Gelignite Read Free Page B

just think we should, that's all.'
    'The Water Police'll find it, or it'll be washed up on the evening tide, or tomorrow. Maybe never. It's just a leg. If it was a head it'd be different, but after all, it's only a bloody leg—'
    'I think we should stay.'
    Feiffer looked at him. He said, 'Unless you can give me some sort of strong reason, you can forget it. For all I know you just have a fascination about putting all the little wooden pieces together in bloody puzzles and jigsaws. For all I know, you—'
    'You shut your goddamned mouth!' 
    'What the hell is the matter with you?' 
    'Nothing's the matter with—'
    Feiffer said evenly, 'I'm ordering you to go to shore and that's all there is to it. We'll probably hear the leg's been found tomorrow or the next day and that'll all be fine and neat, but we do have other cases current in this district and I'm not about to waste all my detectives for the rest of the bloody day just to find a bit of dead meat that's probably been eaten by the bloody fishes anyway! Now bloodywell get back to shore !'
    O'Yee looked at the beach. The crowd was moving forward past Auden and Spencer to where Sun and Lee took off their waders by the second police car. Sun said something to Lee and they both got quickly into the vehicle and drove off. The crowd turned to the shoreline and looked out at O'Yee. 
    Feiffer said, 'Go on. In.' 
    'I'd like to stay, Harry.' 
    'No.'
    'I mean it.'
    'So do I. We've got other work and it's just as important— more so.' 
    'If you could just spare me for—' 
    'No.'
    O'Yee said, 'You can't have any objection if I—' He said, This isn't the scene of a possible crime anymore. I mean, now anyone can come here and—' 
    'Anyone who's off duty. But you're not.' 
    O'Yee looked at the crowd. He said, 'I meant, them !' 
    'They can do what they like.'
    O'Yee said, 'I've never had very much time for religion or —for that sort of thing...' 
    Feiffer began wading in towards the shore. 
    O'Yee thought, "If I call out to them—to the crowd—they'll come in and look for the leg because they all believe it" He thought, "They ought to. Maybe they don't." He thought, "Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's the European side of me trying to be so goddamned Chinese there isn't a Chinese on earth who'd know what the hell I was talking about." He thought, "Maybe I'm imagining it all. Maybe they're just curious ghouls counting the grisly remains." He thought, "If I don't call them, I'll imagine they'll all be looking at me and feeling disgusted." He thought, "And if I do call them and they don't know what I mean, I'll look foolish." He thought, "It'll be a loss of face, Chinese or no." He thought, "They're all from this district: I have to make them take me seriously as a policeman or I'll be finished." Something in the water bumped against his knee. He thought, "If I don't say anything I'll never know." 
    Feiffer said irritably, thinking of the caseload, 'Are you coming?'
    The object bumped his knee again. O'Yee thought, "I'll never know." He knew what the object was without looking at it. He took out a plastic bag and bent down to recover it.
    He took the leg into shore with a puzzled expression on his face.

1
    As usual they were tearing Yellowthread Street down preparatory to rebuilding it up. Or, they were rebuilding it up preparatory to tearing it down. It was a mess. It was a mess five times a year. Fives times a year Yellowthread Street was torn down or rebuilt. Standing outside his ivory shop on the corner of Canton Street, Mr Leung sighed. A giant pneumatic hammer went hammer, hammer, hammer, HAMMER! in the foundations of a torn-down or rebuilt office block; there was someone working with a nail gun high up on the flat roof of a half demolished post office branch (soon to be a bank office branch): POW! POW! POW! POW-POW! (as someone else with a nail gun gunned nails); a climbing crane balancing a half ton block of cement for the third floor of someone's prestigious