Read Online Yellowthread Street by William Marshall - Free Book Online

‘I wouldn’t have shot anyone. It wasn’t a real gun!’
    O’Yee turned to look at the pistol. The fall had snapped it in half and there was a roll of toy caps sticking out of its muzzle near a collection of brittle plastic and metal springs.
    ‘All right,’ O’Yee said. ‘We don’t kill people here. We arrest them.’
    The African released a sigh of relief. He said, ‘I’m scared of guns.’
    ‘Gun?’ O’Yee said to himself. He thought, ‘Gun?’ He said, ‘Shit!
Gun!
’
    He knew he had forgotten something.
    Mrs Skilbeck said, ‘No.’ She waved Auden aside. She said, ‘I’m not talking to any of you unhelpful bastards and I’m not letting you go away for hours to talk to that Chinese girl. I’m going through to talk to that Chinese girl.’
    And she did.
    ‘Not bad,’ the manager said. He watched the police van until it disappeared around the corner, ‘It’s a pity it wasn’t more dramatic.’ He said it to the accompaniment of a burst of machine gun fire from inside the theatre, ‘Still, you got him.’
    ‘I got him,’ O’Yee said. He glanced under his coat to make sure he had remembered to put his pistol back in the shoulder holster, ‘I didn’t have to fire a shot.’
    The manager stepped back a pace and swelled his chest. ‘On behalf of the principals of this beautiful cinema and to show our esteem and gratitude for the service you have performed on behalf of the police force of this city, as the manager of this beautiful cinema theatre I have been asked by my principals to hand to you this small token of our appreciation and esteem with the best wishes of the staff and principals and management of the Peacock Cinema, Hong Bay, British CrownColony of Hong Kong. Presented to Detective Inspector O’Yee by Mr Oswald Han.’ He tapped his coat lightly with his thumb, ‘That’s me.’
    ‘Thank you, Mr Han,’ O’Yee said, ‘but we’re not allowed to take money.’
    A look of horror flitted across Mr Han’s features. ‘It isn’t
money!
’ What a suggestion—
    ‘Thanks,’ O’Yee said. Mr Han handed him a sealed envelope. O’Yee said, ‘I’ll open it in the presence of witnesses at the Police Station.’
    ‘It isn’t money,’ Mr Han said again. ‘It certainly isn’t money.’
    It wasn’t. It was a year’s free admission pass to the afternoon and morning sessions at the Peacock Cinema, Icehouse Street, Hong Bay, presented to Mr O’Yee by Mr Oswald Han, Manager—front stalls.
    ‘No,’ Minnie Oh said, ‘he hasn’t.’
    ‘Aren’t you going to look for him?’
    ‘There’s not a great deal we can do,’ Minnie said. She moved the stack of handout sheets warning whores about the dangers of VD without a regular checkup out of Mrs Skilbeck’s view. It was in Cantonese, but there were some graphic illustrations. ‘He’s only been missing a few hours. Have you tried the airport? Perhaps he’s gone back there. There hasn’t been an accident or we would have heard about it. Perhaps he’s—’
    ‘Perhaps he’s in jail!’ Mrs Skilbeck said bitterly, ‘I’ll kill him.’
    ‘No,’ Minnie Oh said. She smiled pleasantly and shook her head to show just how far removed the residents of Yellow-thread Street’s jail were from respectable American tourists from New Jersey. ‘The only people in jail here at the moment are an axe murderer and someone who won’t give his name who assaulted a policeman.’
    ‘They don’t sound like my husband,’ Mrs Skilbeck said. She rose, and sniffed at the VD brochures. She said, ‘You don’thave a very nice job for a young girl.’
    ‘No,’ Minnie said.
    ‘I’ll be back,’ Mrs Skilbeck said, and left.
    At midnight Hot Time Alice decided that business at
Alice’s
could take care of itself while she went around to
Alice’s Goldsmith’s and Jewellery
to check that the customer-deterring fingers on the display cases had been removed by the ambulancemen.
    She waddled into the store at exactly seven minutes past midnight,