Yellowthread Street (7 page)

No one was coming. O’Yee lit a cigarette and fished around under the bench for an ashtray. He found one, and moved his gun to one corner out of the way of it. He looked up into the muzzle of the biggest pistol he had ever seen in his life.

The African said, ‘I didn’t like the movie.’

O’Yee looked at him.

The African said, ‘I’m going to blow your face off.’

Constable Lee unlocked Mr Skilbeck’s handcuffs, shoved him into the second detention cell, closed the metal door swiftly, and turned the key.

The African said, ‘I want money.’

The African said, ‘Did you hear what I said?’

O’Yee nodded.

‘Do it with your good hand,’ the African said. He smiled evilly and pushed the muzzle of the gun a few inches closer to O’Yee’s left eye.

‘Listen—’

‘Nothing. Money. Or Bang!’

‘I’m a—’ O’Yee tried. His voice sounded tinny. He cleared his throat, ‘I’m a—’

‘We’ve all got problems,’ the African said. ‘Yours is me. Money!’

O’Yee couldn’t remember where his gun was on the bench. He couldn’t remember if it was under Gregory Peck’s ear or on top of it or under the ashtray or beside it. The black eye
of the pistol barrel watched his eye. O’Yee’s eye was afraid to look down.

‘I’m a—’ O’Yee said. He cleared his throat, ‘Listen—’ O’Yee said.

‘O.K.’ the African said. ‘You’re dead.’

‘I’m a police officer!’ O’Yee got out. It sounded less like the way John Wayne said it to state a fact of terrifying proportions than a plea that O’Yee had seven children and an ancient mother to support.

‘What?’ the African said.

‘I’m a police officer,’ O’Yee said more calmly. He didn’t want to upset anyone. ‘I haven’t got a bad hand.’

‘You’ve got a gun,’ the African said. His eyes flickered down to the wall of the cashier’s booth at about his groin level. Something metal that could go through walls and groins as if they were not there was pointing at him behind it.

‘Yeah,’ O’Yee said. He swallowed and hoped. ‘Yeah!’ he said again, ‘Reach for the sky!’

A metamorphosis took place before O’Yee’s eyes. The black eye of the pistol blinked, shook its head, blinked again, and then did a nose dive to the ground. It made a snapping sound as it hit the concrete floor. The African stepped back, blinked his own eyes, and shouted, ‘Don’t shoot!’

‘O.K.,’ O’Yee said benevolently. He nodded—just like John Wayne—unlocked the door of the cashier’s booth carefully and calmly—just like John Wayne—and stepped out purposefully and firmly to make his arrest.

‘Don’t kill me!’ the African said. He threw himself against the poster on the wall with his legs spreadeagled to be searched.

‘O.K.,’ O’Yee said, and searched him.

‘Don’t kill me,’ the African said quietly as O’Yee handcuffed him. The manager came out and saw the scene.

‘Call the Station,’ O’Yee said.

The African said to the manager, ‘Tell him not to kill me.’

The manager hesitated.

‘Call the Station,’ O’Yee said. ‘I got him.’

The manager scuttled away.

‘It wasn’t a real gun,’ the African said pleadingly. ‘I wouldn’t have shot anyone. It wasn’t a real gun!’

O’Yee turned to look at the pistol. The fall had snapped it in half and there was a roll of toy caps sticking out of its muzzle near a collection of brittle plastic and metal springs.

‘All right,’ O’Yee said. ‘We don’t kill people here. We arrest them.’

The African released a sigh of relief. He said, ‘I’m scared of guns.’

‘Gun?’ O’Yee said to himself. He thought, ‘Gun?’ He said, ‘Shit!
Gun!
’

He knew he had forgotten something.

Mrs Skilbeck said, ‘No.’ She waved Auden aside. She said, ‘I’m not talking to any of you unhelpful bastards and I’m not letting you go away for hours to talk to that Chinese girl. I’m going through to talk to that Chinese girl.’

And she did.

‘Not bad,’ the manager said. He watched the police van until it disappeared around the corner, ‘It’s a pity it wasn’t more dramatic.’ He said it to the accompaniment of a burst of machine gun fire from inside the theatre, ‘Still, you got him.’

‘I got him,’ O’Yee said. He glanced under his coat to make sure he had remembered to put his pistol back in the shoulder holster, ‘I didn’t have to fire a shot.’

The manager stepped back a pace and swelled his chest. ‘On behalf of the principals of this beautiful cinema and to show our esteem and gratitude for the service you have performed on behalf of the police force of this city, as the manager of this beautiful cinema theatre I have been asked by my principals to hand to you this small token of our appreciation and esteem with the best wishes of the staff and principals and management of the Peacock Cinema, Hong Bay, British Crown
Colony of Hong Kong. Presented to Detective Inspector O’Yee by Mr Oswald Han.’ He tapped his coat lightly with his thumb, ‘That’s me.’

‘Thank you, Mr Han,’ O’Yee said, ‘but we’re not allowed to take money.’

A look of horror flitted across Mr Han’s features. ‘It isn’t
money!
’ What a suggestion—

‘Thanks,’ O’Yee said. Mr Han handed him a sealed envelope. O’Yee said, ‘I’ll open it in the presence of witnesses at the Police Station.’

‘It isn’t money,’ Mr Han said again. ‘It certainly isn’t money.’

It wasn’t. It was a year’s free admission pass to the afternoon and morning sessions at the Peacock Cinema, Icehouse Street, Hong Bay, presented to Mr O’Yee by Mr Oswald Han, Manager—front stalls.

‘No,’ Minnie Oh said, ‘he hasn’t.’

‘Aren’t you going to look for him?’

‘There’s not a great deal we can do,’ Minnie said. She moved the stack of handout sheets warning whores about the dangers of VD without a regular checkup out of Mrs Skilbeck’s view. It was in Cantonese, but there were some graphic illustrations. ‘He’s only been missing a few hours. Have you tried the airport? Perhaps he’s gone back there. There hasn’t been an accident or we would have heard about it. Perhaps he’s—’

‘Perhaps he’s in jail!’ Mrs Skilbeck said bitterly, ‘I’ll kill him.’

‘No,’ Minnie Oh said. She smiled pleasantly and shook her head to show just how far removed the residents of Yellow-thread Street’s jail were from respectable American tourists from New Jersey. ‘The only people in jail here at the moment are an axe murderer and someone who won’t give his name who assaulted a policeman.’

‘They don’t sound like my husband,’ Mrs Skilbeck said. She rose, and sniffed at the VD brochures. She said, ‘You don’t
have a very nice job for a young girl.’

‘No,’ Minnie said.

‘I’ll be back,’ Mrs Skilbeck said, and left.

At midnight Hot Time Alice decided that business at
Alice’s
could take care of itself while she went around to
Alice’s Goldsmith’s and Jewellery
to check that the customer-deterring fingers on the display cases had been removed by the ambulancemen.

She waddled into the store at exactly seven minutes past midnight, found the assistant smoking a cigarette, roared at him, sat down behind the counter with her books and her cashbox and sent him out to bring her back a bottle of beer.

At eight minutes past midnight the Mongolian came in. He examined Alice (Alice examined him), decided she was the cleaning woman pilfering cash from the fingerless proprietor (Alice decided he was no customer), and said, ‘Owner!’

‘I’m the owner,’ Alice said. She shut the metal cashbox and stood up with her fat hands on her hips.

‘Owner,’ the Mongolian said. He was not a man to entertain two thoughts in his shaven head at the same time, ‘Owner!’

People didn’t talk to Alice in that tone. ‘People don’t talk to me in that tone,’ Alice said. ‘So get out!’

‘Owner,’ the Mongolian said.

‘Me!’ Alice said. She flicked her thumb at her giant breasts, ‘Owner—me!’

‘Police,’ the Mongolian said.

‘Like hell you are,’ Alice said.

‘You police.’

‘Like hell I am.’

The Mongolian shook his head. ‘No call police.’

Alice leaned back on the heels of her shoes and gave the impression of looking down from her five foot three to the Mongolian’s lesser six foot three.

The Mongolian thumped his barrel-stave chest with his
thumb. It sounded like an elephant’s heart beating at full charge. ‘Mongolian,’ the Mongolian said.

Hot Time Alice Ping stopped leaning back on the heels of her shoes.

‘No police,’ the Mongolian said. ‘No police.’

Alice put her fingers behind her back, still attached to her wrists and going to stay that way.

‘Fingers,’ the Mongolian said.

‘We can talk about this,’ Alice said, ‘Listen, we can talk about—’

‘No police. Bad thing,’ the Mongolian, who was no good at long conversations, said. He drew his eleven-inch-long knife and lopped at Alice’s ear which she did not have behind her back.

There were then a number of sounds in the store in Camphorwood Lane. There was a swish as the kukri completed its arc and a click as the Mongolian sheathed it in the same motion, a metallic tinkle as Alice’s bangle earring struck the glass counter, a plop as Alice’s ear followed it, the sound of the Mongolian’s footsteps on the floor as he left, a clunk as he shut the glass door behind him, and finally, Alice’s broken voice as she began running about in tiny circles behind the counter looking at her ear and screaming.

The assistant came back with the beer, looked at the ear and the glass counter, at Hot Time Alice Ping running, and drank the contents of the bottle in one gulp.

There were two conferences going on in Hong Bay. It was two fifteen in the morning and at the venue of the first conference, the Yellowthread Street Police Station, the atmosphere was stale and fuggy with cigarette smoke, half empty cardboard cups of aromatic burnt-bean coffee, O’Yee’s almost devoured night meal of take-away noodles and pork, and Auden’s and O’Yee’s bad jokes.

‘Ear today, gone tomorrow,’ O’Yee said and popped noodles into his mouth.

Feiffer continued reading Spencer’s report on his first interview with Hot Time Alice Ping of the two ears and Sister Sung’s telephoned news of Hot Time Alice Ping of the one. Feiffer said, ‘Shut up.’

‘Don’t be so cruel,’ Spencer said to O’Yee and Auden. He read his report over Feiffer’s shoulder.

‘Ear’s to you,’ O’Yee said and raised his cup.

Auden collapsed in helpless laughter and banged his desk.

‘The Andrews Sisters,’ Feiffer said. He said to Spencer, ‘What’s this word?’

‘Frank,’ Spencer said. He read on, ‘. . . it was a frank and meaningful interview . . .’

‘It says “frunk”.’

‘It’s the typewriter,’ Spencer said.

Auden banged on his desk.

Two streets away, in
Alice’s,
the customers had been cleared out and the place closed for a private party (the notice on the
door said). The guests had come down from Hanford Hill and they were not feeling very festive. Mr Boon had come down from the hill and he never felt festive. Tonight he was downright peeved. Mr Boon looked at Alice. Alice sat opposite him in a wheelchair with her ear wrapped in a space helmet bandage. Mr Boon sucked his hollow tooth and felt peeved. He sucked his hollow tooth again. Mr Boon turned his head to another angle and looked at Alice out of the corner of his eye and sucked his hollow tooth.

‘All my friends,’ Alice said sentimentally. The men from Hanford Hill, their bodyguards, their employees and Alice sat in a circle in the middle of the cleared dance floor and ashed their cigarettes into a centrally placed brass spittoon; ‘My dear old friends,’ Alice said and wiped a jelly tear from her mummy-wrapped cheek. ‘My dear, dear old friends,’ Alice said.

Mr Boon moved his head and contemplated Alice from under hooded lids. ‘Quiet, woman,’ Mr Boon said.

‘Yes, Mr Boon,’ Alice said.

Mr Boon sucked his hollow tooth again. Mr Boon was in his late fifties, fat and well oiled, well preserved and looked after; he had an almost full set of gold-filled dentures, but he had a hollow tooth. He sucked it.

‘Mongolian,’ Mr Boon said, ‘Mongolian.’

‘Independent,’ Hernando Haw from Macao said. He curled his lip, ‘Independent.’

‘Hmm,’ Mr Boon said. He blew a pollution of smoke into the circle like the Queen Elizabeth with its boilers shut down. Outside the circle, against the walls, the whores stood at various points of the compass watching the men and the smoke and the toothsucking like a scene from
The Hustler.
‘Low Fat?’ Mr Boon said.

‘Independent operator,’ Low Fat said. He shook his head. ‘Independent.’

‘Stupid,’ Mr Boon said.

‘Stupid,’ Hernando Haw from Macao agreed.

Low Fat bobbed his head up and down. ‘Stupid.’

Mr Boon surveyed the antidotes to stupidity in his dance hall pharmacy. He looked at Shotgun Sen. He looked at The Club (With Nails). He looked at Osaka Onuki the Disemboweller. He looked at Crushed Toes and the other one (no one knew his name—he was The Fourth Gangster) and he thought them a potent bunch.

‘Stupid,’ Mr Boon said. He waved his hand in deep pity for someone so stupid. ‘So, so sad, sad stupid.’

‘Stupid!’ Mr Boon said.
‘Stupid!’

Mr Haw from Macao nodded, Low Fat nodded, Alice nodded, the henchmen nodded, Osaka Onuki the Disemboweller ran his thumb along the hone of the short sword under his coat and he nodded. Apricot Tang Lee shot a thrilled look at Posey Yin and Tinkerbell Lin Wong and she nodded.

Alice said, ‘Stupid.’

Mr Boon turned his attention to Osaku Onuki. He considered the little Japanese’s squat body and the ripple of his shoulders and forearms under his little squat Japanese suit. Osaka Onuki giggled and touched at his short sword.

‘Kukri,’ Mr Boon said, ‘Indian Gurkha knife one foot long, very sharp.’

Osaka Onuki the Disemboweller giggled. Mr Boon turned his eyes on to Shotgun Sen. The twin barrels of Sen’s sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun under his left armpit down to his trouser belt made him look like a fat frog with goitre. Shotgun Sen patted the outline of the twin barrels. Crushed Toes said nothing. He tapped the base of his chair with a fast rhythmic tapping and waited for Mr Boon to give the word. The Fourth Gangster crossed his arms and touched at the two pistols in shoulder holsters he wore, one under each armpit, and made a kissing sound at the floor. Apricot Tang Lee felt a shiver of excitement run up her back and down into her underwear.