Authors: Lee Weeks
‘Immigration police?’ David asked.
Shrimp shook his head, slowly, cautiously, not sure what would be the best reply.
David reached out and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Good,’ he said in a deep strong voice, still maintaining the grin but this time accompanied by a laugh. David turned and nodded to his friends at the door. ‘He’s okay. Bring him a drink.’
David turned back to Shrimp. ‘You will have a drink with us, Shrimp?’
‘Sure.’
David took the top off a bottle of Coke and handed it to him. Shrimp looked him over. The heat in the room was unbearable. The heady smell of the plastic clothes wrap was overpowering. Shrimp looked back to the corridor. More Africans were staring in at him. Shrimp drank his Coke.
David slapped him again and boomed laughter. ‘I like you. Come.’ He stood and picked Shrimp up by the arm. ‘We will talk of the Mansions with you.’
He led Shrimp to the bar next door. They sat on stools
in the small space, just two tables and a dozen stools. David angled a tabletop fan onto them.
‘I’ll help you if you help me. What trouble are you here about? This place is nonstop trouble.’
‘Have you heard of a new young group of Triads called the Outcasts?’
David nodded. He began rolling a cigarette; he licked the edge of the paper with his pink tongue.
‘Of course. They are running wild in here. They take a block at a time. They were running this evening. Every night they pick on someone else. They pick on us a lot. That’s why we stick together on this landing. They don’t dare take us on together. Like little rats they watch all the time. They wait. They whistle up and down the corridors, calling to each other. It wasn’t always this bad.’ He shook his head sadly, looked down at his glass and then out at the corridor. Outside life had returned to normal. The sound of laughter and music returned. David’s face clouded with thought, his eyes filled with a faraway sorrow. ‘This place has been my home for six months. I came here looking for my brother. He’s been missing for a year now. I ask everyone here. I show them this photo.’ He took out a photo from his shirt pocket and slid it across the table to Shrimp. ‘This is my younger brother, Ishmael.’ It was a sunny photo of David with his arm around the younger man’s shoulders, he was taller than David by a few inches. He was less bulky, his young face was full of laughter. He had a baseball cap on his head. On the right side of his face he had a scar that sliced his face from his ear to his mouth.
‘Somewhere in the Mansions there is the answer to
where Ishmael has gone. If I cannot find him alive, I will find his body and have something to take home to our mother. Ishmael was a peaceful man. He liked his women, but he didn’t like to get into fights. I want to know what happened to him. Do you understand?’
‘Yes. Can you get me a copy of this photo?’
‘Yes. Take it. I have many.’
‘Do you think it has anything to do with the kids in the Mansions?’
‘Yes. I do. Someone here knows something. One of these kids knows what happened to him. Now I have watched them grow these last few months. They have lost their minds. They are out of control. They have become their own masters. They run around the roof like rats. They are always watching. They kill whoever they want to. They show no mercy. They care for no one or nothing. They are Satan’s children. I will show you something.’
They stood and David led Shrimp through to the kitchen. The smell of rotting meat was intense. Sections of a skinned goat’s carcass were hanging from the ceiling and crawling with flies. David led Shrimp into a room off the kitchen. In the corner a mattress had been laid out on the floor. A black man lay on it, on his side. His breathing noisy, his body very still. He had large wounds, pink in his dark flesh.
‘What happened to him?’
‘He was drunk. He laughed at them. They came after him with knives. The attacked him for no reason. They cut him to pieces.’
‘He needs a hospital.’
‘No. He is an overstayer, an illegal immigrant, and he
is dying. He will be dead before dawn. It is better that you go.’
They left the dying man where he was and went back out to the corridor.
‘Here’s my card, David. You find out everything you can about who’s controlling these kids, who’s at the heart of it and I will do everything I can to find out what happened to your brother.’
Shrimp looked at the black men and he saw their faces. Each one homesick, sad and scared of dying.
David gave Shrimp his card in exchange and he held on to it with two hands and looked Shrimp in the eyes. ‘We will meet again, Shrimp. Remember my face and I will remember yours.’
Mann left Victoria in the Oceans bar and headed back to Nathan Road. He needed a drink. He walked through the lobby of Vacation Villas.
In an overcrowded town where there often wasn’t room to walk on the pavements it was strange to feel lonely. Mann didn’t recognize the concept of loneliness. He just didn’t like going home. Home was where he had things to face. Out on Hong Kong’s streets is where he belonged. He walked through the lobby and up the sweeping staircase into the large lounge area. It was all deep, cushioned sofas and leather armchairs, low wooden, glass-topped coffee tables. At the far end was a massive TV screen relaying the latest sport coverage from around the world. He said hello to the hovering waitresses in their unattractive cheongsams that looked like they had been made by the same tailor who made the sofa covers and curtains, and walked straight through to the bar: a twenty-foot rectangle. People sat around it like bored guests at a dinner party, trying not to make eye contact with one another.
As he walked in, Mann gave a discreet nod to one of the three Filipinas singing on a stage at the end of the
room. They wore matching dresses and had the same hair extensions. But only one had a good voice – that was Michelle, the oldest on the far right. She clocked him and gave a nervous nod of the head back as she kept up her pretty good rendition of Dolly Parton’s ‘Nine to Five’whilst the other two, Cindy and Sandy, practised their synchronized hip movements. A Filipino named Trex banged out the tune on the drums and a Chinese named Tim played the keyboard. They worked right through the night every night, as long as the bar was open so were they. Michelle looked tired, thought Mann. Her face was rubbery, her features barely registering the changes of emotion from one line of the song to the next. Her eyes kept flicking back to him.
Mann made space at the bar, ordered a large vodka on the rocks and checked out his other inmates around the rectangle. They were the usual suspects – forty-somethings, lonely men staring into their drinks, flicking the odd peanut into their mouth. Next to him three men in their late forties were huddled around a young Chinese hooker in her early twenties. They were transformed from boardroom ball breakers into beaming schoolboys. What was it about Western men and Asian hookers? Unlike Asian men, who were the biggest users of prostitutes in their own countries, the foreign man liked to believe he was getting a girlfriend for his money. He took her on holiday, walked hand in hand along moonlit beaches.
Mann didn’t have any moral high ground to even teeter on. He had paid for sex himself, but only the once. It had been as sexy as taking a crap. Mann liked to please his women. He liked to feel they were both in the same
sexed-up space. For him any sex was definitely not better than no sex. He liked to take his time, it gave him pleasure. He didn’t feel like it when there was a meter running. He looked across at Michelle, she was getting more nervous. She looked about to leg it. If Michelle was looking shifty, she had a reason.
He took his drink from the barman and was about to take his first sip when it was almost knocked out of his hands.
‘I do apologize,’ a man next to him spoke. He was English, in his mid-forties, with black curly hair, large light-grey eyes. ‘Let me get you another.’
‘No need.’
The barman handed Mann a napkin to wipe his arm.
‘Please, I insist.’ He signalled to the barman who replaced Mann’s glass with a fresh one. ‘Cheers.’ He raised his glass. ‘My name’s Peter Thorne.’
Mann raised his. ‘Johnny Mann. Thanks for the drink. You passing through?’
‘Yes. Here for three nights then on to the mainland. What about you? You live here?’
Mann nodded. Two girls walked past and gave them the eye. He grinned at Mann. ‘Temptation everywhere you look here. How does a married man cope with it?’
Mann shook his head. The alcohol had reached the spot, he began to feel mellow.
‘I’m not married; I can get tempted all I like.’
‘Clever man. Stay single. I try to be good but it’s a lonely world on the road. I’m away from my family for eight months of the year altogether. I sometimes wonder what I’m doing it for. Like tonight – I ring home,’ he picked up
his phone, looked at the screen and then dropped the phone back on the mat, ‘no reply. My wife texts me. She’s out, of course, having fun.’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t get me wrong, she’s entitled to a life. It’s not her fault I have to work so hard.’
‘Yeah, this looks like hard work.’ Mann glanced around the busy bar at the businessmen on expense accounts.
Peter Thorne grinned sheepishly. ‘I suppose you’re right. What do you do?’
‘This and that. Import export. Excuse me.’ Mann looked back at the stage – Michelle was gone. ‘I’ll be back.’ He put his drink on the bar and went after Michelle.
He caught up with Michelle in the ladies and jammed his foot in the toilet door just as she was shutting it. ‘A word?’
‘Christ, don’t I get any privacy?’ Michelle said, quickly stuffing something back in her bag.
‘Is it my imagination or are you avoiding me? Give me your bag.’
A woman came in to use the bathroom. ‘Sorry love, we’re closed.’ Mann leaned against the door to stop her from entering.
Michelle closed her eyes, took a deep breath and handed him her bag. He tipped the contents out in the sink, took out his pen and started turning over the contents. He flicked out a man’s wallet. He opened it up. There was a driving licence on one side, a space on the other where a photo should have been. Michelle sighed heavily. ‘I never saw that before, I promise, Inspector.’
‘What were you going to do? Wait for him to be busy at the bar and then take a quick trip up to see if he’d left anything interesting in his room?’
‘I don’t know what that’s doing in there, Inspector, I swear.’
Mann put the wallet in his pocket. He picked up a box of Viagra.
‘It’s for the old guys…it helps.’
‘Very thoughtful, Michelle. And this?’ He picked up a bag of meth amphetamine. Underneath were three foil strips of small white pills. He turned it over in his hand. ‘That’s a lot of GHD. You having to knock people out first these days are you, Michelle?’
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. ‘Give me a break, Inspector. Some people get a bit nasty. It calms them down. It doesn’t do them any harm. They think they had a good time.’
Mann shook his head and gave her a scathing look.
‘I have kids to feed.’
‘Your eldest is Lilly, right? I went to her school today. Did you know she was a budding young Triad? If she hasn’t already, it won’t be long before she takes the oath and then there’s no going back. A young girl was murdered. Is that what you want for Lilly?’
She slumped back to rest her bottom on the basin and sighed heavily, closing her eyes for a few seconds. ‘I don’t know what she gets up to any more. I tried my best. I honestly did, but she is nothing but trouble. I wash my hands of her. Night after night she’s out, I don’t know where. Rizal says he can’t keep an eye on her. He’s busy with the other children and the business and Rizal and Lilly don’t get on – they fight all the time. If you can teach her some manners, go ahead.’
‘How’s the stall going? You making money?’
In the harsh make-up mirror Mann could see how spent she looked. Her eyes were dark and puffy.
‘It’s okay, I make the food before I come to work. Rizal sells it—’
‘Or he gets a girl to sell it whilst he plays dice with his friends and then takes all the money, right?’
Michelle nodded but rolled her eyes and shrugged.
‘You’re a mug, Michelle. He’s more of a pimp than a partner. I thought you would have learnt your lesson by now. You don’t make it easy on yourself’
‘I know. I know.’ She shook her head and turned back to check her make-up in the mirror. ‘Ah well. It’s my fate, huh? It’s the way of the world. I must have been something very bad in my last life, huh?’ She shook her head. ‘Have a heart, Inspector. I know you’ve helped me out now and again and I appreciate it.’ She tilted her head to one side and smiled at Mann.
‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make a deal with you, Michelle. I’ll keep an eye on Lilly and do what I can, if you start being a proper mother to her and look after her, keep her off the streets. If you don’t, I’ll charge you with stealing from the hotel guests and you’ll be back to singing in the slums of Manila.’
Michelle began shovelling her belongings back into her handbag.
‘You are very kind to me, Inspector.’ She stopped, mid-lipstick application. ‘You are a good man. Are you married yet?’
Mann took that as his cue to leave. ‘Sorry. I’d love to talk about my private life but I have to go. Remember, I’ll be keeping an eye on Lilly for you, Michelle, but
get a grip on your life before it’s too late. You have a lot to offer the right person, don’t put up with shit and get clean so you can think straight.’
Michelle had switched off. Her eyes were on the bag of ice. He knew she was just waiting for him to leave before having a quick snort – enough to see her through the next hour or two.
On the way out, Mann passed Peter Thorne. ‘Remember,’ Mann picked up his drink and downed it, ‘regret’s a bastard to live with.’ Peter Thorne blinked rapidly, his eyes magnified by his glasses. ‘Take care.’
‘What can you tell me about this guest?’ Mann showed the receptionist his badge and the ID card he’d found in the wallet he’d taken from Michelle.
She tapped away on the PC. ‘Mr Max Kosmos. American engineer. He has been with us for three nights and is due to check out tomorrow. He is a regular customer of ours.’
‘Do you know where he is right now?’
‘I rang his room an hour ago but got no reply. He missed a reservation he made for dinner in the restaurant here.’
‘What’s the room number?’
‘One sixteen, on the sixteenth floor.’
‘Is this key going to work?’ Mann took out the key from Max Kosmos’s wallet and handed it to her. She fed it into the key holder.
‘Yes, sir. That’s the one he has been using. He has two keys issued to him.’
Mann took the elevator to the sixteenth floor. He looked down the corridor: turquoise carpet, dried flowers in brass bowls on three-legged tables. He looked back to the door. The ‘Do not disturb’ sign was still hanging from the doorknob.
A newspaper was propped up against the wall. The trolley of fresh linen was halted where it had been waiting to change the sheets in the nearby rooms.
Mann knocked. ‘Mr Kosmos. Security. I need a word.’
No reply.
Mann knocked harder. He waited. Still no reply. He slipped the card key in and out and the lock light turned from red to green. He turned the handle and pushed the heavy door open just enough to see that another room key was already in the power slot just inside the door. Someone was home. He slid Delilah from his boot and pushed the door open further. The room was lit by a sidelight. To the left of the door the bathroom light was on. The room was silent except for the air con. It was cold.
Mann held the door open with his foot whilst he stood for a few minutes in the doorway. Even though Mann couldn’t see it, he smelt it. The first rule of a crime scene: take in everything, let your senses register it all. Now he smelt it the way connoisseurs smell wine, the overtones of blood, the undertones of butchery and death. This was a big room – plush. He couldn’t see the bed. The television was on low in the background, it was an English channel, BBC World News. Mann stepped further inside the room. The door sprang closed with a click behind him. To his right was a wardrobe, desk and minibar. There were a couple of used glasses, whisky miniatures and small can of Coke. A half-drunk bottle of champagne was further along the desk. Just where Ruby had left it.
‘Oooh, champagne.’ Ruby picked up the bottle in the top of the fridge. ‘For me?’ she pouted.
‘You must be joking. It cost more than you. Put it back.’ Max Kosmos laughed hard at his own joke.
Ruby pretended to laugh with him. She squeezed his arm. ‘You got great physique. What you weigh, two hundred twenty pounds?’
‘Two hundred and twenty-five pounds of pure beef, baby.’ He laughed.
Ruby smiled as she turned her back to him. She stuck her bottom in the air and hitched up her dress a little to distract him as she reached inside the small fridge to get his drink out. She turned to look at him over her shoulder, made sure his eyes were glued to her rising skirt whilst she stirred the sedative into his drink. She would start with a small amount; she only wanted to make him tired enough so that she could tie him up. She didn’t want to knock him out so that he wouldn’t feel the pain. She poured herself a small shot of gin and a lot of orange.
‘Here, big man.’ She handed him the drink and clanked her glass against his. ‘Down in one, yes?’ She needed to make him drink it fast. She watched him drink it down and she swallowed hers in one gulp and then she poured him another.
‘Cheers.’
She clashed her glass against his. She could see his lips were wet, she smelt his sweat beneath his aftershave. She knew what he’d be thinking: he could handle his drink, and that it wouldn’t be him who was drunk. He would think he was being clever and that he knew these Asian women. They took some loosening up. A few drinks and she’d be legless with her arse in the air. He could be in for a good night. Cheap too: he could probably get away without paying her.
After all, who was she going to complain to? She was nobody and he was Mr International Businessman.
Mann pushed the bathroom door open just enough. This was a plush room, marble finish. Toiletries lined up on the back of the basin, once neatly rolled facecloths now soaked with blood. Someone had cleaned up in there and not cared about the mess. Blood ran down the sides of the sink. Bloody pools washed over the marble top. Blood stained the fluffy white towels. He looked at the mirror. In the centre were smudges: kisses in pink.
Ruby breathed onto the mirror and drew a heart in the mist and put an arrow through it. On one side she wrote Ruby and on the other she wrote a man’s name, then she leant forward and kissed the cold mirror. She drew back sharply as her lip caught on a minute crack in the glass. A round drop of blood quickly bulged on her top lip and then dribbled down, she tasted it with her tongue, she touched it and watched it spread across her fingertips, a pretty colour: ruby red. She told herself that was why she had called herself Ruby. Rubies were precious, rare, the colour of a fresh cut just made, fresh blood spilt. But, someone else had named her it, the man who never came back, the man who left her to carry her baby alone and it had all been too much for her to bear. He had named her Ruby but it wasn’t because she was precious.
She stopped to listen to him calling her from the bedroom. He sounded different, tired. She checked her watch. It had been ten minutes. The drug would be working by now. ‘Clever girl, Ruby,’ she said to herself in perfect English. ‘You’re a
clever girl, Ruby. Now you get your reward.’ She opened her handbag and gently slid her hand inside. She felt the cold metal of the scalpel and of the saw’s handle. She felt the handcuffs. She patted them. ‘Soon…very soon…’
Mann left the bathroom and took two steps further into the room. Mann’s feet trod silently on the hotel carpet: browns, golds, mottled blood, soft and sticky underfoot. The room was cold and still, and had the smell of a morgue. The air con hummed like a waterfall. From the television came a newsreader’s droning voice. The colours from the screen seeped into the room’s atmosphere. Mann listened hard. There was no sound of breathing or sleep. To his right the wardrobe door was open. The safe door was locked. The bed was just around to his left now, past the bathroom wall. The corner was coming into view.
Ruby emerged from the bathroom and walked around the corner. He was sat in the chair by the bed.
‘Why aren’t you naked?’ She went over to him and he tried to pull her onto his lap. His speech was slurred, his eyes rolling. She giggled and wriggled away. He tried to stand but he lurched and stumbled down again. He fell against the chair and tried to pull himself upright. He shook his head to try to clear it. His body swayed as he tried to stay standing. Ruby steered him towards the bed. His hands were grabbing her. She pushed him down on the bed. She stood over him and waited. She heard his breathing deepen and felt his body slump.
‘Cheers.’ She saluted his unconscious frame and poured champagne over his face to see if he would stir. His chest
rose and fell. She placed the ball gag into his mouth and dragged him a little further up the bed. She lifted his arms above his head, handcuffed them and then tied them around the headboard; she took off his trousers, slowly, carefully, then his boxers. She opened his legs wide, took her tape and secured each leg to the bed. She took out her scalpel and cut around the shoulder joint, watching him all the time to make sure she had got the dosage right. His brow wrinkled and he groaned in pain. Ruby cut deeper. Yes, she was a clever girl. She knew how much to give him so that he could not move but he would still feel every cut she made.
Mann stepped over clothes scattered on the floor: a man’s shoes, a pair of men’s jeans: one leg inside out. He looked up. There were arcs of blood across the ceiling. The edge of the bed came into view. He saw a man’s feet. He came around the corner. The bed was turned dark brown with blood.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he uttered aloud as he looked at the headless, pulped body of a man lying on the bed.. He walked around to the side of the bed. On the bedside table lay a family photo covered in blood.