Kiss & Die - Lee Weeks [21]
The PA gave a flustered protest as he stood in the doorway and attempted to stop Mann from getting through. He hadn’t a hope in hell of stopping him and he knew it. They had met on a few occasions and they weren’t pleasant memories for the PA. Now CK allowed him to save face. ‘Let him enter.’
He shrieked as Mann’s shoulder caught him and knocked him back against the doorframe.
‘Sorry,’ Mann grinned, pulling him upright by his tie. ‘Didn’t see you there.’
Mann stood in the entrance and looked across the dimly lit office: plush, chrome, cool black and dark mahogany, a mix of carved Chinese furniture and elegant Western style. Lamps lit the enclaves: calculated chic. The cold in the room hit Mann full frontal; it was like a fridge.
Mann’s Armani soles made no sound as he walked across the black wood floor. The room was silent except for the low growl of the oxygen machine as it sucked in air, re-oxygenated it, and blew it out in an exasperated ‘Pah’.
CK turned from the window just long enough to gesture that Mann should sit.
Now, as he leant back in the cool folds of the black Italian chair and felt it cradle him like a baby, he was not sure he should have come. His jet black hair fell as a broken crow’s wing across his espresso pool eyes. In this chair, in this place, he found some comfort. Here he had something real and alive to hate, not a ghost, not a memory, not a nightmare. He had CK. Mann sat back in the chair and rocked gently. He turned his head towards the oxygen machine. He breathed in deeply as it breathed out. Pah.
CK turned away from the window and came to sit opposite Mann. Like everything about the room, the polished black mahogany desk was uncluttered by personal touches: a writing block, a laptop, but no photos of family. CK began slowly nodding his head as if answering an unspoken question. His expression hardly ever changed, only his eyes betrayed his humour; they changed from bitter chocolate to churned-up riverbed green.
Mann looked across at his enemy.
‘The Outcasts…ring a bell? The new branch of the Wo Shing Shing. You recruiting from the kindergarten now, CK? From the minorities? What’s going on? You running short of people to recruit?’
CK gave a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘I do not want to talk about such petty aspects of business. I know nothing of street matters. I do not handle recruitment. I leave that to others. But there will always be those marginalized in society, those who need the help of their brothers. Society must look to itself for the rise of the Triads.’
Mann sat back and surveyed CK. ‘A leader must still know where his armies are at all times. It will always be his job to approve changes. You must have approved the birth of the Outcasts. Who is in charge? The rumours have it that your daughter Victoria Chan is heading it.’
‘A man can only rise to be the head of an organization by delegating, by trusting those beneath him to do their jobs. The tiers beneath him must be made strong to take