Lee Weeks - The Trafficked

They passed a couple of small bars. Mann glanced inside and got his first glimpse of Wo Shing Shing officers. They were smoothly attired-fly-boy chic-with slicked hair and pale spotty faces. Their gold necklaces matched their teeth. But they weren’t smiling. They were on patrol, moving in units, hunting in packs.

Mann and Father Finn crossed cautiously over to the darker side of the road. The pavement dipped and rose and was broken in so many places that it made their progress naturally slow. It was a busy night. The place was awash with whorists. The inadequate, the over-sexed, the fuck-ups, all congregated in Angeles. There was the familiar smell of fried seafood and garlic, with overtones of sewage. There were no streetlamps on Fields Avenue. All lighting came from the open-fronted shops and neon signs, or it seeped out in a flush of blue or an ooze of pink and red.

They stepped out of the way of a group of lads. One of them was carrying a tiny Filipina under his arm, who was laughing and squealing in mock protest, whilst another was shouting out obscenities to a group of GROs outside a club. The girls blew kisses back.

‘See you later, boys,’ they called.

The whole street was heaving. The neon hopped about the street like tracer fire, occasionally getting stuck like an electrocuted bunny. Father Finn and Mann moved stealthily up the road, out of reach of the bikini girls who might accost them, but watching all the time for the Colonel and Maya. As they passed Hot Lips, seven Wo Shing Shing members came out. They wore jackets in this heat, and Mann knew there would be many a chopper hidden beneath those. They didn’t look like they had gone in for a drink. They didn’t see Mann. He looked up and down the street, and spotted several more-all distinctive because of the general lack of Chinese on Fields Avenue. Chinese were not big visitors to Angeles. It was not upmarket enough for them.

Mann and Father Finn passed by almost unnoticed, only the tailor watched them walk by, and the old woman in the cafe. The old ghost of a beggar woman, who lived in the Viagra seller’s doorway, stepped out from the shadows, put out her hand to them and watched them walk past. The Father pressed some coins into her hand, held on to it for a few seconds, then passed by. The begging children ran beside them for a few steps, took some coins, and then ran away to chase after others.

They stepped down from the pavement and crossed the road. Mann saw a back he instantly recognised. Alex Stamp was disappearing into Lolita’s.

‘There is someone I need to talk to, Father. He has just walked into the bar over there.’

‘All right, Johnny. I will continue up the street and look for the Colonel and Maya. When I find them I will text you.’

Mann crossed the road and slipped past the bikini brigade almost undetected. He signalled to the mamasan that came to greet him that he just wanted a quiet drink, that he would find his own table. She bowed politely and stepped back.

To his right as he walked in was the elevated cage where a dancer gyrated inside. Her upper body, her small chest with its child’s breasts, was painted as a butterfly. She wore a thong that showed all of her small flat bottom. She wrapped her leg around the pole of the cage like a hanging insect.

Mann spotted Alex Stamp. He sat at the opposite portion of the bar that ran around the cage. He was drinking fast. He saw Mann and the glass stopped at his lips. He looked around him, then at Mann, realised they were alone and relaxed a little. He swigged back his drink.

‘Fancy seeing you here.’ Mann sat on the stool next to him.

‘Small world.’

‘So it seems. Where is Amy Tang?’

‘Where’s my wife?’ Alex Stamp looked around. ‘Does she miss me? Or has she been busy screwing you?’

‘She thinks about you, I’m sure. After you got her gang-raped, beaten unconscious and very nearly killed, I’m sure she thinks about you quite a lot.’

‘There was nothing I could do about that. Tell her I’m sorry.’ He looked into his glass, and for a second Mann believed he was sorry, in some way. But it was too late for remorse now.

‘I’ll tell her fuck all. What? So that you can make her carry some of your guilt, make her think you have a good side? You could have stopped it happening if you’d tried, but you were too busy playing Mr Big.’ Mann felt the anger twist his stomach. But he couldn’t afford to start a fight here, not tonight, and not in a place that was already a spark away from going up like a gasoline canister.

Alex Stamp checked his watch and looked up at the same time as four men appeared in the entrance to the club. They were the ugliest bunch Mann had seen for a long time. The one at the front looked like Castro. They were dressed all in black.

‘You think you have been smart, Alex. But never underestimate CK. You will wish yourself dead if he ever gets a hold of you, and you can only pray that it will be quick. Tell me where Amy Tang is and I will do my best for you.’

‘Amy Tang’s predicament is out of my hands. My part in it is over. She was never meant to live.’

‘You have made deals with people who would sell their own grandmother. All you have is hired help with a low integrity threshold. CK has his officers who have nothing to live for but him. Spot the difference, asshole.’

Mann’s phone beeped. He snuck a glance.

Have found Maya. Come to Bordello.

‘Got to go, Alex.’ Mann slid off his stool. ‘If I were you I would make myself very small. You are about to discover you’re not such a big man after all.’

It was like the lull before the storm. It was past three when Mann walked back onto the avenue. He could see Wo Shing Shing everywhere he looked. Like meerkats, locals who made their living on the Avenue bobbed in and out of doorways, stared up and down the street. They were preparing to scramble for cover, bracing themselves for the force of triad terror. Bars were closing, girls were being taken off stages, bar staff had stopped smiling. He got out his phone to text Becky.

He walked past the Tequila Station and looked inside. There were a few guys playing pool, two or three around the bar. The bar staff stared out of the window and watched him pass. The bodyguard had stepped inside and stood ready to bolt the door when necessary. Those inside would be grateful for it, even though they did not realise it-they were the lucky ones, they were off the streets. The residents of Fields Avenue would protect their livelihood and stop them from seeing the trouble that was coming. Trouble was walking across the street from Mann in the shape of a squad of five Wo Shing Shing members systematically working their way up the street. Mann looked behind-there was another squad doing the same. There would probably be a hundred Wo Shing Shing on the Avenue tonight. But they wouldn’t be just any old hundred, they would be the elite fighting squad.

Mann came within sight of the Bordello and saw what he most dreaded. At the front, by the tables, Mann could see Father Finn. A large white marine type was holding his arms behind his back with one hand; in the other he held a semi-automatic. The Colonel sat at a table. He had Maya on his lap and was holding the mobile phone in his hand. He waved it at Mann as he approached them.

‘Texting-can’t beat it. It’s just like you-predictive. As you can see, we caught ourselves a prisoner.’ He gave his lunatic laugh.

The Colonel threw the phone down and it smashed on the pavement. Still holding Maya, he took out a knife from a sheath in his waistband and held it up to the Father’s throat and twisted it. Father Finn winced as the point of the knife drew blood.

‘Give me your weapons, Mann. I know you carry a fancy Kung Fu belt. Throw them down now.’