Kiss & Die - Lee Weeks [63]
They turned and followed Ali along the corridor until he stopped and opened one of the doors. It was a bedroom with a tiny en-suite. The room was turned into an office: laptop, filing cabinet, table and chair, the bed pushed up against the left-hand side, white tiles on the wall the same as they were in all the guesthouse rooms. Ali shut the door behind him. He motioned for them to sit on the one chair and stool, whilst he sat on the bed. Ali switched on the air con, a noisy box cut into the window. A thin piece of old sheeting was cut around the air con box for a curtain.
‘Do you live here?’ asked Shrimp.
Ali flicked his head towards the right. ‘Next door. I was born in these Mansions. This is my home; rough on the outside but it has a big heart. Or it used to be. We have nothing but trouble here now.’
‘Did you know the dead girl?’
Ali shook his head. ‘There are so many here now. It’s the newcomers causing the trouble.’
‘Have you heard of the Outcasts?’
‘Sure. That’s all we hear about at the moment. Their graffiti is all up the walls. They call themselves the lone wolves, draw it on the walls. They look like kids, but when they get in a group they are more like animals.’
‘Have they threatened you?’
Ali thought for a moment before he replied. ‘Not me, but my family. First we started getting offers to protect the restaurant for a cut of the takings. We paid them off like we always do. It’s part of life here. But last week a new group came in demanding money and making threats. “Give us the money or else we will torch the place.” That kind of thing.’ He looked at Mann. ‘It’s the one thing we all dread in the Mansions – fire. It’s not exactly the place you want to be if that happens. The restaurant is on the third floor. They start a fire there, the seventeen floors above have no chance.’
‘Did they speak to you?’
‘I wish. No, they waited until I wasn’t there. They spoke to my uncle. He works on the till. He’s an old man.’
‘What did he tell them?’
‘He told them to fuck off. Then they kicked the shit out of him. Indians in Hong Kong don’t get the fucking respect they deserve. When it was a colony it was different. We were all under the same British umbrella, so to speak. Indians had respect. But not now. The kids can’t get jobs. They go for interviews but they never get the work. It’s the same all over. You have to be able to speak and write Mandarin. Who the fuck can do that? We are pushed further from the mainstream Hong Kong business world. Now the young ones are coming up with no prospects. The Indian community is big on education, these are smart kids. They don’t want to work in the restaurants, become tailors, sell fake goods. They want to be lawyers, top businessmen. They are not getting the chance.’ Ali looked at Mann and realized he’d missed out a vital piece of information: ‘These were not your usual Chinese bullyboys – Triads. We get enough of them and we pay up when we have to. These were different.’ Mann waited. Ali lowered his voice. ‘These were just kids. Well, not just any kids; these were Indian kids turning on their own kind; newcomers, they are to blame for all the trouble.’
‘What about your brothers? What do they think?’
Ali fidgeted. ‘My brothers? Mahmud is a bright lad – he will go far.’
‘And Hafiz?’ asked Mann.
Ali hesitated. ‘Look, Hafiz is a bit wild. He is a good boy at heart. He gets a lot of flack from the old man. I hope he will be all right in the end. I hope, if things turn out well for the Mansions, if we get someone to invest in it, I hope that we will all be okay.’
Ali was looking at Mann when he spoke. Mann didn’t answer. He was feeling claustrophobic in the tiny room. It was impossible to tell where ceiling began and wall ended. Large white tiles were everywhere. He’d seen a place like this in one of his nightmares.
‘Do you know a girl named Lilly Mendoza?’ asked Shrimp.
‘Yes, I know Lilly. We all do.