J. Benford - The Family Haven 1

It was two hours later that she was sufficiently refreshed to leave the apartment. She had been given fifty dollars as a payment towards her first salary from the Ling-Tan Theatrical Agency, and was told she would be hearing from the impresario again in the near future, when she would be given more details of the venture. It was, he mentioned to her blandly, a touring company, and they had been offered engagements abroad.

Pleased with her fifty dollars, happy with the exciting prospects before her, not quite so pleased at the knowledge that she had a plentiful supply of Oriental male sperm in her belly, but happy to think that Tse Ling would not be accompanying on the tour, she went off home. She little thought what the prospects were; nor did she stop to consider that the type of engagement Tse Ling had in mind was well in keeping with the hump-action in which she had just been engaged.

It had been a distressing afternoon. Since just after lunch Susan and her husband Jack Bowing had been going through the cupboards and drawers and suitcases in a small furnished room not far from the Earl's Court Road. They were in the room that had, until recently, been occupied by Tina, Susan's younger sister. When the girl had left home to come up to live in London, Susan and Jack had asked her to live with them in their small but comfortable semi-detached house in Purley. But no, the headstrong seventeen-year-old had wanted her own place, had wanted to be independent, and now after only six months up here she had vanished. It had been the landlady who had first raised the alarm. She had telephoned the Bowings when the youngster did not return to her room after three nights. At first she thought the girl might be staying with friends, but by mere chance the sharp-eyed landlady had noticed the girl when she met her out shopping in the market. Tina had been hurrying along, anxious not to be seen by anyone she knew, it seemed, and she was not alone. A slimy horrid-looking foreign man had been on either side of her. The eagle eyes of the landlady had noticed that the men had hold of the girl's arms.

Susan and Jack had come up to town as soon as they had the frantic telephone call from Tina's land-lady. They persuaded her not to report the matter to the police, not yet at any rate, they wanted to keep the disappearance of the girl from the knowledge of her mother and father.

If they could not trace her or find her by the end of that week, then the police would have to be informed. Until then, they would try and get a clue as to where she might have gone. The description the woman gave of the foreign men with Tina gave Susan and Jack the idea that they must have been Orientals, and when on going through some of the discarded papers and rubbish in Tina's room they found a torn card on which had been scribbled 'The Ling-Tan Theatrical Agency' with its address, the young couple thought they might have a lead.

Young Tina had always had a hankering after a life of glamour, a life of the bright lights that show-business might have to offer a young pretty girl. If she had gotten into the wrong type of Agency, if she had been fool enough to fall for a lot of wild promises that some of the vile men who lure young girls put to them… well… this LingTan Agency might be the right lead…

Reluctant as he was to let his wife go to the office of this Agency on her own, Jack knew this was by far the best way of finding out what sort of organization was run by this Ling-Tan firm. If it was the sort of company that looked for lone girls, it would be quite useless for a man to try to get any information from them. The only way was for Susan to go along to the office, just on the off chance, as it might appear, to see if they had any suggestions for her, as she wanted to go on the stage. From that point of introduction she would have to see which way the cat jumped. They tried taking off her wedding ring, so that she could make out she was a single girl without friends in London. They wanted to make it easy for the Agency to lure her if they were that sort of organization. If this approach led nowhere, then plainly it was not through this Ling-Tan setup that they were going to trace the missing Tina. If, on the other hand, they showed great interest in Susan despite her lack of dramatic or theatrical experience, then this might prove as likely as not an invaluable clue that could lead them to Susan.

The wedding ring had to be put on again. It left a deep impression on the finger when it was removed. This might well be suspicious to an alert-eyed Oriental.

"Better say you are a widow, dear," Jack told his wife. "They won't be very interested in you if they know you have a husband near at hand."

"No, darling, I just can't say that. I won't think of anything as horrible as losing you, dear," insisted Susan. "I will say you are abroad on business and you won't be back for at least a year. That will help to make a real reason why I am alone in London and why I want to join a theatrical group, to meet friends and fill up my time while you're away. That sounds feasible, doesn't it? It will make them think I'm going to be an easy haul for them, won't it? That, is, of course, if they're the sort of people we think they are."

Tse Ling looked at the young woman seated on the sofa in his private office at the back of the Agency. His Manageress had been quite right to have this young woman shown in to his own room. She was possibly of the type they needed. She looked about twenty-two, she was married, he noticed, but after a brief glance down at the sheet of particulars his Manageress had provided for him about this applicant to join their Agency, he saw her husband was abroad. He would be away from her for at least another twelve months. The little Oriental suppressed a smile at this. Just the set-up he liked. A young wife, alone and depressed, bored and lovely. No wonder she wanted to go find new friends and if possible earn some money for herself by part-time acting.

He scanned down the paper. Not very experienced in acting. Strange in a way she should want to take it up now. He looked at her more closely.

She was very attractive, very physically desirable. "Why had she come to his Agency?" he asked her. She explained that she had been to many others first, but they had not been very interested, as she did not have enough experience to suit them. That was understandable. He put his fears to rest on that score. They had all turned her down, eh? It was a good thing Susan Bowing had been prepared for the question. Jack had told her to say she had been to other agencies. He had given her a few names to mention if necessary. Tse Ling was satisfied with her reply, and did not ask for any names. He handed her a cigarette, it was a long thin affair, and she did not like it much, but she obliged him by slowly smoking it while he asked her more questions. She knew he was making up his mind about her… she did not want to offend him or appear aloof by refusing his long cigarettes. It was one of his Eastern brands, she supposed. It was sweetly sickly but probably would not do her any harm if she could get over the strange taste.

Tse Ling studied her through his slit-slant eyes, narrowed to almost being fully closed. She was very attractive, she had lovely high breasts, well spaced on her lush figure, and those hips, they were perfect, luscious and desirable to grip; she sat so that he could see her shapely legs. Her tight-fitting skirt hid her thighs, but he knew they were broad and delightful, the lower parts of her limbs curved perfectly to her calves and down to trim ankles. He knew it was a body that would attract any man… what a fool her husband must be to leave his pretty wife alone in London! Well, she had come to the right place to be taken care of… but perhaps not in the way she expected…