“It’s a big job. Claire does the therapy, Andrew directs the rescue operations.”
Claire and Andrew. She felt comfortable enough to call them by their first names. I said, “I thought you guys handled the rescue operations.”
“The big-time traffickers are smart, McKean. They cover their tracks. What groups like HOM do is gather enough evidence to get us involved. And Andrew’s thorough. All the dots and crosses in place by the time it comes to us.”
“Have you asked him about Tuyet?”
“I have. He doesn’t know of any local groups trafficking Asians. I told him you’d probably be in touch anyway. Don’t make me regret it. As soon as you have anything . . .”
“You’ll have it too.” I started to tap the End Call button, then said, “Malone? One more thing. What’s going on with Frank?”
There was silence on the other end. Then she said gently, as if to ease the sting of her words, “That’s not mine to tell, McKean. If he’d wanted you to know, I’m pretty sure he would have told you.”
HANDS OF Mercy was housed in a renovated factory building in walking distance of Belmont University. Its aged glass-and-brick veneer was a sharp contrast to the university’s classic southern architecture. I pushed open the glass double doors, stepped aside to let Khanh enter, then followed her into an open lobby with exposed brick walls, a few mismatched vinyl chairs, and a metal magazine rack filled with booklets and brochures on trafficking.
Artwork lined the walls—acrylic paintings, raw and primitive, in cheap frames. A few were unsigned. The rest had first names scrawled in the lower right corner. Anya. Tamika. Emily. Ruth.
Between the lobby and the hall beyond, a pretty blonde woman in jeans and a navy blazer sat behind a cluttered desk. Pink silk blouse beneath the blazer, collar open to reveal a moonstone necklace on a silver chain. She looked younger than she had in the photos I’d seen online. A pair of beaded paperweights bracketed the brass nameplate in front of her, which said, Claire Bellamy. She was bent over a leather-bound book, brow furrowed, mouth open in a little “o” of concentration. The pencil in her hand turned and turned again, and a few moments later, a woman’s face emerged beneath the beveled point.
Khanh tucked the file folder under her arm and stretched a hand toward the magazine rack, ran a finger along the edge of a booklet called Trafficking in America, then dropped her hand to her side.
I said, “Ms. Bellamy?”
The woman looked up from her sketchbook with a sheepish smile. “Sorry, I get lost in it sometimes. Please, call me Claire.”
I introduced myself and Khanh, then pulled out my phone and showed her Eric’s drawing and the photo of Tuyet. “We’re looking for these two people. The girl is Khanh’s daughter. We think she was trafficked from Vietnam.”
“By this man?”
“An Amerasian she called Mat Troi, but this guy is probably involved.”
She traced the manticore tattoo with her index finger. “This is remarkable work. I’d remember it if I’d seen it.”
“The guy who drew this guessed at the details, but this is the gist of it.”
She picked up Tuyet’s picture. “Beautiful girl. You were able to track her this far?”
“She told everybody she knew that she wanted to come here. We figure eventually it got to somebody who knew the guy who snatched her. You could say she fell into his lap.”
She shook her head. “Youth. It’s a wonder any of us survive it. Andrew does more of the outreach work than I do. He may recognize one of these people, or know someone who might.”
We trailed her down a narrow hall to what looked to be a boardroom. A man about my age, midthirties, bent over a projector in the center of the conference table. From his tailored suit and expensive haircut, I guessed he spent a lot of time gladhanding potential donors.
He tapped a button on the attached laptop, and a PowerPoint title page popped onto the wall behind him—Slavery in Modern-Day America: How to Spot It, How to Stop It.
Claire slid her hand along his shoulder and rested it on the back of his neck. More than colleagues, then. “Andrew, these people are looking for a missing Vietnamese girl.”
Andrew Talbot looked up from his laptop and gave her a distracted smile. To us, he said, “You must be the detective Lieutenant Malone told me about.”
I introduced myself and Khanh, showed him my license. He gave it a quick glance and said, “Lots of things can make a girl go missing. What led you to trafficking?”
“We’re not sure it is, but it fits what we know.” I told him all of it, beginning with the mysterious Mat Troi and the ticket to Nashville and ending with the dead girl in the dumpster. “We figure it was too good for him to pass up, a pretty girl asking around for a ticket to his base of operations.”
“You have some reason to think he’s based here?”
“The wounds on the dead girl were in various stages of healing. He—or someone—had been going at her for quite a while. Months, maybe.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean it happened here. She could have been brought from anywhere.”
“She had a photo that belonged to Tuyet—my client’s daughter. They definitely crossed paths. Hard for it to have been anywhere but here.” I took my folder from Khanh and handed over two copies of each picture. “You can keep these. Maybe post them somewhere so your people will know to keep a lookout?”
“Of course. Whatever we can do. Claire can put these on the community board and post them on our website.”
“The mark this guy uses . . .” I showed him the drawing of the dead girl’s brand. “Have you ever seen this? Know anyone who uses it?”
He took the drawing and studied it. “It’s not uncommon for slavers to mark their victims. We once rescued six women who all had portraits of their pimp tattooed on their buttocks. It was the first thing he did when he turned out a new girl. Another guy carved an asterisk on each woman’s left breast. He called himself Snowman, and the asterisk was supposed to represent a snowflake. But this one’s new to me.”
“Ever hear of a pimp called Helix?”
Claire said, “We rescued a young woman from his stable a few weeks ago.”
“Could we talk to her?”
Talbot moved the mouse and clicked the PowerPoint file closed. “If she’s willing. But I doubt he has the resources for the kind of operation you’re talking about. He’s probably never even been out of East Nashville. This way.”
As he led us back into the hall, I said, “Malone spoke well of you both. How’d you get into this?”
“I knew someone who’d been trafficked. My stepmother. She had a big influence on my brother and me. I guess you could say that pushed us toward activism.”
The news stories hadn’t referenced a brother. “He works with you?”
“No, no, not really. Just donations, some repair work, the occasional minor errand. He’s never much cared for the spotlight.”
Claire grinned, winked. “Unlike the rest of us.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Talbot said, starting up a narrow flight of stairs. “She was a rising star. Her last painting sold for half a million dollars, and she walked away from it to start all this. Ask her why.”
She looked over her shoulder, cheeks pinked. “Nothing dramatic. A friend gave me a book on trafficking. A Crime so Monstrous, by a guy named Ben Skinner. I couldn’t believe it.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “The vastness of it. It’s not like the random crazy who keeps a woman in his basement. That, you expect.”
“Well, I didn’t expect even that. I was very naive. So for me, it was like being smacked in the face with a wet rag. I read some more, watched some documentaries, talked to police. And I thought my God, how lucky I was, how blessed, and these women, even when they get free, they’re so damaged, they have so far to go. And I thought art is such a great healer. I can’t explain it. I just knew this was something I was supposed to do.”
Talbot said, “She gets frus
trated with rich, well-meaning people.”
Claire gave a self-conscious laugh and said, “People like me.”
The stairwell opened up into a fifteen-bed dormitory, each bed paired with a four-compartment wooden cubby for clothing and other essentials. A few young women sat or lay on the beds, reading fashion magazines or painting their fingernails. The smell of acetone hung in the air. Over his shoulder, Talbot said, “Her name’s Marlee. Has a lot of promise. If she doesn’t go back to her pimp, the way so many do. It’s one of our biggest challenges.”
I’d seen that on the job, too. Abused women who couldn’t wait to run back to the men who’d broken their noses and blackened their eyes.
Claire said, “These men have a whole playbook on how to target and manipulate vulnerable women. It’s a lot like brainwashing.”
“It’s exactly like brainwashing,” Talbot said. He stopped a few feet from a pretty young woman with olive skin and green eyes. “Marlee, could we speak with you a moment?”
Marlee looked to be in her late teens, a slim girl in jeans and a sleeveless white blouse knotted below her breasts. A lotus tattoo circled her navel, and just below her collarbone was a pale, puckered scar in the shape of a double helix.
Talbot said, “These people are looking for a missing girl. They’d like to ask you some questions.”
I showed her Tuyet’s picture, then Eric’s drawing of the killer. She gave each a cursory glance and said, “Never seen ’em.”
“Does Helix run any Asian women?”
“Black, white, yellow. Long as she got a pussy, he don’t care.”
“Does he always use the spiral mark? Or could he use different marks for different kinds of women?”
“I never seen any other marks.”
Claire said, “Could it be something new?”
The girl scratched at a chipped tooth with a Manchurian nail. “I guess. He started a new string of bitches about a year ago. Elite, he called ’em. Guess he might mark ’em different.”
I said, “These elite girls. How many of them does he have?”
“Don’t know. He don’t answer to me.”
“Did he keep you locked up someplace? Keep you from calling anybody?”
Her laugh was harsh. “Who’d I call? Santa Claus?”
“Marlee.” Talbot gave his head a small shake. “They’re trying to help someone. A young woman in trouble, like you were.”
She looked away. “He didn’t lock me up. He loved me nice. Made like he was the only person in the world who cared about me. He gave me coke. No meth, he don’t hold with that on account of it makes you ugly.”
I said, “Did he ever beat you?”
“Sure he beat me. He got a pimp stick and knows how to use it.” She pushed down the waistband of her jeans and brushed her fingers across a web of pale scars. “But that’s on me. I got it coming, you know?”
Claire said, “You didn’t have it coming.”
As if she hadn’t heard, Marlee touched the spiral on her collarbone. “I thanked him for this. Pretty fucked up, huh? He said it told the whole world I’s his. It made me proud.”
I said, “How does it make you feel now?”
“Lots of things. I still got to sort it all out.”
Talbot looked at Khanh and asked, “How long has your daughter been missing?”
I answered for her. “Four weeks, give or take.”
He shook his head. “If she was trafficked even four days ago, there’s a good chance she’s gone. She could be anywhere.”
“We think he’s holding her here. He kept the other girl a long time.”
“It’s possible, yes. But not likely. I’m not saying don’t look,” he added quickly. “I’m just saying don’t get your hopes up.”
13
That moment when hope dies is like the last breath of a nestling after a hard fall onto concrete. You want to cup it in your hands, to save it somehow, but it’s too fragile and too late. Khanh’s hope hadn’t died yet, but watching the play of emotions on her face as I shepherded her out of the Hands of Mercy building and back to the Silverado, I didn’t need to be psychic to know what was going through her mind.
There was a limit to how long you could pursue a cold trail. Even if, God forbid, it were Paulie who’d been taken, there’d come a time when life would intervene. Grass had to be mowed. Rent had to be paid. You didn’t give up, but you moved on. You fit your search—your hope—into the empty spaces around work and bills and washing the car. I could afford to give Tuyet my undiluted attention for a while, but not forever. How long, Khanh must be wondering, before the clock stopped ticking?
“Khanh,” I said. “He didn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”
“Please,” she said, her voice small. “Not talk now.”
I drove a silent grid through downtown, then midtown, around the bypass and onto I-65. Traffic pressed in around us, slowed us to a creep. The silence was a palpable pressure, as if the cab of the truck were a submerging submarine. After a while, I parked in front of an upscale nouveau southern restaurant called Urban Grub. Fish pit, oyster bar, outdoor patio with brick fireplaces. The bar tops were glossy and textured, made from oyster shells and recycled beer and wine bottles. The ambience said rustic funk.
Too upbeat for our moods, but maybe that was the point.
“Lunch,” I said. “And don’t say you’re not hungry. I’m hungry.”
Khanh frowned. “Look expensive.”
“My treat.”
“You think poor sister from Vietnam must need charity?”
“I think poor sister from Vietnam should save her money for medicine.”
She bit her lower lip, looked down at her lap. “Expensive place, take long time. Cheap food, finish quick.”
I knew what she was thinking. What if we took an hour for lunch, and then when we found Tuyet, we found we were an hour too late? The if-onlys would kill you.
I said, “This isn’t gonna be a sprint. Whether we eat here or hit the drive-through at McDonald’s, finding Tuyet is going to take time. Besides, I’ve got a lot of questions. This is as good a place as any for you to answer them.”
Our server, an aspiring actress with café au lait skin and a smile that could have dazzled a sea urchin, brought two waters and handed us each a menu, casting discreet glances at Khanh’s scars. Taking my cue from Khanh, I pretended not to notice. I ordered the wood-oven trout and the berry and butternut salad. Khanh hesitated a moment, then followed suit.
When the server had gone, I said, “Tell me everything you know about this guy who bought your daughter’s plane ticket.”
“I never see.”
“You know he was Amerasian.”
“Mother tell.”
“What else did your mother tell you?”
“Tuyet say he very handsome. He rich American.”
“She called him Mat Troi. Last name first, right? That would make him Mr. Mat?”
She thought about it. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Vietnam name very complicated. Last name first, but last name family name. Nobody use. Mat maybe middle name, Troi first name. Or maybe some other middle name, Mat Troi both first name. Be Mr. Troi or Mr. Mat Troi. Maybe.”
“Mister and the first name? Is that how it would be on his passport?”
“Maybe. But Tuyet say American. Maybe have American last name. No way to know.”
“So all we have is Mat. Tell me that’s not a common name.”
“Plenty name Mat,” she said.
“Here too.” I shook my head. “An Amerasian with a common name. And it could have been Matt, short for Matthew. Matt Troy. Did she say where she met him?”
“Friend of friend, she say.” She blinked hard. Looked skyward. “Probably bar.”
If she’d known the name of the bar, and if the bar had been in town, I’d have gone there and shown Tuyet’s picture around. But she didn’t, and it wasn’t. I said, “I guess we’re stuck with the Mexican stripper.”
“She doesn’t want to be called a stripper, maybe she shouldn’t be one.”
“You stupid man,” she said. “Think everything simple.”
I bit back a retort as the server brought our food and refills on our water and Khanh’s coffee. When she’d gone, Khanh took a deep breath and said, “Not mean that. Just feel . . .” She made a helpless gesture. “Want hit everything.”
“I wouldn’t mind punching a wall myself,” I said. “But let’s both restrain ourselves.”
She jabbed at a dried cranberry. “I try.”
I tested the trout with the edge of my fork. Flaky inside, crisp and golden outside. “So, this Mr. Mat Troi bought Tuyet a ticket to the United States. Round trip?”
It was how I’d do it, if I were Mat. A round trip ticket would have reassured her.
“One way,” Khanh said. “She get money for ticket back from you father.”
“Assuming she found him.”
“She not so good at think ahead.”
“Tell me about her,” I said. “Everything you can think of.”
She stared into her coffee cup. “This help find her?”
“I don’t know what will help find her.”
“She beautiful. Smart. Stubborn. She like pretty thing. Always want more.” She touched the jade monkey at her throat. “She buy necklace, one me, one my mother. Save money long time.”
While I ate, Khanh told me how Tuyet had draped silk scarves over lamps to brighten their one-room home and how she’d sold her grandmother’s favorite earrings for money to buy a new dress, then saved her money for the next six weeks to buy them back.
Khanh said, “She bar girl. I tell her no need dance in bar. Mother and I own coffee shop, make enough for food, clothes. And Mother . . . she call spirit sometime. People pay, talk to ancestor. Or husband maybe. Get advice. Plenty money get by, before Mother sick.”
I tried to imagine the woman in the photo Frank had shown me sitting across a table, telling fortunes—reading palms, or maybe tea leaves. “Your mother is a psychic?”
“She spirit caller.”
“Spirit caller. Right. Why didn’t Tuyet listen when you tried to talk her out of working at the bar?”
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