by Lee Weeks
She passed Hafiz at the entrance to the Mansions. She hardly noticed him step in behind her but she knew he would be there. The Africans were watching him nervously too. Ruby felt Hafiz’s hand brush her arm. She turned and looked at him and smiled. He stared hard at her and then grinned. She nodded. He pulled a whistle from his pocket and let out three small beeps and one long blast and repeated it three times. Ruby walked quickly away from him. She took the stairs up to her floor. She cocked her head, pausing to listen at each landing. She heard the whistles being answered. The Mansions were coming alive with the sound of running feet.
‘He’s on the next landing,’ Hafiz shouted. This was Block C, floor twelve. Doors banged shut as the familiar whistles went up and down the landing. It was replica bag land, knock-off watches and fake designer goods, full of small factories, guesthouses, apartments.
‘Corner him,’ came a reply.
They chased their victim down the corridor. Their voices bounced off the concrete walls, their feet thundered and echoed up the piss-ridden stairwell and down the dark landings. The sickly hue of strip lighting threw their shadows up the graffiti on the walls.
‘Don’t let him get away,’ a girl shouted back.
The African ran till his heart was bursting. He ran blindly, not able to stop and listen; he heard the cries from every direction. He knew they were coming for him. Their feet thundered, their voices ripped the walls apart. He saw them at the other side of the stairwell door. He had nowhere left to run. Beside him was the shaft that dropped all the way to the bottom of the Mansions. He went to climb in, it was dark, filthy. Cables and sewage pipes clung to its walls but there was nothing for him to hang on to. He turned to face them. They were kids, wild eyed, panting from their chase. They held knives in their hands. He held his hands up for peace, surrender, compassion. One of them lunged forward and cut his forearm down to the bone. He cried out in pain as he withdrew his arm, cradled it, looked frantically around for an escape route. They closed in a circle around him. They were behind him now, all around.
‘Come on kids…please. That’s enough now. Let me go. I am sorry for whatever…please.’ Blood poured from his wounds; it dripped onto the stone floor.
He didn’t get to finish his sentence. They attacked him from all sides, slashing with a frenzy. Hafiz stamped on his dying body. The African’s eyes popped from his skull and his teeth clattered on the concrete floor.
Chapter 27
Shrimp brought Rajini’s parents back from the morgue and left them at the entrance to the Mansions. He went to the middle of the ground floor where there was a plan of the Mansions’ layout. He took the stairs up to the next landing. The Africans stopped what they were doing to watch him pass. They followed him down corridors overcrowded with people, constantly moving. The smoke bit into his eyes. There was no ventilation in the narrow corridors. There was no natural light whatsoever. The wailing of an Indian woman singing was reaching a crescendo. There was not one part of China there.
He looked back to see if he was still being followed. Ahead of him the corridor had turned into a mini Lagos. The black men leant on walls, sat on the floor on rugs smoking. They filled the air with the boom of their deep voices. The air was thick, pungent with cigarette smoke and cooking. Shrimp was approaching the end of the corridor, now he was the only non-African on that side of the landing. He stopped, turned and started back down the way he’d come. Five of the men blocked his way. Shrimp recognized the man from the lift. He looked at his feet. He was the one with the cool trainers. Shrimp smiled. He grinned back. He was brutally handsome: his features were hardened by scars. His eyes had a light of some inner mischief. The others weren’t smiling.
‘Excuse me. Do you know where I can buy some trainers like that?’
‘Come with us.’
Shrimp felt a large hand on his shoulder. He was steered inside one of the shops selling all sorts of goods: sweatshirts wrapped in cellophane hung down from every part of the ceiling, boxes of shoes were stacked to the roof. A crate was presented for Shrimp to sit on.
‘Your name?’
‘Li. My name is Li. They call me Shrimp. And yours?’
‘David. You want trainers? Here.’ David pulled down box after box and lifted the lids. He left them stacked beside Shrimp. He stood and watched Shrimp pretend to choose. Then he knelt down next to him, so close that Shrimp could make out every open pore, every scar on his face. ‘I saw you with your friend in the lift. You helped the Kenyan girl, she’s in trouble bad with smack. You a doctor?’
Shrimp shook his head.
‘A policeman?’
Shrimp looked at the others. They stood around the doorway. The corridor outside was full of dark faces watching him, not speaking, not moving. Gone was the laughter; they were listening intently. Shrimp kept his eyes glued on David. He reckoned anything that would happen would happen with him. The rest would take orders. If Shrimp was aiming to get out alive he had to be very fast on his feet. He had the advantage of being slight, slippery as well as athletic, but when he looked at the size of David’s bicep, snagged on the t-shirt, he was having doubts about his chances. He nodded.
‘So, what you doing here?’ asked David.
‘We had some reports of trouble. I wanted to take a look for myself.’
David wiped the sweat from his upper lip. Shrimp had never smelt the smell of stale sweat so pungent as it was in the small room. ‘We are used to the heat,’ said David, as if reading Shrimp’s mind, ‘but we are not used to the humidity. You guys don’t sweat much, do you?’
‘I’m sweating now,’ Shrimp smiled.
Chapter 28
Mann looked at the card Victoria Chan had given him. The address was a building he knew on Peking Road, just a stone’s throw from the Leung Corporation. He looked at his watch. It was close to ten. He knew where she’d be right now, where all the smart set went. She’d be in the Oceans bar having post-dinner drinks. On Peking Road, top floor. He stepped out of the lift and into the arms of the hostesses waiting to meet and greet at the entrance. This bar was uber chic, always a little too dark. He turned right and up the small flight of steps into the main bar. It had 360° views and floor-to-ceiling sloped windows that gave the impression the diner was floating in the Hong Kong sky.
The bar was crowded with Chinese entertaining clients and wealthy lonely locals looking for company. A round of drinks had a minimum charge which would have bought a dinner for a family of four elsewhere. But that was the very reason people came. Hong Kong was all about showing you could afford it and this was the bar of the moment. Mann got a seat at one of the tables that overlooked the eating area on the mezzanine below. He ordered his usual – vodka on the rocks. The pretty young waitress brought it along with a selection of nuts.
He’d taken his first sip when he spied Victoria Chan in the private booths to his left. He’d guessed right. There she was, tucked in the VIP area: private booths with sofa-type seating and endless skyline. He only just recognized her – no twinset and pearls today – a Roland Mouret Galaxy dress and a pair of killer heels. Her loose hair curled like a fifties film star. He knew it was her because she knew it was him. She was looking for him too.
Mann got the uneasy feeling he was on a film set and being directed and she knew he would show up when he did. She was sitting with CK’s PA and what looked like five visiting businessmen: one Caucasian, two Asians, a Korean and a Japanese, obviously getting the special treatment and being taken out by the boss’s daughter.
An interesting mix, thought Mann. She obviously had international aspirations and had her beautifully manicured fingers in lots of international pies, and she wasn’t afraid of anything. A couple of Wo Shing Shing bodyguards sat with them. Mann recognized them from his visits to Leung Corporation: their bodyguards were as square as they were tall. The bodyguards zeroed in on Mann as he approached. They were on their feet before Mann had reached the table.
‘Sorry to interrupt. Urgent message for Ms Chan,’
Mann smiled at the businessmen. ‘You’ll have to excuse Ms Chan. I’ll bring her back.’ Mann eyeballed the bodyguard and smiled at Victoria. ‘Just a quick word.’
Victoria waved the bodyguards back with a slight glance and bowed to her guests. ‘Please excuse me, gentlemen. Order more drinks for our guests,’ she hissed through a smile at the PA who looked flushed and flustered. She slid elegantly out from behind the table. ‘Please try not to miss me too much…I have something that you are going to want to hear when I come back – something we have all been waiting for.’
The men nodded and smiled and made appreciative, reassured noises as they watched their host walk away with the tall stranger. The PA got to his feet and clicked his fingers at a passing waitress.
Mann walked Victoria towards the lift. Two hostesses in ornate cheongsams and a male waiter in a chic version of a coolie suit were meeting and greeting the guests as they arrived. Mann waved them away with a smile as he got into the lift and pressed the button to close the doors. He pushed for the ground floor thirty floors below and then opened the operations panel of the lift and pressed the emergency stop button. The lift slowed quickly and gave a small judder as it stopped.
‘Kidnapping is an offence, Inspector,’ she said, smiling. He could see that she was not in the least scared. She was not frightened of anything. ‘But it is heart-warming that you had to go to such lengths to be alone with me. You could have just made an appointment like everyone else.’ She stepped closer towards him. ‘I like a man who takes what he wants and doesn’t ask.’
Victoria smiled, her eyes a dark, sinister green pool of unsettling menace. She put her hands on her hips. The sleeveless dress showed her strong shoulders, the perfect line of her collarbones, her cinched-in waist. Nothing was left to chance. The look was calculated. The body was a tool for her, like everything else. It had to work for its affection. Mann thought how she would punish it into shape. She would hate to lose at tennis or anything else. She would demand results. Mann could understand part of that. He needed the gym to free his head. He needed his body to stay strong, agile, to be able to perform and to save his life. He didn’t need it to look perfect. But she did. She was staring at him, a smug expression on her flawless face. She knew he was looking her over. She knew because it was what she had planned. Mann thought how different she was when her leash was taken off. This flirtatious display took him by surprise.
‘Attempting to bribe a police officer is also an offence. Have the car removed or I’ll have it scrapped.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I think you do. You might think you are being clever, Victoria, but you fail to understand the thing that makes us so different and that will always separate us.’
‘There is no difference that cannot be compromised. No deal that cannot be struck.’
‘But I don’t want anything. You cannot sell me something I don’t want. If you have taken over the role of your husband then you will be my enemy, just as he was.’
‘Do not tar me with the same brush as him. I hated my husband. He never added up to one good thing in all of his life.’ A different light came into her eyes. It was a look that took her somewhere else for a few seconds, somewhere unpleasant. At least Mann knew she was honest in her hatred of her husband, honest about one thing at least.
‘And you? What do you want to add up to? Don’t think for one minute that I am taken in by your Little Miss Victim act. You have played your way into the top seat at the Wo Shing Shing. If I was your father, I’d watch my back.’
‘My father has made mistakes. He has had his time. Together, you and I can turn the face of the Triads around. It can go back to serving the people, the way it once did. Together we can make a difference.’
‘I don’t need you in my life. Why would I?’ She was inching towards him.
‘I can create a need in you.’ She breathed her perfumed breath into Mann’s face and her eyes melted on his as she reached out and ran her hand up his shirt. ‘A need so strong that you cannot ignore it. I know you are searching, I see it in you. You have needs. I recognize the same ones in myself. We are special, you and I; we will not find happiness easy to come by. We do not feel it the same way as others do. I can be everything you’re looking for.’
The nearness of the lift was getting to him; Mann felt her creep forwards as she dug her heels into the floor, her hips brushed his, her head tilted to one side as she smiled provocatively. But her eyes betrayed her, they were focused inside herself not on anything else. Her body was a thing she gave easily. Her soul belonged to no man.
Mann wasn’t playing; he looked down at her hand and lifted his eyes to look at her, dispassionate and cold. She withdrew her hand immediately and stepped back. The smile disappeared. The eyes narrowed.
‘Or…’ she held up her manicured index finger and made small circles in the air, ‘…I can pick up your world and the people in it and spin it around my finger till everything you care about is falling off it. I have the power.’
Mann took a step towards her and she stepped backwards until she was pressed against the lift wall. She didn’t panic. She stared up into his eyes and seemed to expect, welcome, the anger. Mann watched as her eyes turned deep river green and she came so close to his face that he felt her breath on his face, tasted it, that adrenalin, that blood sugar.
Outside the noise of engineers clanking away at the mechanism to get it restarted echoed and then the lift started moving and Victoria pitched forwards. Mann held on to her, instinctively. He felt the curves beneath her dress. He pressed her to him. She looked up at him and closed her eyes. He leant forwards and stopped. He slid his hand up over her breast and caught her around the throat. Her eyes snapped open.
‘Don’t cross me, Victoria. You are a small girl playing with the big boys. Don’t fuck with me. You will regret it. Every day I see my life slipping away. I am beyond fear. Beyond happiness. I just might take you with me.’
Chapter 29
‘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.