Chapter 4a: A Gang Bang Gone Awry

It was two nights before Ollie was due for shore leave. Mandy and her aunt were going at it hammer and tongs in the kitchen. It was the usual don't-go-out-with-that-gangster-boy tirade from Aunt Philo and the smart-ass replies that Mandy snapped thoughtlessly. Things spiralled out of control very quickly after that. The event wasn't unusual. I shrugged and made my way out of the house and went for a walk.

I had had a snack the night before and I wasn't craving for blood. I noticed that the intervals between meals were becoming a little longer than when I had started out on my new life. I use the word loosely, you understand. I mean, what is an un-life to a breather is a life to me.

I enjoyed those evening walks. I liked to watch the day transition into night. The swallows shrilling their way into the nests they had built under the roof overhangs. The walls and pavements were pattered with their droppings. Hundreds of little sparrows festooned the overhead wires that brought electricity to the houses and they too contributed to the layer of bird lime on the side walk. The bats then came out in their swooping flight for airborne sustenance.

When I neared the corner coffee shop I decided to drop in for a cup of hot black coffee. I took a table in the corner of the coffee shop and luxuriated in the bedlam of sound that normally pervaded a coffee shop at night. I checked out the stalls and counted at least eight stalls that sold hawker food. Then there was a swagger of sound as Vince walked in and took a chair at a table already occupied by several tough characters. My enhanced hearing allowed me to eavesdrop on their conversation. I tuned out the rest of the noise and listened in to what that rat fuck had to say to his friends.

"How did you do today, Or Chai, black boy?" asked one of the four who were seated. He looked like he was in charge. Or Chai is black boy in the Hokkien dialect. The slur was a reference to his dark complexion and not a racial thing.

"The fucking jockey pulled the horse and it came in third," he moaned.

"So?" continued the speaker.

"So what you want me to say? Horse got pulled. Most unfair," Vince snarled.

"Whoa, your mother never told you life is unfair? Too bad. So how about settling up loan," the speaker said.

He didn't raise his voice but there was a lot of push in it. Vince began to look uncomfortable.

"I told you the horse got pulled," he moaned. "It was the last race and the horse boy told me sure win, woh."

"So all money gone?"

Vince made a face and shrugged.

"Horse win or horse lose not our problem. You borrow. Now you pay. Already interest on loan almost as much as loan. I think you better pay now," the speaker said very firmly.

He didn't even raise his voice. The four were obviously the local hard men and the other customers deliberately ignored them. I noticed that one couple who were about to take an empty table next to theirs moved away quickly when the speaker stared at them. I didn't have a good feeling about what was unfolding. Call it a premonition if you like.

Vince sat silent and sweating. The speaker continued, "So you got no more money, right? All finish, huh? So you know what we do with assholes who don't pay their debts? You owe me two thousand, man."

Vince turned a pasty yellow. He looked desperate and then he did it. He looked at the leader.

"How about an exchange."

"Exchange what?"

"You get my girlfriend for the night and you tear up all my IOUs."

"You are a fucking shit, Vince. You want to sell your girl friend? Okay. You want to sell her, I buy her but we all get a shot." He gestured to include the others sitting round the table. "Also we get her for one week. Agreed?"

"Agreed. But if I take her to your place she will smell a rat. What about that unfinished housing estate near Loke Yew Road?"

"I said one week not one night, asshole."

"I know. I know. I take her there. We fuck her and then you take her to your place. After all of you fuck her she surely don't want to go back home."

"Okay. We do it now."

"Tomorrow night," Vince insisted. "Tomorrow her aunt go to Port Dickson with foreign devil boyfriend."

The first part of the job of tailing Mandy wasn't easy. She caught a bus to the city centre. Thank god that the bus made few stops along the way until it stopped right in front of the Looking Good Family Emporium. The job of tailing the bus was made tough because part of the bus route was along Cheras Road which is always clogged with traffic. I wished I had a motorcycle. Fortunately I was already familiar with her 'scent' through daily contact and it made a tough job of following her marginally easier. I stopped about fifty metres from where she got off the bus. The night helped to mask my presence.

After about fifteen minutes a small frown stitched three vertical creases into her forehead. I watched Mandy as she stood impatiently in front the Emporium. She was probably wondering where the hell Vince was. Suddenly two monster loud-speakers stationed at the entrance burst into life. The management of the Looking Good Emporium had hired a deejay to provide its customers with entertainment. The shattering noise from the PA system at the entrance hardly bothered her. When the music stopped the Cantonese deejay began his spiel. A back-packer walking past the deejay had a look of amused incredulity on his face as Alvin Kwan spouted quaint English in nasal staccato. I could hear him from my watch station and he sounded like an adenoidal Elvis Presley with a heavy Cantonese accent. From her approving expression Mandy must have thought the deejay cool. She nodded and bopped to the sound of the Canto rock LP that Alvin was spinning.

After an hour of impatient waiting on Mandy's part, Vince turned up. Cigarette clenched between his teeth, he grinned at her and threw her the spare helmet. She put on the helmet and hopped onto the seat behind him. Vince took off with a mini-wheelie as they shot away from the bus stand. Drivers cursed them as they wove recklessly through the growing evening traffic. I worked hard to keep him within visual contact and fortunately that was one of the nights when the evening traffic wasn't as heavy as usual. I followed them about four car lengths behind through the busy roads and finally into a maze of quiet, almost deserted back lanes. I switched off my lights and followed them after allowing Vince to widen his lead.

When they got to an abandoned housing development, Vince drove along the corrugated iron fence that surrounded the failed project until he reached a break in the fence and rode into the deserted place. I allowed them to get ahead before I drove carefully through the break which was big enough for a truck. I switched off the engine and coasted to a stop under a tree where deep shadows hid my car. Keeping to the shadows I followed them on foot. I could see and hear them clearly. Vince led her into one of the almost finished buildings.

"Where are we?" Mandy whined. "This isn't our usual place. I don't like it. This place is scary."

"Hey, what for you scared, ah?" he snarled at her. "One place same as other. Come on, give me one shot now. Getting hot, baby." He pulled off his jeans and stood in his shorts. I nearly laughed out loud. Like the bikini in the song, he had an itsy-bitsy dingle, only it wasn't polka-dotted or yellow. Mandy's body language told me that she wasn't at all happy with the place.

"Not in the mood, Vince. Hey, let's go to the pub and drink," she said, suddenly afraid. She felt nervous and shuddered involuntarily as a premonition ran a slow, icy finger down her backbone. Things didn't seem quite right. Vince snarled at her and his face turned ugly. He called out and suddenly there were half a dozen nasty looking louts in the room with them. The original four had suddenly become six. The sudden increase in participants irked Vince but he didn't protest. At any rate protests would have been useless. One of the six carried a small open-flame oil lamp. They were all grinning lasciviously.

"You not in the mood today, hah? Too bad. We all in the mood and we all gonna poke you anyhow. Right, boys?" the leader of the six growled. "After that we keep you for one week. Maybe you can go to work for us also."

There were raucous calls of "Yah, yah ... Cool, man ... I want to eat her pussy first ... How about punching her ring? Hey girl, we want our money's worth, so lay it out baby."

"You bloody fuck-up, Vince. You sold me?" she screeched in indignation and fear.