by Parnell Hall
“What do they need you for? Why don’t they give her a good talking to, ground her, and get on with their lives?”
“She doesn’t want her husband to know.”
“A teenage hooker has a husband?”
“Her mother.”
“Oh. And what’s the mother like?”
“Oh.”
“Good God, you’re let another attractive woman wrap you around her finger. What was the mother like? What a stupid question. I’m assuming she’s got tits and ass and a pulse.”
“She is rather attractive.”
“No kidding. Otherwise you’d never let yourself get talked into this for no money.”
“She paid cash.”
“Two hundred bucks. Her analyst makes that in an hour. A fifty-minute hour.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m not trying to say anything. I’m just wondering how long I have to keep talking before you realize this is not a good investment.”
“That’s what I said in the first place.”
“Not in those terms. You never ask anything simply and directly. You bring up the whole thing as if it were a wonderful opportunity, waiting for me to shoot you down.”
“Are you shooting me down?”
“Do you see me applauding? I can give you enough reasons not to take the case. I assume it’s a moot point, because the money’s in your pocket. You’ve already taken it, all you want now is validation. Which you’re not going to get. Which you probably knew before you came in the door. A less astute observer might wonder why you came.”
“You don’t?”
“Don’t be silly. I know exactly why you came.”
“Why is that?”
“You don’t want to go home.”
5
AT THE ART OF MORTAL CONVERSATION, ALICE HAS NO equal. I no longer compete. Not that it does any good. Alice can pick up on my lack of response, turn my unwillingness to engage into a vile, reprehensible, passive-aggressive action, the likes of which have never appeared in the annals of marital discord.
Bad as that is, any response is worse. Alice is a master of sarcasm and irony, the subtle, understated, deadpan zinger, couched like a time bomb within the most innocuous phrase.
Worse, she is unpredictable. It is totally impossible to brace oneself against Alice, because her responses run the gamut. She can decimate me with a simple “That’s nice,” a throw-away murmur while leaving the room, a thin smile on her lips, a twinkle in her eyes. And I know, I just know, I’ve been utterly stupid.
But of all the tactics in Alice’s arsenal, by far the most devastating is her understanding-and-supportive mode.
“Don’t worry, Stanley, we’ll get you out of it.”
“There’s nothing to get out of. It’s just a job.”
“I know, and it’s nice of you to take on the extra work. But, trust me, we’ll get by.”
“It’s not a question of getting by. It’s a question of helping the girl.”
“And she’s an escort?”
I’d called her an escort to avoid using the term teenage hooker. That seemed unnecessarily incendiary. I chucked out whore and streetwalker for similar reasons. Strumpet, harlot, and lady of the evening were too archaic. It came down to call girl or escort. Escort won out for not including the word girl.
“Yes.”
“She works for a service?”
“I didn’t say she works for a service.”
“Then how does she meet her clientele?”
“I have no idea.”
“Don’t be silly. If she’s a paid escort, she works for someone.”
“Well, I don’t know.”
“Her mother didn’t either?”
“No.”
“And yet she knows she works for a service. I wonder how she found out.”
I said nothing, waited for Alice to drop the subject.
As if.
“I mean, if she found an ad, or a business card, or a telephone number, that would be a dead giveaway. She wouldn’t send you out in the dark. So, how’d the mother know it was an escort service?”
“The mother didn’t know it was an escort service.”
“So you don’t know it’s an escort service?”
“I guess I don’t.”
“Then why call it an escort service?”
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, you can’t expect to make much progress if you’re that haphazard with your work. You wind up spending a week looking for a nonexistent escort service.”
“That would be silly.”
“No kidding. How old is this daughter?”
“Oh.”
“Oh? That’s a very bad sign. Is it possible the mother didn’t mention the age of the daughter?”
“She’s sixteen.”
“Stanley.”
“Which is why she needs saving.”
“From what? She doesn’t work for any service. They don’t hire sixteen-year-old girls. Not if they want to stay in business.”
“Maybe the word escort is a little strong. Maybe this is just something the girl is doing for some friends.”
“And you’re shooting yourself in the head because when you were sixteen you didn’t know girls like that.”
“Times were different then. Man had just discovered fire.”
“Don’t give me the geezer bit. You’re not that old.”
Alice pushed back from the computer. That didn’t mean she was finished using it. A champion multitasker, my wife is perfectly capable of blogging or tweeting, or whatever those online people do these days, without missing a beat in her interrogation. “All right, let’s get down to the heart of the matter. You’ve been hired to save a young girl from a fate worse than death. You’re utterly embarrassed, and you don’t want to talk about it. I find that very cute. How are you supposed to contact this girl? Tell me you’re not soliciting sex from her.”
“That would be entrapment.”
Her mouth fell open. “Entrapment? That’s your only objection?”
“Just because the subject is distasteful doesn’t mean the work shouldn’t be done.”
“I know. You can justify anything. Hell, you worked for a hitman.”
“If you don’t want me to take the case …”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I can always turn it down.”
“How are you supposed to recognize this girl.”
“Oh.”
Alice’s eyes widened. “You have her picture?” She held out her hand. “Give.”
I took out my wallet, passed the snapshot over. I did so reluctantly. Sharon looked good: fresh, clean, virginal, young. But she didn’t look sixteen. Closer to ten.
Alice looked at the picture, shook her head disparagingly, as if I were to blame for the girl’s downfall. “Oh, my God. She’s just a child.”
“Yes.”
“It’s disgusting. Degrading. Awful.”
“It’s sleazy as hell. I feel dirty just thinking about it. You want me to get out?”
Alice looked at me as if I were a moron.
“Are you kidding? You’ve gotta help her.”
6
I PICKED SHARON UP AT THREE FORTY-FIVE AT P.S. 64. POOR choice of words, when dealing with a teenage hooker. I didn’t pick her up. I got on her tail. Another poor choice of words.
This was not good. I hadn’t even begun the case, and already queasy overtones of pedophilia were making me want to lose my lunch. It didn’t help that she looked about ten, which I sort of expected, since her mother looked like a teenager. At least I didn’t look at her breasts. She didn’t have any. Though it occurred to me I must have looked in order to ascertain that. Anyway, she came bopping out of school at three forty-five, the same fresh face as in the picture, and the body of a kid. Cotton pullover shirt, ribbon in her hair. Was she wearing bobby sox? Why did I think of that? What the hell were bobby sox, anyway? I mean, you think of Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. Maybe
I was thinking of the song, “When a girl changes from bobby sox to stockings.” Now why did I think of that? Did Frankie sing it? Good Lord, what an inappropriately appropriate song.
It occurred to me she didn’t look like a hooker, but maybe that’s what men want. A hooker who looks like a little girl.
Okay, this is the point where I step in, scare the shit out of her, send her home. Scared Straight. A documentary way back when. Notable for using words you couldn’t say on television that got by because it was such a good cause. Peter Falk took kids at risk, showed them what life would be like for them in prison, huge tattooed convicts fucking them up the ass and trading them for smokes. Kids were all out of trouble when the show aired, indicating the lesson worked, though I seem to recall the tabloids taking great delight in reporting any subsequent arrests.
At any rate, if that was the role I had to play, so be it. At this point it wasn’t the money. There she was, a sweet young thing, and nobody, but nobody, was getting their hands on her.
I no sooner had that thought when a car pulled up to the curb, honked, and she ran over and hopped into the front seat.
With her book bag. The book bag killed me. Despite the fact she’d just come out of school, it looked like a prop.
The car pulled away from the curb.
I hadn’t seen the driver. Not that the car had tinted windows, just that the passenger side was to the curb, and the car was at an angle so that I couldn’t see in when she opened the door.
Well, that was just great. Not only had I failed to save the girl from a life of sin, but she had managed to accomplish it right under my very nose.
I rushed out into the street and hailed a cab. Fat chance. There were no taxis anywhere. Just school buses clogging the street. Except for one small fissure the girl’s car had managed to squeeze through. I hadn’t caught the plate, or even the make of the car.
I ran around the buses, spotted the car at a red light at the end of the block. What the hell kind of car was it? It looked new, it looked expensive, it looked like its occupant and I didn’t belong in the same league.
Then, miracle of miracles, a taxi squeezed by the bus, its light like a beacon of hope. I hailed it, hopped in.
The driver, one Felipe Rodriguez, according to the license posted on the glove compartment, said, “Where to?”
“Follow that car,” I told him.
I expected him to argue. He just said, “The Lexus?”
So that’s what it was. “Yeah, the Lexus. Can you catch it?”
“Are you kiddin’ me?”
The cabby popped the clutch. At least he would have if there had been a clutch. The cab, of course, was an automatic. I wondered when was the last time a cabby actually popped a clutch. Then my neck snapped like a rubber band and the cab rocketed down the street. Within seconds we were right on the Lexus’s tail.
“Hey, don’t let him know we’re following.”
“Why should he? This is how I always drive.”
I shut up, checked my vertebrae for whiplash. My spinal cord seemed intact.
The mad cabbie tailed the Lexus to Fifth Avenue and 88th. Where, to my delight, it slowed, signaled, and …
Drove into an underground garage.
“Shit.”
“Too bad,” the cabbie said.
“Can you park?”
“Huh?”
“Pull in and park. I’ll pay the fee.”
“It’s a private garage.”
I knew that. I asked the question with no hope, the way you will sometimes, even though you know the answer.
I paid off the cab and got out. Weighed my options. I had the license plate number. I could trace the car. But that wasn’t going to help me now.
I went around to the front. It was your typical Fifth Avenue building, brass and glass door, with artistic bric-a-brac. I pushed it open, went inside.
There was a liveried doorman at a desk. “May I help you?” he said, in a neutral tone, neither encouraging nor disapproving, ready to go in either way should I turn out to be a bill collector or a wealthy tenant’s brother.
I gave him my warmest smile. “I think a friend of mine just pulled into the garage.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. But I’m not sure. Do you have a video monitor?”
“Yes.”
“Does it cover the garage?”
The doorman had a cultivated supercilious arrogance that did not bode well. “Who’s your friend?”
“I’d rather not say, in case I’m wrong.”
“I see.”
“So whose car is it?”
He smiled. “I’d rather not say in case you’re wrong.”
I went outside, flipped open my cell phone, called MacAullif. “Can you trace a license plate number for me?”
“Whose is it?”
“One of the hooker’s johns. Can you do it, MacAullif? It would really help.”
“Why? What the fuck are you doing? You trying to rescue this girl, or take down her johns?”
“Come on, MacAullif. The guy picked her up in his car, took her to his Fifth Avenue apartment. Got an underground garage, doesn’t even have to take her by the front desk. He’s got her up there now doing God knows what.”
“So?”
“I’d like to know where she is.”
“Why?”
“Huh?”
“What’s your plan? You gonna bust in on ’em, drag her outta there? How you gonna get past the front desk?”
“She’s sixteen.”
“So what?”
“It’s a crime. A crime is being committed.”
“So.”
“You can go in to stop a crime. Even without a warrant.”
“You’re not a cop.”
“Anyone can make a citizen’s arrest.”
“Right. You go to the front desk, say, ‘Hi. I think one of your tenants is banging a teenage hooker. I don’t have a warrant and I’m not a cop, but I’d like to go up and see.’”
“I get the point.”
“Of course you do, you fucking, annoying, scumbag son of a bitch. You knew it before you made the call. You don’t want to go in. You want me to send the vice squad to made the bust, and a SWAT team to kick down the door. On the flimsiest, thirdhand, hearsay evidence ever.”
“I saw him with my own eyes.”
“Really? What does he look like?”
“Well, I saw his car.”
“Oh, my god. You’re a moron of the highest order. Look, I’ll trace the license number for you, but I won’t drop the two homicides I’m working on to do it. I’ll have it for you by tomorrow. If that doesn’t allow you to change into your Superman suit and save the day, I’m sorry, but I happen to have this job. Jesus Christ, what did I ever do to deserve this,” MacAullif said, and hung up the phone.
7
SHE WAS OUT AT A QUARTER TO SIX. NEARLY TWO HOURS. I hope he paid her well. She didn’t look the worse for wear, but then, she was young. Give her a couple of years and it would take its toll.
Not if I had anything to say about it.
I stepped out in the middle of the sidewalk, blocked her way. “Hi, there.”
She didn’t react like a hooker. Unless she pegged me for a cop. She sure didn’t act like I was a john. She drew back, and her face contorted into an ooh-gross! expression. “Who are you?”
“The real question is who are you?”
“What?”
“You’re at a crossroads, sweetheart. And you don’t wanna take the wrong turn.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know damn well what I’m talking about. You may think it’s easy money, but it’s not. It’s the hardest money you ever made.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I know you think so now. In a couple of years you’ll think different.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m your best friend. I wanna help you.”
“If you don’t go away I’ll scream.”
&n
bsp; “That wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Cops will come. You don’t want that.”
“You don’t want that. Old man, bothering a girl.”
“As opposed to the ones who give you money.”
“You want to give me money?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Wait’ll I tell the cops you offered me money.”
“I didn’t offer you money.”
“I say you did. Let’s see who they believe.”
And, just like that, she went from teenage nymphet to hardened whore. I could see her ratting me out to the cops, playing it virginal, laughing up her sleeve.
“Look, Sharon.”
Her eyes widened. “You know my name. How do you know my name?”
“I’m your guardian angel.”
“You’re a lunatic. You keep away from me.”
“How much did the guy in the Lexus pay you?”
Her mouth fell open, and her eyes bugged out of her head. “What?!”
“I know what you did. I’m just wondering what it was worth. In money, I mean. Not from a moral point of view.”
Her lip trembled. “Leave me alone.”
“Fine. I’ll leave you alone. Just think on this. It’s two A.M., you can’t sleep, you haven’t eaten in days, haven’t showered in weeks. But you need a fix, so you pull some loser off the street, some strung-out freak who isn’t afraid of AIDS because he’s probably got it himself, and you offer every single orifice in the hope the loser actually has some cash. And it’s a toss-up, a fifty-fifty chance, whether the creep will slip you a couple of bucks or simply slit your throat. And you don’t really care much which. How does that sound?”
She stared at me a moment. Then she burst out crying, and ran off down the street.
8
“YOU IDIOT!”
Sharon’s mother looked angry enough to hurl a paperweight. Thank god I don’t have one. I sat behind my desk, prepared to brace myself in case Jennifer Weldon decided to come across it. “What’s the matter?”
“You son of a bitch! My daughter came home in tears. She was accosted on the street by an insane man, spewing vile filth.”
“She took it hard?”
“You admit it was you?”
“Of course it was me.”
“What, are you nuts? Are you trying to traumatize the girl?”