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the only rice supplier in this immediate area. So it is you who would have supplied rice to the food stall that is now closed because the owners are bad businessmen and do not anticipate demand.’ He thought, this is driving me crazy.
    ‘No,’ the rice owner said.
    ‘Your competitors supply it because you are a lousy businessman?’ Feiffer asked.
    ‘I supply it!’
    ‘So you are a good businessman.’
    ‘I am!’
    ‘Ah,’ Feiffer said. It was time for the crunch. He had trodden the paths of logic and inner purity carefully and now it was time for the reward. ‘At what time do you supply the night’s rice to the food stall of Chen and Wang?’
    A slow smile creased the rice owner’s face. It displaced several grains of rice from the corners of his mouth and turned him from a mere rice owner to a sage among the illiterate and unread masses.
    ‘A good businessman keeps his transactions confidential.’
    Feiffer closed his eyes. He felt his philosophical mantle drop from his shoulders. ‘When do they buy their fucking rice?’
    ‘Oh,’ the rice owner said. He had been enjoying the meeting of like minds.
    ‘Well?’
    The rice owner looked at his ex-adversary and saw only a mere European.
    ‘Don’t know,’ the rice owner said.
    Feiffer drew a deep breath. He looked away from the rice owner’s face to avoid doing it violence and saw that the food stall of Chen and Wang had been open for some time. Customers sat on stools around it munching their suppers in epicurean peace and clicking their chopsticks.
    ‘A good businessman—’ the rice owner began in a kindly tone.
    ‘Go to hell!’ Feiffer said.
    The rice owner looked disappointed and rejected. He fixed Feiffer with a sad smile, thought that such was life, and went back to his rice bags.
    ‘I’ve lost my wife,’ Mr Skilbeck said.
    ‘Oh,’ Apricot Tang Lee said, ‘poor boy.’
    ‘Lost her.’
    Apricot Tang Lee poured him another drink from the bottle on the table.
    ‘Yeah,’ Mr Skilbeck said. ‘She’s gone.’
    ‘She dead?’ Apricot Tang Lee asked. She poured Mr Skilbeck another drink.
    ‘Gone,’ Mr Skilbeck said. ‘I don’t care.’ He looked at Apricot Tang Lee’s breasts, ‘What’s your name?’
    ‘Apricot.’
    ‘That’s nice,’ Mr Skilbeck said. He leaned back in his chair and downed the drink.
Alice’s
was almost three quarters full, what he could see of it in the gloom of the dimmed lights. The tables were up on little platforms around the walls with bamboo curtains dividing them off from the ones in the centre of the floor. ‘You’re nice,’ he said again. ‘I’ve always liked Chinese girls.’
    Apricot laid her hand on Mr Skilbeck’s crotch. ‘Chinese girls know how to treat a man,’ Mr Skilbeck said.
    ‘Hong Kong girl like American man,’ Apricot said. She ran her other hand across Mr Skilbeck’s shoulders and then over his bald head, ‘Hong Kong girl Apricot like smooth head.’ She stroked his cheek, ‘Whiskers.’ She giggled.
    ‘Stupid bitch,’ Mr Skilbeck said. He looked at Apricot Tang Lee’s breasts under her imitation silk cheong sam top that ended in a mini skirt, ‘My wife—stupid bitch.’
    ‘I got long leg,’ Apricot Tang Lee said. She pulled the hem of her skirt back under the table and twisted her toes from left to right, ‘See?’
    Mr Skilbeck drew a deep breath, then let it out in a whisky-rubbery sound.
    ‘Funny!’ Apricot Tang Lee said and giggled.
    Mr Skilbeck did it again.
    ‘This’s a nice place you’ve got here,’ Mr Skilbeck said heavily. What he could see of it looked dim and gloomy and sequined. Nice. ‘This all there is of it?’
    ‘Rooms upstairs,’ Apricot said. She poured him another drink. ‘Rooms for very naughty boys.’
    Mr Skilbeck looked at her breasts again.
    ‘Nice,’ Apricot Tang Lee said.
    ‘Yeah.’ He downed the drink and looked at Apricot Tang Lee’s legs and breasts. He thought this was a nice place. He thought, American women—‘American