I hear it; the overwhelming desire that things will be just fine in a day or two. I feel it too sometimes. As if by sheer will we could simply wish a happy ending. It’s intoxicating at moments when I am the weakest. Maybe if I just go to work and finish the laundry, ignoring the entire nightmare long enough it will go away. I clench my jaw and stiffen.
“Maybe she’s not at a friend’s house. Maybe she’s in trouble and she can’t get to us. Maybe she’s hurt, or-” I stop suddenly, unable to give voice to the unthinkable.
Rob breaks our embrace and turns away, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands. Was he crying?
“I gotta get ready for work,” he says. A minute later the pelt of water against plastic announces that he is in the shower.
***
My fingers scan the yellow pages. Most of the private investigator ads are small and discreet. I dial a local name, a Mr. Bart Strong with an Antioch number. A voice message begins but is then quickly replaced by a husky, cracked voice:
“This is Bart.”
I open my mouth to speak but suddenly find myself tongue-tied.
“‘Lo?”
“My daughter is missing,” I say finally.
We arrange a time for me to come to his office, which is wedged between a tattoo parlor and dilapidated beauty salon in downtown Antioch, near the water. The briny smell of the delta mingles with car exhaust. Gigantic elms and blue oaks line the street. The hum of traffic from nearby Third Street buzzes in my ears. With one hand on the door, I pat my purse and the twenty, crisp one hundred dollar bills I withdrew on my way over, closing our savings account. I draw in a deep breath and open the door.
Inside, a heavy patina of pipe tobacco coats the air. Motes of dust, like confetti, glimmer along bands of light from three small windows at the back of the room. Bookcases filled to bursting line both side walls. Books, phone directories and thick texts are stacked on the floor near the bookshelves, fighting for space with seemingly dozens of manila file folders. In the center of the large room is a huge desk and behind the desk, a man who looks to be in his fifties or sixties sits eyeing me. Somewhere behind me I hear the unyielding tock of a wall clock.
“Mrs. Skinner, I presume?”
I walk forward, shaking his proffered hand. His grip is firm.
“Yes.”
“Please,” he gestures, “have a seat. I’m Bart. Bart Strong.”
His eyes are a warm, inviting hazel green. He’s wearing jeans, a T-shirt and on top of that, what looks to be a khaki and olive colored hunting or fishing vest. I don’t recognize the faint undertones of his cologne.
“I need you to find my daughter,” I say. Unaccountably, relief floods my voice. Everything spills out suddenly. Robyn’s increasingly defiant behavior, the fights, the money I found in her room, the police, the seemingly useless television spot. As I talk, my hand finds its way into my purse withdrawing a photograph.
“Here’s her picture,” I say holding Robyn’s image out to him.
He takes the picture and looks at it a moment before placing it on the desk.
“She’s only fifteen,” I say. Then emotion clots my throat and I must stop.
He looks down, rubs his cheek with one hand, fingertips scratch absently at a graying sideburn as he considers Robyn’s face. My desperation embarrasses him, I’m sure of it, but I don’t care. I’d gladly beg on my hands and knees if it meant finding Robyn.
Bart hunches his shoulders, leans forward dropping his elbows to his desk. In front of him is a pipe, maroon brown with a long black mouthpiece. The smell of his pipe tobacco is suddenly fresh in my nose again. He toys with it a moment. He asks a question or two, the same types of things the police asked. Did Robyn have a habit of staying away from home? Was anything of any significance missing from her room?
I answer his questions, impatient to move forward. Wanting only for him to leap from the desk, picture in hand, and dash from the room to scour the earth in order to find my daughter.
He is quiet a moment.
“You do search for missing persons, don’t you?” I ask, suddenly nervous.
“Oh sure,” he says. “Most of my work these days is insurance fraud,” he jerks a thumb in the direction of the files on the floor. “But missing persons, unfaithful spouses, you name it, I’ve done it.”
“About your fee,” I begin.
“I charge five hundred a day plus expenses. That includes photographic proof. If I do find her.” He gives me a pointed look. “But I don’t do any recovery, kidnapping, or extractions.”
“Extractions?”
“If she’s hooked up with some cult. Something like that.”
I tease out the thin envelope of cash from my purse, our entire savings. How can so much money feel so puny and inconsequential?
“Here is two thousand dollars,” I say. The money falls to his desk with a breezy thump. “It’s all I have.”
He eyes the envelope a moment and then breaths in a somber lungful of air and gives me a grim look.
“Do you want the honest to God truth about your daughter?”
My bottom lip begins to quiver, just slightly, but I’m sure Bart has noticed. I bite down hard, trying to stop the tremor and my eyes well with tears. I nod.
At that moment, in the distance, a car slams on its brakes. The sliding scream of rubber against asphalt fills the air as both Bart and I lock eyes. The wailing continues for three or four seconds. And then we hear, not the scorching impact of a crash, but mercifully, silence. Bart continues.
“Honestly? Your daughter probably ran away.” He folds his hands together like a disappointed second grade teacher. “She might be doing drugs, she might not. If you’ve already tried all her friends and she’s not living with any of them, she’s probably on the streets.”
He stops a moment letting me take this in. He looks at me steady, a gaze of solid steel.
“She could be prostituting to make money. A pimp has maybe even taken her in. If that’s the case, she could be anywhere. He’ll be keeping her as hidden as possible because she’s underage. Or he might be running an escort service, which will make it even harder to find her.”
“But she’s only fifteen,” I say.
“There’s been a seventy percent increase in the last three years of juveniles in prostitution. The average age is twelve to thirteen. Some as young as ten. Some of these girls come from bad homes where there was some kind of abuse, be it physical, sexual or else the parents were drug addicts.”
He pauses. Does he expect me to admit something?
I sit stiffly in my seat. “There is no abuse in our home.”
A prostitute. I can’t even get my mind to wrap itself around the word.
“Nearly half these girls come from good homes. They’re good kids with good grades looking to make some money on the side. These pimps tell them they’ll be in music videos or models. Buy them clothes, show them a good time. Sometimes they use their own girls to lure in new recruits. They hunt for new blood in halfway houses, youth shelters, and bus stations.”
Money. Always an issue in our house. My mind flashes to half a dozen arguments I’ve had with Robyn about why I could never buy her the name brand purse or coat or shoes she always seemed to require.
“The FBI estimates there’s anywhere between one hundred to three hundred thousand of these kids on the streets in America. But no one really knows for sure.”
I sink into the chair. A pillowy air smelling of old leather from the cushion covers my face. I feel as if I’ve been sucker-punched and all the air expelled from my lungs. I wipe the tears from my cheeks, sniffling and Bart is suddenly offering a box of tissue. I grab two and swab my eyes and nose and mouth.
“What can you do?” I ask.
Bart shakes his head. His eyes look weary and his mouth forms a deep frown.
“I can look for her,” he says. “But I have to tell you, the odds aren’t in your favor. Kids who don’t get off the streets within a month or two are usually lost
forever; dead within eight years.”
I gather my purse to my side and stand.
“Just please find my daughter,” I say.
I drive home in a fog. My eyes scan the sidewalks as I drive, searching, just in case. Nightmarish images of child prostitutes cloud my brain, lurid apparitions of little girls wearing garish red lipstick and little else flit in front of me. I simply can’t believe that Robyn would do such a thing. I find it impossible to suppose that she could find her way to some filthy motel room, allow her young, perfect body to be ravaged by a sweating, grunting, middle-aged, overweight pig of a man.
“She comes from a good home,” I say to the air, as if to refute everything Bart has told me.
I drive all over Pittsburg and Antioch, searching out the worst possible places in town, hunting for Robyn. But in the end I drive home, empty-handed.
I trudge up the walk, noticing that the grass has all but died in the front lawn. A handful of weeds eek out an existence, choked by the parched dirt. The hot summer air stinks of dirt and grime. Absently, I yank the mail from the mailbox and unlock the door. I hear the answering machine beep. I feel the ineffable rise of hope clamber in my chest, though I realize that all of the messages are probably crank calls.
Still, I drop the mail to the floor and head directly for the kitchen and the answering machine. A red digital light flashes before me. I punch the playback button and wait, my heart throbbing with desire.
The first two are indeed crank calls. The third is from Robyn’s friend, Jenny. My mouth is tinder dry as I await her message.
“Hi.” Jenny’s voice is tentative. “It’s me, Jenny. I um, saw the thing on TV,” she says. Her voice is a whisper, as if she doesn’t want anyone to know what she’s saying. “Um, I feel really bad, you know? But I um, know where Robyn is.”
***
“This is Rob.” He’s working a late shift to pick up some extra money.
“Rob, it’s me. Jenny said that Robyn’s in San Francisco,” I say into the cordless, which is cradled between my ear and shoulder.
“ San Francisco?” Rob’s voice rattles with disbelief. “What the hell’s she doing in San Francisco?”
“I don’t know,” I reply defensively. “All Jenny would say is that Robyn was ‘partying in frisco’.”
As I talk I am bolting through the house, finding a jacket, gathering my purse, ferreting through its contents for my keys.
“But I’m going to find out.” I say.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m driving to San Francisco,” I say.
“When?” Rob asks.
“Now.”
“Now? You’re crazy; it’s almost dark. You don’t even know the city.”
“I found a map. Remember that time we were going to go to Fisherman’s Wharf but then you got sick?” I ask, and then continue on, not waiting for him to answer. “Well I found that map of the city we bought.”
“Margot, don’t,” he warns. “Call the cops; let them handle it.”
“I already did. They told me they’d fax Robyn’s picture to S.F.P.D. and put out a BOLO.”
“A BOLO?” Rob asks.
“It means be on the look out,” I say.
“And?”
“And, that’s it. That’s all they’ll do.” I huff into the phone.
“What about Jenny’s parents?” Rob asks.
“I spoke with Jenny’s mother. She said she has no knowledge of where Robyn could be. Anyway, Jenny told me.”
“Don’t,” Rob warns.
I know he hears the hopefulness in my voice. His ‘don’t’ is as much for the action I am about to take as it is for my emotion.
“You’re not going to stop me.” I reach the door, yanking it open with my one free hand.
“Margot-”
I punch the ‘end’ button and toss the phone on the couch, sprinting for the car, slamming the front door behind me.
The City is cold. It is just after seven and most of the commuters have gone home for the day. Although traffic on the bridge coming into San Francisco was relatively light, cars seem to jumble up as I stagger along Fremont Street making my way left onto Market. The electric Muni buses dominate the landscape, rushing by with authority. I scan the streets looking for any sight of Robyn. The cold, windy air floods the car and I’m forced to roll up the window, sneaking alternate peeks at the streets and my map, which is difficult to read in the dusky evening. I don’t know, really, what I am looking for; I see a spot on the map labeled Union Square and that seems as good a place as any to start.
But I make a wrong turn and then another one and suddenly, the city streets seem too narrow; the cars drive by too fast and some just park in the road for no reason at all. I am hot, sweating now, from nervousness. I catch the name of a street, Hayes, and a small sign that says: City Hall with an arrow angled towards the left. It is almost dark now and in my indecision about where to go I stop completely. The blare of an angry horn sounds behind me. I look in my rear view mirror to see the bead of sharp, bright lights. I speed up switching on my right turn indicator only to see that at the end of the block, the street ahead is one way the other way. Another halting block and traffic thins a bit. I look around and see several adult stores sandwiched together. A man whose clothing is nearly black with filth stumbles along the sidewalk. His hair is disheveled and as I drive past, he leers in my direction and I see that most of his teeth are missing. A shiver of disgust washes over my skin. I avert my eyes and turn quickly, noting the street: Turk. It is then I see her.
Up ahead a young girl. She is dressed in typical hooker garb. High heels and a mini skirt that is so short I can actually see part of her bottom, like two adjacent obscene smiles. She stamps out a cigarette and then turns facing the street. Her face is grotesquely painted and the only thing on her torso is a black bustier laced in red. She looks barely old enough to be out of elementary school. Not Robyn. Standing back from the edge of the sidewalk, she scans drivers of cars as they go by. She looks briefly in my direction and then away. She looks to be about Robyn’s age. I nudge the car towards the curb and pop it into park, leaning over the passenger’s side I quickly roll down the window.
“Excuse me,” I say.
The girl’s face turns in my direction and it is then I see her eyes. They are filled with the darkness of a blunt void. She is chewing gum and saunters over towards the car.
“Lookin’ for a party?” she asks, plastering a fake smile onto her lips.
“I’m looking for a girl named Robyn,” I say.
“You can call me Robyn,” she says, advancing closer now.
Her perfume invades the car and I am peppered by tiers of a sweet, synthetic musk.
Her smile deepens as she props an elbow on the opened window, leaning over in an exaggerated motion, allowing me a full view of her small, juvenile breasts. Cheap red polish is chipping off her short fingernails.
“Ten dollars for a party,” she says.
“No,” I say shaking my head.
“I’m looking for my daughter. Her name is Robyn.” I thrust out the photo of my daughter towards her.
Silence glimmers between us as the realization of what I am after creeps into her brain.
She backs away, and stiffens; the smile falls from her face.
“Get lost, lady,” she spits out. Her voice is suddenly hot with contempt. Her eyes dart left and then right. She continues backing away from my car.
“She ran away,” I bark, as this young, pathetic thing ebbs from my grasp.
“Get away from me,” she says.
“How old are you?” I shout.
It is then I see fear in her face. She waves me off.
“Get the hell outta here!” she yells, beginning to walk quickly away.
“Wait!” I yell.
I jerk open the car door, clambering out of the car. My heart pounds in my chest. Does this girl know something? Does she know Robyn? Did fate bring me to the one, single person in the en
tire city who knows where my daughter might be?
“Wait!” I shriek out again excitedly.
I am surprised by the frigid air in this city. Nothing at all like the stifling bog of heat in Pittsburg. I tear to the front of the car, still idling, watching the girl as she runs from my view, ducking into an alleyway thick with refuse. Before I even reach the sidewalk, she has escaped into the shadowy yaw of a doorway that leads to who knows where. I fight the web of panic that spreads over me.
I stand there a moment, frozen. To my right, another homeless soul approaches. He is about ten yards away. But even from this distance it seems I can already smell the sour stench of urine and vomit that precedes him. He is rambling to an invisible partner and I am suddenly afraid for my safety. When he sees me, his pace quickens. A bell of alarm rings in my ears. I whip around, heading back for the car door.
Across the street I spy a well dressed man who appears to be heading for an aqua-colored BMW so shiny and new it looks like it came from a showroom. I catch the license plate: BLU BOY. Our eyes meet and then he looks at the homeless man making a beeline towards me. Instead of his car, he chooses to walk in my direction and I am suddenly, unaccountably flooded with relief.
When the homeless man sees the man in the suit heading towards him, he makes an about face and begins heading the opposite way. As the well dressed stranger comes closer to me, I am struck by his appearance. He is dark complected and the word ‘swarthy’ registers in my mind. His suit is shiny, a grey sharkskin hue, double breasted that seems a little too dressy for this neck of the woods.
“ Perdida?” he asks in a thick Spanish accent.
A slender, sinful black mustache curls as he gives me a cruel looking smile. I look backward in the direction of the retreating homeless man trying to conjure that old saying my mother used to recite. Something about the frying pan and the fire.
“I, um.” The words stumble out of my mouth as I back towards to my car, the driver’s door handle now pressing into my buttock.
The man keeps coming, invading that imaginary social space that society allows. I try swallowing but my mouth is suddenly as dry as sun-bleached bones. The air outside is freezing but I am not cold. The pads of my fingers are behind me, resting on the cool metal of my Corsica. He is now only inches from me. The heat from his body is oppressive. His eyes narrow to slits. He cocks his head to the side, considering me.
The Whore of Babylon, A Memoir Page 5