Yellowthread Street

by William Marshall

  ‘That’s very often a good trait to have,’ Low Fat said chivalrously, ‘you shouldn’t be embarrassed.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Hernando Haw said. ‘I call it subtlety.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Mr Low said. He caught Tinkerbell Lin Wong’s eyes looking at him, ‘Still, a man does have to be violent on occasion. A man has to have the thrusting fierceness of white steel.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Mr Boon said, ‘take your time.’

  ‘Look!’ Alice said suddenly. She tapped her bandages hard. It hurt. ‘Look at what he did to me!’

  ‘Poor old Alice,’ Spencer said. He fixed his attention on to the line in Chen’s statement form that said Witness To Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . Rank . . . . . . . . . . . . Number . . . . . . . . . and signed through a gauze curtain of hot tears. ‘Poor old Alice,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘Quite right,’ O’Yee said, ‘The day shift will be righteously diligent.’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Spencer said. He was the newest member of the Station and he thought they were picking on him. ‘Oh, shut up,’ Spencer said. He thought he had been so forthright and firm and policeman-ish at Alice’s. ‘Oh, shut up,’ Spencer said again.

  ‘Who’s doing all the talking?’ O’Yee asked. He began to type out the circumstances of the African’s arrest and found that any way he put it made him sound like a cross between Dick Tracy and the Lone Ranger. He said, ‘Jesus, this is going to look good on my record, this one,’ and ignored Spencer’s barely audible rejoinder of ‘Oh, shut up.’

  The barman came over to Francis John Vinehouse the tax-man as the fat stripper’s fat legs wobbled her off to the makeshift dressing room behind a curtain to put clothes on again so she could take them off.

  ‘Mr Lop,’ Mr Vinehouse greeted him.

  ‘Hullo,’ Mr Lop said. He sat down at the table unhappily, ‘More trouble?’

  ‘Not for me,’ Mr Vinehouse said. ‘For you.’

  ‘Your Cantonese is getting better,’ Mr Lop said morosely. ‘Do you want to talk in English?’

  ‘No,’ Mr Vinehouse said. There was an opened bottle of Tiger beer on the table in front of him. He slid it towards Mr Lop.

  ‘Aren’t you going to drink it?’ Mr Lop asked without interest. ‘You’re going to claim it on expenses so you might as well drink it.’

  Mr Vinehouse shook his head. The Department did not encourage intemperance.

  Mr Lop shrugged. He took up the bottle and drained it. He said, ‘Tell me the bad news.’

  Mr Vinehouse touched at the glass beside the empty bottle. Glasses were to drink things out of. ‘Entertainment,’ Mr Vinehouse said.

  Mr Lop turned the bottle upside down and watched the last drops of beer dribble out on to the table. He jerked his head to where the customers sat in hushed silence watching the silhouette of the stripper dressing behind the threadbare curtain. ‘That?’ Mr Lop asked with distaste.

  ‘Entertainment,’ Mr Vinehouse said.

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Your customers think so.’

  Mr Lop sniffed. He owned a place like this, he worked in a place like this, he drew his sustenance and the food for his children’s mouths from a place like this, but that didn’t mean he had to be lacking in taste. ‘No,’ Mr Lop said.

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Vinehouse said, ‘and you haven’t paid your tax on it.’

  ‘Entertainment tax?’

  ‘You haven’t registered it, you haven’t advised the Department of it, you haven’t made a note of it in your interim statement, and you haven’t paid it.’

  ‘O.K.,’ Mr Lop said, ‘I’ll pay it.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Well—’ Mr Lop said. He ran through a directory of possible dates, months and years in his mind. ‘Next.’

  ‘Next what?’

  ‘Next time.’

  ‘Now,’ Mr Vinehouse said. He noticed the stripper finish dressing so she could undress and the assistant barman cock the stylus arm on the plastic covered record player on the bar. ‘Now would be best,’ Mr Vinehouse said.

  ‘Hoh!’ Mr Lop said. He raised his arms and his eyes to Heaven at the suggestion, ‘If only that were possible—hoh!’ He shook his head as the unutterably sad truth about his finances and the health of his children and the temper of his wife and the infirmity of his aged parents swept over him under his mask of host and bon vivant to the world, ‘Hoh!’ Mr Lop said, ‘If only you knew—’

  ‘Arseholes,’ Mr Vinehouse said quietly. The music recommenced and the dancer brought her fat body out in front of the curtain.

  ‘Hoh!’ the barman said, a figure of abject tragedy and the aproned repository of the world’s woes, ‘Hoh!’

  Mr Vinehouse waited.

  Mr Low looked at Tinkerbell Lin Wong. He liked his people intact. He said to Mr Boon, ‘Whatever you decide.’

  The phone rang on the wall near the bar.

  Alice said, ‘Look at what he—’ but Mr Boon raised his hand to silence her and jerked his head at The Fourth Gangster to answer the telephone.

  Edgar Tan’s assistant was named Tommy Lai and he was put out. One of the display counters had been smashed, rings, earrings, cufflinks and assorted items of value lay on the floor covered in blood, Mr Tan lay on the floor covered in blood, there was blood on Tommy Lai’s shoes and in his socks, the policeman knelt down by Mr Tan’s body with blood on the knees of his khaki trousers, there was blood on the walls, and the policeman wanted to use the telephone.

  The policeman stood up from Mr Tan’s blood and said, ‘Hurry up with the phone.’

  ‘It’s ringing,’ Tommy Lai said, ‘I can’t make it go any faster.’

  Constable Cho said, ‘This is murder, I want to use the phone.’ A herd of sightseers crowded at the open door and in front of the glass windows. Constable Cho said, ‘I’m going to clear the doorway and then I want the phone.’

  At the other end of the line, the telephone stopped buzzing. ‘Hullo!’ Tommy said urgently.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Tommy Lai.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Lai, Tommy, Edgar—’—maybe, he thought, he should have said ‘The late’—‘Edgar Tan and Company, Jewellers.’

  ‘So what?’ the voice said.

  ‘Tommy Lai. They said at the house that I had to ring your number’—Constable Cho was moving the crowd away from the doorway and the window—‘Tell whoever’s there that it’s Tommy Lai.’

  ‘O.K.,’ the voice said. The voice said into an abyss, ‘Tommy Lai—’ and then put the phone down on a table or a chair.

  ‘Speak,’ another voice said.

  Constable Cho came back into the blood shop. ‘Phone.’ He came forward to take it.

  ‘Speak quickly,’ the voice said.

  Tommy spoke.

  The stripper stripped, then went back behind the curtain to dress again.

  ‘Feiffer,’ the barman said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Feiffer,’ Mr Lop said, ‘Inspector Feiffer sent you to get me.’

  ‘Who’s Inspector Feiffer?’

  Mr Lop shook his head sadly. The world was a place of unending and bitter disappointments. ‘After all we did for him.’ He shook his head sadly, ‘What a comment on the European mind.’

  ‘Tax,’ Mr Vinehouse said, ‘We got the word from the Licensing Office that this area was going to be blitzed. We work all night at the tax office these days catching up with people like you.’ It was a thankless task.

  ‘Feiffer,’ Mr Lop said sadly. ‘After all we did. We saved his life, you know. There was a madman with a knife after him.’

  ‘I don’t know any Feiffer,’ Mr Vinehouse said. ‘Tax. Or I’ll have the police close the place down.’

  ‘Ah,’ Mr Lop said. They would too, led by Feiffer. ‘Ah,’ Mr Lop said. He went over to the bar and started the record player music so that he would not hear his pen scratching on the cheque.

  ‘Ah,’ Mr Lop said to his departing bank balance, ‘Ah . . .’

  The stripper came out
from behind the threadbare curtain, half dressed and cursing.

  Mr Lop thought he would never help a cop again.

  ‘Mr Boon . . .’ Alice said entreatingly. She touched at her ear absence with lost love. She opened her hand to him in supplication, ‘Mr Boon . . .’ She leaned forward to crave his grace, ‘Mr Boon . . .’

  Low Fat looked hungrily at Tinkerbell Lin Wong.

  Mr Boon lit a cigarette and looked at the inanimate telephone on the wall.

  ‘It’s a matter of considering the profit in actions,’ subtle Hernando Haw from Macao began to explain to Alice and the gang. ‘To rush blindly in like madmen is not to consider that each action in life is intimately intermeshed with considerations of business and profitable dealing. To consider each and every action carefully and in advance is the sign of a—’

  ‘Kill,’ Mr Boon said.

  ‘Of course,’ Hernando Haw said, ‘Killing would be best.’

  ‘Kill,’ Mr Boon said.

  ‘If you like,’ Low Fat said. ‘Anything you decide is O.K. with me.’

  Mr Boon kept his eyes on the telephone. He said, ‘Kill.’

  Alice drew in her breath and turned herself into a pregnant pigeon. She ruffled her feathers happily and tapped at the ear bandages girlishly with his shoulder. She said, ‘Dee-dum,’ lightly and merrily and tapped at her ear.

  ‘Kill,’ Mr Boon said.

  ‘Kill,’ Hernando Haw said. ‘Kill the Mongolian bastard.’

  ‘Mongolian bastard,’ Low Fat said. Tinkerbell Lin Wong smiled at him secretly and he smiled back secretly at Tinkerbell Lin Wong.

  ‘My friends,’ Alice said.

  ‘My friend,’ Low Fat said to Tinkerbell Lin Wong.

  ‘My agreement,’ Hernando Haw said. He indicated that section of the seated lethal human flesh that was his. He offered it to Mr Boon’s disposition. Hernando Haw said, ‘My personnel.’

  ‘Edgar Tan and Company,’ Mr Boon said.

  ‘My dear friends,’ Alice said.

  ‘Yes?’ Hernando Haw said to Mr Boon.

  ‘My shop,’ Mr Boon said, ‘That Mongolian bastard’s dead. That was my shop!’

  ‘My God!’ The Club (With Nails) who was a failed Presbyterian said.

  ‘—my revenge—!’ Alice protested.

  ‘My shop!’ Mr Boon said and sucked his hollow tooth. He sent The Fourth Gangster out to another of his bars across the road to get more men.

  Spencer was on the phone. He said unhappily, ‘Yellowthread Street—yes, Constable Cho?’

  Spencer said, ‘Really? Gosh!’

  O’Yee glanced at him. Ah Pin the cleaner came hobbling in the front door to begin his early morning sweeping. O’Yee said to him in English, ‘Hullo, Ah Pin.’

  ‘Inspector sir,’ Ah Pin said.

  ‘What do you hear, Pin?’ Feiffer asked absently. He lifted the statement form off Spencer’s desk and checked that it was properly signed, ‘How’s life?’

  Ah Pin opened the door of the broom closet behind the main door and took out the tools of his trade.

  ‘Go on,’ Spencer said into the phone. He was scribbling details of the call on his desk blotter, ‘I’m taking it all down.’

  ‘See Miss Oh in Icehouse Street,’ Ah Pin told no one in particular. ‘No good place for lady policeman.’

  ‘She must have gone out the back way,’ Auden commented bitterly to O’Yee.

  ‘Devious,’ O’Yee said, ‘more VD notices for the girlies.’

  ‘See her near Jasmine Steps going Wanchai Street,’ Ah Pin said.

  ‘Who the bloody hell typed up this statement form?’ Feiffer demanded, ‘It’s bloody illegible. What the hell does “conteszion” mean?’ He took out his pen and changed it to ‘confession.’

  ‘Spencer,’ Auden said.

  ‘Auden,’ O’Yee said.

  ‘She go about killing?’ Ah Pin asked. He swept away two empty coffee cups and a ragged trail of cigarette butts into a cut-open one gallon tin made into a dustpan.

  Feiffer said, ‘I’m going to type these things myself in future. I do all the work and this is what I get to show for it.’ He glanced hungrily at O’Yee’s machine, ‘Does your typewriter work, Christopher?’

  ‘No,’ O’Yee said. ‘Keep your lustful eyes off my typewriter and use your own.’

  ‘Mine needs repair or someone around here needs typing lessons.’ He said to Ah Pin, ‘What killing? Oh, no. That’s all sorted out.’

  ‘You get him?’ Ah Pin asked happily. It was nice to be associated with the workings of justice. Policemen were nice to know: they gave you a feeling of security and armed might.

  ‘Yeah,’ Feiffer said, ‘he’s in the cells.’

  ‘What name?’

  Feiffer considered the illiteracy of Inspectors and the generally debilitating effect working in Hong Bay had on the English language. ‘Can’t tell you that,’ he said to Pin. ‘Not allowed. You know that. Don’t ask.’

  ‘Go on,’ Spencer said hoarsely into the phone. His breathing came more heavily and he wiped a bead of sweat away from under his eyes.

  O’Yee looked up at the ceiling fan. It was working. He said to Auden, ‘He must be talking to Sweaty Glance Minnie Oh. Either that or it’s the old white man’s burden of constipation again.’

  ‘Go on,’ Spencer said excitedly into the phone.

  ‘Bad man,’ Pin said to the floor, ‘bad man Mongolian man.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Feiffer said.

  ‘Bad killing.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Man being killed Camphorwood Lane,’ Ah Pin said as to an idiot boy, ‘bad, bad.’

  ‘What?’ Feiffer said. ‘Who’s being killed?’

  ‘Killing all over finish now,’ Pin said. He was, Feiffer had reckoned once in an idle moment, no less than eighty summers ancient, and he had one arm grown longer than the other from permanently pushing a broom across police station floors. Ah Pin said, ‘You get him quick. Good in cell.’

  ‘Who?’ Feiffer asked. He felt like an idiot boy.

  ‘Go on,’ Spencer said, but whoever it was at the other end of the telephone must have said, ‘That’s all.’ Spencer said, ‘Oh—’

  ‘Mongolian kill Edgar Tan in Camphorwood Lane,’ Ah Pin said. ‘He kill him bang! bang! chop! chop! dead.’

  Spencer hung up the phone. He paused. He regarded Feiffer with a look of secret triumph. He regarded Auden as a failed rival. He regarded O’Yee with undisguised contempt. He said, ‘You’ll never guess—’

  ‘I’ll be buggered!’ Feiffer said. He said to Spencer, ‘The Mongolian’s killed Edgar Tan in Camphorwood Lane.’

  Spencer looked at him. His mouth fell open. He said, ‘I know!’

  Feiffer looked at him. He shook his head at Spencer’s moronically fallen open countenance. Feiffer said, ‘Why the bloody hell didn’t you tell us?’ He said, ‘My God, you must be deranged!’

  Mrs Skilbeck tipped the bellboy insultingly inadequately and pulled her mouth back over her teeth. She looked at the seven suitcases on the double bed and felt her fury increase. The bellboy cleared his throat uncomfortably and pulled the door to quickly. She was bigger than he was.

  Mrs Skilbeck lit a cigarette, looked at the luggage, sucked the life out of the cigarette, smashed it into a glass ashtray on the dresser and felt furious.

  The airline label attached to the top suitcase said in gay Italic script, Sorry! But we got it back for you and we’re sorry. Honest!

  Mrs Skilbeck ripped the label off the handle and stamped her foot on it.

  She said aloud, ‘I’m going to kill him!’ and stamped on the label again. She lit another cigarette, gathered up her raffia bag, went out, and slammed the door behind her so hard the key fell out. She picked it up and stuffed it into her raffia bag and thought she wasn’t going to hand the key into some goddamned hotel clerk so he could lose it the way everything got lost around here.

  Mrs Skilbeck was furious.

  O’Yee’s phone rang. The voice, a drunken voice, said, ‘Feiffer
!’

  O’Yee handed the phone to Feiffer. He said, ‘It’s your wife.’

  ‘Hullo?’ Feiffer said pleasantly.

  ‘This is an anonymous call,’ the drunken man’s voice said, ‘I’m going to get you!’

  ‘How are you, darling?’

  ‘Feiffer?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘This is a—’

  ‘O.K.’

  ‘I’m going to get you!’

  ‘Goodbye, dear,’ Feiffer said. He hung up.

  ‘Who was it?’ O’Yee asked. They had been questioning Ah Pin. O’Yee forgot what he was going to ask. He said again, ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Where did you hear about this killing?’ Feiffer asked Ah Pin. ‘Who told you?’

  ‘I hear.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘Who was it?’ O’Yee asked again.

  ‘Who told you?’

  Ah Pin put down his broom. He glanced at the clock. Time spent talking to policemen was time not spent brooming. He rested his elbow on Feiffer’s desk and thought about it.

  ‘Well?’ Feiffer asked.

  ‘Don’t you think we ought to—’ Spencer said. He wanted to get out and solve the crime.

  ‘Cho’s there,’ Feiffer told him. ‘The body isn’t going anywhere.’ He watched Ah Pin think. It was a painful sight to see. He asked Ah Pin, ‘Well?’

  ‘It wasn’t your wife,’ O’Yee said, ‘It was a drunken man. I only said it was your wife—’

  ‘Cousin,’ Ah Pin said. ‘Cousin tell me.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Camphorwood Lane.’

  ‘What were you doing in Camphorwood Lane?’

  ‘Not me; killing in Camphorwood Lane. Ah Pin not in—’

  ‘Did your cousin see it happen?’

  Ah Pin thought about it. He shook his head.

  ‘It was a joke!’ O’Yee said desperately, ‘It was a bad joke! It wasn’t your wife at all!’

  ‘Cousin tell me in Icehouse Street.’

  ‘Where in Icehouse Street?’

  Ah Pin was a friend of the police. Without them, food would stop. Life had to go on. He said, ‘Cousin say Tan shop man killed. Big trouble. Shop of Mr Boon.’

  ‘Aye?’ O’Yee said. He forgot about the mystery of the drunken transvestite wife with the deep voice, ‘What did you say?’ He said in Cantonese, ‘What did you say?’