A silence had fallen on the place, an ominous, tense silence. The men at
the counter had quit chewing their food, had laid knife and fork to one
side and were half turned, watching over their shoulders. The men at the
other tables had somehow tensed, and one who had his back toward me
seemed to have worked his feet under him, preparatory to a swift jump.
The Chink was engaged in flopping my steak on the greasy stove top,
crooning some weird Chinese song to himself.
And then it happened.
The man, who had his back turned, flung out of his chair and abruptly
faced me, his face working with some strong emotion. I had been ready,
and my own hand held the butt of a forty-five, concealed beneath the
table, the muzzle pointed on a line with his heart.
When he saw me, his face relaxed somewhat and his eyes narrowed. In that
split second before I had registered on his mind, when he had nothing by
which to identify me but the sound of my voice, I had sensed the emotion
which gripped him. It had been a half fear, half hate.
As it was, his face became drawn, determined. He let his hand drop from
the handle of his revolver, and strode purposefully to my table.
“Just got in the valley, eh?” he greeted.
“I have already given my order,” I said.
He was a big, burly individual, one who had played hard at the game of
life, plunged over his head with Devil’s stakes, and was continuing the
game at headlong pace. He was a creature of fierce emotions, an animal
cunning being the only indication of intelligence on his face—a face
that was scarred and seamed, warped by evil emotions. Cruelty and
cowardice showed in the line of his quivering mouth, but his hands were
steady.
“Order, hell! I ain’t runnin’ this joint. Are yuh lookin’ for work?”
“If I am I shall find it.”
His hand dropped again.
“Well, you needn’t be so damned fresh. Get this an’ get it straight. Yuh
ain’t goin’ to like it here. It’s a powerful unhealthy climate for
strangers, an’ we don’t want ’em around. Our graveyard ain’t big
enough.”
“The climate and I will get along,” I said; “but I am sorry about your
graveyard being so small. Perhaps it will be even more crowded when _I_
leave.”
He sucked in his breath in a great gasp. I could see in his eyes the
determination to reach for his guns, to have it out—and then he
stiffened, tensed. His eyes had caught the significance of my hand which
was under the table.
“I was just warnin’ yuh,” he said in a voice that had suddenly changed
its tone. His eyes squirmed about; his mouth twitched and beads of
perspiration came on his forehead. Slowly, he walked away, never turning
his back to me, his fascinated eyes on the table cloth which masked the
gun, the fingers of his hands working.
Arrived at his table, he sighed and sat down.
The men at the counter turned again to their food. The other diners
clattered knife and fork. Life in the restaurant returned to normal—and
then my ears caught the note of the Chinaman’s song. It had subtly
changed from the weird undulations of Chinese music, such as a mother
might croon to an infant, and contained a subtle note of triumph.
A few minutes more and he seemed to catch himself, looked sheepishly
about him, lowered his voice, scooped up some potatoes, spread them on
the hot platter, flopped on the steak and came shuffling along the board
floor, his beady eyes darting over my face as though they would cover
the minutest detail of my every feature. The face itself, however, was
an impassive mask of yellow skin.
He set down the food, then took his way once more through the curtained
doorway.
In a few moments he returned, glanced sharply at me once again, then
came to my table, stooped, picked up my plate, swept knife and fork into
his yellow talons, gathered bread, butter and water into his crooked
arm, and started slowly toward the curtain.
“You eatum in here,” he said over his shoulder.
For the moment I was on the point of jerking him back by the slack of
his blouse, and then, for the second time that day, I yielded to an
inexplicable whim.
I followed him through the heavy, grimy curtain, into the dim hallway,
past a few booths, and into a little compartment where, without another
word, he spread out my food on the table.
It is as useless to puzzle over the ways of a Chinaman as it is to argue
with the universe. The average man thinks of eternity as of something
distant, to come into existence on his death. A Chinaman thinks of
eternity as being present. He lives in cycles, lives in eons, and, once
having made up his mind, becomes impervious to argument.
I resumed my eating, saying no word. If words would do no good I would
not waste them. But one thing I had determined. No curtain would be
drawn across that booth, no concealment behind which a man might come
down the dim corridor and shoot me from ambush.
As though divining my thought, the Chinaman threw back the curtain over
the top of the booth, leaving the doorway open ... and then I caught
sight of the occupant of the opposite booth, caught the curve of her
shoulder, the delicate line of her stocking. The rest was hidden by the
curtain which dropped over the doorway.
I scooped up some greasy potatoes and cut at the steak, saw the curve of
the shoulder heave, and caught the sound of a stifled sob. The woman was
crying, crying not with the gentle helplessness which is the weapon of
the sex, the last resort in times of stress, but crying with anger, a
fierce, choking anger which was impotent.