LITMIR.BIZ

       2

      Amsterdam, April 17th 2006

      Johnny Mann was bathed in the pink warm glow of Casa Roso before he got anywhere near it. Two-metre-high photos of flushed-faced couples threw off an oozy glow.

      ‘With drinks,’ Mann said as he collected his tokens before taking a left and climbing the illuminated stairwell into the bar and small upper viewing area.

      In exchange for one of his tokens he got a large vodka on the rocks from the golden-haired cherub behind the bar. Mann looked around. The place was empty except for a handful of bored-looking American lads who occupied the front two rows.

      He took his seat and sat back to watch the show. On the stage below, a pink circular bed was beginning its slow rotation and a man, a woman and a bottle of baby oil were in position.

      Mann suddenly felt the full weight of tiredness hit him. He’d just come off a thirteen-hour KLM flight from Hong Kong to Schiphol airport, Amsterdam. It was a long way to come for the weekend and he hadn’t been able to sleep. His mind was a jumble of questions but no answers. Now, he needed sleep badly, or he needed a hard, punishing workout. But he wasn’t going to get either. Instead he was sitting in Casa Roso watching one of the eight shows an hour, audience participation welcomed, and he was waiting to meet the person who had asked him to come all this way.

      He rolled the iced vodka glass around in his hands and took a good slug of it whilst he watched the couple dispense with the oil and move into position. He glanced over at the American lads. They were trying to make conversation and ignore the act. Mann smiled to himself. He knew that if there was one sure way of spoiling their evening it was seeing a big black guy with a huge cock showing them how it’s done to a white girl.

      From his seat on the left side of the auditorium, back against the side wall, Mann watched two men emerge from the top of the stairs. They were short, dark-skinned Asians, wearing black puffer jackets. They bypassed the bar and sat down on the opposite side to Mann and stared at him. Either, thought Mann, they had been in the Casa Roso too often and had seen the same eight shows an hour too many times, or they found Mann more interesting. He stared back. Nestled against the underside of his forearm Mann felt the reassuring coldness of his favourite shuriken, Delilah. Shuriken meant ‘sword hidden in the hand’. He had several such throwing stars: some were no bigger than a coin, individually scored along the edges and made razor sharp. Mann had firsthand knowledge of what they could do. It had been such a coin that had turned his boy’s face into a man’s as it sliced a crescent moon into his high cheekbone; a scar which now always stayed a few shades lighter than his tanned face.

      Mann looked across at the men in puffer jackets. One of them was texting; the other was now pretending to watch the show. The black guy was getting a well-deserved round of applause from a stag party in the main auditorium below as he managed to do the splits whilst still continuing to thrust. The Asians hadn’t bought drinks, which struck Mann as odd. The bar was the only reason for coming up to the smaller viewing area.

      Just as the act on stage was reaching its truly acrobatic climax, Mann saw a woman emerge from the top of the stairwell. She had long brown hair. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt under a cream-coloured fleece. Mann looked and then looked away. It couldn’t be her—the woman on the stairs was too young, only a few years older than him, forty, he reckoned. But, as he turned back to find her staring at him, he knew it must be her. She went straight for the bar. Leaning across, she kissed the golden-haired cherub on the cheek as he knocked the top off a beer and handed it to her. Mann watched her move; she was solid, armyish—she could have doubled for a policewoman the way she held herself, filling up the space around her with her no-nonsense presence. She picked up the bottle and walked straight over to Mann. The Asians in the puffer jackets got up and left.

      ‘Thank you for coming.’ Her English was good with only a slight Dutch accent. ‘I am Magda.’

      She sat down in the seat next to him. In the gloom of the auditorium the one thing he was sure of was that her eyes were the colour of bleached denim, beautiful but hard.

      From the stage came different music. The curtains rolled back. The black

Скачать книгу