The Trafficked djm-2

by Lee Weeks

  It wasn’t the Colonel’s usual seat, but he liked to surprise himself now and again and see his world as a punter might see it-from all angles.

  Brandon pushed the child forward and then left to check on things. Maya walked slowly towards the Colonel. He pulled her onto his lap.

  It was early but Lolita’s was busy. There were several tour parties of young men in. All eighty-six GROs were out, winding their ways around poles, dancing in couples. The girls smiled at Maya. She stared back. Maya wondered how the girls could like wearing what they did: yellow thong bikinis and black high-heeled boots. All the women Maya knew would be very uncomfortable dressed like that. They would never show their stomachs and their legs.

  ‘You look like your mother.’

  It was her first time out of the Bordello in two weeks. She hadn’t seen Rosie since the day the big Kano had beaten her. The other women said she was dead and that the big Kano had taken her body and thrown it away.

  When the big Kano came to get her she thought he was going to kill her. But then he made her wash and brush her teeth. He gave her a clean T-shirt and some shorts to put on and brought her here. Maya looked at the man whose lap she was sitting on; she didn’t like the look of him at all.

  ‘Yes, you are just like your mother,’ said the Colonel. ‘I took her cherry too, it was on a Wednesday.’ He laughed at the child’s bewildered face and rocked so hard on his chair that Maya nearly fell from his lap. ‘You are right, Terry…’ He stopped and leaned forward; his face was sweating and his eyes yellowed. ‘…they are a whole fucking generation of baby whores.’

  On the main circular stage downstairs, ten girls dressed in schoolgirl outfits trooped out to perform a choreographed dance routine. They swung their hair and lifted their miniskirts to reveal frilly thongs. Ten minutes and three routines later they came off the stage to whoops and hoots from the men. The place was charged tonight, throbbing with testosterone and youth. The young men banged their fists on the table and wanted to see more. So did the Colonel. His head snapped from side to side as he leaned over the railings and watched the goings-on. His eyes shone as he laughed like a lunatic and called out from the balcony. Trouble was brewing-sporadic fights were breaking out everywhere. Their youthful energy made the Colonel mad. Young men demanded more action. They were content in the first few days with just being whorists, and then they wanted to go that extra mile. They wanted to be entertained. Tonight Fields Avenue was packed with them.

  Brandon came to join them. One look at the Colonel told him they were in for trouble. It made Brandon very uncomfortable when his boss was in this mood. Brandon glanced at Terry. Terry didn’t respond and kept working on his laptop. Anyway, he had seen it all before. The Colonel needed him-it was Terry’s name on the property documents and on the licences. Brandon had a lot to learn. Unless it benefited Terry in some way, Terry was not quick to help him. Why should he? It was every man for himself in this world. But Terry was uncomfortable with Maya jigging about on the Colonel’s lap. Terry didn’t care what people did behind closed doors, he didn’t mind that most of the girls dancing around him were under sixteen, but at least they could pass for older. The child on the Colonel’s lap was a baby. Someone in the club wouldn’t like that, he was sure.

  On the lower floor the men were having drinking competitions. One of the tables was getting carried away with some of the GROs.

  ‘Fuck her. Go on…fuck her…’ screamed the Colonel from his lofty position as he watched the scene below becoming lewd-two of the men were holding a girl’s leg open whilst a third was simulating sex. The girls looked at him and giggled nervously. Boundaries might be crossed that could not be uncrossed. No sex in the club. No lewd acts in the club. Those were the rules, but the Colonel had made them and he could break them.

  ‘We need some more fucking action in this place, Terry.’

  Terry didn’t answer, just tapped away at his keyboard.

  The Colonel turned to Brandon. ‘Make them fight.’

  Even Terry looked up from his laptop at the Colonel to make sure he’d heard right. But the Colonel wasn’t looking at Terry; his bulging red-rimmed eyes were fixed on Brandon. He repeated his demand.

  ‘Make them fight.’

  He had blobs of spittle collecting at the corners of his mouth and he was spraying as he spoke. There was no placating him now. They had left it too late. They’d have to roll with it now-no choice. Terry would have to have a word with Brandon later, tell him how to work the Colonel better next time-otherwise it would go badly for them all. An out-of-control speed freak was not what they needed to front their rise to power.

  Fight? Brandon didn’t know what the Colonel was talking about, but Terry did. The Colonel wanted a boxing match. He wanted the girls to fight. Terry remembered the boxing matches of old. They had nearly brought about the end to the club scene-they were a step too far. The priests in the refuge had organised pickets and some of the girls had been foolish enough to join them. In the end, inevitably, the ringleader had their throats slit and the pickets stopped, but so did the fights, and it had been bad for business as people stayed away until the fuss died down. It had been fifteen years since Terry had seen the last boxing match here. Now the men had to content themselves with watching girls fire corks out of their pussies at each other, or write Lolita’s whilst holding a pen inside their vaginas. But now, courtesy of the Colonel, they were in for a savage retro treat.

  ‘Clear some space. Tell the manager to get the boxing ring out of storage. It’s time we gave these guys a show. It’ll be like the old days when the Americans were here. We need an Amazonian contest. We need proper entertainment again.’

  Within half an hour a boxing ring was assembled on the multi-coloured stage.

  The Colonel called the mamasan over and told her to fetch Comfort and Peanut. It was an unequal contest-Comfort was by far the stronger. Peanut, puny but wily, was still in shock from having been left under Jed’s dead body for an hour before being rescued. But, just looking at her pissed the Colonel off, and he had a soft spot for Comfort-an uneven fight would give a better result. Peanut would be battered to within an inch of her life, the men would be fired up for the night ahead, and the Colonel had plenty of girls waiting. That was the good thing about the young men: they could go through a few different girls a night, they weren’t there to make conversation. The old ones wanted a companion for twenty-four hours. Even with help from the Viagra sellers outside, they still wanted to talk about it first.

  Fight, fight!

  The Colonel banged his fist on the table and sprayed beer over Terry, who quickly closed his laptop. The Colonel moved Maya nearer to the railings so that they could get a better view.

  The men downstairs took up the Colonel’s cry. Fight, fight. The ring was made ready and the betting began. The girls paraded out in their shiny boxing shorts. Peanut was in red, Comfort in blue. The shorts were too big for Peanut’s skinny legs and had to be rolled at the waist to stop them coming to her knees. The men screamed their bets as the girls struck their poses. Brandon held up their puny arms with the weight of the massive boxing glove attached. The men in the club whooped and clapped and bayed for the fight to begin.

  The Colonel was brought a large hand-bell. He leaned over the balcony and roared at Brandon that the time had come. Brandon climbed into the ring to announce that all betting had ceased. A noisy hush descended. The men sat sweating and excited. The Colonel, Maya on his hip, the bell in his hand, raised it and it sounded. Brandon stepped up to the ring. His presence was enough to start the girl’s feet moving. Their skinny legs in shiny boxers’ shorts started shuffling. They reached out and tentatively touched one another with the boxing gloves that sat almost comically on the ends of their puny arms.

  A chorus of catcalls went out. ‘You can do better than that. Fucking hit her.’

  Comfort swung a left hook and caught Peanut on the side of the head. Peanut staggered backwards, lost her balance briefly and Comfort lunged fo
rward again. She caught Peanut full in the face with a second punch. The cheers went up. Peanut staggered to the corner. Her eyes were watering; blood filled her nostrils and then ran in two straight streams down to her mouth. She tried to wipe it away with the big glove but only succeeded in smearing it across her face. She looked around her in a panic-trying to find a way out of the ring. The wall that was Brandon’s chest stopped her. She turned back to the ring. Comfort was waiting. She was shaking with adrenalin and excitement. She knew she could come out of this the winner if she kept at Peanut. She was sad it was Peanut: they weren’t friends but they knew one another, had seen one another every day, seven days a week, twelve hours a day, for the last year. But they both knew they had no choice. Peanut came forward gingerly. She made no attempt to put her guard up.

  ‘You can hit me-go on,’ Comfort whispered.

  But Peanut was not seeing straight. She didn’t know where she was or what she was doing there.

  The men began stamping and screaming.

  Peanut closed her eyes, swung her arm out and missed. Comfort punched back as hard as she could. Peanut was hit square in the face. She fell backwards against the ropes and landed near Brandon’s feet. Peanut managed to climb up Comfort’s legs and clung there. Comfort tried to push her off. Peanut clung tight. The men stood up, crowded around the ring and applauded as Comfort started kicking out at Peanut. She kicked Peanut’s head just as she had kicked the green coconuts when she was a child and the anger and the frustration got too much.

  The men chanted: Kill her, kill her.

  Brandon pulled Comfort off and raised her gloved hand.

  ‘And the winner is…Comfort.’

  Peanut lay in an undignified pile, trails of blood across the floor behind her. There was blood over Comfort’s legs where Peanut had clung to them. It dripped from her shiny blue shorts. The crowd applauded.

  As Brandon held up her arm in victory the rest of her body slumped. She was hysterical, laughing, crying. The men cheered. The ring was hastily dismantled. Peanut was carried away. A cleaner came out with a bucket. The men turned back to their beers, a little sheepishly now. The dancers came back out-girls in plastic yellow bikinis gyrated expressionlessly around the dance floor whilst the cleaner mopped up Peanut’s blood.

  The Colonel was elated. He sat back heavily in his seat and rocked it back and forth on its back legs. He felt his lungs open, expand, big, full of air. He drew his shoulders back and snorted from flared nostrils. His body glistened with sweat. He looked at Maya. For a moment his eyes softened. He looked at Terry. He knew what Terry’s eyes said-they said wait-she is not ready. But the Colonel did not want to wait. Fuck and fight-he could have both tonight.

  43

  The next morning whilst they were waiting for Remy to fly them to Puerto Galera, Mann left Becky interviewing the children who had had dealings with the DDS whilst he went to check his emails again. The PC was in Father Finn’s study. It was a small white-walled room overlooking the courtyard at the back. It was wall-to-wall books and thick files, all documenting the years of bringing western paedophiles to justice or trying to get permission to build his refuges.

  Mann sat and punched in his email address. The first thing he saw was another message from BLANCO.

  Did you enjoy the BarrioPatay?

  Give Father Finn a message from me…PRESS

  Father Finn’s image appeared with a naked child sat on his lap and a comic-strip cartoon of an exploding gun by his head-Bang Bang.

  ‘I’m sorry if I woke you, David,’ Mann said down the phone.

  ‘It’s okay, I was working anyway.’

  ‘I got a couple of emails from the kidnapper. In one of them he sent me a photo of Amy Tang with a noose around her neck.’

  ‘She’s already dead?’

  ‘No, I think it was a dress rehearsal.’

  ‘What are they waiting for? Why don’t they just do it?’ asked White.

  ‘It’s all part of their strategy to keep us looking and to give them time to achieve their real aims-but what they are I don’t know yet. That little girl is just bait in the centre of an elaborate maze, and we are man oeuvred this way and that down one alley just to find it leads to another. We are part of the game. The kidnapper knows where we are, David. He knows who we are, where we’ve been and where we are going. He knows our every move.’

  There was a small pause at the other end of the phone.

  ‘Do you think Becky is the mole?’

  ‘I hope not, but I’ll limit the information I give to her for a few days. I need to get some inside help with this. The White Circle have the DDS in their pay, and we all know who hires the DDS. Someone in government is making a lot of money from the trafficking. Can you try and find that mayor of yours, Fredrico?’

  ‘I will try my best. But I am surprised they can be so brazen.’

  ‘They don’t care. They are still locking kids away in jails, even though the world press has seen them do it on CNN. The Columban fathers are looking after a young lad who is willing to testify against the government. He is in hiding.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here at the refuge.’

  ‘Probably as safe as anywhere. About the mole-I will contact Shrimp and warn him-we are all in danger.’

  44

  Soho, London

  Shrimp took a sip of Real Ale and decided it might grow on him, but probably not. He was sitting in the history-seeped wood-panelled surrounds of the Marquis pub on the corner of Rathbone Street, watching two Albanian pimps work the pub with their troupe of scruffy-looking girls, whilst a portrait of the young Dylan Thomas looked on. Outside, in Soho, the world ambled past, looking for restaurants and company.

  It was eight thirty and the person he had agreed to meet was late. She was supposed to be here at eight. If she could tell him where Amy Tang was then it would be worth it. He tried to visualise her from the call she had made to the office that afternoon. She sounded young, and she spoke English with a European accent-maybe German, he thought. Now he was waiting, a slight figure sitting just inside the entrance to the pub at a dark and cosy corner table.

  The Albanian pimp decided to try his luck, looked over at Shrimp, and took a step towards him, pushing a girl before him. The girl smiled at Shrimp. He looked at her face-the thick makeup did a poor job of disguising the beating she had taken. He shook his head apologetically. As they walked away the girl looked back at him and fixed her eyes on his face. It was a look, not in recognition of his sympathy or a look of anger at his rebuttal-it was a warning signal.

  He watched the two Chinese men approach him from behind the girl and the pimp. Shrimp was on his feet and out of the door before they got within arm’s reach of the table. He dodged between the groups of meandering people as he sprinted down Percy Street. He looked behind him as he quickened his pace and headed out onto Tottenham Court Road and towards the landmark thirty-two floors of Centre Point building. He knew that marked the junction with Oxford Street. He thought he’d be safe there.

  He tried to hop on a passing number 19 bus as the doors were closing, but didn’t make it and bounced off its side. All he had to do was run past the fountain at Centre Point, cross over, and he’d be swallowed up by the teeming mass of Oxford Street. That was the plan, but as he reached the fountain he saw David White emerging from the Centre Point subway that led to Tottenham Court Road tube. For a second Shrimp froze. He turned and saw the men barge through the crowds waiting outside the Dominion Theatre. He looked back at David White and knew in that instant that they had all seen each other and he had no choice. David White stood transfixed for a few seconds as he tried to make out what was happening and looked back and forth from Shrimp to his pursuers. Shrimp stopped dead in his tracks, then he turned and ran back towards David White-he had no choice, he pulled him back down the subway.

  They ran down the dark and dingy corridor with its two runway strips of fluorescent lighting along the ceiling that gave off a green glow. The smell of ur
ine was ever-present. They ran past the drunk and the desperate as rough sleepers prepared to bed down for the night. The eeriness in the tunnel was permeated by the sound of running feet. Shrimp could hear them gaining. David White’s legs were slowing. Shrimp realised he had no choice but to stand and fight. With his back to the wall and David White standing behind him, he prepared for the fight of his life.

  45

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-one, ma’am.’

  Mamasan Mimi examined Wednesday’s hands.

  ‘Washer woman hands,’ she said in a derisive tone, and let them drop.

  Wednesday looked at them. They were strong hands but not manicured, it was true. Wednesday always put palm oil on them before she went to sleep, to stop them drying and shrivelling, but they weren’t pretty hands.

  ‘Take off your clothes.’

  Wednesday looked at the three doormen.

  ‘Go away,’ she said.

  The mamasan laughed. ‘They will see all they want soon and more, but okay-if you wish…’

  She shooed the men away with a wave of her hand. They pushed one another out of the door, giggling like schoolboys. Wednesday slipped out of her sundress for the mamasan’s appraisal.

  ‘You have had a child. I can see by the round of your stomach. Still, you have good breasts and a curvy figure, the men will like that, and you are light-skinned with a pretty face. Start tonight. In three hours. Go and get your bikini made in the tailor three doors down from here. Tell him Mamasan Mimi from Lolita’s sent you, hurry, and here…’ she gave Wednesday some change ‘…get something to eat whilst he’s making it. Come back to me in two hours, I will show you where you sleep and where you wash.’

  Wednesday took the money and thanked the mamasan. She felt sick to the stomach but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered any more. She had brought Maya into this world and she was all the little girl had. Wednesday would find her and bring her home whatever the cost.