He had a hard job controlling himself. He was excited about Comfort. She was that rare Filipina—the one that was confident enough to work it—so many of them were just ‘yes, no, pay now’ girls, but Comfort knew how to be a very good bad girl. She liked sex. She enjoyed it. He was going to take his time, even though Peanut wriggled beneath him. He knew she was eager to get it over with. It was almost time for her to go back to work. He had bought her out from Lolita’s nearly twenty-four hours ago. He’d had his money’s worth. In another hour she would be back dancing in a g-string in front of strangers. The thought of the threesome he was about to have made him thrust harder. But he didn’t want to come. He needed to wait. This was just a warm-up.
He paused, listened. He was sure he could hear Comfort in the corridor outside. There it was, her knock on the door, just like she’d said she would. He took some deep breaths, relaxed. He could wait for the fun to begin.
‘Come in, honey.’ As the door opened Jed felt the rush of air cool the sweat on his back. ‘We bin waitin’ for ya.’ He turned, slow, kept himself hard and strong inside Peanut, who lay motionless beneath him with his crucifix resting on her eye.
‘Where would sir like it? Up the arse?’ The Teacher fired two shots from a Heckler & Koch P7 pistol with the silencer attached. He fired one into Jed’s rectum to immobilise him. Boomph! He fell like a felled elephant on top of Peanut, who lay there, eyes wide, unable to move. Then he fired the other shot into the back of Jed’s head. Brain and skull fragments splattered across the wall above Peanut.
Mann boarded the plane and settled down for his twelve-hour flight. Better twelve than eight, he thought. At least he had some hope of sleeping five or six hours and not being force-fed like a laboratory animal every couple of hours. But sleep wasn’t going to come easy. He thought about what his mother had said. She had come to a crossroads in her life, it seemed to Mann. She was in a reflective mood. Today, for the first time ever, his mother had hinted that her marriage had not been as it should. Now Mann had the task of revisiting his memories from a different angle. He had to take away the child’s perceptions, straighten their edges and see them through untinted glasses. It would be a hard task. The most time he had spent with his family had been the years before he was sent away to school—he had started boarding when he was eight—and then there were the holidays when he’d come back to Hong Kong. Was it true that their marriage hadn’t been as strong as he had always assumed? His mother always left out more than she ever said.
He was in for a long night. Thoughts bounced around inside his head. He hadn’t been back to the UK for a long time—seventeen years. The last time he had stood on British soil his father had still been alive. It wasn’t that he hadn’t meant to return, but there had just never been a good time.
Mann practised his particular type of meditation—he shut his mind to all but the pursuit of sleep. Anything unwanted, even sex, that popped into his brain was booted out without being looked at. He pulled his fleece blanket up over his face and mentally put himself on the beach, with not a bikini in sight.
‘La La La. Love Love Love. Kiss Kiss Kiss Me.’ Eight-year-old Sophia sang along to the jukebox in the Tequila Station.
‘Love that one, sweetie. You coloured that real pretty.’
Sophia turned the pages of her book and showed her father her efforts. Terry ran his hand affectionately over Sophia’s soft brown curls, keeping one eye on her work and the other on the door. It was a quarter to eight. The meeting was scheduled for eight. The others would be arriving soon.
The Tequila Station was a large sprawling bar set out on three levels, the most popular bar on Fields Avenue. Just down the road on the same side as the Bordello and within spitting distance of all the best clubs, it was the perfect meeting place for whorists who, in between fucking and partying, came to play pool, relax and get something to eat. It was the favourite place for the younger of them—a home from home. Then, fed and watered, they partied solidly till three in the morning.
Terry and Sophia sat just past the main bar on the right, down two steps in a private seating area that was screened from prying eyes. It had a RESERVED sign permanently on it, although most of the time that wasn’t needed. Everyone understood it was not an area for the general public to sit in. Terry and Sophia were the first ones to arrive.
Sophia was still in her school uniform and was doing her homework whilst Terry talked on the phone beside her. His laptop was open. Terry had installed Wi-Fi so that he could connect with the world from anywhere in the bar.
Sophia sucked the end of her coloured pencils and paused frequently to survey her work. Occasionally she demanded her father’s attention. She didn’t speak—she pushed her face into his as he talked on the phone, and pointed to her work. He smiled and nodded, pretended to be interested.
‘Wait,’ he mouthed to Sophia. She tugged at his arm. He held the phone away from his mouth and covered the mouthpiece. ‘Wait, sweetie. I’ll be with you in a minute.’
She pulled a cross pouty face and went back to colouring, her tongue protruding just a little as she concentrated on keeping the colours inside the lines.
He continued his conversation, a smugly satisfied look on his face.
‘She took a lot of finding. It was thanks to our men in black…Yes…She’s being seasoned right now. Be ready in a week or two. I know, I know, ha ha, a nonstop fucking supply of baby whores—couldn’t ask for more. Yes…So far, so good…The deliveries should keep coming regularly. They are standing by their word. But this is the Philippines; they might always sell out to the highest bidder…. Yes, the Chinaman, is he still buying up everything? We need to show them we mean business…It’s in hand.’
Terry finished his phone call and gave his attention to Sophia, but she had lost interest in her colouring and had now got out Princess Pony to play with. She started combing its hair. The smell of raspberry-scented pink plastic nauseated her father as much as it delighted her, and he instinctively turned his back on her and watched the door. He knew that the others would all be on time. Only the main man would be late, as was his privilege.
Sophia was making clacking hoof noises and Princess Pony was trotting across the table when the door opened.
The security guard stepped aside to allow Reese through. He didn’t get frisked like everyone else, none of the Fields’ VIPS did. The strict ‘no weapons’ policy all around Angeles City did not apply to them. Brandon walked in behind Reese.
The four young black guys playing pool looked up and watched as the two men entered. One of them nodded in their direction. Laurence also worked for the Colonel and had the job of looking after four of the Colonel’s clubs. The Colonel had taken him under his wing as ex-US army; he had felt a bond with him.
Reese and Brandon picked themselves up a drink, and then went straight over to sit with Terry and Sophia. Sophia looked up from her colouring. She knew them both but she never bothered to talk to them because they did not acknowledge her. Only Reese talked to her sometimes, when her daddy wasn’t around.
Laurence finished up his game of pool and came over to join them. He sat down and checked his watch.
‘Five to eight…same old fuckin’ bullshit.