Yellowthread Street by William Marshall Read Free Book Online

had only been called out once (for the lunatic rickshaw man who should have been bashed for falsely claiming he had been bashed) since he had come on duty, and Minnie Oh might wander out on her black high heels on her long, long legs and all was well.
    He decided in his perfect lassitude to clean his gun. He took it out from his top drawer in its Berns-Martin upside-down holster he had ordered all the way from America and looked at it lovingly.
    Non-regulation, it was a Colt Python with a two-and-a-half-inch barrel, and, regulation, the first chamber had been loaded with a .38. If Auden ever had to shoot anyone the .38 was what the Department decreed it should be done with, but in the next chamber—Auden had decided in an imaginative moment that the second shot would not be to save the Department’s reputation but to save Auden’s life—the cartridge was a .357 magnum.
    In the new movie at the Peacock Auden had seen the other night, John Wayne had blasted a hired assassin with a magnum and Auden had secretly quivered with excitement in his seat.
    He clicked out the cylinder and checked that the .38 roundwas next up to the hammer and the .357 was immediately after it.
    He pointed the weapon at the wall and said, ‘Wallop!’ God, he felt deliciously idle . . .
    He yawned.
    ‘Chen?’ Feiffer asked Chen quietly. The photograph had been a good one.
    Chen went on cooking pork in his circular wok over a charcoal fire. One of the eaters sitting next to Feiffer put his half-finished meal down on the counter and decided to leave.
    ‘Where’s your partner Mr Wang?’ Feiffer asked. He glanced at the licence card tacked up to one of the upright supports of the wooden stall. It said Chen and Wang and the photos were the same. The man cooking was Mr Chen, the husband, and without too much doubt, the axeman.
    ‘Do you want a meal?’ Chen asked without turning around.
    Feiffer thought, ‘My Cantonese accent isn’t that good. He knows who I am.’
    Chen went on cooking the pork, flicking minute quantities of peanut oil into the wok to keep the pork pieces sizzling.
    ‘No,’ Feiffer said, ‘I want you. I’m a Police Inspector.’
    There were three other customers sitting and standing at the stall and they too decided to leave. They went over to the rice owner’s stall and struck up an earnest conversation.
    ‘Your customers have gone,’ Feiffer said. He thought he could vault over the bench table if Chen made a run for it. He said, ‘I think you and I have something to discuss, don’t we?’
    Chen nodded. He kept his eyes on the frying pork and flicked a little more peanut oil into the wok. He turned and gazed at Feiffer and nodded again. Feiffer thought he was deciding something.
    ‘No customers,’ Chen said. His voice sounded very sad and disappointed. He emptied the half-fried pork into a bowl by the side of the fire and ladled oil into the wok. He held thewok carefully and swirled the oil about in it until it began to boil. Feiffer put his hand under his coat for his pistol.
    ‘Don’t do anything silly,’ Feiffer said, ‘there’s no reason why we can’t settle this without trouble.’
    Chen nodded. He looked down at the boiling oil and then at the long carving knife he used for the pork.
    ‘You’re not going to be silly,’ Feiffer said. His hand closed around the butt of the Colt Airweight and moved it slightly in its leather holster.
    ‘I’m an illegal,’ Chen said. He nodded towards the licence card, ‘That’s forged. I haven’t got a licence.’
    ‘Yes.’
    He was not a young man and Feiffer saw that his back was beginning to stoop, and the way he held the wok suggested that, increasingly, he found things getting heavier. He put the wok down on the charcoal fire and the oil bubbled furiously. He rubbed at his chin with a bony hand. Then he picked the wok up again and went on with his work.
    ‘You’re not cooking anything in that,’ Feiffer said, ‘I think you had better pour the oil out and