had not found it easy in the beginning. Hitting women was not in Brandon’s nature, but he had got used to detaching his brain from the work. That’s all it was—work. They were merchandise. The Colonel liked him, he knew that. One day he wanted to take over from him. Of course, there were obstacles to that, and that’s why Brandon had to be good at waiting and watching.
Next to him was Reese, an Australian who was stuck in the seventies—a string of love beads around his neck and flowery board shorts on his skinny legs. His surfer’s curls that were once his pride and joy were now straw, and his once beautiful face was now thin and deeply lined. He sat cross-legged, swinging his suspended leg nervously and fiddling with his cigarette packet.
The fourth man called himself the Teacher.
A few westerners sat in the Bordello at the bar enjoying a late-afternoon beer. It was their lull time. The evening unfolded in a regular pattern. The needs of the whorists were always the same—eat, sleep and fuck—but they formed their own patterns according to their age. From lunchtime onwards the younger ones emerged in packs, tired and hung over. They needed food and a good few beers and to socialise with each other. They got rid of one date, sobered up and recharged themselves ready for another evening of heat and sweat and DNA exchange. The older whorists were loners, even if they had come along with another male they didn’t feel it necessary to stay with them all day and all evening. They sat at bars on their own, picked up a girl early. They were after a companion to have dinner with and spend the night snoring next to. They preferred the calm surroundings and the melancholy country music of the Bordello. They needed to pace themselves.
A barmaid named Comfort kept the energy circulating in the bar with a big smile and a substantial push-up bra. Her laugh ricocheted around the walls as she bantered happily with the three men who had nothing else to do but sit and watch her.
Comfort looked up as Jed and Peanut came in and she moved down to the end of the bar where the signing-in book was. She leaned over the book, pen ready.
Jed didn’t acknowledge the other men in the bar. He walked in as if he were on stage. He talked loud, laughed louder. He was showing the older men that he was a young stud.
‘You got a room for an hour, baby?’
He rested his elbow on the counter and leaned over to get close to Comfort and look further down her cleavage. He grinned smugly; his gold teeth flashed in the gloom of the bar. She grinned back. Peanut stood waiting patiently for it all to be over. She was an un educated girl from the countryside, and spoke very little English. She was unattractive: dark-skinned and rough-featured. Her scrawny legs dropped down from beneath a micro denim skirt like two sticks of gnawed liquorice. But Peanut was a hit with men who liked their women to look like undernourished girls. Jed towered over her at six foot four to her four foot nine.
Comfort flicked her hair back from her face and turned her large round eyes, as clear as amber marbles, towards Jed, ignoring Peanut altogether.
‘You go-in’ to need two hour, Big Boy.’
He raised an eyebrow and let out a laugh that boomed out across the bar. ‘Damn! Is that right? How come? You plannin’ on joinin’ us?’ He ran his hand down her forearm. ‘You want a repeat performance?’ He stroked the round of her breast as it rested on the signing-in book. ‘You missed me that much you want some more of the big man?’
Comfort looked up at Jed and bit her bottom lip playfully.
‘You spoil me. Give me ree-al good time larse time.’ She reached out and ran her fingers lightly down his chest to his crotch. She felt the muscles in his abdomen tense. ‘I’m go-in to have to give it to you for free, Big Man. You leave door unlock. I come up an’ party wid you. Okay?’
He grinned inanely. ‘Oh yeah, baby! Me and Peanut here are gonna be waitin’ for you.’
He flashed his teeth and clicked his tongue, placed his hand on Peanut’s tiny bottom and steered her towards the stairs at the far end of the bar. A door there led to the two floors of short-stay rooms. Above them slept the women who serviced those rooms. He turned back and winked at Comfort. She winked back, waited till he was out of sight then turned to look at the Colonel. He was watching her through the window. He tapped his watch at her. She nodded.
For a few seconds Amy didn’t know whether her eyes were open or not—it was too dark to tell. She felt around the bedcover with her hands. It didn’t feel like the soft cotton one that she was used to. It felt hard, waxy. She scrunched it in her fingers—no, it definitely didn’t fold in her hand the way it should, it was like cardboard. She blinked again…yes…her eyes were open. She lay there in the darkness and thought hard. She tried to remember what had happened: Lenny picked her up from school; they drove to an apartment block next to lots of others, in the middle of nowhere where lots of buildings were going up all around. They came up in a lift. The flat smelled of paint and had hardly any furniture in it. It didn’t look as if Lenny or anyone lived there. Lenny didn’t know where anything was. He had opened the wrong door in the kitchen when he wanted the fridge. Then he had shown her her room. She remembered sitting in the lounge and watching telly whilst Lenny made a few calls. It was then that she had begun to feel very uncomfortable and she had looked for her schoolbag so that she could make a phone call. When he came off the phone she asked Lenny where it was. He said it was still in the car and that they’d get it in a minute when they went back out. But nothing felt right. Amy had drunk her Coke and pretended to watch the telly but inside she wanted to cry. Then she remembered feeling so tired that she just had to close her eyes for a little while. She gasped now. Was she naked? Had he undressed her? She felt under the bedclothes. It was all right, she still had her clothes on. She blinked again and this time she saw a faint orange glow in the room coming from beneath the door. She looked around; only moving her eyes, she didn’t dare move her head. Yes—there was the desk, the chair, the old lamp. She was lying on a mattress on the floor, not in a bed; it was the room she had seen before. She must have got sick and Lenny had put her to bed. That was it. She could hear the sound of a television in the room next door.
‘Lenny?’ She sat up and called out. ‘Lenny?’
The television went off. She heard the rustle of someone moving; she heard someone approach the door and turn the handle.
A man stood in the doorway. He was Chinese. Amy knew his type: rough Hong Kong low-life type. She had been around types like him all her life.
‘Where’s Lenny?’
The man didn’t answer for a second and Amy could see that he had something behind his back. Only when he came into the room did she see what it was—it was a length of rope with a loop at the end.
Johnny Mann went back to his flat to unpack and repack his case before he headed over to Stanley Bay to see his mother and explain why he wouldn’t be over for Sunday roast. He knew she would be looking forward to seeing him. He hadn’t caught up with her for a while. The last case had kept him working twenty-four-seven and then the aftermath had left him needing to get away and recover his sanity.
‘They’re lovely.’
He stood behind her in the hall mirror and finished fastening the string of pink pearls around his mother’s neck. She reached
