Gossip (Desire Never Dies)

by Clara Grace Walker

  She should have told him the truth. Trying to spare his feelings had only made things worse. Must be why people said the road to Hell was paved with good intentions.

  She needed make amends; find a way to clean up this mess. She owed Nick that much. Her resolve felt hot and firm in her gut as she drove to Rod’s studio. She had pepper spray in her purse, her Nikon D90 with a telescoping spy lens, a voice recorder in her pocket and a notepad and pen. Was that everything she might need? Danny was much better at doing the investigative reporting. She’d be fine, she told herself. She’d done a stakeout of the porn studio by herself once already. Second time should be a breeze.

  She found a place to park in almost the exact spot she’d parked yesterday, as if someone had been saving it for her. Parking sure was cheap in this neighborhood. No monthly fees or meters. Guess it was the street corners that were actually in demand. A person could lease space on the corners and make a fortune.

  While watching the same group of boys she’d seen before, she attached the spy lens to her camera and readied the pepper spray. The meager bottle of protection felt inadequate now, as she scoped out her surroundings. As a girl, her father had taught her how to box. Gave her and her siblings karate lessons, too, telling them how the rest of the world was going to be a whole lot tougher on them than he ever was. He must have been to this neighborhood when he’d decided that. Had this exact place in mind.

  The boys on the corner were busy as she sat parked across from the porn studio. Three cars had pulled up, waited while one or more of the boys had gone up to the driver side window, and then pulled away. Transactions were made. Money changed hands.

  Had the vice squad even looked at the photos she’d dropped off yesterday?

  Looking out her window, she saw the first fingers of twilight reaching into the sky. The sun had settled low in the western sky, casting a dim glow over the tops of the buildings, while night crept in from the east. Soon, the neon lights of the peep shows and adult bookstores would switch on; flooding the street with the kind of animated quality that looked like it belonged in a cheaply made B movie.

  Jamie shuddered and hoped something would happen soon to justify her being here. Maybe Peter would show up. Maybe Rod would come out of the studio. Maybe she’d get a good shot of Peter’s face this time. She readied the camera just in case and held it up, looking through the lens to see what kind of a shot she might get. The door to the concrete building with the black and brown peeling paint came sharply into focus. Perfect.

  Then, as if fate decided to intervene on her behalf, a cab pulled up in front of the studio. Jamie held her breath, holding the camera steady in her hands. A young girl emerged from the vehicle and paid the driver, who sped off in an instant. The girl’s face came clearly into view through the telescoping lens. Darn, but she looked young. Way too young to be entering a place like that. Strands of dirty blonde hair blew in her face, partially obscuring a pale complexion and tired blue eyes. A small patch of acne marred her left cheek, giving further testimony to her youth. The tattered blue jean bag slung over her shoulders jarred Jamie’s memory, and as she snapped off a few pictures, she realized she’d seen this girl before. Only yesterday. She had come into this building with Peter Arnold, riding in a car registered to Peter’s daughter. And she was not, as Jamie had mistakenly believed, Darla Arnold. Nausea churned in Jamie’s gut, the realization of what she had witnessed fully sinking in.

  After standing at the door and knocking for several minutes, to no avail, the girl started walking down the street in the direction opposite the corner where the drug dealers held court. Starting up her Jeep, Jamie pulled out of her parking place, moving slowly down the road after her. Questions peppered her thoughts. What conditions forced such a young girl into this kind of a life? Where were her parents? Had she run away? Did her parents know where she was? What she was doing? Did they care? Would they care? Did the girl have anywhere else to go? If she had somewhere else to go, would she? Or would Jamie’s attempts to help simply meet with resistance?

  It didn’t matter. She had to try.

  The girl turned a corner and Jamie continued to follow. After only one block, the girl turned another corner. Left this time. First right, then left. Two more blocks and the girl made another left. They’d entered a more residential looking neighborhood, filled with rundown two-family flats and dilapidated single-family homes. Many of the homes had boards on one or more of the windows. Most of the rest had bars. The kind of death traps Jamie remembered causing so many fire-related deaths back in Detroit. She thought about the families living behind those bars. About the sense of isolation and desperation they experienced on a daily basis, struggling to keep their children on a straight and narrow path when crooked roads veered off all around them. The whole, sordid scene was nothing short of pathetic. Porn studios and sex stores had no business opening their doors anywhere near a residential neighborhood.

  Finally, the girl turned up the sidewalk of a two-family flat, its paint a cheery shade of orange that peeled off the exterior, exposing a crumbling concrete shell. Jamie parked her Jeep in front of the house and picked her camera up off the seat, snapping off a few pictures, before getting out of her vehicle and following the girl up the broken steps leading to the front porch.

  “Hi,” she said, as the girl spun around, taking note of her with wide, startled eyes. “My name’s Jamie Jennings. I’m a reporter with The Tattletale. You’re an actress, aren’t you?”

  Her hunch paid off, as the girl’s open mouth curled into a delighted smile. She shook her head enthusiastically. “Yes, I am. My name’s Heather Sorenson. How did you know I was an actress?”

  Jamie tried quickly to read her, think of just the right thing to say to get her foot in the door, the way Danny and Nick were always talking about. “You have that look,” she said. “And your boss sent a publicity packet to our office. Anyway, I’m doing a piece on up and coming stars of tomorrow. Mind if we go inside and talk?”

  “Sure!”

  Enthusiasm laced the single word. The girl’s naivety astounded Jamie. Given the neighborhood and her apparent line of work, Jamie had expected someone tougher, more cynical. But perhaps, young girls were just that, young girls, no matter their circumstances.

  She followed Heather into the house, up a creaky set of wooden stairs and through a door leading to the second story flat, all the while feeling guilty for lying to her. She hated the thought of getting her hopes up, only to dash them later on. How often had that been done already in her young, short life?

  The room inside was bare, furnished only with a single, shabby green recliner and a couple of milk crates that served as end tables.

  “I’m sorry,” Heather said as Jamie followed her inside. Her gaze found the floor. “I just moved in. I haven’t had a chance to get any furniture yet.”

  Jamie shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. It’s always tough starting out. Everyone knows that.”

  “Oh good.” She clasped her hands together. “I was worried you might think I was trailer trash or something.”

  “Of course not.” Rod. Peter. The ones buying and using her, definitely. But not her. “So tell me about your movie. How’d you get started in the business? Did you have to audition for the part?”

  Heather sat down on the floor next to one of the milk crates and began chewing on her fingernails. “No. I know a friend of the owner of the movie studio. He thought I’d be great in one of his movies.”

  “Really?” What a piece of slime. Jamie pictured Rod wandering the neighborhood surrounding his sleaze shop, looking for young girls to pluck off street corners. “So how did your friend meet Rod?” And how is Peter connected to him?

  “Rod?”

  An uncertain look flitted across the girl’s face. Had she been instructed not to talk about him? “You said you knew the owner,” Jamie prompted.

  “Yes, yes I do. It’s just…”

  “Just what?”

  “Uh, nothing. I just,
I didn’t expect you to know Rod is all.”

  “Of course I know Rod.” She said it like they were old friends. “Rod and my boss have known each other for years.”

  “They have? Oh, well, I guess it kind of makes sense movie people and magazine people would know each other.”

  “Sure,” Jamie agreed, not missing how the girl referred to The Tattletale as a magazine, rather than a tabloid. A newfound respect for Nick and Danny filled her as she pondered how to get any useful information out of this girl. Maybe just start with asking basic questions? “Okay, so tell me, Heather, how old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  The answer came quickly. Too quickly. Like it had been rehearsed a thousand times. “And how did your friend meet Rod?”

  “Uh, I uh, met my friend through business. I don’t know how my friend met Rod.”

  Peter was a john maybe? “Tell me more about yourself, Heather.”

  “Like what?”

  “Anything. What you like, dislike? What are your hopes and dreams for the future? Where did you go to school?” She slipped the last question in, as if an afterthought.

  “Oh.” Heather smiled cheerily, staring off into space. “I’d really love to go back to school and get my diploma someday.”

  Jamie knew it. “Your high school diploma?”

  “Yeah. I always wanted to go to high school and be a cheerleader, you know?” Heather paused and looked at Jamie curiously. “Were you ever a cheerleader?”

  “No. I worked on the yearbook and the school paper.”

  “Oh, right. I guess that would make sense.”

  The first stirrings of frustration tugged at Jamie. She needed to get some pictures of this girl. Maybe Danny could find something out about her on the internet. He was much better at this interviewing stuff. She had no real talent for it. Taking pictures was what she knew, and maybe she should stick to that. She picked up her camera. “Mind if I get a few shots of you to go with the article?”

  Heather’s eyes lit up. “No. Not at all. That would be great!”

  Jamie placed her against a bare, white wall, turned on the lights and set her camera up for maximum flash. After coaching the girl on several poses to strike, she began snapping off photos as earnestly as if they were on the red carpet. The girl posed first coyly, twisting her dark blonde ringlets of hair around her finger, a demure smile on her face reminiscent of the Mona Lisa. Next, she placed her hands on her hips, a sexy, come-hither pout puckering her lips. Amazingly, she had some real talent. Had she been born into a nurturing, supportive environment, she may well have found her dreams of legitimate stardom, without resorting to selling herself.

  Jamie started to choke up. “Try wrapping your arms around yourself for this next shot,” she suggested.

  “Okay.”

  Heather did as she was told and Jamie noticed the marks on the insides of her arms. Needle marks. Drugs? Heroin, maybe? Maybe something else? She didn’t know enough about drugs to be sure.

  Heather uncurled her arms. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Jamie motioned her over. Her heart pounded. She wasn’t trained to handle a situation like this. One wrong word and she might only make the situation worse. “Come here.”

  Heather walked over to her and Jamie stretched open her arms, like an overly critical parent or a suspicious police officer. “We need to talk about this.”

  Heather pulled her arms away. “There’s nothing to talk about. This is nothing. Just a little experimentation. Everybody does it.”

  “No. Everybody doesn’t.” Excuses. Justifications. Rationalizations. How many times had she heard such things coming from her father during one of his drinking bouts?

  A long pause followed. A moment when Jamie felt her ruse was up. That she’d said and done the wrong thing. She couldn’t just leave now.

  “You’re not going to call the police, are you?”

  Jamie heard the fear in Heather’s voice, saw it echoed in her eyes.

  “Magazine people don’t do that, do they? They don’t bust on you.”

  Fear might accomplish what flattery couldn’t, Jamie thought, and stared hard at the girl. “Not if you start telling me the truth.”

  “Do you promise?”

  Promise. The girl was locking her in. Wanting Jamie to give her word. Promising not to call the police limited her options. She didn’t like it. Felt like she should call the police. Big brother Jeremy, a cop out in California, would certainly think so. She had no real proof of anything though. And she got the feeling Heather wasn’t talking without a guarantee there would be no police involvement. “Fine,” she agreed. “I promise not to call the police, but I want the truth from you.”

  Heather shook her head. “The truth about what? I haven’t lied to you.”

  “No? How old are you? Really?”

  “I told you. I’m eighteen.”

  “I know what you told me. What I want to know is the truth.”

  “I told you the truth.”

  This was getting her nowhere. She still had one trump card up her sleeve, however. “Open your mouth.”

  “What?” Puzzlement blinked through Heather’s eyes. “What for?”

  “Just do it.”

  “You want me to say aaah?”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  Heather opened her mouth and Jamie began counting teeth. Twenty-eight. And not a hint of wisdom teeth coming in anywhere. No way was she eighteen.

  “You know what the advantage of coming from a large family is, Heather?”

  “No. What?

  “The kids are all very motivated to get a good education so they can afford to move out. My older brother, Justin, for example, became a dentist. Has a real nice house in Grosse Pointe.”

  The news registered no meaning in Heather’s eyes. “That’s nice,” she said, giving a shrug of her shoulders.

  “Yes, it is. And do you know what’s even nicer?”

  “What?”

  “Because he’s a dentist, I know a little something about teeth. And I know that if you were really eighteen, you’d have the beginnings of wisdom teeth poking through your gums, or impacting somewhere in your jaw.”

  “Oh.” Heather’s eyes got wide. She bit. “Are you going to tell anyone?”

  “That all depends on you, Heather. How old are you? And I want the truth this time.”

  Heather looked down at the floor. Her shoulders hunched, sagged in defeat. “Fifteen.”

  Jamie felt sick inside. “What do you know about Rod Skinner?”

  Heather backed away, whimpering as if the subject scared her. “I don’t know anything about him, except that he runs the movie studio. He owns it. I think.”

  “And what about Peter Arnold? How do you know him?”

  Heather shook her head. “I don’t know anyone named Peter Arnold.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Heather.”

  “Really. I don’t.”

  “That red haired guy you came to the studio with yesterday. That’s Peter Arnold.”

  Heather continued shaking her curly blonde head. “No. His name is Carl. Even Rod called him that.”

  Carl? Jamie didn’t buy it, but if Heather couldn’t identify him as Peter Arnold, he might wiggle off the hook. Thinking furiously, she tried to plot. Nick would know what to do. If he hadn’t left town already, she’d call him. Calling Danny should work just as well though. And maybe Danny could get in touch with Nick. One thing was for sure, she couldn’t leave Heather alone to continue shooting herself full of drugs and selling her body to strangers. She dragged in a deep breath, hoping she could handle what she was about to suggest next. “Get your things, Heather. You need to come with me.”

  Puzzlement returned to Heather’s eyes. “Why?”

  “You want me to do a story on you, right?”

  The girl nodded.

  “Good. Then I need to take you home and get you cleaned up. I’m never going to be able to break you into stardom with a drug habit.” />
  “Oh.”

  She accepted the information without challenge. Jamie guessed she wasn’t used to challenging people too much. Her heart bled for the girl. Heather looked at her with sad, blue eyes and glanced around the bare apartment as if saying good-bye to an old friend. Perhaps this place represented her first taste of freedom and independence. Though it was unlikely she recognized the feelings for what they were.

  Jamie hoped she was doing the right thing, taking the girl home with her instead of just calling the police. Maybe Danny could help her out some. He had lots of kids. He’d know who to call. She had to get the girl into rehab.

  “Do I have time to pack my clothes and stuff?” Heather asked.

  Jamie nodded. “Sure. Go pack up your things.

  Chapter 45

  Cold wind whipped past Nick, slapping his exposed face with icy gusts. It wasn’t yet December. If this was fall in the Big Apple, he’d sure hate to see winter. Had to be about forty degrees outside. Maybe less. Without the wind chill. Already, the concrete and glass structures of the New York City skyline had drown out the receding sunlight. The coming darkness had brought with it at least a ten degree drop in the temperature. He’d been here a few times before, but never after September.

  Being a lifelong Florida boy, he marveled at the fortitude of these northern dwellers, defying Mother Nature as they thronged city streets in teeming masses, sporting lightweight jackets and bare heads. Even bundled up, he felt chilled to the bone. Jamie hailed from this frigid region of the country, and he no longer thought it odd she ran around in sixty degree weather without a coat.

  Jamie. He hadn’t stopped thinking about her since he’d boarded the plane for New York yesterday morning. He hated that she’d lied to him. And he hated the way he’d yelled at her and chased her out of his office even more. There was no telling how much damage had been done to their relationship. Although, judging by the missed call from her on his cell phone, she was prepared to tell him. They needed to talk, but he’d resisted returning her call. Whatever they had to say to each other, it needed to be done face-to-face.