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Nancy produced a son that evening. Her pelvis was too small and the large baby had to be pulled from her like a calf. Consequently, the baby’s head was misshapen and his look somewhat strange. Nancy didn’t care for the ugly baby at all – she was still mourning for her dog.
She finally left the Fong household for good when Man Po was one year old.
After she left, the surgery dwindled until it became just an occasional knock on the shutter to ask for this and that. Then Father Fong would pull down the dusty jars and rummage through old boxes and tins until he put together a prescription, but his heart wasn’t in it any more.
Now, the shutter outside their house no longer opened and closed; it was firmly shut. They continued to live in the two-bedroom apartment on the first floor. Old Father Fong slept in one room, while the brothers slept in bunks in the other. But Father Fong was mainly housebound now. Arthritis had crept into his joints and settled in the marrow, drying them up like abandoned riverbeds. His physical world had narrowed to just a few rooms, and every year saw him shrink a little more. His old slippered feet wore a path on the floor tiles as he shuffled painfully back and forth from kitchen to bedroom to sitting room, only stopping to make kissing noises to the bright yellow canary that twisted its head this way and that as it watched the old man from the confines of its bamboo cage. He spent his days preparing food for his sons and waiting for them to come home.
Man Po was fourteen years younger than Max, which made him nearing forty-six, but he would always look like a baby. He had a round face and large eyes and the hair on his head looked as if it had been hand-stitched like a doll’s. He dribbled from the lazy corner of his mouth. The things he enjoyed in life were simple. He loved his work – driving his lorry. And he especially loved butchering the pigs.
16
Club Mercedes was Hong Kong’s newest and most exclusive nightclub – for the moment. It occupied the top floor of the most prestigious shopping mall in Hong Kong, situated in the heart of Central District on Peddar Street in the Polaris Centre – a landmark in privileged shopping. On its seven floors were the pick of top European designers, jewellers by royal appointment and Rolex suppliers. Club Mercedes sat on top of all of it on the ‘lucky’ eighth floor.
The club was officially owned by a consortium of top businessmen. It was really owned by the Wo Shing Shing triad society and provided a useful way to launder money.
Over three hundred hostesses of various national ities worked within its golden walls. Plenty of Gwaipohs for a murderer to choose from, Ma
Ma
A stu
‘Welcome to Club Mercedes,’ she said, bowing and pressing the ascent button in one perfectly choreographed move.
Just as the doors were closing a Chinese woman stepped in. She stood at a discreet distance from Ma
When the elevator slid to a silent halt and the cheongsamed lovely had completed her farewell bow, Ma
‘Aye! Good girl, back so soon, huh?’ Mamasan Linda said to the woman from the lift. ‘Customers waiting! Go change, quick-quick!’ She ushered her past and into the club. Then she looked towards Ma
Mamasan Linda had not met Ma
‘Good evening, Mamasan. I need to speak with the foreign hostesses you have working here. I won’t keep them long – just routine enquiries.’
Mamasan Linda listened with a fixed smile on her face, then nodded and beckoned Ma
He had plenty of time to look around the half-empty club as they made their way through; Mamasan Linda wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry in that tight dress. It seemed fu
Ma
Mamasan Linda left him in the care of Mamasan Rose, one of the newest mamasans at the club. She brought the foreign girls to him one at a time. Eleven were in so far that evening, out of twenty-five, she explained.
One of three su
Ma
Ma