Shadows Chapter 9

The Needle and The Damage Done




Gok Han frowned at the mae jong game in front of him. He was edgy and trying not to show it. The man he and his brother Lee were waiting for was late. The Cappelli’s had interfered with two of their shipments in the last month. Gok was getting tired of the Talians interference in his business. There was going to be a reckoning.





His deliberations were interrupted by the arrival of a third man.
“The woman and the goods are in the car outside,” Ho Chang told them. “She is not comfortable.”

Lee smiled grimly at his associate’s conservative choice of words. The woman her referred to was a drug addict and had travelled the long journey from Pleasant View without a fix.

“Bring her in,” Gok ordered. “And have the meat goods taken upstairs. The rest bring to me.”






Gok looked impassively at the woman as she sat down. She was fidgeting and shaking, unable to stay still. Her fingers tapped nervously on the table. Gok’s lip curled slightly into a sneer. Lee lowered his head. He himself had never been able to lose all sympathy for people who had begun on the woman’s path. It did not stop him from selling what she needed, or trafficking in the other vices he and his brother sold, but there was always some small part of him that felt sympathy. Gok felt total contempt. As if the people he sold to were less than human.





Cruelly Gok continued the game and spoke to the woman. Her eyes were unfocused throughout and her movements were jerky and uncoordinated.

“You are happy with the deal we have made?” He asked casually. “You have given us something of yours. In return we will give you what you need to feed your habit for the rest of your life?”

The woman nodded shakily.

“There is no going back from this deal. That does not bother you?” Gok persisted.

Again the women shook her head.



Gok stood up and left the room. Lee followed him, leaving Ho to give the woman what she needed. He and his brother went to the bar in the music room to wait. Lee looked at his brother’s face as he mixed drinks.

“The woman is beyond contempt,” he murmured.

“She is as I expected. It is a small thing,” Gok replied. “She is a small thing.”

Sometime later Ho and the woman joined them in at the bar. The woman was no longer shaking and she reached for a drink with a smile. Ho made small talk with her. Lee looked at his brother’s impassive face and had the sense that he was waiting for something.




Suddenly the woman clutched at her chest and began to gasp. Her eyes were wide and frightened. Lee closed his eyes. His brother had intended this all along. The woman had been given what she needed for life, but that life was to be very short.

She gasped and reached out her hand to Ho. He took another sip of his drink and watched her with no emotion. The woman closed her eyes and her knees buckled.







She crumpled to the floor and lay still. Lee covered his eyes. Sometimes his brother’s methods were too much. Yes, the woman had been destined to die. As an addict she was not trustworthy and if she had revealed to anyone what she had sold to them it could make life unpleasant for the Han family. But to do it here, in their home... There was a half smile on Gok’s lips. He had enjoyed watching her die.

Lee turned from the woman’s crumpled form and left the room. Gok followed him.

“Get rid of that,” Gok called to Ho. “Leave her where she will be found. The police will believe her to be just another overdosed addict. We will inspect the merchandise.






Gok climbed the stair to the first floor and touched a panel in the wall. The panel slid aside and the two men entered a hidden room. It was large and decorated in soft girly colours. There were three beds against one wall. In each one was a young girl deep in sleep.

Two of the girls were oriental, smuggled into the country by the Han brothers.






The third was a western girl. Gok looked carefully at her sleeping form and smiled. There would be many customers for this one. It was strange that however many girls they had working for them, certain men always preferred girls of their own race. Still smiling indicated to Lee that they should leave the room.






It was some hours later that Phoenix Rozzen awakened in a strange room. She had vague memories of feeling very tired after her mother had poured a soda for her. She pushed herself from the bed and looked around the bright room. Two other girls were also pushing themselves out of bed.

The two other girls appeared to know each other. They began chatting together in what sounded to Phoenix like Chinoise. She approached them cautiously and said ‘hi’. The older of the two, a girl of about fourteen, smiled sweetly at her.





“Hello. I am...Mai,” she offered in a heavily accented and very halting voice.

“I ....Kimi,” the younger girl, who may also have been a little older than Phoenix, added.

The two girls had great difficulty pronouncing Phoenix’s name.







Mai and Phoenix sat on the sofa talking as best they could.

“It look nice place ... but we here, not good thing,” Mai ventured.

“I bet. Especially as there is no door. No way out,” Phoenix looked around the room and frowned. There was a fridge, a cooker, beds, a television and computer games. Access to a bathroom. A prettily decorated prison.

Phoenix was not yet thirteen, but she was smart and streetwise. Her mind was running on all of the possibilities of three young girls being held prisoner and she was scared.