Yellowthread Street (14 page)

‘Right,’ Mr Skilbeck said. He couldn’t have agreed more. ‘I’ve got a wife who’s probably half out of her skull with worry. And they lock me up in here. What am I supposed to have done? You tell me that. They broke the other one’s leg.’

‘Right!’ the African said. It was a conversation between a congregation of the converted. ‘Right!’ the African said. He shouted at the top of his lungs, ‘Hey, you! I want my lawyer!’ The steps leading up from the detention cells to the Station were empty of life. He shouted, ‘I know my rights! I want a lawyer from the Navy brought down here!’

‘Right,’ Mr Skilbeck said. He yelled at the steps, ‘Hey! We’re American citizens and you can’t keep us locked up!’

The African kicked at the bars of his cell door. They made a loud ringing sound. He kicked them again. The African yelled, ‘Hey!’

‘Hey!’ Mr Skilbeck yelled.

‘Hey!’

‘Hey!’

‘You up there!’

‘Hey! Hey!’

‘Hey, you people up there! Hey-hey-hey, you people!’

‘Hey!’ they yelled in unison.

‘HEY-HEY-HEY—
HEY
!’

‘Keep quiet,’ Minnie Oh said. They saw her come down the stairs. She wasn’t much.

‘Hey,’ the African said, ‘get that cop who arrested me!’

‘He’s not here,’ Minnie Oh said. She glanced at Chen. Chen stood against the bars and looked at her wistfully. She said to the African, ‘Shouting is a waste of time.’

‘I want to get out,’ Mr Skilbeck said, ‘you can’t keep me here. My wife—’

‘Your wife knows you are here,’ Minnie Oh said. ‘You will both appear in Court in the morning.’

‘What about him?’ the African demanded. He meant Chen. ‘What about him? He’s got no rights, right? Poor old guy. What’s he done? Did you beat him up too? What’s he done?’ He demanded, ‘Get me the pig in charge. I want a lawyer right now.’

‘In the morning,’ Minnie Oh said. She turned to go.

‘What’s he done?’ the African demanded, ‘Hey? The old guy? What have you conned him into thinking he’s done?’ He said to Skilbeck, ‘Right?’

‘Right!’ Mr Skilbeck said. ‘Get me the chief cop!’

Minnie thought of Mrs Feiffer awake by the telephone. She said, ‘There is nobody else here.’

‘I’ll bet!’ Mr Skilbeck said. He felt very aggressive and deprived of his constitutional rights. He felt like Captain Dreyfus wrongly imprisoned on Devil’s Island. He said, ‘Yeah! What are we supposed to be guilty of?’ He turned his head to the silent Chen. He said, ‘What’s that poor old guy supposed to have done if we’re all hardened criminal types in here? You tell me that? Hey? Tell me that!’

Against all the regulations, Minnie told him.

The Mongolian was in a room on the fifth floor. He heard The Chopper Man clang stealthily up the metal rungs of the fire escape. He waited by the window to yank him in, but The Chopper Man was already on his way to the roof. His
footsteps stopped clanging on the metal rungs as he stepped off on to the roof.

The Mongolian rubbed his fingers into his palms and listened for the others.

The Club (With Nails) was on the landing of the fifth floor. He touched the points of nails driven through the end of his wooden club and moved to the first door. The Mongolian heard the door squeak as The Club (With Nails) pushed it gently open. The Mongolian heard the floor of the first room squeak as The Club (With Nails) went across it. The Mongolian heard The Club (With Nails) open a cupboard or a closet in the room and then close it quietly again. The Mongolian went out into the corridor.

The Mongolian peered carefully over the corridor railing. He saw a group of people on the ground floor looking down at the body of the gangster who had gone down from the fourth floor with bits of the splintered railing. Two of the group were uniformed constables. The Mongolian saw Crushed Toes and The Shot In The Back Of The Head moving on the stairs at the third floor. They glanced at each other and then went quietly out of sight into the corridor. The Mongolian moved silently on the balls of his feet and stood to one side of the doorway to the first room. The Club (With Nails) came out of the first room looking down the corridor and did not see the Mongolian. He went into the second room. The Mongolian moved to one side of the door to the second room and waited.

On the third floor, as the cops came up to the first floor, Crushed Toes and The Shot In The Back Of The Head went into the first door.

Sun and Lee took up their positions on the stair landing of the first floor.

Feiffer said softly, ‘Christopher—’ and he and O’Yee went towards the first door on the first floor. The door hung open and light from a naked bulb swinging on a length of flex spilled out into the gloomy corridor. Auden came down behind them
and stood at combat range against the railing.

O’Yee and Feiffer went into the first room. Auden cocked his revolver. Constable Sun took his revolver in two hands and drew a bead on the first door. Constable Lee rested his weapon on the stairhead and cocked it.

Feiffer and O’Yee came out. They shook their heads. They moved down the corridor towards the second room. O’Yee’s hands were clammy with perspiration. He wiped them, one after the other, on his trouser leg and took a firmer grip on the revolver. He and Feiffer went into the second room.

On the roof, The Chopper Man took up position behind the tipped over plywood table the Mah-Jong players had deserted. A broken neon sign a street away intermittently flash-lit the roof every two or three seconds, but it was not a good light.

On the fire escape, Spencer was between two buildings and there was no light at all. Most of the windows to the rooms had muslin curtains pulled or newspaper pages stuck across them. He went as quietly as he could up the ringing metal rungs. He was at the fourth floor. He paused, listened, but there were no sounds. He heard his own breathing. He stopped to get control of it.

The Shot In The Back Of The Head on the third floor shook his head at the end of the corridor. No more rooms. Crushed Toes nodded. He jerked his head back to the landing. The Shot In The Back Of The Head nodded. They moved towards the landing to the stairs to the second floor.

‘Nothing,’ O’Yee said.

Feiffer nodded. He glanced at Auden and then, further back, at the two constables. He shook his head to signify that so far they had drawn a blank.

‘Going up,’ O’Yee said like a hoarse lift-driver with laryngitis.

Feiffer nodded. He and O’Yee and Auden went back down the corridor to the stairs.

‘Commandos Strike At Dawn,’
O’Yee tried softly. He
couldn’t remember whether the Commandos in the film had all been killed or not.

‘Shut up—’ Feiffer hissed. They went excruciatingly quietly and carefully up the stairs to the second floor.

The Chopper Man heard someone coming up the fire escape. The Chopper Man drew himself further back behind the psychological cover of the plywood table and fingered his chopper.

The neon sign a street away went flash-pause-pause-flash-pause-flash-flash-pause—

Crushed Toes went into the second room on the second floor. He pointed to The Shot In The Back Of The Head to wait by the side of the door to give him cover. The Shot In The Back Of The Head nodded. He crouched against the wall and gave his full attention to the sounds from the second room. There was the creaking of Crushed Toes’ shoes on the floor as he moved carefully. The Shot In The Back Of The Head craned his attention to the unseen interior of the second room.

The Chopper Man began counting the infinitely careful climbing steps of the man coming up the fire escape to the roof.

The Club (With Nails) crept out of the second room on the fifth floor and went along the corridor into the third and last room. He did not see the Mongolian. The Mongolian’s eyes glittered and watched him go. Then the Mongolian padded silently to one side of the third room.

The cops stopped. Constable Sun glanced at Constable Lee and froze. O’Yee saw him too. Then Feiffer and then Auden. It was The Shot In The Back Of The Head. He had his back to them. He stood in the corridor with his back to them listening for something. Constable Sun started to move forward. He looked at Feiffer for approval. Feiffer nodded. Constable Lee asked silently for the same privilege. Feiffer flicked his finger at him to go. Constable Lee and Constable
Sun went noiselessly down the corridor towards The Shot In The Back Of The Head.

The Chopper Man counted the footsteps. They were ever so minutely louder. He thought it was the Mongolian. He was coming closer. The Chopper Man tapped his fingers against his chopper in anticipation. The sign went flash-pause-flash-pause-flash—

Crushed Toes moved through the darkened room soundlessly. His eyes pierced the shadows. He listened for the breathing of someone hiding.

In the corridor, The Shot In The Back Of The Head heard nothing. He felt something cold and hard go into his neck and he knew it was a gun. His mind stopped. He thought of his wife and children and forgot he wasn’t married. It was the Mongolian. His mind stopped.

A whisper said, ‘Gun.’ It wasn’t the Mongolian. The Shot In The Back Of The Head didn’t know whose the voice was. He didn’t know whether the voice was telling him it was a gun in his neck or whether the voice wanted him to hand his own gun over. He handed his own gun over. A hand took it. Another hand held him by the collar and drew him backwards. Another hand held another gun against his right ear.

‘Back,’ the voice of the neck gun said.

The Shot In The Back Of The Head went back.

It was the cops. On the landing, there were five cops. The five cops had five guns. The Shot In The Back Of The Head’s mouth fell open. His mind could not take having five guns pointed at it. Five was too many. His mouth fell open.

‘Mongolian,’ a cop wearing a stained white suit said, ‘Where?’

The Shot In The Back Of The Head’s mouth stayed open.

Constable Lee rammed his gun barrel into it. He too said, ‘Where?’

The Shot In The Back Of The Head tried to swallow. It was difficult. He said, ‘Ahh-rumm—’

Constable Lee took his gun out of The Shot In The Back Of The Head’s mouth.

‘In there?’ the stained suit cop said.

The Shot In The Back Of The Head shook his head. He felt his dentures rattle.

‘Who?’ the mouth cop said. He brought the gun up for another tonsils job, ‘Who?’

‘Crushed Toes.’ The Shot In The Back Of The Head smiled to show how helpful he was. It didn’t come out as a smile. The mouth gun cop moved back a little from him in case he was going to vomit. The Shot In The Back Of The Head said, ‘Crushed Toes. Revolver. Second room. Mongolian. Looking for. I give up. Don’t shoot,’ and then he vomited.

Constable Lee handcuffed him to the railing. He said, ‘Stay there.’

The Shot In The Back Of The Head nodded enthusiastically. The mouth gun cop gave him one more look at the mouth gun. The Shot In The Back Of The Head kept nodding.

Feiffer and O’Yee went down the corridor to the second room. Auden stayed a little way down the corridor outside the first room to cover them. Feiffer drew a breath. He heard someone moving in the unlit room. He tapped himself on the lapel with his thumb to signify that he would go in first. O’Yee did not argue. Feiffer saw a look of relief tinged with regret that his friend Feiffer was about to be killed cross O’Yee’s Chinese-Irish face. Feiffer’s confidence evaporated. He wiped his gun hand against the front of his coat, settled the weapon in his hand, and went in.

The Chopper Man saw the outline of a figure move on to the roof from the fire escape. He raised his gun and waited for the broken light to flash.

The Club (With Nails) came out of the third room on the fifth floor. He was looking down the corridor to a blank wall. The Mongolian stood poised behind him. The Club (With Nails) began to turn around.

The silhouette of the figure came directly into the Chopper
Man’s line of fire. The Chopper Man’s fingers started to take up the pressure on the trigger.

Feiffer said, ‘Police!’ and Crushed Toes opened fire. The room was pitch black. Feiffer saw something move against the window. He shot it. The figure said, ‘Oh!’ and the shooting stopped.

The Club (With Nails) jumped. The Mongolian’s fist came down like a poleaxe and smashed his collarbone. The Club (With Nails) shouted, ‘He’s up here!’ and Spencer on the roof dived for the ground as a spray of red-hot machine gun bullets passed over his head.

The Chopper Man said, ‘Cop!’ and lunged for the cover of the table. Spencer sheltered behind a pot-bellied stove that formed part of someone’s alfresco kitchen and tried to locate the Chopper Man.

O’Yee wrenched Crushed Toes out of the room and kicked his pistol down two flights of stairs. Crushed Toes said, ‘Oh—!’ and tried to staunch the blood from the hole in his leg with his hand. His progress left a trail of blood as he went bodily to the landing. Feiffer stood outside the door to the second room and wondered where the bullets had gone. He looked behind him to part of the wooden railing that had two jagged holes in it. He swallowed.

At the landing, O’Yee took his handcuffs from his belt and manacled the bleeding Crushed Toes next to The Shot In The Back Of The Head. He undid the buckle of Crushed Toes’ belt and pulled it out through his trouser loops. The blood seeped through Crushed Toes’ pants and got on the stairs.

O’Yee tossed the belt to The Shot In The Back Of The Head. ‘Do you know how to make a tourniquet?’

The Shot In The Back Of The Head gazed at him blankly.

‘Show him,’ O’Yee ordered Crushed Toes. He said to The Shot In The Back Of The Head, ‘Watch and learn. You’re in charge of the bleeding leg detail. If he dies I’ll have you charged with murder.’ He said to Feiffer and Auden, ‘Did you hear?’

‘Somewhere upstairs,’ Auden said.

Lee said, ‘Fifth floor.’

The five of them went up the stairs towards the fifth floor.

At the fourth floor, Feiffer’s mind began to work again. He said, out of breath, ‘I thought for a moment I’d killed him.’

‘Bad luck,’ Auden said. He kept waving that enormous gun of his. O’Yee said, ‘Don’t talk crap, Auden!’

They made it to the fifth floor. The Club (With Nails) was there. He was dead.