“She knows I am currently single, like, and also that I really do fancy her. Tammy told me she wants us be in a relationship, like. As the talking went on and on, I told her she would have to leave the bar because I don’t go with lady work bar, like. Then the talk turned to her friends who have Foreigners that give them money every month and take care of everything, and that I should give her five hundred dollars a month. I refused. She dropped the amount to three dollars a month. I refused that too. I told her I do not want to buy her every month, like.
“Then, this woman who had, six months earlier, been shy and working in the laundry shop, started shouting. She started calling me names next. Called me a '’fucking man’, and some other choice words.”
“Then what happened?”
“Next thing I know she’s dead.”
“Happens,” Hale said.
“But if I could only have helped out, helped out a little, then she would still be here. Don’t you see this?”
“Did you use protection?” Joe asked Bryan.
“We were in love.”
“That’s not the question, did you use protection?”
“At first, yes,” Bryan said.
“Between me and you, get yourself checked out,” Joe said. Bryan said nothing. Joe figured he wouldn’t get himself checked, but chose it best not to push the issue.
“It would have happened anyway, mate,” Hale said.
“How long have you been here, mate?” Bryan said to Hale.
“Too long to count the years. Fun City is a dangerous town.” Hale took a long drink from his beer and continued his rant. “The guys who send out the lettuce on a month-by-month basis to the hookers who do the long distance Facebook gig. The long game, they call it. A version of your laundry scam, with feathers and whistles. That auntie was an older hooker showing her the ropes. The laundry was a daytime cover before she hit the bars. The brother was either the husband or the boyfriend, and most certainly the father of the child of whom she was certainly the mother.”
“You’re too paranoid you are,” Bryan said.
“They will bleed you until you die. I remember once, some insane German tart took a jump from the apartment building. She splattered out there on the floor. The foreign residents spoke about what a shame it was that a woman had died so young. The locals talked about the figures. Their little faces lit up with excitement and greed. They wanted to know how old she was, what floor she was on, her birth date. Her room number. Why? They wanted to use the numbers for the national lottery. Death is lucky here, bro. I don’t know much about this culture. What I do know is that death doesn’t bother them and they are more than happy to profit from death. Death is an opportunity for them. A shame what happened to Tammy on the table. You wouldn’t know her date of birth would you, Joe?”
“No.”
“You see it’s hopeless. Most of the locals in this town are from up country. Up until about thirty years ago, these people had been sitting in the jungle with no electricity, no fan, no lights, no nothing. If they wanted to eat, they went out into the jungle, either shot something with a bow and arrow, picked something from a tree, or dug a hole and pulled the bastard out. Grubs, they liked especially. Any kind of insect will do. I once took my girlfriend to the zoo. She walked around saying delicious and cannot eat, pointing her fucking finger at the animals.”
Hale could feel the beer moving him. Loosening the gears. Oiling the wheels. He held court in The Corridor beer bar. The heart-broken foreigner was all ears. Strangers walked in from the streets to listen. A man with a rat’s tail wearing a Metallica T-shirt propped up the bar. Hale continued. “Let me tell you a story. All of you. Lend me your ears and your beers. Once upon a time, there was a small village in the northeast. Life was very simple back then. It was a simple and primitive existence. Everybody was happy. They had no idea that across the jungle and the rice fields, folks were sitting in high-rise blocks watching a box that had sound and pictures inside it. Cracking open cans of liquid that made you happy. Now upcountry, they had the jungle. They’d all sit in the trees eating fruit and spitting out betel nut all day long. For entertainment, they would tell old stories and procreate within their close-knit family groups. They’d spit and piss through the holes in their tree houses and forage for grubs in the forest. All very comfortable.
“One day, The road came. The road brought with it beer and cigarettes. The road brought Coca-Cola and disposable razors. The road brought all the wonderful things that we westerners know and hold close. But where did the road go? A few of the younger men decided to find out. They rode a buffalo cart along the road until they came to a town and then a train station. They hid in a bunch of rice sacks and took the train to the city, to the lights, to the jobs. There was this thing called money, with it you could buy stuff. You could gamble, drink, and be merry. After a period of two years, one of the young men returned to the village driving a new car. He showed the villagers all the beautiful things that he had bought. He said that there was work for everyone in the cities. He took another young man and two young women with him. They were pretty in a rural way and very hungry for money. Money was good. They liked it. It was a great adventure.”
“I know where this is going…,” Joe grinned and looked up at the row of bottles above the bar. He looked at his empty water glass. He looked at Hale. He couldn’t have been more than thirty-five years of broken dreams and tired memories. Already ruined. The east had done it to him. Broken teeth, red eyes, oily skin. The alcohol escaping through every pore. The harsh tropical sun. The needle was better in the long run.
The bottle was a killer.
He thought about a shot.
The toilet door was plastic with a ventilation panel. He walked in, sat on the toilet seat, undid his belt, and pulled it through the loops. Tied it. Chose a purple close to the wrist. The syringe was manufactured in Germany. He had no time for disposables. A man got close to his works. Closer than any woman. Shame to see it die. Cooked up the brown on a spoon. Cigarette lighter. Read the graffiti writing on the toilet door as the plunger fell. Telephone numbers. A stickman picture of a man with a huge penis. It felt like relief. Perhaps that was all pleasure was. Relief from tension. Perhaps the stickman with the huge cock had it all worked out.
He closed the door behind him. Hale was in mid-flow. Hale was an entertainer. Entertainers usually died young, exhausted, unsatisfied, and thirsty. One look at Hale helped Joe with his sobriety. The brown didn’t count. Some folks were put out there to be nothing more than a warning to others. Hale was such a person. A living and breathing example of what happened when you lived the dream until it became a terrible nightmare. The soda water was all that he needed. That and the brown.
“Hale, I’ve heard this shit a million times.”
“Yes, but these fellas haven’t, Joe. Listen, just listen.” Two more foreigners had entered the bar, sat, ordered, and listened to Hale. A priest giving a sermon. His church the bar, his congregation sex tourists. “One of the girls went back to the village and showed them all the things she had found there. With the road came electricity. The villagers built rude huts. She had bought a refrigerator for her mother and father and had bought some land in the village. The young women in the village wanted to go to the city too. They wanted to buy refrigerators and build houses too. They wanted to make their parents happy. They wanted face, lots of face, they wanted card games, buffaloes, the biggest house in the village. The biggest face. It was so easy to go to the city. Nobody lost. Their parents were happy when they had money, having lived without all their lives. So she brought more girls to the city. The city liked girls. They found a place on the beach called Fun City. Hundreds of girls were there; girls who liked refrigerators, Coca-Cola, and making their mothers happy. It was like one big happy family. Once poor, now they were rich with the foreigner’s money. Soon there were thousands and then tens of thousands. After many years there, were no girls left in the villages. They had all moved to the cities and the bea
ches and everybody lived happily ever after.”
“Apart from the young men in the village,” Joe said.
“No, no, this is where you are wrong. The boys came too. They spent the days with their sweethearts and drank whiskey while their girlfriends worked in the evenings. You think bargirls don’t like local men? You think they don’t all have a sweetheart that they share their winnings with? Some of these men even began to work themselves. They drove taxis and rented jet-skis. Some joined the skin trade. You don’t have to be gay to hustle men. In fact, it is easier if you aren’t. As I said, everybody was happy.”
“And the foreign men?” Joe watched a sullen-faced hooker on the way to her work. To work in a bar ran by some hapless expat who was only slightly less poorer than herself. She might get lucky, she might not, but the bar-owner’s fate was already carved in granite.
“They were stupid, they bought houses and cars. White man is like buffalo. They got married to the women. They lost all their money to the women. Some became very angry and very bitter.”
“What about Tammy?” Joe asked. “Hale, she was killed. Sliced apart.”
Hale’s smile morphed into a mask of concentration. “Doesn’t surprise me, Joe. Occupational hazard. I can think of half a dozen punters that would do it at the drop of a hat. Life means nothing here. Nothing.”
“What about Sebastian?”
“He had a thing with hookers.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
“You never seen him? Let’s take a walk. Let’s go see my little friend.” Hale turned to the small crowd that had gathered in the bar to listen to him. “Thank you. Please go forth into the day and never, never, let your guard down. This place is a jungle. May the lizards of the night protect you,” he said. “If they bark once be aware, if they bark twice, run a mile.”
Outside, the sun beat down on them with an unforgiving intensity. “You think he has the juice to slice up a hooker?”
“Hard to tell, Joe. After seeing the kind of shit that flies around in this town, I’d say that anyone is capable of anything. Some customer gets sick of laying his missus in the missionary position once a month, so he pops down a blowjob bar once a week. It gets boring, so he starts frequenting go-go bars and shagging the birds in the short-time room upstairs. Next thing he knows, he’s into wenches on walking street. There is still an itch that needs to be scratched. He has to take it to the next level. This town changes people. One day he is lying down on a whorehouse bed. Picture the scene. Behind bird number one is another with a strap-on weapon-of-mass-destruction, pile driving into the felator’s Gary. He still isn’t satisfied. He needs more than this amateur shit. Two weeks later, he’s slicing up some jungle tart on a fucking pool table. This is the real deal, he decides. The ultimate short time. Joe, this bastard will strike again if they let him out. The fucker has the taste for it, and if you don’t mind my saying, we need to nail his ass to the ground.”
“Lead the way.”
TWELVE
THE KILLER opened the door and stepped inside the apartment. He closed the door and walked the five steps to a table. The Killer put down a leather satchel on the table. He opened the satchel and took out the knife. A Wilkinson’s ten-inch blade with serrated edges. Black handle. Dried blood rusted the metal. The metal shouldn’t rust, god darn foreign steel. His gaze rose to a bookcase. He picked out a black leather bound volume with bright gold gilt lettering along the spine. He put the book on the table. He opened it. Inside the book was a map of Fun City. He took the map out and unfolded it on the table. He reached into the bag and found a red ballpoint pen. He drew a small circle on a section of road. The first one had been easy. He marked a second point on the beach. The Killer connected the two points with a line drawn in red ink.
He took a bottle of beer from the fridge. He opened it and drank the cold, golden liquid. He moved over to the kitchenette and turned on the faucet. He cleaned the knife, dried it with a towel, and put it back into his satchel. He showered, dressed, and drank the rest of the beer. He walked back into the bathroom and put on his hat and beard. His disguise. The streets were full of freaks. What difference did one more make? He picked up the satchel and swung it over his shoulder. He opened the apartment door and walked back onto the street. Outside, the sun was setting as he walked toward beach road. Lady-boys and freelancers hovered around like vultures; hyenas waiting for the kill.
Beach Road.
Paving slabs, three steps down to the sands where the hookers hooked. He struck a deal with a ladyboy who told him she was from some nowhere town in the North. She liked boys and she liked money. Lived with a bargirl and the Killer could watch them for the price of a picnic. The sun was setting slowly over the sea. Blood-shot clouds. An airplane flew across the sky. He negotiated a price of twenty dollars for oriental oral. It would have been a generous fee if he had intended to pay it. She agreed with an exhalation of tired spent air and a flick of the head. She walked down with him to the beach. He sat down behind a tide wall. He looked at her.
Did she remember him?
Probably not.
The thing with sleeping with lady-boys, was in the morning, they smelled like men. Yes, he had made that mistake a few times and this was one of them.
It was over two years ago and it had been dark that night. He had been drunk and she had been out of it on some kind of amphetamine come down. The smell of sweat and perfume in the morning. A crash eased with barbiturates and alcohol. Had she been the one that had given it to him? Out of the five, he guessed she had been the second most likely. She had the sickness. That much was sure. What was the cure to the sickness? There was no cure. There was no way to tell they had it either. Apart from one little, human attribute.
Instinct.
She wouldn’t remember. How many others had she seen since then? Plus the disguise. He was a different man tonight. Her chin was large and pointed. Eyes glazed over with barbiturates. She was one of the many beach urchins, the strays, the hideous creatures that strode along the beach road with their exaggerated feminine swagger. Their private dicks strapped up like concealed weapons. Shots of hormones in the ass and padded bras, padded panties. They were mostly criminals too, known to drug and rob the customer that was foolish enough to take one of them to their hotel room. The transsexual was muttering something about an operation. Yes, an operation. That was what was needed. To have it cut off. The Killer had the very surgical instrument in his satchel. It wouldn’t be long. She would be changed.
The operation would be hers.
Goodbye chick dick.
They sat down on the beach. He undid his pants and she bent over and began to work at it. She sucked without conviction or distaste. A rapid mechanical motion that bored the Killer. There was no real difference to having a woman or a man do it. Some said the lady-boys were better. The Killer assumed this was just an excuse. A way to justify their sick cravings. He opened the bag and took out the knife. He looked around. There were no other hookers or customers around. She worked greedily on his erection. She had developed a technique that produced the result with the least amount of effort. This was not the prelude to a relationship. No eye contact. No words spoken. Just a mechanical lever bobbing up and down at an increased rate until delivery was acquired. She sucked at it.
She really sucked.
“Now, about that operation,” he said as he held her head back by the hair. He was about to come. He withdrew her mouth from his cock. She saw the blade. A flash of metal as he cut the jugular with one swift movement. Blood sprayed across the sand. His own fluid spurted. Landed on her cheek. Her eyes danced. She couldn’t scream. Her voice history. It was hopeless for her. He held her back by the hair as he zipped up his trousers. Now it was time for the operation. He carefully mutilated her. One clean vertical stroke from throat to groin opened the transsexual. He tore out the liver and pocketed it. The penis he hacked away with the blade. The Killer stuffed the organ in the deceased’s mouth.
Yes, sh
e sucked.
He drew two symbols with the knife on the prostitute’s body. One on the thigh and one on the left buttock. Once finished, he simply dropped the body onto the sands and returned to the beach road. A homeless man begged for alcohol. A crowd of sex tourists and prostitutes gathered twenty-five metres away from the beach. An old Chinese practiced Tai Chi. None had seen his work. The Killer breathed heavily and headed towards his apartment. He reached an alley and took off the hat and the beard. He stuffed them in the satchel. He turned back to see a crowd of four or five working girls walking towards the dead transvestite.
One screamed.
Then several screams.
A man shouted. Tourists swore in thirteen different languages. His paced quickened. He didn’t look back until he reached the apartment.
Number two had been accomplished. He washed his hands in the sink. Wiped the blade clean. Opened the fridge. Took out a beer. Drank it down. Opened another and looked at it.
Outside the city darkened.
Like hell.
THIRTEEN
FUN CITY EXPRESS
December 7th
Following the discovery of the mutilated casual worker Tammy Yu yesterday morning, a B.I.B investigation, led by Chief Kult, has led to the arrest of a British national named Sebastian Bell. Bell, who was with the victim the night in question, has been under surveillance for some time for separate internet pornography offences and other minor moral offences. ‘We have the man responsible,’ Kult said during a brief press gathering earlier today. Bell is being held without bail as further evidence is gathered.
His mother, the once famous White Flamingo catwalk model made a statement protesting against the injustice and proclaiming her son’s innocence. “He would never do such a thing,” she said. “This is an example of police corruption at the highest level. My son is innocent,” she said at the small press conference at the Fun City expat’s club this afternoon.
The White Flamingo Page 5