Keep looking behind you, Chan, because I’m going to be there.

18

After her interview with Mann, Lucy went back to the Dressing Room to wait for her number to be called. The ‘home from home’ for the girls was a large rectangular space about fifty-five metres long and twenty wide. It was sparsely furnished with lockers and chairs down its left-hand side and starlet-style mirrors arranged in rows down its right. In front of the mirrors were broad shelves used for eating, doing make-up, sleeping. There were stools and chairs scattered around, but never enough.

There were girls everywhere, descended flock-like to roost, at least two hundred at any one time, dressing or undressing. Their glamorous frocks were semi-draped over smooth shiny skin or poured intestine-like from lockers where they had fallen from hangers or been hastily discarded.

The noise of excited girls greeting one another, of locker doors bouncing off their hinges, was deafening, but the camaraderie was touching. Lucy threaded her way through.

‘Hey, Lucy, what’s up?’ The distinctive American tones of Candy could be heard above the racket. ‘You late?’

‘Nah … been out already …’ Lucy sassed over her shoulder as she made her way through.

Candy feigned amazement. ‘Jesus, Lucy! You’re gonna be rich!’

Lucy giggled, then screeched as she heard her number called over the tannoy:

‘NUMBER 169,MISS LUCY … NUMBER 169,MISS LUCY …’

She doubled back and squirmed through the waiting girls to meet her mamasan on the other side of the velvet curtain.

‘You must be good girl now, Lucy.’ Mamasan Linda held on to Lucy’s hand and trotted ahead like a mother escorting a naughty child to receive judgement from a waiting father.

They wound their way through half-full tables, past the Filipino band singing the Police song ‘Don’t stand so close to me’ quite earnestly, considering that a consignment of blow had arrived that day from Manila, past a man from Taipei who was on the dance floor clinging pathetically to the pencil-thin, Lycra-slippery hips of his young date while the changing light patterns on the dance floor stole his drunken feet from beneath him. And past Bernadette, who was leaping from foot to foot in a frenzy of chiffon. Her hair sat rigid on her head like deep-fried roadkill, while the rest of her body hopped madly around the dance floor. Lucy remembered going out on a double date with Bernadette. What a nightmare! She recalled Bernadette straddling a diminutive Taiwanese, his face exploding like a bullfrog on heat at every squeeze of those massive white thighs. Lucy had had to drag her off at the end of the evening with her screaming, But I haven’t feckin’ come yet!

Mamasan Linda stopped in her tracks and turned back to talk to Lucy. She lowered her voice.

‘He’s a good customer. He’s come back many times and asked for you. Look after him, okay? Be a clever girl, huh? Big VIP. He owns all this.’ She swept her hands in the air theatrically.

Lucy gave her a ‘teach grandma to suck eggs’ look and fell into a trot behind her again, following the red and gold cheongsam swishing hypnotically from side to side. They approached a booth that was situated to the back of the club, in the VIP section, overlooking the semicircular dance floor.

‘Here she is.’ Mamasan Linda let go of Lucy’s hand and pushed her forward. ‘Here is Lucy.’

Lucy smiled and slipped in behind the round table until her thigh made contact with her client’s. She studied him but her eyes were still adjusting to the gloom and it took time to recognise him as the man who had bought her out a couple of weeks before and a few times before that. It took time to place body with face – to transcend the gap between leaving the club and leaving the Love Motel. Then she placed him and a surge of adrenalin went through her as she remembered his peculiar tastes that had taken some time to heal.

Chan spent his evenings doing the rounds of the hostess clubs. He was son-in-law to C. K. Leung, the Dragon Head of the Wo Shing Shing triad organisation – the most powerful society in Hong Kong. It was Chan’s job to oversee some of the Wo Shing Shing’s many business concerns and, at the same time, he liked to cherry-pick any new young hostesses who had just come on the market. Chan had a bent towards pubescent girls. He liked his girls to be girls. Surprising then, that he had asked for Lucy, she wasn’t really his type – too fat and certainly, at twenty-four, too old. But tonight he had come looking for her. He had need of her quite extraordinary talents.

‘So, Lucy, how’s things?’

‘Good evening, Mr Chan. Everything is good, thank you. It’s nice to see you again.’

Lucy smiled, met his eyes, and began her usual routine. She feigned ‘coy mistress’ mixed with ‘sure bet’ in as few seconds as she could. The act was wasted. He was busy signalling to Mamasan Linda that he would be buying Lucy out and he was ready to leave.

‘Go change, quick-quick,’ she said, appearing beside the table.

Lucy stood up and left the two to negotiate.

‘See you in a minute, Mr Chan,’ she said. He didn’t answer. He was already busy with his wallet.

On the way she met Candy en route to one of the VIP suites at the back of the club. Her tall figure – broad shoulders, stiff hips and straight back – dwarfed the two Chinese hostesses with her. Her eyes widened in mock disbelief as she glanced at Lucy. Lucy grinned. Candy had no need to worry. She always did well. She lived in an expensive apartment near Tsim Sha Tsui and came to work in the evening to recruit customers for the next day instead. Moving from table to table, she never wanted to be bought out – preferring to make back-to-back appointments for the following day. She was sending the money home to an Italian boyfriend who wanted to open a deli in New York.

Chan dropped Lucy back at the club afterwards. She smiled sweetly and thanked him for his patronage. He wasn’t listening. He was anxious to be rid of her. He was always the same afterwards: curt, cold and callous. He had hurt her, but he didn’t care. He had overstepped the mark, crossed the boundaries, and ignored the signal to stop. Now he couldn’t even look at her. Not because he felt any guilt, but because she repulsed him. Easing herself out of the car, Lucy turned to wave goodbye, but he had already pulled off erratically into the stream of traffic. Lucy wouldn’t be able to work again that night.

19

She packed her evening dress away in her locker, put her leather trousers back on and said her goodbyes to the handful of girls left in the Dressing Room. She had done enough work for one night. It was only when she reached the line of taxis that she decided she wasn’t in the mood to return home just yet – she deserved a little fun after her ordeal. She caught a cab to the Macau ferry terminal, just a short distance away, and boarded the waiting ferry.

The journey would take nearly an hour, but tonight she didn’t mind. Usually she was impatient to arrive; but this time she knew it would give her the time and space to mull things over. Mostly she thought about Georgina, who had just arrived – landed, almost – in their lives. She smiled to herself. Those big hands! That innocent face! She brought out the maternal instinct in Lucy. God knows, that was funny, feeling maternal to a girl just two years younger than herself. But why not? She could take care of them all.

She sat back to take stock of her surroundings and to enjoy the anticipation and the rush of pure adrenalin and excitement that only Macau gave her. Gambling was a need that had grown in her over the last few years. She had become addicted to its thrills, its uncertainty – knowing that she could lose everything she had, or simply win the world. It was a thrill second to none. But it was a deadly game to play. Macau was run, ruined and ruled by triads.