Timothy Hallinan - The Queen of Patpong

"Do what?" But Fon's not listening. They're four or five meters up the street from the Candy Cane, and Fon's leaning forward, watching the two overage schoolgirls who control the curtain across the door. "When I say go, we go fast," she says. "Understand?"

"Sure. But why?"

"Go," Fon says, almost pulling Kwan off her feet. One of the schoolgirls has stepped inside the bar, and the other is facing the other way. Fon drags Kwan to the curtain, throws it open dramatically, and then pushes Kwan in, standing beside her with both arms upraised, demanding attention.

The first girl in the bar to notice them is Oom, dancing as always at the pole nearest the door. She glances at Fon, and then her eyes travel to Kwan's face, and she looks puzzled, as though she's never seen her before. Then she stops dancing, and there's a spark of recognition in her eyes, and for the first time since Kwan met her, Oom smiles broadly. She takes a hand off the pole and gives Kwan a thumbs-up. Kwan feels herself smiling back and hears Fon smother a laugh.

Oom's gesture draws the eyes of the other women onstage. Some of them stop dancing, too, a couple of them gawking openmouthed. The women who are in Fon's group grin and nod their heads or repeat the thumbs-up. One of them puts two fingers into her mouth and whistles loudly. The girls in the other group look at Kwan and then through her and return to their dancing, their focus on the customers, most of whom are staring at Kwan. The plump girl pulls the corners of her mouth down sharply and turns her back, then slips her hand under her long hair, and flips it up in Kwan's direction, a gesture of dismissal. Some of the women who are sitting with men desert their customers and come running. Hands touch Kwan's hair, a mix of perfumes surrounds her, and two of the girls hug her. Everyone seems to be talking, but they fall silent simultaneously.

The women crowded in front of Kwan part to let the mama-san through. Small as she is, the mama-san is given a wide path, almost enough space to swing her arms on either side. She wears her usual uniform: a plain T-shirt and blue jeans. Her hair is, as always, pulled painfully back, and her face is makeup-free. She seems bent on making herself as drab as possible, in contrast with the primped and painted girls who surround her. She stops a few steps away from Kwan and lets her eyes slide slowly over Kwan's hair and face. Her expression does not change. Then she leans forward, and for a moment Kwan thinks the mama-san is going to sniff at her.

But what she does is say, "Take off those earrings."

Kwan removes the earrings Nana had given her, and the mama-san holds out a long, thin hand for Kwan to drop them into. When she does, the mama-san waves past her, and Kwan turns to see one of the women at the door tug aside the curtain. The mama-san pulls back her arms and throws the earrings over the heads of the clump of girls and into the street. One of the door girls starts to go after them, turns to check the mama-san, and finds herself impaled on the sharp end of a glare. She resumes her place beside the door and lets the crowd of shoppers and barhoppers crush the earrings underfoot.

Kwan feels a sudden sting on the inside of her elbow. The mama-san has snapped the sensitive skin there with her index finger, and she's curled the finger beneath her thumb to do it again, but when Kwan turns, she lowers her hand and stares up into Kwan's eyes. As tiny as she is, her gaze has an almost physical weight to it. Without moving closer or raising her voice, she says, "You."

Kwan leans forward, trying to hear her over the noise of the club. The mama-san says, "You will not embarrass me. Do you understand?" She lifts her chin in warning, and then she steps aside and looks back to where someone is standing at the edge of the group of dancers, a short, fat, pig-faced man in the brown uniform of a police captain. The uniform is wrinkled and dirt-mottled, the necktie pulled to one side, and the shirt patched with sweat. It balloons out over his pants, trapping rolls of fat. The mama-san raises her eyebrows inquiringly, and the captain studies Kwan's face, and then, slowly, he nods.

Fon says, very softly, "I think you're in business."

"But you will," the mama-san says. They're alone in the room the girls use to change in, just a space behind the stage with little square lockers set into one wall. Kwan stands with her back to the lockers, which are to the right of the door. The bar's main speakers hang on the other side of the wall, and she can feel the bass thumping against her rump and shoulders. The mama-san sits upright, spine vertical, at the edge of a blue plastic chair. A doorway with no door in it leads to the men's room, which stinks of piss. Men come in at irregular intervals, some of them staggering, use the urinals, and leave. Most of them take long looks at Kwan on their way out.

"I won't," Kwan says.

The mama-san doesn't acknowledge the remark. "Nana told me you were a virgin. Did she lie?"

Kwan feels herself blush, but there's also a bright tingle of anger. "No."

"Did you lie to her?"

"Of course not."

The mama-san hears Kwan's tone and lifts an eyebrow. "Good. He's expecting a virgin. If he doesn't get one, he'll tell me."

"Then find him one."

"I have. You."

Kwan feels the pounding of her heart above the bass line. "I'm not even dancing yet."

The mama-san nods as though she's finally gotten the argument she was expecting. "You will be. Not until he's finished with you, because he won't want to share you with anyone until he's tired of you. That's if you take care of him right, of course."

Kwan summons her one piece of ammunition. "Nana said I didn't have to go with anyone unless I-"

The mama-san says, "Ssssssssss," and shakes her head sharply. "Don't talk to me about Nana. Is Nana your boss? Is Nana in this room?"

"No," Kwan says. She's searching for words, but they're jumbled and meaningless. They seem to flit past her eyes, disappearing before she can read them. She grabs onto four: "But she promised me." She breaks off as Oom comes in, damp with sweat, and looks at the two of them questioningly.

"Who promised who?" Oom says. "And what was the promise?"

The mama-san flicks a hand toward the bar area and says to Oom, "Sit out there. We're talking."

Oom takes a plastic chair, puts it against the wall, and stands beside it, one hand on the back. "I don't sit out there."

The mama-san's head comes forward like a snake's. "No, you don't, and don't think we haven't noticed. Nobody's buying you drinks, you're not getting taken out. No commissions, no bar fines. We're making no money off you. What good are you?"

Oom lifts her hair and fans the back of her neck. "I bring men in."

"So will she," the mama-san says, tilting her face toward Kwan. "And she won't be as picky as you are."

"I'm not picky," Oom says mildly. "I'm in love. And you just hate that, don't you? You've never loved anybody in your life. You don't even have a cat."

"Love," the mama-san says. "Love is a stocking full of drink receipts. Love is money in the bank. Love is having a nice place to live, one that's all yours, that nobody can take away."

"Listen to this," Oom says to Kwan. "Wouldn't it be awful to end up like her?"

Kwan says, "She wants me to go with that fat policeman."

"This is not a three-way conversation," the mama-san says.

To Kwan's surprise, Oom says, "So? Do it. He's okay. Half the time he can't even manage it."

"But-" Kwan says. "I can't, I mean, I've never even… I've never been with a man."

"Ahh," Oom says. She picks up the chair and turns it around and straddles it, her arms folded over the back. "I should have known you were a virgin," she says. "You give it off like perfume. So this is about your hymen, isn't it?"