by Shanon Hunt
But this was beyond anything he’d ever imagined.
He covered his nose and mouth with his arm and trotted past the toilets. No wonder the stench was so bad; most people had given up on the johns and done their business in between them.
The camps were eerily quiet. Most adults were asleep, weary from the hot afternoon temperatures, lying on top of threadbare blankets, but the children were awake, playing quietly with whatever they had. Toy trucks with only two wheels. A one-armed Barbie doll with no clothes. They stopped playing as he tiptoed past, their vacant stares following him as he choked at their emotionless faces, sallow from illness and malnutrition. Would they ever know a life better than this?
A door slammed. The twinners had entered a second church. He leaned against the corner of a brick building to wait and instantly regretted it.
“Dammit,” he muttered, peeling his sweat-drenched shirt away from his skin.
“Mm-hmm,” came from beneath him.
He hadn’t realized his feet were inches away from an old man sitting cross-legged against the wall. The man wore a tattered Dodgers T-shirt and sweats with holes in the knees, and he squinted up at Nick with a toothless grin across his shriveled, weathered face. He reminded Nick of someone you’d see on a National Geographic cover: “Oldest Man on Earth Happy to Be Alive at 163 Years Old” or something just as inane.
“This is the west wall right here,” the old coot said. “Get hot enough to melt yer skin right off. Most people move along this time o’ day, but not ol’ Red. I been here fifty years. Tough as leather by now.”
“Fifty years. That’s a mighty long time.” Long enough to see everything on this block.
The old man didn’t answer.
“You here when the Dodgers won the World Series? What was that, ’90? ’91?”
“Hell yeah, I was. That’d be ’88, yessir.” His head bobbed. “Took dose A’s for a ride, yes they did. Hershiser pitched dat game. Yep.” His gummy grin spread ear to ear again, and he waved a hand. “Ain’t no need to butter me up with small talk. You followin’ dose fellers, ain’t ya?”
Nick did a double-take. The old man was sharp.
“Yeah, dey come round ever’ now and again, bringin’ folks some bagels. Downright Christian of ’em.”
“You get that bagel from them today?”
“This? Nah. Had this one for a couple days now.” He pulled off a piece and pushed it between his gums and his inner cheek like a fat chaw of chewing tobacco.
“What are they doing down here? Just goodwill?”
The twinners emerged from the church and continued down Crocker. Nick itched to follow, but something told him ol’ Red had more to say.
“Ain’t nobody do nothing for just goodwill,” the old man said with a chuckle. “Nah, they come roun’ to get the young’uns. Took ol’ Reese’s li’l girl a few weeks ago. Reese didn’t wanna give her up at da beginning, but he got no way to keep her safe.” His face darkened. “They came back and hauled ’er away. Better life for da girl, I figure.”
“Is that so?” Nick’s stomach fluttered, and he struggled to keep his voice calm. “Any idea where they took her?”
“Nah. Best I just mind my own bidness.” The bagel chaw was too big, and saliva threatened to spill over Red’s lips. He slurped it back.
“What about your buddy Reese? Does he stay around here?”
“Seen him workin’ over at the kitchen on Fourth sometimes.”
Nick had a dozen more questions, but he didn’t want to overwhelm the man with frantic interrogation. He lowered himself to a squat, which somehow attracted a dozen gnats. He swatted them away from his face but held the awkward position. “How many others they take, besides Reese’s girl?”
Red pressed his gums together and frowned, making his face look squished.
Nick shifted his gaze back toward the church. He’d pushed too far, and now he needed to walk it back a few steps. He swatted the gnats again.
“Dem are drain flies,” Red said, ignoring the swarm around himself. “Some people call ’em moth flies. Come up from the sewers after the rain. Most folks think they’re a damn nuisance, but they don’t bother me none.”
“Seems like you’re a pretty easygoing fella. My uncle said that’s the secret to a good life. Don’t sweat the small stuff.”
A full minute passed before Red spoke again. “A bus come out, oh, ever’ couple weeks to pick up the kids, haul ’em off after the sun go down. I seen ’em a few times at the mission. They take, oh, ten ’er fifteen at a time. Been going on for a couple years now.”
Jesus Christ, this was human trafficking. A shudder washed over Nick despite the sweat drenching his hair, face, and shirt. “Anything written on the side of the bus? A name?”
Red shrugged. “Too dark to tell.”
Nick’s legs were numb by the time he decided the man had nothing else to tell him. He pushed himself up the scorching hot wall.
“It’s been great talking with you, Red.” Nick pulled a fifty from his wallet.
The man held up his hand. “No, no, you keep that for yourself, sonny. I gots all I need right here.”
The man had nothing but a pile of ratty blankets, a three-day-old, half-eaten bagel, and his dignity. The old-timer grinned up at Nick for the third time, and Nick couldn’t help grinning back at him.
Nick took his time strolling over to the soup kitchen on East Fourth Street. A large sign on the stoop read No voucher, no meal. No exceptions. He pulled open the squeaky door and slid inside.
The dining area was empty, which wasn’t surprising given the stifling heat inside. One long row of three folding tables took up most of the narrow space. He glanced up at a bulletin board covered with black-and-white photocopies of missing persons: Jill Renister, 22 years old, last seen July 14, 2021. Aidan Broughton, 24 years old, missing since March 2020. God, there must’ve been hundreds. And all in their twenties.
“Dinner’s not till five.” A short, wiry sixtysomething black man remarked as he walked by carrying an urn of coffee. He set the urn down and eyed Nick suspiciously. “Whatcha need?”
“I’m looking for my colleagues, couple of guys around my age. They come by here today?”
“Nope. Don’t know anything about that.” His eyes darted away and he moved quickly past Nick.
Nick followed him to the kitchen. “Are you Reese? I’m not a cop. Just looking for my friends.”
No answer. He walked through a set of swinging doors. The sign above it read Kitchen Staff Only. Keep Out.
Nick reached for his wallet and pulled out the fifty that Red had refused, but when he lifted his eyes, he was staring straight into the barrel of a revolver.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” He backed up into a prep table that clattered as it slammed against the wall.
“Put your wallet back in your pocket and get the hell out of my kitchen.”
“Listen, I’m just—”
“I do not like cleaning blood off this old cement floor. It tends to get stuck in the cracks.” The dude’s tone was so sober, Nick had to believe he’d done it before.
“Okay, okay. I’m going.” He tucked his wallet away and backed out through the swinging doors.
That’s how it was in the dregs. Good citizens, even someone who’d spent a lifetime devoted to charity, could no longer rely on help from law enforcement. People had taken to defending themselves. Gun sales had never been higher. It was like the old Wild West. Even though Nick had posed zero threat, whatever arrangement that man had with the twinners needed to be protected. No bribe, no discussion.
But Jesus. Nick shrugged his sweaty shirt away from his skin. That was enough for one day. He retraced his route back to Fifth Street and was holding his breath past the toilets when his phone buzzed in his pocket.
Abder: We’ve got a lead. Get back asap.
32
October 2022, Mexico
The lower level of the salvage building was dimly lit and much cooler, and for a moment Layla felt as
though she were back in the purge room again. She bumped into Isaac as he paused at the bottom of the stairs.
He spoke in a low, calm voice, as if they were entering a nursery of sleeping toddlers. “There are lights on the floor indicating where you should walk. It allows you to keep a safe distance from the praefuro cells. They’re unpredictable. They can act sweet, but in most cases, it’s a way to lure you closer.”
“What happens if you get too close?” Layla asked at a normal volume.
Isaac switched on the soft floor lights, which provoked a flurry of rustling along the corridor. “We keep it on the dark side. It’s calming.”
“But what happens if you get too close?” she repeated.
“They have a voracious appetite for raw meat, and they’ll take it in whatever form they can get it.”
Layla blanched.
“Hey there, Lucinda,” he called. “How’s it going?”
“I’m six months pregnant in prison, how do you think it’s going?” the woman answered. “Who’s the newb?”
Layla stayed glued to Isaac.
“This is Sister Layla.”
The woman got up from a small desk and walked toward the steel bars. How long was the woman’s reach? Could she grab Layla?
“Sister Layla?” A voice came from behind them. “Is it really you?”
Layla spun around to see another woman, with a smaller baby bump, rushing to the bars. She gasped and stumbled backward, clanging into Lucinda’s cell.
“Keep moving,” Isaac said, a note of urgency in his soft voice.
She tried to regain her balance, but Lucinda’s hand curled around her wrist and drew Layla’s entire arm between the steel bars. Her second hand grasped Layla’s long ponytail.
“Isaac!” Layla swung her free arm madly, searching for Isaac. Out of one eye, she saw Lucinda’s wide, hungry eyes. Her lips were wet with saliva.
Oh, god. No, please.
Seemingly without reason, Lucinda’s grip relaxed, releasing Layla’s hair and her wrist. Isaac slid an arm around Layla and pulled her out of Lucinda’s reach.
“Oh god,” he breathed, “I’m so sorry. I was trying…”
His voice faded away, a faint whisper from somewhere so distant she had no hope of following. Layla felt a moment of pressure around her head, a thickness as if she’d submerged herself in the bathtub or a pool of mud.
Forgive me, Layla.
She could hear Lucinda’s apology loud and clear, but the woman’s lips weren’t moving. Layla was staring right at them. She peeled Isaac’s arm from her, barely registering his faraway protests.
She’s with us. The words surrounded her, filling her head like music through earbuds. Her eyes darted to Isaac, who seemed to be yelling at her, screaming her name. But it was as if someone hit the mute button.
Instead, she heard a calm, oddly affable Welcome, Layla.
She slowly moved down the corridor as each woman greeted her, their voices vibrating between her ears but not passing through the medium of air. They were speaking directly to her mind.
The greeting from the last cell was cold. Sarcastic. Welcome to salvage, the junkyard for humans, where you’re only kept around for the sake of your offspring. Better hope yours hangs on for a while.
“No.” Her voice reverberated, bouncing off the walls and back at her loudly enough to break the strange spell she’d fallen under.
“—calling security. I don’t want to, but you have to leave now. Right now. You’ve already caused a disruption, and they don’t like disruption. I swear to god—”
“I’m going.” She shoved Isaac out of the way and trundled back toward the staircase. “I should never have come here. I don’t belong here.”
Laughter issued from the cells behind her. Her chest felt tight, and she prayed she wouldn’t have a heart attack before she got out.
What had they done to her? How did they get inside her mind?
She glanced backward as she gripped the handrail, pulling her heavy body up the narrow staircase, certain that a hand would grab her and pull her back down like a bloodthirsty demon from hell.
She’s one of us.
No. It wasn’t true. She was Sister Layla, leader of the purification program. She was pure. A carrier of a perfect evolved fetus. She wasn’t salvage.
Isaac spun her by the arm at the top of the stairs, but she yanked free.
She would run back to her cabin as fast as her thick legs could move. She would erase this evil, twisted place from her mind, never think of it again.
Her voice quivered. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I have to get out. I have to go.” She knew she was rambling. Tears burned her eyes. “I’m not a monster. I’m not one of them. I’m not.”
She shoved the door open and staggered into the afternoon sun, sucking wind as if she’d just surfaced from the ocean. The hot desert heat burned her lungs, but it had never felt so good.
Her wobbly legs managed to carry her to the softball field, where the dugouts created a bit of shade on the grass near third base. She lowered herself to her hands and knees until her panting subsided and her body stopped trembling. But instead of continuing the long walk to her cabin, she rolled onto her side and curled up. She just needed a few minutes of sleep.
When she opened her eyes, night had fallen, and her heavy lids closed again.
33
March 2024, California
“Can you play it again, but slowed down a little?” Nick leaned over Abder, mopping the sweat from the back of his neck with a stack of McDonald’s napkins. From Nick’s surveillance device planted at the Wilshire, Abder had picked up a single voice, a woman talking on a phone with the cadence of an auctioneer. Nick couldn’t be sure if it was his recruiter.
“What’s the problem?” Her irritation came through clearly, even on the recording. “That’s not the way I operate. I have a schedule to keep.” There was a long pause of twenty-two seconds before she spoke again. “No, the fifteenth. Tonight is Esther Noho. Double run with Michael and Sage. I want a full load, under thirty, PHP fifteen or better, HIV okay, no addicts.”
Abder stopped the recording.
“That’s it?” Nick asked incredulously.
“Hung up without so much as a ‘thanks for calling.’ Rude.”
Nick looked down at the keywords he’d scribbled. Under thirty. Thirty passengers? Thirty years old? “Have you run a search yet for Esther Noho?”
Jenna breezed in and flopped onto the sofa. “Jordan’s passed out in his lab. Pulled another all-nighter.”
Abder was unfazed. Must have been a common occurrence. He continued. “Yeah, no listing under that name in greater LA or even on Facebook. I thought maybe she’s listed under her husband’s name, so I tried a few other searches.”
“What is it?” Jenna asked.
“Esther Noho. What do you think? Asian?”
“That’s probably not a last name, my little glittabee.”
“I live in an underground lab with a paranoid genius and a salty jungle lover. I think I’m pretty far from a glit.”
Nick saw Jenna tense for a comeback, and he held up his hands. They didn’t have time for a family fight. “What is it then?”
“Noho’s North Hollywood. Short form. You know, like, that’s a thing we do in SoCal.”
“Isn’t Hollywood a nice area?”
“They’ve been trying to clean it up for years, but it’s a dump.” She pulled her e-cigarette from its charger, changed the pod, and ripped it.
Nick watched the vapor swirl around her head as she slowly exhaled. “I did some fieldwork this afternoon,” he said, waving the smoke from his face. “I think we might be looking at a human trafficking situation. I think they’re taking kids off the street.”
She perked up. “For genetic testing?”
He was still trying to put together the pieces. “Hey Abder, can you pull up a map of North Hollywood? Look for a mission or church or something.”
Abder got there in a couple o
f clicks. “Nada.”
Red’s voice echoed in Nick’s memory. Reese didn’t want to give her up in the beginning, but they came and hauled her away.
“Skid Row,” he said. “That’s where they’re sending buses. I think they’re looking for young, presumably homeless, people in downtown LA. So let’s assume they have more than one collection spot. The woman said ‘PHP fifteen.’ What’s that?”
Abder and Jenna shrugged.
“Then, ‘HIV okay, no addicts.’ That’s pretty clear.”
“Who they’ll take?” Jenna asked.
“Exactly. If they’re picking up similar kids in Skid Row, what’s the Skid Row of North Hollywood?”
“Street Lives Matter.” Jenna stabbed a finger at Abder’s screen, a silent command to look it up. “Remember? Wasn’t it Esther something?” She turned to Nick. “There was this huge news story like a couple of years ago, right before the virus. This billion-dollar grant came from some rich bitch for the development of a huge homeless camp. It had full bathrooms, showers, and everything, and trash management, and even electrical outlets. Kind of like a nice campground.”
“Here in LA?” he asked.
She nodded. “The only stipulation was that it had to be walled in, so there was all this controversy about creating something that looked like a concentration camp. Thing is, the homeless people wanted it. They were dying for better sanitation. It was the wealthy people who were trying to protect their human rights. It was absurd.”
Abder muttered something about glits that Nick didn’t quite catch.
“Anyway,” Jenna continued, “they finally agreed to build it with a tall fence instead of a wall. Not that the fence ever made a difference. People moved not only into the camp but outside of it as well, all around the perimeter, so they could use those fabulous bathrooms.”
Abder pulled it up on his computer. “Esther Feldon.”
“That’s it.” The odds of two Esthers associated with a homeless camp in LA were just too low. How many Esthers could there be in 2024? “I need to get to that Noho pickup. How long will it take me to get there? Gotta make it before the sun sets.”