Lou had heard the stories about how the Scotians took over a stroll, whether in Toronto or anywhere else, and didn’t want to get involved in that kind of scene; he did stay on the road, while Eddy and his family bided their time. As a long stretch of open road extended in front of them, Eddy floored the accelerator and pulled out to pass; the two vehicles raced down the road, almost in tandem. Bullet pulled out his piece and rolled down the window. “C’mon man, ice that fucker,” Eddy shouted. “I’m runnin’ out of road!” Just as they neared the sweeping curve, Bullet took aim, then pulled the trigger. “I nailed him, man!” Bullet pointed towards Lou’s car as it veered to the left, almost forcing the van off the road. Eddy hit the brakes, and as the men watched, Lou straightened out his car and shot ahead again. Enough was enough; Greer figured they had at least managed to scare Lou, and they didn’t need a running gun battle—even the Big Man accepted that the police, stupid as they were, would find their way to the scene. Eddy turned off the roadway, while Lou, unconvinced the crazy Canucks had actually left, kept speeding ahead while trying to calm his cousin, who had taken one of Bullet’s slugs in the arm.
He also pulled out his cellular phone to get word of the chase back to his people. For the next half-hour, just about every Jamaican and Scotian player had been on the phone at least once. It was only an hour or so later that one of the New Yorkers arrived on the stroll to drive Taunya over to Lou’s Montreal pad.
Sweet Lou knew she was the reason for the attack and decided he would get her out of the picture until things cooled off a little. The Jamaican car took Taunya away from the downtown stroll before Eddy returned in the van looking for her.
The apartment was buzzing with activity. One of the girls tended to the wounded pimp (whose arm, it turned out, had only been grazed), while another started tossing clothes into suitcases. Meanwhile, Lou paced from room to room, barking orders into his cellular phone. He was leaving town and he wanted his business looked after while he was gone and he wanted his girls in New York to get ready for his return there. As for the Halifax teenager who’d generated all this furor, she was helping the girl who was packing—and she was as excited as she’d ever been in all her fourteen years. Taunya Terriault was going to the Big Apple, for at least a week! There would be time later to think about getting out The Game and returning home; all Taunya could do was dream about New York. By midnight on July eighteenth, they were en route to the U.S. border, Lou traveling alone while the two teenage girls rode with his cousin, who had Canadian identification. The precautions proved unnecessary; officials at Plattsburgh, New York, couldn’t have been less interested in either car. In town the tiny convoy stopped briefly to make an exchange—Taunya and the other girl joined Lou, and his cousin turned back towards Montreal; he’d be looking after business until Lou got back—despite the Big Man’s efforts, he was going to return, and this time he’d be well armed. With weaponry, at any rate: this child knew nothing about Manning Greer and his family, but that was all right. She was truly fine, and she’d make him some good money, more than enough to cover the expense of the trip—“ain’t that right, girl?” She might have known it wasn’t going to be a vacation; but by now Taunya didn’t even bother protesting; she was learning quickly that a prostitute never travels with her pimp for free. She works to defray the cost for both of them.
Taunya didn’t worry about that or anything else; she was having a great time so far. The chatty teenager fell into an awed silence as Lou drove through the streets of Manhattan, all glass and steel and concrete. She had never seen so many people in her life, or heard so much noise, from the blaring of hundreds of car horns, to the shouts of street vendors or the cacophony of outdoor entertainers, all vying, like Taunya Terriault, for a slice of the Apple. Taunya would soon find out that she might have been handed a slice that was less than appetizing; her first hint was Lou’s house, which looked impressive on the outside but opened to reveal what she could only describe as a zoo. Taunya met seven young women who lived with Lou, and she gave up trying to count the children running around everywhere. The women were all in Lou’s stable of prostitutes, and he claimed all the children were his. After clearing a pile of toys off the bed in a room upstairs, Taunya managed to sleep fitfully for a few hours before getting ready for work.
As she soaked in the tub, contemplating the scary yet exhilarating prospect of being a prostitute in New York, there was a loud knock at the bathroom door; it was Lou, cursing, and ordering her to open the door immediately. Taunya jumped out of the tub, wrapped a towel around herself, and let her pimp inside. He shouted at her furiously: “Girl, you never, never, put a locked door between you and me. I don’t care what the fuck you do in here; you do not lock that door. You are my property, and if I want to come in here and watch you, I don’t want to wait till you open the door. Do you understand that?” Taunya had never seen Lou angry before—was he going to hit her, the way Eddy did when he got upset? Lou took one look at her terrified expression and quickly softened his tone. “It’s okay, girl, you’re new. You’ll learn. I’m the best man you ever want to work for, as long as you follow my rules. Now get yourself ready for work.” He wasn’t quite through; Lou wanted to have a good look at this girl he’d gone through so much to acquire. She complied, and after taking her in for what seemed an eternity, he let her in on another rule: he might decide to have sex with her, but there was only one way she could become one of his “wives.” Lou wanted something Taunya knew she would not be selling on the street; when she was ready, he would have anal intercourse with her, and after that she would be his forever. Taunya knew with absolute certainty she would never be ready for that—being one of Sweet Lou’s wives was an honor she would just have to forgo.
The stroll where Taunya spent her first night in New York was a litter-strewn, frightening filthy strip of pavement. It was also incredibly busy: the girls here didn’t stand around waiting for customers, as they did in Montreal; a long line of cars stretched back along the curb, and the prostitutes walked from car to car, jumping in when a driver accepted their offer. A few moments later, they’d move along to the next car in line. Taunya couldn’t help thinking of it as an assembly line for blow jobs. The price was twenty bucks, one-quarter the Montreal rate. The crowded, dirty stroll and bargain-basement prices sickened Taunya. It was one of the primary reasons the men from New York wanted in on the Canadian sex trade: not only was it a more appealing atmosphere, but is also provided prostitutes with more than double the income of their American counterparts. Not that Taunya was looking forward to retiring to the streets of Montreal; the longer she spent working the New York stroll, the more certain she became that she just had to find a way to get out of The Game altogether.
For Taunya, the week in New York was an accelerated education in life at its seediest. The fourteen-year-old could not even begin to guess how many men she had had sex with on the fist night alone. Nor was Sweet Lou’s interference confined to the bathroom incident: he decided to provide Taunya with his “training program” in the prostitution trade, starting with the art of faking oral sex. None of his girls actually performed oral sex on the customers; it was done with what he laughingly called “sleight-of-hand”—and what the fashion industry terms “big hair.” “You spray that hair up, and he can’t see past it anyway,” Lou explained. “You just make some noise and use your hands, girl.” That part of the program was fine with Taunya—she could feel a little better about herself, and a little smarter than the men she was servicing, most of whom disgusted her. Amazing what men will settle for, she thought; none of them can tell they aren’t getting what they paid for! Far less appealing was Lou’s training in what he liked to call “’ho loyalty.” It had started with his order that she never lock the bathroom door. Lou liked to watch Taunya and the other girls whenever and where ever he could. He reasoned that they had to consider him a part of themselves if they were to be loyal to him. There could be nothing they wanted to do that he would not be welcome to watch.
She was dreaming, she had no idea that Lou considered her a trophy that he would flaunt in the face of the Nova Scotia pimps. Releasing her would be the same as telling them he could not hold onto her either. He had to prove he was a better man then Manning Greer and Taunya would help him do it. Lou’s respect was on the line: he had to keep Taunya out on the street to show the Greer family that he meant business—he also had a brand-new gun to put some muscle behind his demonstration of superiority as a player.
The night of July thirty-first, an angry, confused, and frightened fourteen-year-old was turned out again on the prostitution stroll of Montreal. Her friend Lori had managed to snatch a few moments with her in the washroom at Harvey’s, warning Taunya that Eddy was still looking for her and that the Scotian girls had been ordered to contact him if she returned to the stroll. Back outside, Taunya became more and more frantic. Her life was a mess, all she wanted was to break free but she had somehow managed to place herself in the centre of a war with her as the prize. Tears welled in Taunya’s eyes as she paced back and forth along the sidewalk, trying to figure out how to get off this treadmill.
Finally, Taunya did the first sensible thing she’d done in months; she went to a pay phone and called her mother—collect. She was working for a pimp in Montreal and she wanted to come home, but she was afraid; would her mom call the police? Would she tell them to come and get her? Of course, Mrs. Terriault promised; less than an hour later, a patrol car showed on the stroll and the officers began looking around. Taunya couldn’t believe it; the car was right there but the officers were doing nothing, they just sat and looked at the girls. Taunya wanted to walk to the car, but then Lou might guess the truth and come looking for her; bad enough Eddy and the Big Man were after her; she didn’t need trouble from Sweet Lou as well. The cruiser stayed only five minutes, then pulled away.
An hour later, with a coolness born of despair, Taunya called her mother back. This time she asked Mrs. Terriault to describe her outfit to the police so they’d know who to look for; once again her mother agreed, and Taunya turned back toward the curb. Just then, one of her regulars showed up, a businessman who had “dated” her a few times while she was with Eddy. Taunya saw to her client, and when she returned to the stroll twenty minutes later, there was the police car; but the officers still didn’t seem to notice her. Her heart pounding, Taunya strode boldly up to the car, ignoring the girls’ stares. “I think you’re looking for me—my mother called,” she said quietly but firmly. “I’m from Halifax, and I want to go home.” The policeman in the passenger seat opened his door, then motioned her into the back of the cruiser. Taunya didn’t even look back at Lori as they drove away. The following morning, an officer from the Montreal police juvenile division took Taunya to the airport and put her on a plane to Halifax. She had been asked to make a statement naming the pimps she was working for, but when she refused, no pressure was put on her.
The same could not be said for what she faced back in Nova Scotia: she was home, but not home free. Taunya was able to return to her old job in the office of a vacuum cleaner sales outlet, but she made the mistake of looking up some of her former friends, and it didn’t take long for the family to find out she was in town. Within a week of her return, a sixteen-year-old cousin of Manning Greer’s, Greg, tracked her down and told her bluntly that she still belonged to the family. She hadn’t paid her leaving fee, and neither had Sweet Lou. There was no way Taunya could come up with the seven hundred dollars that would buy her freedom, and like every other pimp in The Game, from minor players such as Greg to the big guys of his uncle’s level, he was not prepared to accept payment in installments. Her only choice was to work for him until she’d earned the fee. Like Stacey Jackson, Taunya pleaded with the young pimp to keep her off Hollis Street so that her mother wouldn’t find out she’d gone back to The Game—someone might recognize her and call Brenda Terriault, who had made it clear that Taunya was only welcome at home if she worked at the vacuum cleaner shop and stayed away from prostitution. Greg’s solution served his own needs more than Taunya’s, but that was typical of a pimp. It seemed he had a cousin who had recently opened an escort service in Dartmouth, and she could work there strictly as an in-service prostitute; he generously added that she could service clients during the evening and hang on to her day job that way.
It seemed Taunya’s problems would soon be over, but on her first day at the old apartment building in north-end Dartmouth, she learned that her freedom wouldn’t come cheap. Greg began by introducing his cousin. Ricky, a short, stocky man with a salesman’s patter and flare for hyperbole, informed Taunya he was not a pimp but a businessman; the escort service was one of his many enterprises. Taunya, who was aware of Ricky’s activities, knew he ran girls down on Hollis Street—so much for his claim to legitimacy. As long as he paid her—and that was when Greg pulled another maneuver typical of his profession: Ricky, he said, would keep half the money she earned, and he would get the rest. When Taunya protested—what about her leaving fee?—Greg blew up and threw her to the floor, kicking her as she lay curled in a fetal position on the carpet. His teeth clenched in rage, he promised he would beat her worse if she ever dared to disrespect him in front of another man again. He told her she’d better work her butt off if she expected to buy her freedom. The next night was just as bad: Taunya thought it would be all right to ask Greg about her fee while they were alone in the car on the way to Dartmouth, but she was wrong—Greg struck her in the head, told her to shut up about “his” money, and kept driving.
This has to stop; Taunya told herself, and decided to ask her square boss for help. As a close friend of the family, he knew about her troubles in Montreal and had promised to do what he could if anyone tried to hurt her. True to his word, he arrived at the agency only a few minutes later. Taunya ran out to his van and Ricky followed her. Taunya watched as her boss stared down the owner of the escort service. If Ricky wanted to try anything he thought better of it after seeing the anger in the man’s eyes. Taunya’s boss drove her home. She was free.
By mid-August, however, Taunya was back on the treadmill. Lori was back in town, still working for the Scotians, and the two girls often hung out together before she went down to Hollis; but one afternoon, when her friend and a stranger picked Taunya up at work, she knew she was in big trouble, just by the way Lori said she was sorry—and nothing more—after the car had picked up speed. When the young man at the wheel told Taunya she was going to North Preston, where someone wanted to see her, she figured she was in for a serious beating for leaving the escort service. Taunya stayed quiet during the drive; and she and Lori sat in silence while the driver was inside the split-entry house where he had parked. He was gone a long time, but neither of the girls even considered trying to make a run for it. They were both feeling trapped; in the almost palpable stillness, Taunya reached out and touched her friend’s hand, as if to say, “I understand; it’s okay.” Finally the girls were told to go inside; Taunya was directed and she very slowly made her way to the basement level of the house.
There, sitting near the bottom of the stairs, waiting for her, was Manning Greer. As she approached, he stood up, towering over her. Then he led the way outside to a beat-up Chevrolet parked in the driveway. She was surprised to see him driving such an old wreck when he had that fancy yellow Corvette in Montreal. As was his custom Greer had flown to Halifax and was borrowing this car for the visit. As Greer drove towards the main road out of North Preston, Taunya, feeling sick to her stomach, was wishing she had stayed in Montreal and stuck with Eddy. Where was he taking her? Was he going to kill her for running out on the family without paying her
leaving fee? Just then he pulled into the rear parking lot of the old school, now vacant; the two of them sat silently for a time and watched a group of kids playing in a nearby street. At long last, the Big Man broke the silence: “You know why you’re here?”
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