by Lee Weeks
‘Yeah, you can bugger off.’ She hid a smile and carried on rummaging through her suitcase.
‘Okay, baby—see you on the beach in a few minutes.’ He ducked and dived out of the door as she threw a flip-flop at him.
He got outside the door. He didn’t like deceiving her. He had no intention of going to Negros, but he had to see where that lie would lead them. They definitely had a mole, someone had been aware of all their movements so far. Mann didn’t believe it was Becky, but he had to be sure. He checked his phone; he had a text message from Ng:
Alex Stamp no longer in Hong Kong. He didn’t board a UK flight…Suggest he is in Philippines.
Then again, thought Mann, maybe Becky didn’t realise she was the mole.
50
‘He’s an arrogant fuck…’ Reese looked over to where the Teacher was sitting on a sun-lounger in the shade. ‘I’m sick of fucking nursemaiding him.’
They’d been on a whistle-stop tour of the Philippines, which should have been fun, except the Teacher spent his whole time hiding away. He hid from the sun and he hid from the fun. He was fast getting on Reese’s nerves. Now that Terry had joined them, things were a little better.
‘Stop complaining, Reese. Try and look like you’re having a good time.’
Terry came out to bring Reese another beer. Reese took it from him and continued his bitching. ‘I have people waiting for me back home, mate. I have a house, all geared up for a visiting group of Aussies. I have to be there when the kids are delivered, otherwise I’ll be cut out of the deal.’
Reese was a homebody. He was itching to get back to his house on the beach, his endless pursuit of new prey in his bed and his weed-smoking. He liked things to stay simple.
‘Relax. Stop stamping your foot like a girl. There’ll be plenty more deals, better ones. It’s time you looked at the bigger picture, Reese. Smarten up.’
‘I still don’t know why we need it, bro, we have everything here already.’
Reese didn’t know what had got into them all. He was still trying to work out how it would possibly benefit him to expand—his life was just perfect as it was.
‘Because…as I’ve already explained, nothing stays still in this world. We have to move with it or we will lose it all. If you don’t accept changes are coming, my friend, they will come anyway and you will be phased out.’
‘How? What the fuck is phased out?’
Jed’s and Laurence’s deaths had left him feeling very nervous. The Colonel had said it had to be done, and that they had been planning to take over the whole operation. Reese didn’t see it. Sure, they were ambitious, but not that much, and why did that add up to killing them? Greed was what it always seemed to come down to, and Reese didn’t feel the need to make money the way the others did. He was all about the other stuff: the sunshine, the beaches, the kids.
‘I don’t know why we need his money, this weirdo Blanco. He can’t even show himself in person—what’s with all this cloak-and-dagger shit? We’ve done all right as we are. Not sure I want it to get any bigger. It will be harder to control. In the end we might make less money. Anyway, who gives a shit? We have a nice lifestyle, don’t we, Terry?’
Terry knew that what Reese said was true, but he also knew they had no choice. The Colonel had been swept along by his delusions of being God. He saw this as his chance for world domination. Reese and Terry had been given the job of showing the Teacher how it all worked. They were taking him around and helping him spend his money buying up houses that they could turn into holiday lets to create new sex resorts in unspoilt areas. Equally, Reese knew Terry was making sense. Reese had nowhere else to go. He must go along with the rest of them. He could never return home. He was wanted back in Oz for buggering a small boy, and that meant it was too risky to go anywhere in the age of Interpol and eyeball ID. Reese’s world had narrowed to the seven thousand islands of the Philippines…just as well he liked it so much.
‘Anyway, we know nothing about this Blanco. We only know he’s the head of the White Circle, and we don’t know much about that. Why all the secrets? What is it he’s afraid of?’
‘He doesn’t want people to prejudge him—who he is, I suppose. He wants to be given the chance to prove himself first. He is waiting until everything is in place.’
‘Has the Colonel met him?’
‘I don’t think so. All communication comes through email and phone, or usually the Teacher; he is Blanco’s right-hand man.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s not looking so fucking hopeful, is it, Terry? The Teacher’s a psycho who is now killing us off one by one.’
‘Don’t exaggerate, Reese. Laurence and Jed spelled trouble. They would have disposed of you in time. The Teacher did us a favour. Anyway, make yourself indispensable. That’s what I intend doing. I have taken steps to cover my arse.’
‘How many more houses do we have to show him? He’s bought up half the bloody island anyway.’ Reese was watching Sophia play. She was dipping her toes into the pool and flicking the water out, seeing how far away it landed. Reese smiled as he watched her. He would like to join in the game. He would love to play with Sophia.
‘Reese! Take the Teacher and show him the latest house you’re buying with his money. Show him his investment…Reese!’ Terry was in his face now, blocking his view. ‘Wake up, you fucking dope-head.’
Reese wasn’t listening. He had switched to watching the young whore from Angeles. Terry followed his line of vision.
‘Cool it, bro. The Teacher’s finally startin’ to unwind. He’s about to get a lesson in Filipina.’ Reese grinned.
Terry followed Reese’s gaze and watched as the whore rubbed her crotch against Teacher’s knee. Terry smiled. ‘The thing about the Colonel’s whores is that you know they will cooperate. They were so accustomed to his violence…’
‘…and his massive cock…’
‘…that they are happy to settle for anything slightly less.’
They watched the pair disappear inside the villa.
‘Do him good to relax,’ said Reese.
Within ten minutes they heard the sound of the girl not finding the love-making session quite as loving as she had hoped. The Teacher emerged thirty minutes later with a fresh beer and a ghost of a smile on his face.
‘Let’s hope that did the trick.’
‘Go and check on the girl, Reese.’
‘Don’t think so, bro. Whatever he did, wherever he made her take it—it will be nothing to what we’ll get if we criticise. Anyway, she’s a whore. More than that, she was the Colonel’s whore, she’s used to it.’
Terry raised his bottle of beer in the direction of the Teacher, who raised one back as he lay on the sun-lounger again, under the large umbrella.
‘We’ve got him laid…’ Reese smiled and whispered under his breath ‘…now we need to work on his tan.’
Terry grinned. ‘That’s not gonna happen. He’s staying white at all costs.’
The Teacher got up and went back inside. The heat was getting to him.
‘I better go with him. Keep an eye on Sophia for me.’
Terry picked up his beer and followed Teacher inside the villa. Reese drank some more beer and grinned to himself—paradise— it certainly was. He watched Sophia wiggling her legs in the water.
51
Becky sat on the bed for a moment after Mann had left. She felt a wave of guilt. She realised she wasn’t really missing Alex. She took her phone from her bag and tried phoning him; he didn’t pick up and it went straight to voicemail. She phoned Jimmy Vance. It was 7 a.m. in the UK, and she knew Jimmy would be getting ready to leave for work to make Proctor’s meeting by eight.
‘I am just slightly concerned, that’s all, Jimmy, I haven’t heard from him for a few days. He might ring you if he has an emergency of some kind. Also, can you pop into the flat for me, make sure everything’s okay? Thanks, Jimmy.’
She finished speaking to Vance, changed, slipped on a beach robe and closed the hotel-room
door behind her. She walked down the stairs and through reception and was just about to head towards the beach when she had an urge to explore the rest of the resort.
She turned left instead of right and headed round the back of the reception. She followed the sandy lane that wound past the villas and then opened out onto a shaded pool. It was surrounded by tall palms; leaves rustling like paper as they shimmied in the breeze. There was a row of sturdy wooden sun-loungers, with thatched umbrellas between each pair to the left of the pool. To her right was a low wall that marked the boundary of the pool area, and straight across the other side of the pool was a pool table shaded by an awning. Becky could hear the sound of a girl laughing, but she couldn’t see the child.
She left her beach bag on one of the empty loungers and walked over to the pool and down the ladder, dutifully obeying the rules not to dive, even though she was tempted. She submerged herself beneath the cool, crystal water. All sound was muted into a dull roar as the cold water filled her ears and covered her hot scalp in blissful cold. She swam a length then emerged at the end and floated on her back. She closed her eyes and let the filtered sun coming through the palm leaves warm her face, before swimming a few lengths of front crawl. She stopped to catch her breath at the far end. Two girls had come out to play pool. The small one was the giggler that Becky had heard before. The elder girl wore a tiny silver bikini and matching silver stilettos. Her small breasts were padded out and forced into a cleavage. The bottom of the bikini had panels cut into it, revealing almost all that she didn’t yet have. She arched her body over the pool table, looked up and giggled at a western man who had come to sit on the low wall beside the pool. He wore small, round ‘John Lennon’ type sunglasses. He sipped his beer and watched Becky. The older girl giggled and wiggled around the pool table, leaning over and forcing the younger girl to laugh with her. She was watching the man watch Becky. He sipped his beer, slow and languid, and as he leaned his back against the palm trunk behind him, his baggy shorts gaped. His balls showed white against his tanned leg. He shouted to someone who appeared briefly in the villa entrance, next to the pool.
‘Come on out and get some sun. The pool looks great.’ His eyes followed Becky’s every movement. She swam to the end, climbed out of the pool and took the towel offered to her by the pool attendant. The man on the wall took a swig of his beer and lifted his head almost in a gesture of recognition as he grinned at her.
In recognition of what? thought Becky. How dare he…
It hit her and she was angry that just because she was white it somehow associated her with him. She was boiling with rage by the time she reached Mann. He was waiting on a lounger. She stomped towards him, wet and angry, the towel pulled tight around her.
‘What’s the matter?’ He sat up as she approached.
She threw the towel down. Mann watched her march off towards the sea. Her arse was too round to stop the bikini from riding up as she tried to walk fast in the hot sand. He sprinted down and caught up with her.
‘What is it?’
She strode into the water, knees high.
‘Some perve at the pool. Obviously with an underage girl, she’s dressed up like a tart. Plus—a really small girl, mixed race.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Old…surfer type, bandana around his head and hippy sunglasses—a real creep. He had someone else with him but I didn’t get a good look at him—another white guy he was calling to. They’re staying in a villa right next to the pool.’
Reese had no objection to the woman’s frostiness. It excited him in some way and she looked like one of the girls he’s known when he was young, back home. She made him feel nostalgic for the chase. He slid down from the wall, adjusted his shorts, and stared over at the man who had arrived and now stood at the other end of the pool. Stevie Ho stared back.
52
Becky and Mann had finished looking around the beach property that they had agreed to view at four—it was a bit dilapidated but ripe for conversion into a small hotel—and were now waiting for the owner to return. He had disappeared to consult his partner about the price. Becky had a message alert on her phone. It was from Alex…
Hi Baby. Sorry keep missing your calls. Reception crap. Am fine. V busy here in Hong Kong. Will call you in a cuppla days. Love Al. Xx
She was in the middle of texting him back when her phone went.
‘Hi Jimmy? Anything wrong?’
‘I think so. I’ve just been around to your flat and there was a woman there. She said she was a friend of a friend. Said she’d been told her that you were thinking of renting the flat out and that she was given the key to come and have a look whilst you were away. I told her who I was and she gave me back the key and left. She definitely didn’t like me finding her there, Becky.’
‘I don’t have a clue what that’s about. Did she give you a name?’
‘No.’
Becky finished the call and went to rejoin Mann.
‘Anything wrong?’ He looked at her face and saw that she was troubled.
She frowned. ‘Not sure really. Is the phone reception in Hong Kong bad?’
‘The best there is—we practically invented it, for Christ’s sake. Why?’
‘It’s just that Alex has been trying to get through. He says the signal’s bad there.’
Mann shrugged. ‘I’ve never known it to be.’
‘And there was something else strange going on back home…but I’m sure it’s nothing…Jimmy’s looking into it for me.’ She gave a flicker of a smile but Mann could see she was worried.
Becky didn’t want to say any more. She had to try and work out what it meant. Why was there a woman in the flat? The owner returned with his brother-in-law.
‘We are sorry, sir, but we have already sold the house. It is no longer for sale.’
‘You have had an offer?’ asked Mann.
‘Yes—a very good offer.’
‘Who made you that offer?’
The two men looked at each other and spoke in their dialect.
‘A Chinese man.’
‘The offer was made today? Did he come here?’
‘No. He made the offer by phone.’
‘And you accepted it? He could cheat you. I can give you a payment right here.’ Mann pretended to fish in his pocket.
‘No, no…’ They shook their heads and looked decidedly edgy. ‘We know this Chinese man. He has made a good offer. We accept.’
‘You have done business with him before?’ They nodded. ‘Okay. No hard feelings. I bet you’ve had a lot of interest in this house, huh?’
The men looked at one another and held out their palms in wonderment. ‘We could have sold this house three times today—any price. But we only have one house.’
‘Lucky Chinese man. What’s his name?’
The two men sensed a trick. They shook their heads and started to walk away.
‘Just Chinese, that’s all. Bye bye.’ They waved and walked back into the house.
Becky looked at Mann.
‘Stevie Ho?’
‘It could be elusive Stevie, who suddenly has enough money to buy the world it would seem. But they did the transaction by phone. The man must have wanted them to know he was Chinese. I am not convinced they have done business with him before; they looked like they were saying what they thought I wanted to hear. We need to get a better look at those westerners you saw. I’m thinking of sending you in, under cover. Could you work the bars, do you think?’
‘Yeah, that’ll work!’
‘Hey, look…a woman has a lot of pulling power here. Especially a western woman—they’re going to think all their Christmases came at once.’
‘Yeah, right! They are going to think reporter. They come here to escape women like me, not have sex with them. Anyway, we’ve been seen as a couple.’
‘Just winding you up.’ He grinned. ‘But can I just say—if it was me, I wouldn’t have a problem with that.’
She thumped his arm. He duc
ked out of the way to answer his phone, It was Shrimp.
‘You all right? What happened? David White emailed me. He said you were both set up.’
‘It was nothing, boss. I dealt with it—a couple of wanksters—would-be gangsters. Basically I kicked ass.’
Mann knew that Shrimp had come off well but not unscathed. He was a great martial arts expert but he wasn’t used to having to protect at the same time. He had had a hard job defending David White and fighting, but he’d done it well.
‘Who were they?’
‘White Circle. They told me before I kicked the shit out of them and sent them away crying.’
‘We can’t move without them knowing.’
‘There’s something else Boss—Micky’s missing.’
53
‘You have a party of westerners here—with a little girl and a young woman? Must have been, what, four or five of them altogether. I met them by the pool earlier. I’d like to invite them for a drink, can you tell me what name they are booked under so that I can say hello?’
The girls exchanged glances. Mann was standing in reception. He picked out the one who hadn’t taken her eyes off him and flashed his most charming smile. ‘I know they are staying in the villa by the pool. We talked for ages but I forgot to ask for a name.’
‘Do you mean the three men; one man is with his daughter and another girl?’
‘Yes. That’s the one.’
The other two receptionists flashed her a look. A momentary look of concern crossed her face. It disappeared as Mann leaned across the desk. ‘I don’t want to appear rude, but I have never seen such pretty receptionists.’
She smiled and lowered her chin, batting her eyelashes at Mann.
‘It’s booked under the name of Mr Reese Pearce, from Angeles.’
Becky was waiting for him in their room. It was furnished with rustic touches. It had rattan cabinets either side of the French doors that led to a small balcony. Above the bed was a tapestry—a native scene with coconuts and volcanoes.
