Break-In

by M G Leslie

  A few minutes later, as he walked towards the door where a girl was standing, he had no doubt about the meaning of ‘Cabaret’ in Club One. She wore an extremely short dark blue dress that was covered in glitter and hugged her curvy body, showing off her chest, whilst allowing her long straight dark brown hair to hang down over her bare shoulders.

  As he got closer to her, Price was amazed at how beautiful she was, and then at the very last minute, disappointed, and slightly amused, by the distinct smell of cheap perfume – “Overly sweet, but predictable,” was the thought that crossed his mind.

  Once she realised he was looking at her, the girl started to motion with her hands to entice him to go inside – smiling and waving to him and looking directly in to his eyes to catch his attention. Price smiled back and just said, “Good evening, how are you?” but she ignored the question and opened the door for him and followed him inside.

  “Nice to meet you to,” Price thought – he couldn’t abide the lack of simple polite conversation. It was the easiest thing in the world, it endeared people to each other and yet it was so often forgotten these days.

  As he stood just inside the door, Price tried to take in all the key features of the room before him – although his initial reaction was one of surprise, because the club was far larger than he had expected it to be – indeed, the vast majority of the central part of the room was actually double-height, occupying both stories of the building.

  Scanning left to right he saw a long brightly lit bar extending almost the entire length of the left wall with just about every imaginable drink, bottle and glass. Directly ahead of him were some low tables and even lower soft chairs, where a few people sat chatting and drinking. At the back there was a stage where some girls were dancing to extremely loud and bass-heavy techno music and on the right were some booths, which clearly provided an opportunity for the men in the bar to have more private moments with the girls who were circulating and speaking to the clientele.

  The lady, who had shown him in, pointed to the seats at the bar, then the tables and chairs and then the booths – effectively asking Price which he preferred. Price smiled, realising that the only possible response was to point back, because the loud music was making any other form of communication almost impossible – so he pointed to the bar and was shown to a vacant seat where he shouted, rather than ordered, a bottle of San Miguel, attempting to make it clear that he wanted to drink from the bottle.

  Price knew that the bar was probably not going to spike the drink of a complete stranger and that he would almost certainly be treated as just another customer visiting a so-called ‘Gogo bar’ – where men could spend an evening watching, chatting or picking up girls. He didn’t even have a problem with these bars – the drinks were often ridiculously expensive and he considered them a rip-off, and that was fine as it wasn’t his place to judge. However, given the circumstances that led him to be there, he wanted to be extra careful and take every possible precaution to make sure that there was absolutely no opportunity for anyone to slip anything in to his drink.

  So as the barman picked a bottle of San Miguel from the refrigerator behind the bar, Price watched very closely and was pleased to see that he placed it in front of him with the lid still in place, before opening it and walking away to serve another customer.

  As Price sat sipping his drink, he noticed the toilets at the back to the right of the stage and a staircase to the right of those. It was quite a dark corner of the room, so he hadn’t noticed the stairs from the door, but from experience he knew they almost certainly lead to either the club’s management offices or private rooms, which could be rented by the hour if someone wanted to engage in more than just chatter.

  Whilst the girl who’d showed him to his seat, had returned to the front door, he wasn’t in the least bit surprised when another, equally beautiful young lady, gently touched his left arm as he took in the show on the stage and sipped more of his drink.

  “Hi, what’s your name?” she asked, speaking directly in to his ear in order to be heard.

  Price, who was holding the San Miguel bottle in his right hand, discreetly placed his thumb over the top of the bottle whilst slowly turning to his left to face the girl, “Hello. My name is Price,” he replied, leaning forward to the girl’s ear so that she could hear him.

  “My name is May. Where are you from?”

  Price knew the girls mostly asked the same set of questions, so he played along and said, “London in the UK."

  “How long have you been here?”

  “A few days.”

  “Do you work here in the Philippines?”

  “No, I’m just visiting and maybe travelling around – I want to see some of the country.“

  “Where are you going to?”

  “Don’t know really. Wherever my nose takes me, I haven’t decided yet.”

  “I haven’t seen you here before,” she commented.

  “No,” said Price, deciding enough was enough – it was time to turn the tables and make her do the answering. So he followed up with, “I was out for a walk and decided to come in for a drink. I presume you work here?”

  “Yes, I’m here every day.”

  “And you’re from the Philippines obviously?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you live locally or are you from the provinces?”

  “I grew up in Manila, but not here. My family come from Cavite.”

  “Have you been working here for long?”

  “Yes about 6 months,” she replied.

  “Excellent,” thought Price – as that meant she must have seen Mike and Lucy.

  He stopped speaking for a few moments and took a sip of his beer, which as it turned out, was what she had been waiting for. “Can you buy me a drink?” she asked.

  “Sure – and perhaps we could go an sit in one of those booths?” he said, pointing over to the other side of the room, whilst hoping that the sides of the booth might shield them from the music and make a conversation more possible – he’d lose his voice if he had to keep shouting all evening.

  She smiled, “My drink is 300 peso’s or 500 peso’s, which one can I have?”

  Price smiled back and said, “Get the 500 peso drink and let’s go and sit down over there.”

  Her face beamed with a broad smile as she ordered the drink, put her arm around his and led him over to a vacant booth.

  Price smiled to himself as she sat down next to him, because a more normal way for a couple to sit would be facing each other – but of course, as he reminded himself - they weren't a couple and this wasn’t ‘normal’ by his definition of the word.

  As they sat there and chatted, an older lady came over and spoke directly to him, “You want to take her home tonight? She’s a lovely girl, very good at massage and all services.”

  “That’s very kind,” said Price, “Maybe later, I have only just arrived, so I’d like to chat first.” The lady just turned and walked away without saying anything. Then the girl’s drink arrived so Price said, “Cheers!” and they drank.

  He continued the conversation, asking the girl to tell him more about her background, what it was like working in Manila and why she had started working in Club One. Aside from her family stories, he knew much of what she told him about the club, because the Embassy had been very thorough in their briefing. But that was all good because his intention was to gain the girl’s confidence before seeking information on Mike and Lucy.

  They’d been chatting for about half an hour when she finished her drink and asked for another, “No problem,” he replied and asked her to get him another beer, requesting for the bottle to opened at the table in front of him as before.

  She immediately waved to one of the bar staff, who took the order and delivered the drinks soon afterwards.

  As the night progressed, Price continued to order more and more drinks whilst the girl recounted stories of her childhood and the room started to fill up with men, each receiving the attention of a beauti
ful girl. As he glanced around, Price noticed he was one of only very few western guys – almost all the other men were of Asian decent. “This is my opportunity,” he thought to himself, so he commented to the girl that it was a very popular place and then he said, “You don’t get many western guys here. I’m surprised, given how close we are to Makati?”

  “We do sometimes,” she replied, “But not many,” and with that she pulled his arm and pulled herself even closer to him. Then she said, “You’re special,” and smiling and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Yeah, whatever,” Price said to himself, as he’d been hearing the same thing all week – he'd been called “Special” and even “Handsome”, which he knew was definitely a lie. On one very amusing occasion, a girl had even grabbed his crotch and called him “Big” which made him burst out laughing as he pointed out that she had touched his mobile phone and he did not have a square-shaped penis.

  Despite that thought, Price continued to steer the conversation, asking about the types of people who did visit the bar. She seemed to reply honestly, but kept looking around, so he asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she replied, “I like you. Can I go home with you tonight?”

  “Yes,” he replied, “But I’m hungry. Let’s get some food.”

  “I know a really good place where we can get some very nice food,” she said.

  But Price didn’t want to go anywhere local – he wanted to get the girl back to the hotel to ply her with a few more drinks and find out about Mike and Lucy. So he said, “Let’s go back to my hotel – we can get room service.”

  She smiled again and with a wave, called over the older lady again.

  “You want to take her?” she asked, a little too aggressively for Price’s liking.

  “I wouldn’t have put it quite like that,” he joked to himself, before simply replying, “Yes.”

  The old woman walked away, only to return a couple of minutes later and hand Price the bar bill. “Here’s your bar bill,” she said, “But you have to pay an additional 1000 peso bar fine to take the girl now because it’s still early and her shift has not ended yet.”

  “That’s damn cheeky,” thought Price – “She’s pushing me to take the girl home, as is the girl herself, and then they’re penalising me for doing so.” Despite that though, he said, “No problem,” and smiled.

  “And for anything extra you need to pay a tip, which starts at 4000 peso’s, depending on what you want,” she continued.

  Price knew this was normal practise as he had been ‘Practising’ as he liked to put it, all week. In fact he was getting fed up with having to keep going to the ATM to withdraw money. So he said, “Of course, I completely understand, do you take Amex?” and with that he held out a credit card.

  The lady smiled and said, “You can use that for the bill and bar fine, but the extras are cash only honey.”

  “That’s fine,” replied Price, and then with a smile, "I'm just after the air-miles.”

  She didn’t find his comment amusing as he’d intended. Instead, she just took is card and swiped it through a handheld device before asking him to enter his pin number. Once the payment was approved, she handed him a receipt, which Price pocketed along with the card. Then just as the lady was about to walk away, he held out an additional 1000 peso note and said, “I’d like to thank you for such a pleasant evening.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, “What’s your name?”

  Price smiled to himself – his name was written on the credit card, so that showed how much, or little, attention she’d paid to that. Nevertheless, he replied, “My name is Price.”

  She smiled and shook his hand whilst saying, “It’s very nice to meet you Mr Price, please visit us again.”

  “Wow,” thought Price, “Maybe she’s not such a bitch after all.” Then he said, “I will, and thank you once again." Then after a short pause he asked, “Is there any chance you could help me get a taxi please?”

  “Yes of course,” replied the old lady, and with that she led Price and the girl to the club’s entrance, where he noticed a large African-American man sitting on a stool just inside and to the right hand side of the door. The man was dressed in black and was quite obviously a bouncer as he was clearly well over 6 feet tall and had arms and a neck like tree trunks. “I don’t want to meet him by surprise on a dark night,” thought Price.

  He didn’t show it, but he was very annoyed with himself, as he hadn’t noticed the man earlier. That was bad, as he knew that details were everything in his business. He’d taken in the layout of the building and the details of the other staff, but had failed to notice, probably the biggest threat to his safety in the building – the bouncer.

  As the old lady spoke to the bouncer, the man made a phone call and sure enough, two minutes later a taxi rolled up outside the club. Price was relieved to see it was a marked taxi, a white Toyota, not dissimilar to the one he had arrived in – they were the ones that most of the larger hotels used and were fairly safe.

  He knew that taking a taxi at night in Manila was not always safe. There were stories of foreigners being driven down quiet roads where taxi drivers had arranged to meet friends who then robbed and injured, or even killed, the passenger. That was part of the reason Price had tipped the old lady, who was clearly the manager or mama-san, as they’re often called in these types of club – he wanted her to see him as a good source of repeat business, so that it was in her interest to help him to get home safely. And sure enough, as he went to step outside she said, “Where are you going?”

  “Back to my hotel, the Mandarin Oriental,” he replied.

  The lady walked quickly to the car and spoke directly to the taxi driver, then she waved at Price and the girl to get in the taxi and at the very last second said, “Please come and visit us again.”

  Price just nodded and smiled as he closed the door on the taxi, which drove off towards central Makati and the Mandarin Oriental hotel.

  By this time is was around 3am and the roads were much quieter, so the taxi pulled up outside the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental a short while later. Price paid the taxi driver and followed the girl in to the hotel lobby, clearly holding his hotel key in his left hand so that the staff on the reception would be reassured that he was already a guest. Sure enough, nobody said anything as he turned to the right, entered a lift and showed the girl to his room.

  Once inside, she slipped off her shoes and immediately excused herself, saying, “I just need to use the bathroom.”

  “Of course,” said Price who pointed to the en-suite, opened the door and turned on the light for her.

  He heard her use the toilet as he slipped off his shoes and walked over to the desk in the corner of the room. Picking up the phone, he ordered a club sandwich from the room service menu and went to the mini bar, retrieving two glasses and the bottle of wine that he proceeded to open.

  A couple of minutes later he heard what sounded like toilet paper being ripped off a roll, followed by the toilet flushing, the tap switching on and off, and then a few moments later he turned to see the girl emerge from the en-suite.

  Price claimed to be extremely good at recognising sounds and he constantly tested his knowledge. On more than one occasion, hearing something outside of the room he was in, had enabled him to be prepared and avoid injury – as he put it, “It’s just another means of keeping one step ahead of the opposition.” Although, he admitted to himself that a girl using a bathroom wasn’t exactly a challenge.

  As the girl walked towards him, Price handed her a glass of wine and said, “Cheers,” then they both had a drink.

  The girl looked a little nervous, so Price turned on the television whilst they waited for the club sandwich to arrive.

  Sure enough, about 15 minutes later there was a knock at the door and the club sandwich was delivered, accompanied by French fries and iced water. Price signed the receipt, closed and locked the door and then they both sat down to eat. Despite the fact that the girl h
ad insisted she was not hungry, she devoured one of the sandwiches, much to her own amusement.

  Once they had finished, Price cleared the plates away and pushed the room service trolley to a vacant corner in the hotel room.

  “I’m going to shower and then can we go to bed?” the girl asked as she started to walk towards the en-suite.

  Price just nodded agreement whilst pretending to watch the television.

  However, as soon as she was out of sight and he heard the en-suite door lock, he moved quickly. Firstly, he retrieved his camera from the hotel safe, and photographed her ID and various other pieces of paper in her handbag – making sure to replace them exactly as he had found them – even taking in to account the most minute detail. Then he sent a brief message on his mobile phone, informing London that he’d been to the club, was back in the hotel room, briefly what events had taken place, information he had acquired and what he planned to do next. With that, he emptied his pockets and put everything of value in to the safe and sat on the bed so that the girl would think he hadn’t moved.

  A couple of minutes later, the girl emerged, wrapped in one of the large hotel bath towels. “Human nature is a funny thing – particularly for a working girl,” thought Price, as he watched her slide in to the king size bed in a manner that suggested she was almost shy.

  Price turned down the lights in the room, so just the bedside table was lit and went and showered before joining the girl in bed. However, once he was next to her, the apparent shyness vanished completely as she wrapped her arms and legs around him, reached down between his legs and said, “Have you got a condom?”

  Price smiled. “There’s no need. It’s very late – let’s get some sleep.”

  She seemed relieved and pulled him even closer, if that was possible.

  Price reached over to the bedside table and switched off the television. In reality, however, he had no intention of sleeping, as she was quite drunk from all the alcohol they had both consumed. So he knew this was his opportunity to ask a few more ‘pointed’ questions.

  He already knew from their earlier conversation that she had been working at the club for about 6 months, which meant she had to have seen, or known, Mike and his girlfriend, Lucy. So as she continued to hug him, he kissed her with increasing passion and let slip that he had to confess it wasn’t an accident that he visited that bar – it was because a friend of a friend had recommended it. Despite being very drunk, she appeared to be genuinely surprised and asked who the friend was and when they had been there. So Price described Mike’s key features and explained when he’d been there.