Ms. Silicon made a face. “Aren’t you fun?” she said picking up her box and heading back into the darkness. On the stage, a dancer was removing a kimono, with surprising grace. She was not particularly beautiful but her control of the silk garment was alluring.
Joan spun as a hand landed on her shoulder. “I’m Marie. You asked for me?” The voice was deep, dusky. Joan went to turn but the voice commanded, “Don’t.” Joan looked straight ahead. “See the curtain on the far side to the left?” Joan was about to nod when she heard, “Don’t move your head. When I’m finished, pay me, head toward the curtain and through it. Go down the corridor to the bathroom and out the window. There’s a green Mini in the street at the end of the alley. The keys are beneath the driver’s side floor mat. Instructions are in the glove compartment. Good luck. Now turn and give me a kiss like you mean it.”
Joan turned her head and felt soft lips quickly press against hers. Then a silken tongue circled her teeth. She found herself responding. The face was too close to her for her to see it – that was the point. The dark voice said, “Don’t respond. This isn’t about sex. It’s about the cause.”
Then she was gone. Joan had no way to identify her if she were asked to. Which, once again, was the point. For an instant, Joan wondered at the complexity and professionalism of the system. Dalong Fada had only really been a presence for ten years and now it clearly had safe houses and methods that had been learned by the members.
A wave of fear washed over her. Then she remembered why she was doing what she was about to do. China needed an opposition and, at this point in time, only Dalong Fada could stand in the way of the Beijing Communists destroying everything that Hong Kong had bled to build.
She dropped yet more cash on the small table, made as if she was checking for something in her purse and headed toward the curtain.
Getting through the curtain was much simpler than dealing with the girls in the corridor on the other side of it. These girls weren’t paid to dance in the club. They paid the club to dance. Their dancing was a live ad for services that they provided in the dozens of small rooms that were on either side of the lengthy corridor.
As Joan moved quickly down the corridor, the sounds and sights of sex for cash presented themselves at nearly every doorway. The positions varied but the basics of the transaction were always the same – the girls serviced the customers whether they were old or young, ugly or beautiful, men or women.
Passing by one open door, Joan found herself momentarily transfixed by the gaze of a naked whore perched on the edge of the room’s sink. In front of her, a young man on his knees had buried his head between her thighs in what was clearly a vain effort to bring this whore to the release of clouds and rain. From the sounds emerging from her nether regions he was giving it his best efforts. Lucky for him he couldn’t see the look of infinite boredom on the young woman’s face.
That expression changed when she saw Joan in the doorway of her cubicle. A smile crossed her lips. Her hips began to undulate against the young man’s face as she mouthed the words “Show me your tits” at Joan.
With the ease of a practiced “eloquent,” Joan undid the topmost button of her blouse, then the next down, then the next. The whore’s mouth went slack. Her eyes glazed over. “Good,” Joan thought, “I want to be remembered as being here. I must have been seen entering, might as well leave a real memory.” As a cop she knew that this piece of information would be elicited early in the investigation and would stop everything else – hopefully long enough to let her get back from Shanghai and muddy the water with her Calden Inn alibi. Joan kept eye contact with the whore. The girl’s eyes rolled back in her head and she let out a low sigh. Then she clamped her thighs tight to the young man’s head and grabbed fistfuls of his thick black hair.
As soon as the whore’s eyes closed, Joan raced to the bathroom at the end of the corridor. There were thankfully few people in her way and most were involved at the moment. She flung open the bathroom door, stood on the sink to reach the unlocked window, opened it and slipped out into the alley. The alley led her to a dimly lit street. There, across the roadway was the green Mini – unlocked, keys beneath the floor mat, instructions in the glove compartment and new identification papers affixed to the underside of the steering wheel.
She followed the directions to the ferry docks and guided her car into line for the next boat to the mainland. As the instructions directed, once she parked her car in the belly of the boat, she went up the bow stairway and entered the women’s washroom. She counted four stalls, checked that the fourth was unused, then entered, closing but not locking the door behind her. The place wasn’t overly clean but for a lavatory that serviced both Hong Kong and the mainland she’d expected much worse.
Five minutes later, the stall door was pushed open and a tiny, sharp-faced, older woman came in carrying a canvas bag. She didn’t say a word but signalled Joan to sit on the toilet. There was no seat cover so Joan balanced on the rim. The tiny woman went behind her and sat on the toilet tank. From her bag she pulled out a pair of shears and began hacking away at Joan’s long black hair. At first Joan wanted to resist then she said to herself, “Hey, it’s only my hair.” Then she said to herself, “Fuck, it’s my hair.” But she didn’t say anything aloud. When most of her long hair was on the stall’s floor, the woman hopped off the toilet tank and came around the front. She put a finger under Joan’s chin and lifted it. Then she completed her work with smaller scissors.
When she finished cutting, she stood back and said her first words to Joan, “Take off your clothes.” The first thought in Joan’s head was that this was the only day in her life that two women had asked her to remove her clothing. She did as she was told.
The woman examined her naked body. But this was not the kind of examination that the whore would have done. This one was clearly critical and worried. The tiny woman reached into her bag and withdrew a large rolled tensor bandage and began to bind Joan’s chest. “Let out your air.” Joan did. A few minutes later, Joan’s upper curves were flattened and uncomfortable. The tiny woman noticed and said, “Get used to it. Don’t even think about taking it off until you’re safely back in Hong Kong.” Then a thought crossed the woman’s face. As if the thought were somehow shouted aloud, Joan received the message crystal clear: After what you are going to do, even Hong Kong may not be safe.
The tiny woman took a tattered Mao jacket and the traditional pyjama-like leggings from her bag and held them out to Joan. Joan put them on. It was summer. The jacket was suffocatingly hot – and both the jacket and pants stunk. They were supposed to. She was a peasant. Peasants don’t often smell nice.
“Take off your shoes,” the woman ordered. When Joan did, the woman hissed in disapproval then slopped nail polish remover on Joan’s toes, none too gently, wiped it off with a rag and slid on a pair of cheap sandals.
The woman then took a jar of theatrical “dirt” and rubbed wads of it into Joan’s neck, hands, feet and forehead. Once rubbed in, it looked like stains not dirt, as if Joan had gone for many months without proper bathing.
“Hold out your hands.” The woman examined them closely and shook her head. Joan used clear nail polish so that wasn’t a problem but her nails were immaculate, a real source of pride for her. The woman took out her small scissors again and ripped at Joan’s nails, purposefully slashing into her cuticles and cutting jaggedly wherever possible. Once that was done, she looked at a hanging section of nail on Joan’s left ring finger and said, “Close your eyes. This might hurt.” Before Joan could do as she was asked, the woman slipped the offending finger into her mouth, clamped on the hanging section with her teeth and gave a mighty yank with her head. The nail tore and half came out in the woman’s mouth. She spat it to the ground. Joan felt as if she might faint. But she didn’t.