by Lee Weeks
He put his hand on her shoulder. ‘You won’t be any good to me down there. I need you to stay here and protect the refuge and Father Finn.’
Father Finn appeared at the door. ‘There’s no way I’m staying here. I have a duty to that little girl. I am all she has now and I won’t let her down. I’m coming with you. I will not rest until I have Maya in my hands. I owe Wednesday that much. I might have failed her in other ways, but I will die trying to get her daughter back.’
‘Then it’s down to you to look after things, Becky. Paulo Mercy and Ramon will stay here to help.’
Father Finn looked tensed and ready for the fight. His face bristled with sweat and his eyes burned. ‘Yes. Please keep Eduardo glued to your side, he trusts you.’
‘Never had a priest for a partner, Father.’ Mann smiled.
‘I won’t let you down, Johnny. I will fight with whatever God puts in my hands. I will get that little girl back.’
‘It might be one hell of a fight we find ourselves in the middle of, Father. There’s a whole army of Wo Shing Shing officers ready to engage war on the White Circle, although it might also provide the perfect opportunity for you to get Maya out.’
‘What, if World War Three breaks out, you mean? I’d rather stop that from happening.’
‘There’s always a catch with you, isn’t there, Father?’ Mann smiled.
After Father Finn had left them, Mann and Becky looked at one another. She smiled.
‘You look funny in that outfit.’ Mann had borrowed one of the Father’s blue gingham shirts.
‘This is my camouflage suit.’
She looked suddenly lost, thought Mann. She would look like a little girl wearing flowery shorts and a red rose T-shirt from the refuge shop, if it weren’t for the fact that she also had a semi-automatic in her hand. ‘It all makes a horrible sense, doesn’t it?’
‘Yep…’ Mann went over to her, took the rifle out of her hands and hugged her tight. ‘I am afraid it does, Becky.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘I will see you when it’s over.’
Father Finn appeared in the doorway again.
‘Is it time to go, Johnny?’
‘Yes. It’s starting, Father.’
‘Okay Then it must also end, no?’
70
It was two thirty in the morning when they parked up on the side road leading to Fields Avenue. Father Finn and Mann walked back up the avenue. Mann paused in an alleyway. Amongst the rotting garbage that lived on top of other rotting garbage a man’s body lay in that awkward position that Mann knew was death. He was still warm, but already he had the smell of death and blood and faeces. His limbs were twisted. His throat had been cut. Mann bent down to look at him closely. His eyes were open wide. His head was almost severed from his body-a clean chop using a wide blade. Triad execution.
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.’
Ma
nn’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.’
71
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.’
Mann undid his throwing-star belt, then undid his spikes strap from around his arm, and threw them on the side of the road.
‘I’m sorry, Johnny,’ the Father said. His head was bowed. He was breathing hard. He’d obviously taken a beating.
‘Shut the fuck up.’ Brandon slapped him across the head with his rifle butt. The father’s knees buckled for a few seconds then he drew himself up with dignity. Brandon pushed him back on to his knees. ‘You can stay down there where you belong.’
The Colonel laughed. ‘Do you know how many years I have waited for this moment, Father? Now, of all nights, you give it to me on a plate. You walk straight into my arms. You kneel before me and await your execution on a night when there will be so many dead that your body will be just one. Whatever possessed you to trespass here tonight, Father? Could it be this?’ He held Maya aloft and shook her. ‘Is it this small, ragged thing that you want? Well, she doesn’t belong to you, Father. She is mine. You are in my world now, Father Finn. You will learn that you have no friends here. This is not a place for anything other than my type of religion. Who do you think all these whores pray to, Father? Who do you think?’ He leaned across the table and spat his words. ‘Me, Father, that’s who. I am their God here in this paradise.’ The Colonel licked Maya’s face. ‘I am God here. I decide what happens here in my land. I say who lives and who dies.’
‘Let the girl go. Do this one thing. Do not hurt an innocent child. Redeem yourself before it is too late.’
‘Redemption?’ The Colonel laughed for a full minute. Brandon shot a look at him and Mann knew that he was starting to worry-doubt was creeping into Brandon’s mind. ‘Why would I want that? She is not innocent. None of them are innocent. We live in a corrupt world, Father. You know that. She is just another whore born of a whore.’
‘You have come to look at life that way because you are sick, dead inside. But it isn’t so. She is a little girl who wants to go and play with her friends. She is just a child.’
‘Shut the fuck up.’ Brandon kicked the Father in his back
‘She is mine. I made her. I created her. Her life is mine for the taking, Father. Don’t ever doubt it. One more word from you, Father, and I will snap her neck now.’
‘Hey, Brandon?’ Mann called over to him. ‘You’re a soldier, an ex-marine. You must be getting worried now. You are never going to make it out of here. Maybe you haven’t noticed the place is swarming with Wo Shing Shing tonight. By now they will have disposed of half of your hired help.’
‘Huh! I think not!’ said the Colonel. ‘We have sentries everywhere. We have set a trap for the Chinese. Let them make it so far up the street, then they will walk straight into it and be killed-all of them, everyone.’ He made a gesture towards Brandon, who handed him the rifle whilst he took out a walkie-talkie from his pocket. ‘Find out how many of our enemy are dead already, Brandon.’
Brandon punched in three different numbers, none of which responded. He closed up the walkie-talkie and looked up and down the street.
‘Think we should get you inside, Colonel. I need to go and find out what happened to the sentries.’
‘I can tell you what’s happened,’ said Mann. ‘They are chopped into bits. The Father and I have already found one. He was dumped on a pile of rubbish. Didn’t you realise you couldn’t win? Didn’t anyone tell you that you have been set up to fail? You made the classic mistake of underestimating your enemy.’
‘We still have the government forces, Colonel. I will call them now. We made a deal, they have to be here.’ Brandon turned away and dialled. He didn’t speak, then he dialled another number and spoke to someone clearly. ‘Get your men moving, now. Something’s not going right down here. This is the time to put your plan into action.’ He snapped the phone shut. ‘Where is the fucking Teacher?’
‘Let me guess? The Teacher is late thirties, blond, blue-eyed, a Brit?’ Brandon stared blankly back at him. ‘Thought so. I met the Teacher, Alex Stamp we call him. He’s your double-crosser. He’s made deals with everyone. He’s left you in a weakened state just ready for the Chinese to come along and break you.’
Brandon flashed a look at the Colonel.
‘You shouldn’t have listened to him, Colonel…That’s why he killed Jed and Laurence…’
‘Don’t you ever fucking tell me what I should or shouldn’t have done.’ The Colonel was spitting out his words. ‘Now take this fucking gun and do your fucking job.’
Behind them the door of the Bordello opened and Comfort stood in the doorway.
‘Get back inside, you stupid bitch!’ the Colonel screamed at her.
She stood her ground. She looked a mess, dazed. Her hair was ragged and sweaty around her face. Her vest top stuck to her.
‘Let me take the little girl, Kano. Let me take her, it is difficult for you to fight with only one hand. She is making a problem for you. I will look after her.’
He thought for a moment. The news that the campaign might be faltering made him edgier than ever. He was glad to get rid of the weight of the child.
White froth clung to the sides of the Colonel’s mouth. His eyes were bulging out of his head and the veins stood out in his forehead and in his arms.
‘Take her. Take her, and then get out of the fucking way. Brandon, get fucking Terry here NOW. I want him HERE.’
Comfort went forward and lifted Maya from his lap, placed her on the ground and gently pushed her to one side, away from the Colonel. Then she took out a small handgun from her pocket. She moved away from the table, so that she was standing in front of Mann. She levelled the gun at the Colonel’s chest.
‘Let the Father go
.’
Comfort’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. Her chest rose and fell.
‘What? Would you shoot me? Ha ha! Get back inside, you worthless piece of rotten meat.’
‘I am what you made me. I am a bad person. But I can do one good thing.’
‘Get out of the fucking way! You’re not going to fire that thing.’ He turned his back on her and laughed.
Comfort’s hand shook uncontrollably. She squeezed the trigger. The gun jumped in her hand as it fired one shot. She hit the Colonel on the shoulder. He lurched backwards in the chair, nearly knocking the table over as he did so. Brandon let go of Father Finn, springing forward and out of reach as he grabbed Maya. Then Brandon fired a round from his rifle into Comfort. She was hit seven times. At such short range some of the bullets passed through her as easily as if going through cheese. The rest sprayed her flesh over Fields Avenue.
Mann dived at the same time as Brandon fired. He felt a sharp pain but he also felt the opportunity and reached for Delilah, hidden in his boot. He threw her hard and strong and straight into Brandon’s heart. He pushed Comfort aside and reached for her gun and fired at the Colonel-but nothing. Comfort’s gun had run out of bullets. The Colonel stood over him, Brandon’s automatic in his hand.
‘It’s Judgement Day, Sonny.’
72
‘What, a street party and no one invited me? It’s a good thing I was in the neighbourhood.’
Stevie Ho and ten Wo Shing Shing deputies were spanning out across the street. ‘Check it,’ he ordered; and they scattered to take up their positions either side of the Bordello. No one would pass down Fields Avenue again that night.
Stevie walked towards the Colonel. ‘Put that gun down, old man.’
The Colonel stood panting like a rabid dog trapped in a corner.
‘You may not have noticed, but your kingdom has been overrun by the enemy.’ Stevie mimicked his accent.
‘You have not seen the real might yet. The troops are on their way.’
