Mann looked at his mother and searched her eyes.
‘I will never let it go, Mum. In my own way I got justice for Helen, and I will get it for father. I will find out who killed him and I will make them pay.’
‘Your father made enemies. It killed him. We can’t keep raking up the past.’
‘And I cannot forget it…the sight of my father being executed will never leave me. I can see it so clearly. It is branded on my mind’s eye, on my subconscious, in vivid detail. There is no forgetting for me until I get it explained. I want to find out why his death was ordered and I want to get the man who ordered it.’
Molly was staring at him, horrified. Mann felt instant remorse. He had not meant to worry her. He reassured her with a smile and stroked Ginger, who purred in her arms.
‘I never knew that about Dad—that he hated animals.’
She looked at him and met his eyes with her piercing grey stare.
‘There was a lot you never knew about your father.’
‘What is that fucking awful smell?’
The Teacher sat back in his chair and waited for an answer. Reese sniggered.
The Colonel paused, beer bottle to his mouth. ‘What smell?’ He lifted his chin and sniffed the air from right to left.
‘The all-prevailing smell of shit in this place.’
Reese giggled nervously. ‘You get used to it, bro.’
‘Don’t you smell it, Colonel, or is your nose buggered from all that speed you shove up it?’
Reese and Brandon looked anxious. It wasn’t often they saw their boss at the butt of someone else’s jibes. He wasn’t the best at taking a joke. But then, he didn’t usually have to suck up to anyone. His word was the law in Angeles. He owned five of the big clubs there: Hot Lips, Lolita’s, Lipstick, The Honey Pot and Bibidolls. They were the best clubs in Angeles with the youngest, prettiest girls—handpicked by him. He also owned several bars and hotels. The Bordello was one of them, the Tequila Station another. The Colonel set his beer carefully down and looked at the Teacher. He smiled.
‘I thought the same when I first got here. I thought “what a shit-hole”. Now I think “what a gold mine”. The smell of shit and the smell of money have become one and the same for me.’
‘Just as well, because this place is an open sewer.’ The Teacher looked about him in disgust. ‘Literally…’ He was referring to the foul running water that ran the length of the street and followed a course beside the cracked and uneven pavement.
The Teacher gave up the conversation and sat back and drank from his beer bottle. There was too much noise to talk. Opposite the Bordello the mosquito drivers with their noisy motorbikes with sidecars, were trying to impress the girls who stood outside Bibidolls in their bikinis. They were competing to see who could rev their machine the loudest—the night was young and they were bored. They belched fumes and beeped at one another whilst the girls giggled at them—although both sides knew it would not end in a coupling. The boys didn’t make enough money and the girls didn’t give it away for free. The girls’ sole aim in life was to marry a foreigner and get off the Fields. They were Guest Relations Officers, GROs. Their job was to entertain the tourists on Fields Avenue. Besides their yellow plastic bikinis they wore permits that hung long around their tanned necks and settled just below their pert cleavages—permits that had their photos and stated they were legally permitted to work in the clubs and that they were eighteen and over. Most of them weren’t; their documents were forged. The girls swished back their hair and pushed their chests forward as they bantered with the whorists as they passed by.
Upstairs in the Bordello there were no GROs. This point on Fields Avenue was the boundary. Here marked the beginning of the descent into unlicensed bars and twenty-four-hour hostess clubs where the girls didn’t wear badges. They often didn’t wear bikinis. They were kept locked in a back room. They were children.
The Colonel flashed the group of mosquito drivers a look that silenced them instantly and they moved hastily away.
‘What about the police? Have you fixed it? Blanco hates fuck-ups.’
The Colonel drank from his beer at the same time as he kept his eyes fixed on the Teacher. He was letting him know that whilst he would take some, he would not take a lot of dissent, especially not in front of his men.
He set his bottle down. ‘Blanco doesn’t need to worry. Over the years I have cultivated a good working relationship with the police. Some I have had to trick by providing them with a girl for the night and then informing them that they have slept with a minor. Others, I have had to give a small share of my profits to. Most of the time it has just taken hard currency.’
‘Everyone here has a price, huh?’
‘Not everyone…he he…’ Reese was eager to show he could be part of the conversation and saw his chance to impress the Teacher. ‘…not the Irish priests.’
‘Yes…’ The Colonel stared disapprovingly at Reese. ‘…that is true…they are all over the fucking Philippines like a plague.’
‘Yeah, man. They have a refuge just up the road from here and for as long as the Colonel’s been pimping the girls the priests have been saving them. Twice the Colonel’s been to court …he he… He had to pay off everyone: the girls’ parents, the police and the fucking court judge.’
‘I think you will find…’ The Colonel glared at Reese and made sure that he understood that he had said enough before taking his eyes from him. ‘…that it isn’t just us bar owners who would happily pay to see the priests shot. Even the local church here doesn’t want them interfering. After all, we bring in big revenue and we always give a fucking big donation to charity. But—nevertheless they remain a thorn in our sides. One that I hope you will remove sometime soon—very soon.’
The Teacher nodded. ‘You honour your side of the bargain, I will honour mine.’
Comfort came to the table with a tray of four beers. As she set the drinks down the Teacher ran his hand up over her flanks and bare legs. She giggled, tried to stay upright but was pulled into his lap. She put her arm around his neck and tipped his peak cap up so she could get a proper look at him.
‘Hey, you handsome man.’ She looked at his sky-blue eyes staring back at her. ‘You marry? Wanna nice Filipina wife?’
The Teacher held onto her hair and tilted her head backwards. He smiled.
‘What’s the offer on whores this week—two for the price of one? Buy one, get one free?’ He grinned sarcastically. ‘Hello “Bogof”. Now fuck off, you disease-ridden piece of shit.’ He pushed her from his lap.
Comfort smiled the way that Filipinos always did whatever the situation. She understood the aggression, but not the words. She knew all about the Kano’s temper. She bore the scars on her body from the Colonel’s off-days. She looked at the Colonel for guidance. She had been his favourite when she was ten. Now that she was twenty, she was way past her prime, but she still felt an affinity to him. He had looked after her, in his own way. She still had her uses for him.
‘Ready?’ His expression hardly ever changed. He had been born looking pissed-off, red-faced, angry. His bulbous eyes were puffy above and below like a chameleon’s. If his head was turned upside down his eyes would look the same.
She stood—‘Yes, Kano’—picked up the tray and went back into the bar.