the major had said, it was almost new. Unscratched. It worked every time. And very clean. He unscrewed the flint screw and examined the flint. It was a cheap native flint and almost finished, so he opened the cigar box on the shelf and found the Ronson flint container and put in a new one. He pressed the lever and it worked. A careful adjustment of the wick and he was satisfied. The lighter was not a counterfeit and would surely bring eight hundred, nine hundred dollars.

From where he was sitting he could see the young man and the Malay. They were still hard at it, yaketty, yaketty.

“Max,” he called out quietly.

Max hurried up the length of the hut. “Yeah?”

“See that guy,” the King said, nodding out the window.

“Which one? The Wog?”

“No. The other one. Get him for me, will you?”

Max slipped out of the window and crossed the path. “Hey, Mac,” he said abruptly to the young man. “The King wants to see you,” and he jerked a thumb towards the hut. “On the double.”

The man gaped at Max, then followed the line of the thumb to the American hut. “Me?” he asked incredulously, looking back at Max.

“Yeah, you.” Max said impatiently.

“What for?”

“How the hell do I know?”

The man frowned at Max, hardening. He thought a moment, then turned to Suliman, the Malay. “Nanti-lah,” he said.

“Bik, tuan,” said Suliman, preparing to wait. Then he added in Malay, “Watch thyself, tuan. And go with God.”

“Fear not, my friend — but I thank thee for thy thought,” the man said, smiling. He got up and followed Max into the hut.

“You wanted me?” he asked, walking up to the King.

“Hi,” the King said, smiling. He saw that the man’s eyes were guarded. That pleased him, for guarded eyes were rare. “Take a seat.” He nodded at Max, who left. Without being asked, the other men who were near moved out of earshot so the King could talk in private.

“Go on, take a seat,” the King said genially.

“Thanks.”

“Like a cigarette?”

The man’s eyes widened as he saw the Kooa offered to him. He hesitated, then took it. His astonishment grew as the King snapped the Ronson, but he tried to hide it and drew deeply on the cigarette. “That’s good. Very good,” he said luxuriously. “Thanks.”

“What’s your name?”

“Marlowe. Peter Marlowe.” Then he added ironically, “And yours?”

The King laughed. Good, he thought, the guy’s got a sense of humor, and he’s no ass kisser. He docketed the information, then said, “You’re English?”

“Yes.”

The King had never noticed Peter Marlowe before, but that was not unusual when ten thousand faces looked so much alike. He studied Peter Marlowe silently and the cool blue eyes studied him back.

“Kooas are about the best cigarette around,” the King said at last. “’Course they don’t compare with Camels. American cigarette. Best in the world. You ever had them?”

“Yes,” Peter Marlowe said, “but actually, they tasted a little dry to me. My brand’s Gold Flake.” Then he added politely, “It’s a matter of taste, I suppose.” Again a silence fell and he waited for the King to come to the point. As he waited, he thought that he liked the King, in spite of his reputation, and he liked him for the humor that glinted behind his eyes.

“You speak Malay very well,” the King said, nodding at the Malay, who waited patiently.

“Oh, not too badly, I suppose.”

The King stifled a curse at the inevitable English underplay. “You learn it here?” he asked patiently.

“No. In Java.” Peter Marlowe hesitated and looked around. “You’ve quite a place here.”

“Like to be comfortable. How’s that chair feel?”

“Fine.” A flicker of surprise showed.

“Cost me eighty bucks,” the King said proudly. “Year ago.”

Peter Marlowe glanced at the King sharply to see if it was meant as a joke, to tell him the price, just like that, but he saw only happiness and evident pride. Extraordinary, he thought, to say such a thing to a stranger. “It’s very comfortable,” he said, covering his embarrassment.

“I’m going to fix chow. You like to join me?”

“I’ve just had lunch,” Peter Marlowe said carefully.

“You could probably use some more. Like an egg?”

Now Peter Marlowe could no longer conceal his amazement, and his eyes widened. The King smiled and felt that it had been worthwhile to invite him to eat to get a reaction like that. He knelt down beside his black box and carefully unlocked it.

Peter Marlowe stared down at the contents, stunned. Half a dozen eggs, sacks of coffee beans. Glass jars of gula malacca, the delicious toffee-sugar of the Orient. Bananas. At least a pound of Java tobacco. Ten or eleven packs of Kooas. A glass jar full of rice. Another with katchang idju beans. Oil. Many delicacies in banana leaves. He had not seen treasure in such quantity for years.

The King took out the oil and two eggs and relocked the box. When he glanced back at Peter Marlowe, he saw that the eyes were once more guarded, the face composed.

“How you like your egg? Fried?”

“Well, it seems a little unfair to accept.” It was difficult for Peter Marlowe to speak. “I mean, you don’t go offering eggs, just like that.”

The King smiled. It was a good smile and warmed Peter Marlowe. “Think nothing of it. Put it down to ‘hands across the sea’ lend-lease.”

A flicker of annoyance crossed the Englishman’s face and his jaw muscles hardened.

“What’s the matter?” the King asked abruptly.

After a pause Peter Marlowe said, “Nothing.” He looked at the egg. He wasn’t due an egg for six days. “If you’re sure I won’t be putting you out, I’d like it fried.”

“Coming up,” the King said. He knew he had made a mistake somewhere, for the annoyance was real. Foreigners are weird, he thought. Never can tell how they’re going to react. He lifted his electric stove onto the table and plugged it into the electric socket. “Neat, huh?’ he said pleasantly.

“Yes.”

“Max wired it for me,” he said, nodding down the hut.

Peter Marlowe followed his glance.

Max looked up, feeling eyes on him. “You want something?”

“No,” the King said. “Just telling him how you wired the hot plate.”

“Oh! It working all right?”

“Sure.”

Peter Marlowe got up and leaned out of the window, calling out in Malay. “I beg thee do not wait. I will see thee again tomorrow, Suliman.”

“Very well, tuan, peace be upon thee.”

“And upon thee.” Peter Marlowe smiled and sat down once more and Suliman walked away.

The King broke the eggs neatly and dropped them into the heated oil. The yolk was rich-gold and its circling jelly sputtered and hissed against the heat and began to set, and all at once the sizzle filled the hut. It filled the minds and filled the hearts and made the juices flow. But no one said anything or did anything. Except Tex. He forced himself up and walked out of the hut.

Many men who walked the path smelled the fragrance and hated the King anew. The smell swept down the slope and into the MP hut. Grey knew and Masters knew at once where it came from.

Grey got up, nauseated, and went to the doorway. He was going to walk around the camp to escape the aroma. Then he changed his mind and turned back.

“Come on, Sergeant,” he said. “We’ll pay a call on the American hut. Now’d be a good time to check on Sellars’ story!”

“All right,” Masters said, almost ruptured by the smell. “The bloody bastard could at least cook before lunch — not just after — not when supper’s five hours away.”

“The Americans are the second shift today. They haven’t eaten yet.”

Within the American hut, the men picked up the strings of time. Dino tried to go back to sleep and Kurt continued sewing and the poker game resumed and Miller and Byron Jones III resumed their interminable chess. But the sizzle destroyed the drama of an inside straight and Kurt stuck the needle in his finger and swore obscenely, and Dino’s sleep-urge left him and Byron Jones III watched appalled as Miller took his queen with a lousy stinking pawn.