Chapter 44

Mann and Shrimp walked back down to the ground floor where the Mansions’ arcades fanned out and ran parallel to the main hub. Around them was a dilapidated row of backpacker suppliers. They found Rizal playing dice amongst the knocked-off North Face backpacks. A young Filipina with bad skin and heavy features was sat on Rizal’s lap, her arm around his neck; she had on shorts and a top that pushed her small breasts into a cleavage. They stopped playing dice and looked up as Mann and Shrimp approached. The girl kept her eyes on Mann whilst nuzzling at Rizal’s ear.

Rizal was playing dice with two other Filipinos, one slick, expensive-looking glasses perched on his head, black trousers, shirt open to his waist, he looked like a musician from one of the many Filipino bands in Hong Kong. The other one was slobby with a badly stained, shiny red shirt, a manual worker, tough, strong.

Rizal looked them up and down. He recognized what they were straight away. ‘The food is finished, sold out. Come back tomorrow.’ Then he turned to the others and grinned as he spoke under his breath in Filipino. The other two men laughed.

Mann grinned back. ‘That’s okay. We’ll wait.’ Mann indicated that Shrimp should pull up a spare stool. There was only one. Shrimp dragged it over and sat next to Slick.

‘Wait for what?’ Rizal rolled his eyes at his friends and raised his voice an octave. ‘Huh? Wait for what? The Food Is Finished,’ he said as if they might not understand English.

Mann pulled a stool out from under Slick. Slick fell on the floor, jumped to his feet and went to retaliate. Shrimp reached out to stop him.

‘You were ready to leave, weren’t you? We mean no harm, we come in peace.’ He nodded gravely and then grinned. ‘Now fuck off.’

Mann resisted the urge to smile. He had seen Shrimp change over the years, grow to be a man. He had seen him come off the worse in some fights, and seen him pull it out of the bag. Now he was seeing him act as a hard man when inside he was still a little boy learning about life, boundaries, the universe. The older guy in the red shirt was still watching the scene unfold. Mann saw the knife in his belt. The girl got off Rizal’s lap and disappeared to pastures greener.

Rizal leaned back to look Mann over. He wiped his hand on his dirty vest, a cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth. ‘I told you, the food is finished. We are all out of pork. Come back tomorrow.’

Slick, still seething, was obviously weighing Shrimp up to see if he could take him. He probably could, muscle for muscle – but then it wasn’t about how much muscle, just how you used it. Shrimp had yet to flesh out. Slick laughed at Rizal’s retort. Mann caught him mid-throat with the side of his hand. Slick clutched his throat and tried to breathe and then Mann slammed the flat of his hand between his shoulder blades. ‘Sorry – thought you got something stuck in your throat.’

Slick fell onto his knees, choking.

‘Just trying to help. Shrimp here is an expert on all things. What do you say, Shrimp?’

‘He needs to go away somewhere quiet for a few hours and contemplate his life.’

‘Okay, I don’t want any trouble.’ Rizal told his friends to go. ‘What do you want?’ Rizal put his cigarette on the edge of the card table whilst he packed up his dice.

‘To tell you something for a start. Michelle’s in custody.’

Rizal didn’t blink. He picked up his dice and put them in his pocket. ‘Whatever she did, ain’t got nothing to do with me. What was it this time? Stealing from a john?’

‘She’s on a possible murder charge.’

‘Huh?’ Rizal looked at Mann, his jaw dropped and then he burst out laughing. ‘Michelle? You have to be kidding. If she had it in her she’d have killed me a long time ago.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I said, but then someone pointed out you might have put her up to it which is why I’m here. We need some blood from you. We need to take your prints. I can take you in now or you can save us a job and go there yourself.’

Rizal shook his head, rolled his eyes, irritated. ‘You ain’t got nuttin’ on me. If Michelle is banged up it has nothing to do with me. You wanna find Lilly, her daughter. I won’t have any curry to sell. How am I going to feed my kids? You should let her go. We have real live problems round this place. People die every fucking day here and no one cares. Just coz it’s some rich foreigner there’s fucking trouble.’

‘This new group of kids, the Outcasts, have you heard of them?’

‘I know them. Outcasts, lone wolves.’ Rizal snorted with derision. ‘Just a pack of mangy dogs. Just a bunch of ugly kids. That little bitch Lilly’s one of them. She’s always looking for trouble. Don’t worry. I’m going to teach her a lesson she won’t forget.’

‘Do you know who’s doing the recruiting?’

Rizal locked his eyes on to Mann’s and then he looked away and shrugged. ‘I think it’s Chinese. I have seen some new faces in the Mansions, expensive suits, and expensive-looking women.’

Mann heard footsteps coming along the corridor. He looked over at Shrimp. Shrimp had moved to the far side and was watching someone approach. Slick and a new man appeared; he was as broad as he was tall. A strong-looking fighter. They had the Filipino’s choice of weapon – the street knife: solid, long bladed. It was the art of Eskrima, the Filipino martial art. Its masters trained in street alleys, barefoot on broken glass, where space was limited and you had to kill quick and get away fast. Hands were used as weapons, blocking, breaking bones.

Rizal looked pleased with himself. He jumped up and scurried to the back of the newcomers. One of them stepped forward, bare-chested, his scarred torso showing years of fighting. He was the oldest, around forty, strong and stocky.

The fighter spoke. ‘The Mansions has its own set of rules. You come into our world, you play by them.’

Mann looked across at Shrimp. He knew he was more than capable of beating them in a clean fight but this was anything but that. Shrimp had studied Muay Thai which was nothing like as dirty as this type of combat.

Mann looked at the fighter and said, ‘Chain of the hand. Kadena de mano. No weapons.’

The fighter nodded. He put his knife down.

Mann looked at Shrimp, who was placing his beloved suit jacket carefully on a chair well out of the way of the action. He looked every bit the hero in his purple shirt and suit trousers. Mann was glad he’d worn his jeans and t-shirt. He undid his shuriken belt and placed it under his leather jacket, on the floor of the corridor, and then he beckoned the fighter forwards.

The guy was agile. He was a short man but he had the traditional Filipino broad powerful shoulders, strong lean body. His hands were his weapon; they were lightning fast. He dealt Mann the first punch and followed up with three more before Mann got the message. He could already taste the blood in his mouth from two punches that had threatened to take out his teeth. Now he gauged not just the fighter’s range but also his preferred lead arm, his speed on his feet, and he gauged something even more vital. The fighter had a weapon concealed in his belt.

From the corner of his eye Mann was aware of Shrimp. Shrimp was going in fast and furious. Mann knew why that would be – he wanted to inflict the most damage on his opponent and the least damage on his suit. Slick had not expected it. He did not have Shrimp’s athleticism. Shrimp was hitting Slick with moves that Mann hadn’t seen him use before. He turned in the air and dealt a jump sidekick that landed in the centre of Slick’s chest and sent him crashing back against the wall just as another hit him to the side of the head. His head was brought down onto Shrimp’s knee and Slick didn’t recover. Mann could hear him moaning as he dragged his body away and out of Shrimp’s reach.

The fighter was flying around Mann with his arms in every direction like flick knives, looking for gaps in Mann’s defence. He rocked back and forth on his agile feet. Mann had seen enough. He let down his guard on his left side and waited for the punch. His opponent obliged with a left cross. When the fighter’s arm was full stretched, Mann caught his wrist and bent it back. He smashed the palm of his hand into the fighter’s knuckles and heard them crack. He dealt three fast blows, bent the wrist back, one, snapped it then he twisted the arm and smashed down, two, popping the elbow, then three, he punched down hard on the forearm to break it. Mann flipped him over, his broken arm behind his back, and locked his head. A knife dropped to the floor out of the fighter’s waistband. Mann picked it up and pressed it against the fighter’s throat.