Yellowthread Street (3 page)

Now Hot Time Alice Ping had been an older badder lady for some twenty years and in that time she had learned that human flesh is a fragile thing and liable to rust and deterioration and she had put some of her money into other things. One of them was
Alice’s Goldsmith’s and Jewellery
, and she was very happy about the steady, respectable profit it returned. And because she was happy the men on Hanford Hill who you hardly ever saw were happy, and because they were happy and you hardly ever saw them and they did their thuggery and killings somewhere else the Yellowthread Street police were generally happy.

So when the Mongolian, a freelance operator, decided that Alice, and in turn the men on the hill and in turn the police, could spare a hundred dollars every so often or wouldn’t object to their manager who made them a steady profit having his hand left on the glass counter while he went away to do something else like bleed to death, he set in motion a number of events which led to everyone being so sure he weighed in at two hundred and eighty-five pounds exactly even with his shaven head.

The Mortuary people are very precise about such things.

The first reaction the manager of Alice’s little enterprise had when the Mongolian suspended the kukri above his right tentacle was to smile knowingly at him and say, ‘Piss off.’

The Mongolian, feeling his winning streak might well desert him if he was to let this go unchallenged, hit him in the face
with his left hand collection of brass rings.

‘A hundred dollars,’ the Mongolian said. He was not a man to be swayed from his purpose.

‘Big mistake,’ Alice’s manager said as best he could.

‘A hundred dollars,’ the Mongolian said, ‘O.K.’

‘
You
are making a big mistake,’ Alice’s manager said.

The Mongolian hadn’t realised that this was what he had meant. He had thought Alice’s manager had been apologising. He brought the kukri down on to the glass table, passing in midflight through Alice’s manager’s hand, and chopped off all his fingers.

‘Live round here,’ the Mongolian said before the look on the manager’s face changed to screaming. He tapped at his massive chest with his thumbnail, ‘Be back.’ He glanced at the mournful fingers on the glass display counter and went out.

Alice’s manager’s assistant rang first Hot Time Alice, who rang the men on the hill, who made a suggestion, and then he rang the hospital. He could not decide what the men on the hill, what Alice, and in that order, what the manager would expect him to do with the fingers so, being a cautious man who wanted to offend no one, he left them where the manager had left them, on the glass counter.

The Mongolian went next door, collected his hundred dollars without argument—the screaming coming from next door and the blood on the kukri helped the owner decide without undue fuss—and decided to take a break.

‘Mr—?’ Constable Cho asked politely. The man had been drinking and he kept belching fumes that made the Constable’s eyes water.

‘Skilbeck,’ the man slurred. Constable Cho wrote down
Gilpeck.
‘Goddamned stupid—bitch has walked off.’ He belched.

Constable Cho wrote, ‘Missing person—’

‘Goddamn bitch,’ Mr Skilbeck said, ‘Motherfucken airline lost the motherfucken luggage and this son-of-a-damn-poor-bitch hasn’t got anywhere to stay until—’

‘Have you got money?’ Constable Cho asked. He thought—

‘Motherfucken Traveller’s Cheques,’ the man said ‘Got mother—’

‘Please don’t use language,’ Constable Cho said. ‘Your wife’s lost?’

‘Right.’

Constable Cho glanced back at the desks. Spencer and Auden had gone out to investigate another report from the rickshaw driver that he had been bashed. It was the same rickshaw driver every night. Feiffer and Sun were out with the murders in Cuttlefish Lane, and Constable Lee had gone round to the street water taps to leave a police sign saying the water was off and wouldn’t be turned on again until further notice. He didn’t count Minnie Oh because he thought it wasn’t a woman’s business and he thought the language would shock her. He didn’t have an overwhelming urge for Minnie Oh, but he didn’t want her to think he condoned swearing.

He said to the man, ‘Leave it an hour, Mr Gilpeck, and if your wife’s in this district she’ll come here.’

Mr Skilbeck belched, shrugged, and belched again, then went out.

Constable Cho wiped his eyes and thought he had handled that very well. He put the report in the Pending tray which, on principle, no one ever looked at.

‘Goddamned illiterate Chinese cop,’ Mr Skilbeck said in the street and belched again. He lurched off to find a bar.

He finally found one named
Alice’s
on the corner of Wanchai Street and Icehouse Street and went in.

Feiffer found a bar with a window looking out on Cat Street and waited for the food stalls to open for the night.

The manager’s office had a framed advertisement for a film called
In Her Arms
with Warner Baxter and Elissa Landi and Paul Cavanagh (in smaller type) and an Alfred Hitchcock movie called
Suspicion.

Each time they kissed
. . . the Warner Baxter movie warned,
there was the thrill of love . . . THE THREAT OF MURDER!
It had Sir Cedric Hardwicke in it and Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine.

The other one said,
Oriental pride yields to Parisian kisses in a duel of male might and female charm . . . an exotic drama of love’s sublime cruelty.
O’Yee thought, ‘My wife would like that one.’

‘Have you got your gun?’ the manager asked. He kept his voice low and craned forward eagerly like a rancher buying a fast-draw killer. In
Billy the Kid
, O’Yee thought,
Starring Johnny Mack Brown, Wallace Beery and Lucille Powers, a King Vidor Production, a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer All Talking Picture.

‘I’m not a gunfighter,’ O’Yee said, ‘I represent law and order.’
High Noon starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly directed by Fred Zinnerman and a Stanley Kramer Production.

‘I don’t want to get robbed,’ the manager said.
Howard Hawks’ Great Production Red River Greatest Spectacle Ever starring John Wayne and
—

‘I’ve seen the film you’ve got on:
McQ.
All the cops get killed.’

‘You’ll be out in the cashier’s box and I expect you to stop me getting robbed,’ the manager said sourly. ‘You’ve got no right to get killed.’

O’Yee nodded. It felt less and less like a movie by the moment. He took his coat off and satisfied the manager’s eager stare that there was indeed a revolver under there, took his shoulder holster off and handed the gun to the manager. He was about to say, ‘Does that make you feel better?’ when the manager covered the gun with his silk pocket handkerchief and was gone, carrying the wrapped-up .38 out to the cashier’s box like an offering to an altar.

‘An exotic drama of
—’ O’Yee read and went out to hold the ranch.

*    *    *

Feiffer looked at his watch. It was nine o’clock. People came drifting in groups from Hanford Road and Wyang Street towards the opening food stalls. A few family members sat themselves down in front of their father’s or husband’s or brother’s stalls to give the impression of a desirable rendezvous, but most of the drifters were on their evening meal break and knew their favourite stall or where they could get quick service or other woodcarvers or shoemakers or toy-assemblers might be found and they made for them. Or they did not own their own woodcarving, shoemaking or toy-assembly business, were employees and wanted to keep well away from other woodcarvers, shoemakers or toy-assemblers. The smell from the charcoal fires and the cooking meat and noodles and bamboo shoots rose with the grey smoke as the cooks set to work and the rice bowls and chopsticks were laid out on wooden counters. Feiffer ordered another beer from the bar owner and motioned him to bring it over.

The bar owner was a large, fat Northern Chinese named Lop with puffy eyes and a soiled napkin in the front pocket of his apron and he knew who Feiffer was.

‘You know who I am,’ Feiffer said.

The bar owner shook his head. He didn’t know anything. He uncapped the bottle of Tiger beer and left it on the table.

‘Just a minute,’ Feiffer said.

The bar owner sniffed and turned back.

‘You know who I am,’ Feiffer said, ‘I’m a police officer.’

The bar owner nodded resignedly. It took all kinds.

‘I’m looking for someone.’

The bar owner nodded again. If he had been Jewish the nod would have meant, ‘So what else is new?’

‘Chen,’ Feiffer said.

The bar owner, who spoke English, said, ‘Smith.’

‘Chen and Wang.’

‘Smith and Jones.’

‘They own a food stall.’

The bar owner shook his head.

‘It isn’t licensed.’

The bar owner recoiled in horror. He raised his eyebrows. He said, ‘No?’

‘I’m asking you to assist the police.’

The bar owner turned his gaze on to the street outside, then back to Feiffer. He shrugged. His shrug said he had looked, thought about it, and was totally dejected at the loss of his one chance in life to do his small part towards the maintenance of an ordered society and the triumph of good over evil. He lit a cigarette and put the dead match in Feiffer’s ashtray.

‘Don’t want to get involved,’ Feiffer said. ‘You have to live around here.’

‘Don’t want to get involved,’ the bar owner said. ‘I have to live around here.’

‘You’re Northern Chinese.’

The bar owner nodded.

‘First generation Hong Kong?’

The bar owner nodded again.

‘Has Daddy got an entry permit?’

The bar owner nodded.

‘Mummy?’

The bar owner nodded.

‘So I can’t pressure you?’

The bar owner shook his head.

‘You’re not going to tell me where Chen is?’

The bar owner shook his head.

‘So you know him?’

The bar owner shook his head.

Feiffer switched to English. ‘Do you want to tell me in English?’

The bar owner shook his head. He wasn’t going to say ‘No’ or ‘Yes’ in another language. Some of the other customers were watching and they might not be as educated and bilingual as he and consequently get the wrong idea and come back tomorrow night and kill him.

‘What’s your name?’ Feiffer said in Cantonese.

‘Lop.’

Two of the customers left.

‘No point in threatening you?’

The bar owner ran the soiled bar towel around Feiffer’s table top and shook his head.

‘Tax,’ Feiffer said.

‘What?’ the bar owner said.

‘I said, tax. I want to see your tax returns for the last three years and the accounting books, the petty cash sheet and the contents of the cash register, your bank books and an inventory of your possessions, the lease of this bar, your marriage certificate, your family’s entry permits, your father’s tax papers and the contents of your pockets. The pockets first.’

The bar owner looked at him.

‘Turn out your pockets.’

The bar owner looked at the remaining customers.

‘And then I want to see your stock and count the bottles and receipts, debts, liquor on account, cigarette records and I want to ask your customers if they’ve ever picked up girls in this bar and what your cut is and whether they were satisfied with the jig-jig.’

‘Eastern end of Cat Street,’ the bar owner said. ‘Left hand side, behind the rice stall.’

‘Forget about your tax,’ Feiffer said.

‘Chen’s an illegal,’ the bar owner said.

‘Illegal immigrant?’

‘Hmm.’

‘Wang?’

‘No.’

‘Stall licence?’

‘Forged.’

‘By who?’

‘No.’

‘All right. Seen him tonight? Chen?’

‘No.’

‘Have you?’

‘No!’

‘Trouble?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Thank you very much.’

The bar owner nodded. He thought to say something.

‘Don’t say it.’ Feiffer stood up.

The bar owner looked at the opened bottle of beer. ‘Going to pay for it?’

‘Didn’t drink it.’

‘Take it anyway.’

‘I can’t drink on duty,’ Feiffer said. His tone said he found it a shocking and immoral suggestion.

‘Not for drinking,’ the bar owner said. ‘Shove it up your arse!’

‘He doesn’t pay taxes,’ Feiffer said loudly to the other customers. ‘How can you associate with a man like this who’s going to be investigated any moment?’

The other customers left.

‘Warn Chen and I’ll come back and slice your ears off,’ Feiffer said to the bar owner and then he, too, left.

Hot Time Alice was at the hospital by the time they took her manager out from Casualty into the operating theatre for surgery. She asked the assistant what had happened and he told her. Alice said, ‘Mongolian,’ nodded, and filed the information away in a part of her jowl-heavy head where if the assistant had been filed he would have been searching for a lawyer to make a quick will.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ the assistant said. He was a thin, Hoklo speaking Southern Chinese from the boat people area of Hong Bay and he was beginning to wonder why he ever left the family vessel to waddle up on to dry land.

Alice moved her head very slowly from side to side. Her gold bangle earrings made a clinking noise like Mexican spurs on her stretched earlobes. She counted the rings on her fat fingers and then the diamonds in the rings and satisfied herself that so far all she had lost were a manager’s four fingers. She said, ‘Huhh,’ which terrified the assistant by its basic lack of hard information, and began counting the carats in the diamonds on the rings she had already counted.

‘What did he want? Money. How much? A lot.’

The assistant did not answer. He thought it might have been a complete conversation.

‘Well?’

‘A hundred,’ the assistant said. ‘We wouldn’t give it to him. It isn’t our money. It’s yours. We wouldn’t give your money away. Your money is—’

‘He didn’t chop your hand off?’

‘He might have. He was going to. I was next. He would have—I wouldn’t have given him the money if he had chopped off my whole—’