In the Hush of the Night

by Raymond Benson

  Annie assured Karen that she was safe now. There were lots of services available that could help her readjust. Therapy was a must, and she could utilize it at her own pace.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re quite welcome. I’m going to want to talk again in much more detail, but now you should rest. And if there’s a special meal you’d like tomorrow for lunch, I’d be happy to bring it to you.”

  That brought a smile to Karen’s lips. “Barbecue pulled pork sandwich like we get in Memphis?”

  Annie laughed. “I can probably find you a pulled pork sandwich, but I’m not so sure it will be like Memphis. I’ll do what I can, though.”

  Teresa Wang had a far more disturbing tale. In broken English, she described how she had met a man in Kiev. He told her she was pretty enough to be an American model. She, too, was a runaway, a young woman who had found no prospects for a good life in her hometown, a rural village. She was promised free transportation to America, a passport, and a work visa. Teresa described how she’d ridden on a ship with three other girls from Eastern Europe and Russia and how they’d been kept inside a cabin and unable to leave for the entire voyage “for security purposes.” The craft was a container ship, and she never knew its name. When they reached the port in Newark, the girls disembarked with a couple of crew members. The documents proved valid, for they were ushered through Customs and Immigration.

  Then they were met by a man named Abram and a woman named Nadine. They took the women to a house, where Abram and another man named Bobby raped and beat them. Their passports and visas were taken for “safe keeping.” Then, they were transported across the country in a van. When they reached Chicago, the girls were separated. Teresa was taken to a house, much like Karen was, where she was held prisoner and occasionally raped.

  One day, a man came and took her on a road trip. The only problem was that Teresa was locked in the trunk of the car for the duration of the ride, about four hours. When the car stopped, she was let out and brought to a log cabin in a densely wooded area. The driver and a man at the cabin took her into a shed at the back of the cabin and chained her to a bed. A day or so later, a new man arrived and tattooed her neck with the bear claws.

  “He told me, ‘Now you’re the property of The Bear.’”

  “The Bear?” Annie asked.

  “That’s what he said,” Teresa answered. “The Bear is the boss in Russia.”

  “He’s in Russia?”

  “Yes, I think so. That’s what I understood. Probably in St. Petersburg. That was the port we left from.”

  “What did this tattoo artist look like?”

  “Tall. Bald. Fifty-something.”

  “Russian?”

  “No. American.”

  One night, some men came to the cabin to “party.” She was the object of their fun. One of the men was very rough and liked to hurt her. She was afraid he would kill her. The next day, weak and vulnerable, Teresa was taken by the same driver in the trunk of his car back to Chicago. She ended up in the apartment in Tinley Park and had been there a week before the police showed up.

  “I am so grateful to Karen,” she said as her eyelids drooped. “She was brave enough to steal that phone and call her mother.”

  Seeing that Teresa was starting to fade from the sedatives, Annie ended the interview. The women were exhausted and needed rest and recovery. Annie would refer them to a not-for-profit organization that worked with victims and survivors of trafficking crimes. Karen and Teresa had a long road of healing ahead of them. Annie would talk to them again soon.

  At least now she had something to work with. If The Bear was in St. Petersburg, Russia, then he had to have a second-in-command in the US—someone to manage what appeared to be a significant operation that spanned continents.

  10

  It was after midnight. Jason and his fiancée strolled arm in arm from his assigned parking space toward his apartment building on Clark Street. There was still a little life left on the block, but streets like Fullerton were quiet. Jason considered himself lucky that he’d found the one-bedroom basement dwelling for a song. So what if it had bad plumbing and bugs? The rent was affordable for a starving student. It was paid for with a teeny-weeny trust fund that his grandparents had stipulated could be used only for housing and expenses while attending college.

  “I love Ravinia,” Nat said with a satisfied sigh as they approached their townhouse.

  “It’s my favorite venue for a concert,” Jason agreed.

  “You know we could have stayed the night back at my house. Ravinia is in Highland Park. We didn’t have to drive all the way back into the city.”

  “We’re by ourselves here, no one from your family around. Oh—hey, that’s Annie!”

  Jason recognized the figure walking toward the Cakewell Apartments on Fullerton.

  “Who?” Nat asked.

  “My friend I told you about,” he said. “Annie!” he called from across the street.

  Annie turned, recognized him, and waved. The couple crossed the street to say hi, both noticing that she wore her gun at her waist. “Hello! You’re out late,” said Annie.

  “So are you. Nat, this is Annie Marino, my friend who lives around the corner. Annie, meet Nat.”

  The women shook hands. “Congratulations on the upcoming wedding!” said Annie. “I bet you’re excited.”

  “Thank you, we are!” Nat answered.

  “Been out on the town?”

  “We went to Ravinia to see Emmylou Harris,” Jason replied.

  “Oh, I love her! She was one of my mother’s favorites. I would have thought most people our age these days wouldn’t know who she is.”

  “Well, we do. You look like you’ve been working,” Jason said, nodding at the gun.

  “Yeah, I’m just getting home. It’s been a hell of a day. My cat is going to be very annoyed with me. He doesn’t like it when dinner is served after midnight. He’ll be up, dancing on my face for the rest of the night, just to punish me. But at this point, I’m so tired it won’t bother me. I’ll be out like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  “Well, it was a pleasure to meet you,” said Nat.

  “Pleasure to finally meet you, too. Have a good night.”

  “G’night, Annie,” Jason said.

  “She seems nice,” Nat said once they were inside his apartment. “Did you say she works for the police? She had a gun.”

  “FBI agent!”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Don’t spread it around, though.” He went to the kitchen. “Want something to drink?”

  “Glass of red wine?”

  “Coming up.” He worked on preparing their nightcaps.

  “Why can’t I spread it around?” Nat asked as she sat on the sofa and kicked off her shoes.

  “Annie likes to be discreet about it.”

  “It’s not very discreet when you wear a gun on your belt.”

  “Touché.”

  “How come you know she’s an FBI agent?”

  “She told me. We’ve been neighbors forever, it seems. Well, she moved into her building a couple of years ago, I guess. I see her at Starbucks all the time. Her friends and family know about her job; it’s not a big secret. It’s just that she doesn’t go around introducing herself with, ‘Hi, my name is Annie, and I’m in the FBI.’”

  “What does she tell new people when they ask what she does?”

  “I think she usually says she’s in ‘law enforcement,’ or that she ‘works for the US Attorney’s Office.’”

  “Interesting.”

  Jason brought the glasses around and sat next to her. They clinked glasses. “Cheers,” Nat said as they took sips. “So you think she’s attractive?”

  “What? Come on, we’re just friends.”

  “You do, don’t you.”

  “Well, sure, you saw her, she looks good. She tap dances, too.”

  “Tap dances?”

  “Well, she takes lessons.”

  “A tap-danci
ng FBI agent? You do like her.” Nat poked him and laughed. “How long have you been getting it on with your sexy FBI agent neighbor?”

  “Oh, stop.” He leaned over and kissed her. She warmly accepted the embrace and pulled him on top of her.

  When Jason came out of the shower to slip on his boxers, Nat was already in bed, wearing just a long sleep shirt. After the lovemaking, she had showered, removed her makeup, and found the garment she always kept at Jason’s apartment.

  “Hey, I forgot to tell you,” he said from the bathroom.

  “What?”

  “Annie fixed me up with a firearms instructor. I’m going to learn how to shoot a hunting rifle.”

  She turned her head to look at him. “Are you seriously considering going on that hunting trip with my father and brother?”

  “Yeah. I want to show them I can be just as manly-man as them.”

  “Jason, honey, you are not as manly-man as them, and that’s okay. I love you because you’re not that way.”

  He turned out the light and slipped into bed beside her.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m a sexy nerd,” he said, “but I think your dad will respect me more if I do this.”

  “Jason, you don’t have to do it.”

  “I know, but I want to. I should at least try, don’t you think? The worst that can happen is that I’ll make a fool of myself and then Trey will make fun of me even more. Big deal.”

  “Hm, that’s not the worst that can happen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Nat was quiet for a few seconds.

  “Nat?”

  “I had an uncle. Uncle David. My dad’s younger brother by a couple of years. He was killed in an accident on a hunting trip in Michigan with my dad and some of his friends. He was shot.”

  “Shot? How?”

  “A gun fell and went off or something like that. Freak accident. Nobody’s fault.”

  “Geez. Really?”

  “I don’t know a lot about it. It happened the year I was born. I never got to know my Uncle David.”

  “Was he married? You have cousins?”

  “Yes and sort of. You haven’t met my Aunt Carol. She remarried a few years after that and has children with her second husband. So they’re not really related to me. My uncle was the blood relation. The rest of the family doesn’t see Carol much ever since she remarried, but I do occasionally. She was around when I was real little. I think she took a liking to me when I was a kid. Then we sort of bonded when I was a teenager. I’ve always known her as Aunt Carol.”

  “When did she remarry?”

  “Gosh, I think I was five. They live in Naperville. We get together every three or four years. I think we’re about due to do so soon, and besides, she needs to meet you!”

  “She’s not in touch with your parents?”

  “My parents don’t have anything to do with her now, I’m sorry to say. I think there may have been some bad blood after my uncle was shot. She has her own family now. Can’t blame her, really.”

  There was silence for a while. Jason put his arm around Nat and closed his eyes.

  “Are you still going to take the shooting lessons?” she asked.

  Jason mumbled, “Yeah, why not.”

  “Okay, whatever you think.”

  “I want to show Trey I’m as good as he is.”

  “Ha. Trey is Super Soldier. Or at least he thinks he is.”

  “I know.”

  After a pause, she softly said, “I think he already had psychological problems before going to Iraq. When he came back, he was so much worse.”

  Jason gave up trying to go to sleep. He propped up his head on his hand. “What happened to him over there? You’ve never really told me.”

  “I don’t know. He won’t talk about it.”

  “Do your parents know?”

  “I don’t know. Dad knows, maybe. He tends to protect Trey, and at the same time he’s really strict with him. It’s like Trey is still a child. Dad gets frustrated and yells at him a lot, but he … protects him. That’s the best word I can think of to describe it. I mean, look, Trey’s living with my parents and has been since he got back. It has to do with all the violence Trey saw. He was discharged with PTSD. It’s been six years, and I don’t think he’s improved. He’s still as nuts as he was when he got home. He kind of scares me. Oh, I know he wouldn’t hurt me or anyone else, really, but he does have a temper. He can get pretty violent. He and my dad really go at it every now and then.”

  “I bet your dad usually wins.”

  “He does. My dad can be formidable when he wants. But he knows Trey is sick, too.”

  “He must have killed people in Iraq,” Jason said.

  “I’m pretty sure he did.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Silence. Now Jason was wide awake. He waited for her to respond. “Are you sleepy?” he asked.

  Her breathing was slow and regular.

  “I guess from your answer that means we aren’t having sex again.”

  She started. “What?”

  “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

  11

  Annie spent the next two days interviewing Karen and Teresa. She took it easy on them, speaking for only an hour or two at a time. Their shock was starting to wear off by the third day in the hospital, which was when the doctors in charge recommended that the women could be released. Karen was ready to go back to Tennessee with her mother, who had driven to Chicago to pick her up. Teresa, on the other hand, had nowhere to go. She was an illegal immigrant. Annie was instrumental in guiding her to STOP-IT, a division of the Salvation Army. They were going to help Teresa deal with the citizenship issue and find a place for her to live. Many trafficked illegal immigrants chose to stay in America, either too ashamed or too afraid to return to their home country.

  Before leaving town, Karen provided more details about “Harold” and other men she had encountered beyond Vasil and Auric. Annie also learned that the men had told Karen she was going to get the bear claws tattoo. She, too, would be branded as a product, and they had in store for her what had happened to Teresa. Annie wished Karen luck and promised to keep in touch. The teenager might be needed as a witness if and when the bad guys were brought to justice.

  That left Teresa, who had one more night before she would return to society. Annie visited her, and they had a productive conversation. She asked Teresa to elaborate in more detail what her captors had threatened her with.

  “At first they told me I could work off my ‘debt’ to them in a strip club,” Teresa answered. “Or by working in a ‘party house.’”

  “A brothel.”

  “Yes. They say I owed them thousands of dollars for my trip to America and getting me in the country. I was about ready to give up and go strip or work in the brothel, but then there was another possibility I became aware of.”

  “What was that?”

  “I could be sold to someone, and be like a slave.”

  Annie nodded. “How did that work, exactly? Do you know? Do you know any other women who were sold?”

  “I’m sure all of them I encountered were eventually sold if they did not work in the strip clubs or brothels. Some were probably picked only to be slaves. The girls on the boat and in the van coming to Chicago—where did they all go? We were separated; I never saw them again. They were probably taken to different houses or apartments to await their fates.”

  The network is large and well-funded, Annie thought. To have that many temporary holding houses where the women are kept takes a lot of money.

  “The Bear specializes in selling slaves to wealthy men. To keep. Or do whatever they want with them. I heard stories. One of the girls in the first house where I was said that many times the buyers are sadists who just want to torture and eventually murder their new ‘possession.’ They pay a lot of money—several thousand dollars—for a girl they can kill in the privacy of their own home.”

  Annie was horrified. She had heard of ugly hum
an trafficking violations, but to be in the business of selling slaves was the most repulsive thing she could imagine. She was reminded of the repugnant case in Cleveland, Ohio, in which a man had abducted three different young women and kept them captive as slaves in his house for over a decade. One of them was forced to have his child. Was The Bear trying to capitalize on that idea? Make a business out of slavery in the twenty-first century? Had the Jane Doe in Michigan been to that same cabin in the woods as Teresa had to receive her bear claws tattoo? Was she in line to be sold as a slave? Was that what all this was about?

  “And you’ve seen other women with the tattoo, the same one as yours?”

  “Yes, one other. I told you about her. Katrina. She was already there in the house when I arrived in Chicago. She was gone after a week.”

  “Teresa, I want to show you a photo of a dead woman. It’s graphic. I don’t want to upset you, but I would like to know if you might recognize her. We’ve been trying to identify her. She had the tattoo as well.”

  Teresa pursed her lips. “You can show me.”

  Annie had delayed this moment, waiting for a time when Teresa wasn’t so shell-shocked. She opened the file and showed her the photo of the Jane Doe in Michigan.

  Teresa squinted in revulsion, but then her eyes widened as she studied the image. “My God, I know her. That’s not Katrina, but I know her.”

  “You do?”

  “She was on the boat with me.”

  “Really! What’s her name?”

  “Irina. Irina Semenov. She was from Gorelovo, a suburb of St. Petersburg. Oh, Irina. What happened to her?”

  “She was in the trunk of a car, like you were. The car was in an accident.” Annie took the photo back and put it in the folder. “We believe she had just received the tattoo twenty-four to forty-eight hours prior to the accident, so perhaps she was at your same cabin in the woods. It happened in Michigan, in a wooded area.”