Текст книги "Take Out"

Автор книги: Felicity Young

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

‘Were you told about the baby found abandoned in the house?’ Stevie asked.

‘Yes, poor little Joshua. I feel sorry for him. How is he?’ There was concern in her voice, even though her look remained distracted and flickering. What was she frightened of, Stevie wondered: the police? Rodika had come from a country with a history of repression; fear of the police was ingrained. But Ralph Hardegan, Marius? The same virus of fear seemed to have infected them all.

‘He’s fine now,’ Stevie said, still searching Rodika’s heavily made-up face. ‘Fully recovered and being looked after by a foster family. But he wasn’t left alone in the house as long as we first thought. It turned out that someone had been coming into the house to feed him.’ Stevie saw surprise in the woman’s features, fear still, but no evidence of guilt. ‘Would you know anything about this, Rodika? Did you feed the baby after his parents disappeared?’

Rodika shook her head and clutched at Stevie’s arm. Bordering on hysteria she said, ‘No, not me, I have nothing to do with this! I no kill Delia, I no feed the baby!’

Stevie tried to calm her down. ‘It’s okay, Rodika; no one’s accusing you of anything. If I thought you were responsible, I’d be arresting you now and taking you down to the station, wouldn’t I? Have you visited the Pavel’s home at all over the last few months?’

‘No, I never go there. Jon always keep me away from Delia, he says we separate.’

Made sense to keep the wife and mistress apart, still, Stevie didn’t trust this woman any more than she did Marius. She’d make sure to get Fowler to take her prints and see if they matched any in the Pavel house.

Rodika took a calming breath and nodded her fluffy head.

‘Were you intimate with Jon Pavel?’

‘Intimate?’ Rodika paused as if pondering the word. ‘Oh, you mean sex? Yes I had sex with him, many times,’ she said, looking down absently and pulling at her strappy top.

‘Did his wife know?’

Rodika shrugged, as if the matter was irrelevant.

‘Did you have sex with Ralph Hardegan too?’

‘They partners, they share,’ she said, still attempting to cover some cleavage.

‘Did you like Ralph as much as Jon?’

‘Lady, like don’t matter—they both arseholes. But Ralph was more, how I say, stingy. He always want something for nothing.’

‘But Jon paid you well?’

‘And give me good job. I help in his office.’

‘What about Mr Marius, do you sleep with him too?’

The woman put her hands on her hips, and looked at the concrete floor of the stairwell as if contemplating spitting on it—by the looks of the slippery surface, many already had. ‘He try, but I no have him. Maybe if he was partner I have him.’

‘He wanted to be a partner though, didn’t he?’

Rodika made talking motions with both hands. ‘Always go on and on, very jealous of Ralph I think—but you don’t tell him I say that right?’

‘Jealous enough to want to kill him?’

She shook her head vehemently. ‘No, Marius is a big fat coward. He would trick you, yes, but he would not kill you.’

‘Did you ever go to Thailand with Jon and Ralph?’

Rodika’s mouth turned down. ‘No, there plenty other young girls in Thailand. I have holiday when they away.’ Then her demeanour changed, as if everything she’d said and the way she had said it, had just been a tease. She clapped her dishcloth between her hands and stretched her mouth into a wide smile. ‘Now I need go back to work.’

Stevie placed her hand on the woman’s arm. ‘Just one more thing; I’ve only ever seen one picture of Jon, and it wasn’t very clear. Did he have any distinguishing features—special marks? Is there anything else important about him that you forgot to tell the police before?’

Rodika gave the matter some thought. ‘He wore big thick gold chain and matching bracelet, also big ring. I told them that.’

It figured. ‘Would you recognise the jewellery if we found it?’

‘Yeah, I think so.’

‘Anything else you can tell us about him?’

She didn’t answer straight off. Stevie waited. After some lip chewing Rodika said, ‘I always think there was something funny on his hand. He had had funny marks here.’ She pointed to the web of skin between her thumb and forefinger.’

‘What kind of marks—tattoos?’

‘Yes, tattoos I think, like little tiny dots in little tiny colours. You can hardly see them.’

This reminded Stevie of something she’d seen or read of recently, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She became aware of her heart pulsing above the thump of the music and knew that whatever it was, it was important.

‘Thank you Rodika, you’ve been very helpful.’

While Stevie had been interviewing Rodika, Fowler had been talking to the younger bar staff. Stevie met up with him on the street outside the restaurant while staff inside cleared tables and vacuumed. The restaurant had closed for the night but people still entered and exited the club through the side door.

Fowler hadn’t got anything of interest from the barmen, but like Stevie he had his suspicions about the manager. ‘We need to bring Marius into the station for a formal interview,’ he said. ‘Get both his and that Rodika woman’s prints. He’s hiding something, I’m sure of it.’

‘He’s also shit-scared, and so is the woman. That place is slippery with sleaze. I feel like I need a shower.’ They left the noise of the club and coffee district behind them and headed down the almost deserted street. ‘According to Rodika, Marius was jealous of Hardegan,’ Stevie said. ‘We saw it for ourselves in the office. Marius was very put out that Pavel chose to team up with Hardegan and not him. Rodika said he was hoping to make partner himself.’

‘But it makes sense for Pavel and Hardegan to pool their resources. What does Marius think he could bring to the equation? Could he be behind all this, wants to get his hands on the business?’

‘Pavel and Hardegan have made quite a gravy train for themselves. Money, girls...’ Stevie stopped mid-sentence and came to a halt under a streetlight.

‘What is it?’ Fowler asked.

‘According to Rodika, Pavel had a discreet tattoo, here.’ Under the light she pointed to the web of her hand. ‘It was made up of a series of coloured dots.’

‘Doesn’t ring any bells.’

‘Fresh produce ... Thailand, girls...’ Stevie thought aloud. ‘Monty’s been doing research on human trafficking for the CCC—I recently read something he’d written about the east European crime gangs.’ She rubbed her eyes as she tried to think clearly, the lateness of the hour beginning to take its toll. ‘They have tattoos like the Asian gang members, only much more subtle. You’d have to be a gang member to recognise them—often just a dot on the skin.’

‘As soon as I hear mention of these kinds of gangs, I think of that shipment of illegals found dead in the container at the Dover docks. Horrible.’ Fowler paused. ‘You think Hardegan and Pavel were in the skin trade?’

‘Rodika’s certainly not one of the vestal virgins, and I’m sure Marius takes his share of anything he can get.’ Stevie pulled at her ponytail. ‘But I reckon this might be more than straightforward prostitution—they’re old hands. Ralph and Marius wouldn’t be this scared if that was all they were up to.’

They continued their journey in near darkness to Fowler’s car, possible scenarios jostling for space in Stevie’s tired mind. The busker had gone home long ago. A salty breeze played with a discarded newspaper in the middle of the road until a hotted-up Holden growled past and squashed it flat.

‘Remember when I got locked in the Pavel’s upstairs room?’ Stevie said.

‘I won’t forget that in a hurry. Of all the stupid, interfering—’

‘Shut up and listen to me, Fowler! The room was decked out like a dormitory—no, make that a prison cell, completely self-contained with no inside doorhandle and locked safety-glass windows. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t like that because they were redecorating.’

They continued to head down the pavement, both thinking this through. Finally Fowler said, ‘People held as prisoners? You’re right, it does sound a lot more than prostitution.’

‘While it’s unlikely that Pavel would’ve been using his own place as a brothel, it could easily have been used as a halfway house for girls imported illegally into the sex industry.’

‘I didn’t think there was much of that kind of thing going on over here.’

‘That’s Monty’s argument. People seem to think it’s an Eastern States phenomenon, that it isn’t relevant to us in the west. Over here the problem tends to be more of smuggling people for illegal labour or immigration than for human trafficking. That’s why the trafficking that does happen doesn’t get the attention it should—because no one expects it.’

‘I don’t know much about this kind of thing, never had any experience with it,’ Fowler said.

A rare admittance of ignorance, Stevie guessed.

‘So what’s the difference between people smuggling and human trafficking?’ Fowler said.

There were no lights down this end of the street. They didn’t realise they’d reached Fowler’s WRX until they almost stumbled into it. Fowler unlocked the door with a beep of his key and leaned on the frame from the footpath, without getting in, waiting for Stevie’s answer. Light seeped from his car, illuminating one side of his face while the other side was cloaked in the shadow of the narrow alley.

‘Trafficking and smuggling share some characteristics,’ Stevie explained, standing with him beside the open car door, ‘but it’s the voluntariness than sets them apart. In both scenarios people are illegally taken across borders and exploited. But those who are trafficked, as opposed to smuggled, are taken against their will and used as sex slaves: women, girls, young males—’

The squeal of tyres cut Stevie off. They whirled to face the noise. A car barrelled out of the darkness towards them, headlights on full beam.

It wasn’t going to stop.

The street was narrow; the open car door took up most of its width.

‘Get in!’ Stevie yelled at Fowler who’d frozen to the spot. She gave him a shove, heard the side of his head crunch against the doorframe.

She scrambled onto the roof of Fowler’s car using the door sill as a springboard. The hurtling car slammed into the WRX, knocking it further up the curb. With a shriek of tearing metal, the door was severed like a limb.

The impact rocked the car and it teetered on two wheels. Shock waves coursed through Stevie’s body as she clung to the roof, throwing her weight toward the raised side to balance it.

It was over in a few seconds. The WRX wobbled and righted itself, vibrations ceased.

The other car continued to charge down the street. Lodged on its undercarriage, Fowler’s ripped door scraped along the road leaving an electric pattern of sparks in its wake. The car’s rego was indecipherable and so was the make; all Stevie caught was its long, low shape swerving towards the end of the road. It rumbled to the end of the street and took a sharp right. The door dislodged on the curb and bounced onto the pavement. The sound of the powerful engine roared toward the docks until darkness swallowed it. (Image 15.1)

Image 15.1

TUESDAY

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The man gave one last grunt of satisfaction and hefted himself off her, his flaccid penis leaving a wet trail along her thigh. Was he number six or number seven tonight? Mai counted on her fingers. First there was the man in the wheelchair who Rick had helped onto the bed, then the sour-smelling truck driver friend of Rick’s. The drunken boys from the eighteenth birthday party had all looked and behaved the same: embarrassed, fumbling, reeking and, in a couple of cases, non-functioning. Mai realised then that she’d lost count. This was unusual for her, seeing as she was paid per customer—not that she ever saw much of the money she made.

Soon she and the other girls would be leaving the city. Her mind was numb with the thought of the journey ahead. Perth had been her prison for nearly a year, but at least it meant that she had been close to Niran. This time next week she would be in a place so far away, they might just as well be in another country.

They had renamed her son Joshua. She could hardly get her tongue around the western name. When she tried, the white men, the farang, laughed and mocked. They did their best to confuse her. They didn’t want her to learn any English words other than what she’d been taught to say to the clients; words and phrases such as sexy big boy, handsome man, I fuck you silly, you like it doggie? But she found she could understand a lot more of their language than she could speak. You could learn a lot in a year.

The man hauled himself from the bed and patted her on the head. In Thailand the head was an object of holiness. Once she would have cringed under his touch. She used to think a man touching her there was worse than anything he could do to the rest of her body.

Now she knew different.

Now she didn’t care.

He drew the curtain closed behind him. She heard his heavy tread on the stairs. The sound of laughing and shouting men reached her from the bar. She stripped the bed and wrapped herself in the soiled sheet and opened the curtain.

The pungent scent of ganja wafted into the cubicle and mingled with the bleachy smell of sex. She picked up the used condom from the floor—at least this guy had agreed to it wear it—and flushed it down the toilet in the bathroom opposite. The curtains in the other cubicles on the upstairs landing remained closed. From behind them she heard the fake laughter of the girls and their mechanical moans of pleasure.

Clients milled around the bar below—they often needed alcohol before partaking in the pleasures upstairs. Beer, wine, spirits or worse: their breath made Mai feel sick, though she never showed it; she never showed any of the revulsion she felt. She was good at her job and she knew it. At the top of the stairs she stood for a moment and listened to what was going on below.

With little effort, she could pick out Rick’s voice: he sounded excited and Mai had trouble deciphering his rapid speech. He was probably talking about the journey—she heard him mention that place called Broome again. She tried silently to curve her mouth around the sound. He said something about the money he would make and how he would spend it—on pills probably. Sometimes drugs were used on the girls to make them more compliant, but they were always forbidden to the guardians. Rick shouldn’t be speaking like this.

Another man spoke; she recognised Jimmy Jack’s higher tones. He seemed to be giving Rick some kind of warning, probably reminding him of what happens to those who abuse the Mamasan’s trust, what The Crow had done to Jon Pavel. Rick fell silent; there was no more talk of pills and parties. Even he had been shaken up by the events he’d witnessed.

Over a week ago, just before dawn, the other girls having only just got off to sleep, Mai had crept down to the kitchen to look for something to pop the blisters on her sore feet.

Rummaging through the kitchen cupboards she heard strange noises coming from the basement and decided to investigate. As she limped toward the closed door the sounds became clearer: dreadful screams of unspeakable agony. The Crow was at work again. She fled back up the stairs and vomited into the toilet. When she recovered sufficiently to move, she peeped from the landing and saw Rick and Jimmy Jack hauling Pavel’s charred body through the door that led to the garage.

But she would not dwell on it now. To do so would make her crazy, and there were enough crazy people in this house. Her brain had to stay clear and uncluttered; she had things to do and plans to make.

Still wrapped in her sheet, she made her way across the upstairs landing to the room she shared with five other girls. Four beds were empty, which meant the girls were still working. All except the youngest, fifteen-year-old Lin, who lay on her bed curled into a ball, hiccoughing between sobs.

Mai sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed the girl’s back.

‘I can’t take any more of this, Mai.’ The girl spoke with the accent of a northern peasant—her complexion was still quite dark. Mai was of peasant stock too, but she had lived in Bangkok long enough to smooth some of the rough edges from her voice and allow the city’s shadows to lighten her skin.

‘Work hard and you will soon pay off your debt,’ Mai said. Both Lin’s parents had died last year. Seduced by tales about the golden roads of the city, Lin had left her village and found work in a Bangkok foot-massage parlour. A few months later Jon Pavel had introduced himself to her. He told her he was going to set up a similar kind of place in Perth, Australia, and asked if she would like to manage it for him. He said it was a chance to make more money than she’d ever seen in her life—all she had to do was pay back the money he would spend to get her there.

On her first night Lin was hired to an Australian businessman who took her to a swanky hotel where he paid five thousand dollars for her virginity. When she tried to run away she was fined more than she’d been allowed to keep from that night. And then she was fined again for arguing with another girl. The cycle continued, the debt mounted. In some places girls had to pay for the drugs used to control them and that too was added to their debt. That was the thing Mai worked hardest to protect her girls from—once the drugs got hold of you there was no going back.

‘But you haven’t paid off your debt yet,’ Lin said, ‘and you’ve been doing this a lot longer than me.’

Mai sighed. ‘I will never pay off my debt. Besides, it is different for me; I was doing this long before I was brought to Australia—I knew what was in store for me. My mistake was in believing they would let me keep my baby.’ Sometimes it’s need that makes you do certain things. Mai wasn’t ashamed of anything she’d done. What made her ashamed was that she had been taken as a fool. When she was a child she believed her good fortune was the result of a previous life of virtue. Now she realised it was the opposite. She must have been very bad in her former life to end up here, trapped in an Australian brothel.

Lin broke into her thoughts, ‘“Do good receive good, do evil receive evil.”’ It was a Buddhist saying they’d all learned by rote at school.

‘You think there is nothing you can do to change things here,’ Mai said, ‘and that is why you can sit back meekly and accept what has happened to you? I am not so sure I feel that way any more. I don’t see why we can’t seek to improve our lives now.’

Lin shook her head. ‘Things will change, everything is temporary—we just have to wait.’

‘When you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you might not want to sit around and wait for things to change. You can help things change for yourself, you know.’

Lin’s voice rose, ‘I don’t know what you mean or what you are planning, Mai, and I don’t want to hear it.’ She put her hands over her ears like the hear-no-evil monkey. ‘They said they will kill your baby if you try to escape. You can’t risk that.’

Mai paused. ‘Who says I will try to escape?’

Lin looked back at Mai, first with incomprehension, then panic. She shook her head vigorously. ‘I’m not listening, I’m not listening!’

Mai slipped off the bed, straightened Lin’s sheets and plumped her pillows. ‘You don’t need to. Forget about it. Maybe things will be better in Broome. You never know, you might meet a nice man who will take you away from this.’ She’d been doing her best to convince the girls that better things lay ahead and it seemed to be working. Who knows, some of them really might be able to pay off their debts and return home—it did happen sometimes.

Lin’s eyes followed Mai around the room as she turned down the other girls’ beds. Finally she began to calm. ‘Little mother,’ she whispered. And then, ‘Mai, what does it feel like to have a baby?’

It feels as if you are being split in two, Mai thought. Then, when the baby is taken from you, you are split in two all over again. ‘There will be plenty of time to talk on the bus, but not now. Now we must sleep. We are going a long way tomorrow with several days of driving.’

‘I’m in trouble with Rick,’ Lin said, finally getting to the cause of her tears. ‘My last client complained to him, I think. I couldn’t act for him, my body turned to ice when he touched me. He had red scaly skin and long dirty hair with bugs in it—I saw them sprinkled like pepper on the white pillow.’

As if on cue, Rick called to Lin from the bottom of the stairs. Lin clutched at Mai’s hand. They heard the sharp slap of his thongs upon the wooden boards of the landing. He walked like an elephant, the floor shaking under his tread. He flung open the door. ‘Get out,’ he snarled at Mai.

Grabbing her toilet bag from her nightstand, Mai fled to the bathroom without looking back. She turned the shower on as high as it would go to block the sound of Lin’s cries. As she stared at the water trailing down the shower screen, she noticed how each tear-shaped drop obediently followed the course of the preceding drop. It doesn’t have to be like that, she thought.

‘Jai yen yen,’ she whispered words of comfort to Lin, as she stood there, rigid under the pricking spray. Cool your heart.

Like me. (Image 16.1)

Image 16.1