Yellowthread Street by William Marshall Read Free Book Online Page A

we’ll have a chat.’
    ‘I came over from Canton,’ Chen said, ‘I swam the Pearl River. I didn’t register because the government wasn’t accepting any more refugees.’ He jerked his head at the licence card again, ‘Wang said we could make money because if we weren’t registered we wouldn’t pay taxes. That’s why it’s such a bad location.’
    ‘Behind the rice stall.’
    ‘Hmm.’ He nodded.
    ‘Was Wang registered?’
    He thought Chen made a bitter smile. ‘He was Hong Kong born. He said he was my friend. We were partners. He took seventy per cent because he was hiding me and he got the forged licence. He was sleeping with my wife.’ He said quickly, ‘She wasn’t an illegal—just me. Wang introduced me to her and said she would be a good wife.’
    ‘Was he sleeping with her tonight?’ Feiffer asked. He kepthis eyes on the boiling oil, the knife, and on the tension in Chen’s hands and elbows.
    ‘Oh, yes,’ Chen said. The oil was simmering hot. Feiffer wondered how he could hold the wok. He thought the man probably didn’t even feel it. ‘Oh, yes,’ Chen said, ‘Oh, yes.’
    ‘And you killed them both?’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ Chen said. ‘Yes, I did that.’
    ‘You know you’ll have to come with me?’
    ‘Oh, yes.’
    ‘Come on then.’
    ‘All right,’ Chen said and threw the boiling oil at him.
    In that instant, Feiffer ducked and the oil passed to one side of him, Chen dropped the wok and reached for his knife, Feiffer yanked at the pistol and jammed it in the leather of the holster and his shirt and Chen leapt over the back wall of the wooden stall and began running towards him.
    Feiffer yanked at the gun in the crouching position and overbalanced. He fell against a stool and brought it down as Chen went past him with the knife poised in the air. He went towards the rice stall and the talkers. The talkers scattered. Feiffer yelled, ‘Stop him!’ and the talkers, without hesitation, got out of Chen’s way. He collided with the rice owner’s stall and brought an opened bag of rice crashing down from a weighing machine to one side of the counter and slipped in the cascade of grains.
    Feiffer got to his feet and ran after him. Somehow, Chen seemed caught up in the avalanche of rice. He kicked at it and took wild swipes in the air with his knife. Feiffer’s left hand began to hurt. There was oil on it, sizzling the hairs above his fingers and on his wrist. He tried to wipe it away with his other hand. Chen kicked at the near empty rice sack and yelled, ‘I’ll kill you!’ and just then the rice owner knocked him cold with a metal saucepan.
    ‘He killed two people,’ Feiffer told the rice owner when he finally managed to rearrange his holster, verify that the oil had not burned through a vital artery, and make it over to whereChen lay stretched out like a poisoned rat in a grain warehouse.
    ‘He ruined my rice,’ the rice owner said, ‘I’ll expect compensation.’
    Feiffer felt a great glow of fraternal love and gratitude towards the rice owner flow over him. ‘You’ll probably get a medal.’
    ‘Just the compensation,’ the rice owner said. ‘A good businessman protects the reputation of his neighbourhood.’
    Feiffer said—Feiffer put his mind in order and said—Feiffer pontificated, ‘A good businessman—’ but the rice owner put up his hand like a traffic policeman to stop him.
    ‘No,’ the rice owner said. He considered Feiffer carefully and judiciously. He was sorry he had ever lowered himself to intellectual dispute with him, ‘No.’
    The rice owner said, ‘I just don’t think you’re that bright,’ and commenced saving what he could of his ruined stock.
    The rush for water from the single rationed tap in the western section of Hong Bay would start in the morning, as it would for the single taps in the northern, southern and eastern areas.
    By each of the taps a Landrover carrying members of the Police Riot Squad from their headquarters near the border