The Trafficked

24

‘You looking for me, Stevie?’

Even from the other side of the busy Chinese restaur ant in Gerrard Street, packed wall-to-wall with Chinese diners enjoying a noisy dim sum lunch, Mann spotted him easily. Stevie had gone bald from alopecia in his mid-twenties, now he had grown fat and the skin folded at the back of his neck like a pork joint waiting to be salted. He was the one bald head amongst ten smartly dressed Chinese-all polo necks, sunglasses and dark jackets. They were seated around a large round table with a rotating centre, covered in newly arrived steaming dishes. It looked like they were settling in for a long lunch.

Stevie Ho didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

‘Let me guess? Detective Inspector Johnny Mann?’

Mann and Stevie knew each other from old, they had been police cadets together, competitive in their grades, and they were equal first in everything. As soon as they graduated, Stevie had been given the chance to go undercover, and he had never come out. Apart from his broad shoulders there was nothing left of the good-looking ambitious young policeman that he once was.

Stevie signalled to the waiter to bring another chair for Mann. Mann held up his hand to stop the waiter from bringing it.

‘You’ve obviously finished your meal, Stevie, let’s go.’

Mann watched as Stevie shrugged, took his napkin from his lap, folded it neatly and placed it next to his bowl. Then he started to rise…slowly. The man on the far left side of the table cried out in pain, clutched his right hand and squeezed his fingers tight. It took three seconds for the blood to start pouring over the white tablecloth. A small throwing star had, very efficiently, cut the man’s fingers to the bone just as he was deciding whether he would be first to find his holster. The star landed noiselessly on the carpet behind him.

Mann smiled at him. ‘Don’t be stupid. I could easily have taken your hand off.’

There was a dive for weapons, a shuffle of chairs from nearby tables as the rest of the clientele sought to distance themselves from the disturbance. No one went for a phone. All the patrons in the restaurant were Chinese. They recognised this was triad business. They knew it wouldn’t involve them as long as they didn’t involve themselves in it. They averted their glances and kept on eating.

Stevie held up his hands for calm: ‘I’m okay…sit…sit.’ He flinched-Delilah was talking to his kidneys.

‘Yes, finish your lunch, boys, and Stevie will be back in no time. Anyone follows-Stevie will return-but not all in one piece.’

They walked through the hushed restaurant. Every head was bowed, intent on eating. When they got outside they walked towards Covent Garden. No one noticed them-they were two more businessmen taking a stroll, weaving their way through the crowded pavement.

‘What is it with you? Wherever there’s trouble, there you are. You never think you might be living on borrowed time, Stevie? How many years do you think you have left? What are you doing here?’

‘I am a global traveller-you know that. I’m sure you’ve looked into my itinerary. I go all over the world. I am a business advisor to many people. That’s how I make my money.’

‘You mean you are a Grass Sandal in the Wo Shing Shing. If that office had a job description it would read: collector of protection money and triad debts, liaison officer with other triad societies, and the person in charge of handling overseas business transactions for triads. So, CK sent you? You’re on Wo Shing Shing business?’

They walked across the cobbles and through into Covent Garden market. The pigeons nodded to one another and there was an overpowering smell of fresh coffee corrupted with handmade soap.

‘To belong to a triad organisation is illegal, we both know that. But I represent the Leung Corporation in many of its business dealings, that’s true. I am here to safeguard CK’s assets. I was here before to broker the deal for his daughter’s release. I have a personal interest in getting her back. We are all, in our own way, working for CK, are we not? Even you are in his employ. The word is you’re taking big pay-offs from him these days.’

‘Yeah, I heard that one too. We both want things. It’s just that your needs always start and end with a dollar sign. We aren’t all pigs on a truffle fest, some of us have principles and I don’t see a Porsche parked in my bay back at the police station. Who did you deal with when you organised the ransom?’

‘I received anonymous orders-phone calls.’

‘Man or woman?’

‘Woman.’

‘Chinese or English?’

‘Chinese.’

They stopped at the edge of the plaza and watched an opera singer lay out his velvet begging bowl and switch on his CD player.

‘What were you doing in the Philippines? I hear you were acquiring land, meeting up with your pimp friends-the Colonel and his mates.’

‘I don’t know the Colonel. The Philippines is still a great place to buy cheap property, pussy and police. Of course, I have my own interests, aside from the Leung Corporation’s. I have to think of my own future now. You know me-I am ambitious.’

‘I knew you once. That man is dead and gone, you’re just a shell. Your new friends will betray you in the end. You mix with the scum of the earth, you can’t expect to come out disease free. Do you never think of your conscience, Stevie?’

‘I make my peace with my own god, Mann, each to his own.’

‘Let’s hope your god recognises you when you get to the pearly gates because, when your new friends finish with you and CK finds out, you’re not going to look so pretty.’

He stopped and turned to face Mann.

‘I swore an allegiance to Chan, not CK. That ended in the waters off Cheung Chau. You saw to that. I have agreed to help in the search for CK’s child. I will do all in my power to find her. Then, I will consider my obligation to the Wo Shing Shing satisfied.’

‘Does CK see it that way?’

‘I can take care of myself. I know how to play the game, work the system, but you? You’re pissing people off on purpose. You want to watch it, Mann, you’re making yourself into a walking target. There are several people out there who will pay a great deal of money to see you dead.’

‘That’s the difference between us, Stevie. Being a target doesn’t bother me, but kidnapping schoolchildren and burning women alive does.’