Choke Point

by Ridley Pearson

  The signal is simple: if the boy should stay in the center of the lane, he has come up empty. If instead he heads behind the stall, accidentally bumping into Dulwich as he hurries—simultaneously passing him a list of names and addresses of young girls accepting Grace’s offer of employment—the potato remains in Dulwich’s pocket.

  The red cap moves to the sidewalk. Grace looks on from above as the collision with Dulwich occurs. It’s a neat little performance by both. Though knowing what to expect, Grace misses the pass. She stays even with the red cap as it moves back toward the traffic on Kinkerstraat.

  “Got it,” Dulwich confirms through the earbud.

  “Copy,” she replies.

  “Any tail?”

  “On it.” The pent-up expectation surprises her. Scanning all four corners of the intersection as well as the entrance to Ten Katestraat and the throng of shoppers that belches into the street, she’s aware that Dulwich’s bad leg limits him to all bark and no bite. He can cover ground but cannot run, offering a form of backup but not true partnership. If she’s in this, she’s in this alone.

  The two look far smaller from above than they did in the gloom of the tunnel outside the community center. She has re-imagined them as rough men when reliving the attack. But from where she stands they are just small bugs, ripe for the squashing.

  “Two following,” she says for the benefit of the open phone line. “Mark is across Kinkerstraat heading south on Ten Katestraat. I am on it.”

  “With you.”

  Grace is down the stairs and out onto the street within seconds. She crosses Kinkerstraat’s traffic as if invisible. No horns sound. Turns down Ten Katestraat cursing the stupidity of the street kid Dulwich hired. Instead of staying on the busy sidewalks of the main avenue, he’s isolated himself and is heading into a dangerously vacant neighborhood. He compounds his problems by crossing diagonally at the next intersection and heading into an empty kiddie park, Ten Kateplein. It’s a quarter acre of pavement, slides and a spinning jungle gym. He appears to be using the park as a shortcut, but it serves to give his tails an open space to attack.

  She catches up to the two black leather jackets as they reach the park entrance, a gap between a section of metal fence and stone block. From this perspective they are eerily familiar: not just shorter than full-grown adults, but walking with a cocky swagger that speaks of their immaturity.

  “Geert!” she calls, not breaking stride. The name on the ID in the wallet Knox confiscated.

  Geert glances furtively over his shoulder. She kicks him in the chest with the sole of her left foot and sends him ass over teakettle. The sound of his head striking the asphalt is sickening. He won’t be trouble.

  The other one is fast. Two strides and he’s left her behind. A fraction of a second passes before a red baseball cap lies on the blacktop and their runner’s throat is clamped in the elbow of a leather jacket while being dragged backward. Grace marches toward the assailant.

  “Any closer,” the assailant shouts, “I break his neck!”

  The runner’s face turns bright red. He’s quickly deadweight in the chokehold. She checks once to make sure the first kid is still down. That felt good. Her limbs scream with adrenaline wanting an outlet.

  “He is nothing to me,” she says honestly. “Do as you wish. It is you I want.” She waves him toward her, daring him. The man-child is twenty at best. His left eye is bandaged, his face scratched. His remaining eye possesses the cruelty of a person much older.

  She remembers poking the eye of the one who’d groped her, savors that it has worked out this way. Suddenly possessed by an unrelenting sadism, Grace wants to torture him for what he did, sickened and embarrassed by the intimacy he presumed in touching her down there. A kick in the groin won’t do. It goes well beyond the desire to inflict pain. There’s a message that must be sent as well, a retribution. He must be taught a lesson.

  His lack of one eye benefits her. She spends no time on negotiation. She leaps to his left, where he loses her to his blind spot before he overcorrects. She drives her right heel into his lower ribs, cracking them.

  He drops his hostage and screams. Digs a blade out of his pocket but fails to use it. Instead, he presents it as a threat, displaying it for her. He’s pathetically ill-equipped. She flies to him, bends his wrist to his forearm and hears it snap. The blade falls. She delivers a fist into the center of his chest. His eyes bulge. He can’t breathe.

  She replays the hideous sensation of his cupping her pubis. Nothing she can do to him will atone for that violation. But she can try.

  She slaps him, open handed, across the face. Right. Left. Right. Is careful not to break her hand as she drives a fist into his bad eye, and wonders if they could hear that scream in the market, wonders if Marta recognizes that cry. Dulwich stands off to her right, watching. The boy at the gate remains down.

  The runner is up and gone. His red cap remains.

  “Enough,” Dulwich says.

  “Bitch!” her victim grunts.

  “Oh, shit,” Dulwich says.

  She strikes the bandaged eye a second time and watches the man’s knees buckle. Half-turns and heel kicks him again in the cracked ribs. He’s down on his knees.

  She squats and clasps his throat while her free hand blindly finds the fallen knife.

  “Enough!” Dulwich repeats, though weakly.

  The tip of the knife finds the man’s groin. He tenses and groans.

  “One slip and you are peeing sitting down for the rest of your sordid life. You hear me?”

  He nods.

  She’s rushing, so high she’s nearly faint.

  “Find a new line of work. You don’t ever touch a woman like you touched me.” She waits for his working eye to open. “A reminder, so you won’t forget.”

  She slices him across the belly. A surface cut, but a bleeder.

  “Jesus!” Dulwich says.

  Her victim’s too far gone to scream. He’s in shock as he looks down at the wound as if it belongs to someone else. She uses his shirttail to wipe her prints off the knife, kicks it well across the play yard, its blade singing.

  “I’m done here, if you are,” she says to Dulwich as she walks past him, every nerve alive.

  —

  “WHAT THE HELL?” Dulwich says from behind the wheel, aiming in the rearview mirror in order to check her out.

  “The number seven.” She ignores him, studying the piece of paper the runner delivered. “No names, and a single phone number. A double blind.”

  “I thought you were going to kill him.” Grace doesn’t respond. “The vendor is pimping child labor?”

  “No. She is the neighborhood’s eyes. She’s being cautious. When we deliver a place and a time to her, she will get the word out and the girls will show. They will have been told to give fake names and reveal nothing of their families.”

  “It doesn’t get us any closer to the knot shop.”

  “It brings them to us. We will cut into their labor supply. That, or we will create the demand for higher wages.”

  “You’re a market maker.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’ll burn you out, or kill you. They’re not going to make nice.”

  “I am telling you, sir, they are going to want to know my financing.” She hesitates, wondering how confident she can allow herself to sound. “This is what I do.”

  “We have other, better, leads to follow.”

  “You backed me with John.”

  “I go against Knox as a rule.”

  “But you hire him.”

  “For all the same reasons I go against him.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “No,” Dulwich says, slowing the car at a red light. “What’s the progress on Kreiger?”

  “Dr. Yamaguchi promises to have me inside the bank’s servers again in the next few days. These things cannot be rushed.”

  “So what’s bothering you?” Dulwich asks, focusing on her reflection in the mirror in
stead of the traffic.

  Am I so transparent? she wants to ask, but says nothing. He would hold this against her, use it as further proof that she is not ready for the field.

  “Something is bothering you.”

  “I overthink.”

  “I listen,” he says. “Spitballing is good. Never be afraid to spitball.”

  She doesn’t know the expression, but she doesn’t let on—she gets the gist. “John meets with Kreiger. The next time, John is asking about rugs, and the next, he is sampling the merchandise. Kreiger moves with him in lockstep on this, never throws up a wall.”

  “So? They have history.”

  “Is Kreiger smart or dumb?”

  “According to Knox, he’s worked black market contacts for years. He can acquire most anything, move most anything. Girls. Drugs. Rugs. Profit is king. The good thing about the Kreigers of this world is they’re predictable. You can rely on their greed.”

  He swings the car left and comes fully around the block, his eyes on both outside mirrors. He pulls over and double-parks, then backs out into traffic. He runs the engine hot as they speed down a side lane. He aims back toward the city, his eyes constantly in motion.

  “You run a knot shop. You are selling rugs for one thousand euros that cost you less than one hundred to produce. It is a money factory. Along comes Sonia Pangarkar. You decide she will draw too much heat, but teaching her sources a lesson will prevent such a story from happening again. It is all about containment.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You plan to kill the EU delegate in a way easily confused with a political message. A car bomb. Maybe you are committed to a large order. Maybe the cash from the knot shop keeps other parts of your business afloat. Much of that may come into focus once I am into the server for a second time.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” Dulwich sounds restless.

  “If I represent a controlling interest in the knot shop, the way I throw suspicion off myself is to have funds I pay out to the knot shop traceable back to my account.”

  Dulwich waits through a red light without speaking. “Go on,” he says, as the car rolls.

  “I pay myself in cash. I make sure some of that cash is paid to the bomber. To authorities it must appear exactly as it appears to us: that I am a customer of the knot shop and that some of my cash has been used to pay for the bomb making.”

  “Removing all suspicion from me.” He inhales sharply. “Genius!”

  The adrenaline is being processed out of her system. She feels depressed and slightly hungover. Sad, not tired. She can’t put her finger on what’s bothering her, only that something is, and it’s the inability to identify it, to see it clearly, that increases her sense of gloom. Dulwich likes her theory; she should be celebrating. But why then is her stomach wrenching and why does she feel so antsy? She wonders if it’s because she won’t have another chance to feel as she felt in the playground for some time. All the talk of banks and money reminds her of the tediousness of her day job. John is the winner. John is the one who lives the playground every day.

  She knows it isn’t true. John spends most of his time negotiating over handwoven kitchen towels and chasing down container shipments. The realization makes her feel all the worse. The majority of life is mundane. Drudgery. Time spent building up opportunity credit. Some spend such credit taking a cruise to Norway. Skiing the Alps. She wants the field.

  “You okay?” Dulwich asks, attempting to reconnect with her in the mirror.

  “Tired,” she lies, her eyes to the car floor.

  Maja does exactly as her mother has instructed. When she leaves the house—always in the thick of rush hour—she heads away from the shop, not toward it. Her mother may not think she understands, but she does. The visit the afternoon before has so rattled her mother that, judging by her sunken eyes and irritability, she didn’t sleep all night. Kneeling, she held Maja by the shoulders and looked her directly in the eye, detailing the route she was to take, requiring her daughter to repeat it twice.

  There was no choice but for Maja to report to work. Being discovered in school instead of home sick had brought down the hammer of discipline on all her workmates. A single child misbehaving meant hell for all, and this week it was Maja’s hell brought upon them.

  To lead reporters to the shop would be much worse. Her mother might be killed. She might be put into the van that she has told no one about, including her mother. The girls driven away in the van never return.

  Eight blocks north, she turns left at the intersection. Three blocks west, another left. She crosses the street to the opposite sidewalk and goes six blocks. On and on, exactly as her mother told her. Finally, she makes it to the canal. She takes a moment before crossing a dirt field and approaching the side door of a concrete building. Once inside, she crosses the oversized garage where someone had long ago built windows. One last door. She stops and knocks. A man’s scruffy face peers out. She’s admitted.

  There are twelve stations. Three to six girls per rug squat on the floor alongside the work. A photo of the project is taped nearby where all can see it. Another, laminated in plastic, circulates hand-to-hand as needed. Some use a coat or sweater as a mat. Most are barefoot. The residents are identified by a ring of irritation or pus above the ankle, some rings worse than others. Maja has never spoken a word to any of them, but they know the hand signals—may have invented them for all she knows.

  Overcome by the smell of wool and the unpleasant odor of men, she heads to her place and sits, feeling the weight of eyes upon her from the watchers and hoping she doesn’t look as guilty as she feels. Light floods in through high glass panes. The electricity works—the men make tea—but the lights are never used. Over half the bulbs are missing.

  She and the other girls have a secret: a crude language spoken with their blurring hands. Barred from speaking, the girls use the sign language to communicate basic needs and alarms.

  Maja is directed by a coworker to check out the same resident who was recently beaten severely after disappearing for a day. She had run away, presumably because of the infection from the ring. The sore began to smell disgusting, and when she returned, it looked worlds better, though her body was worse for wear. They are careful to never hit the girls in the face. They hammer the bottoms of their feet; pull their hair; pour salt or lemon juice into their eyes. They strip them naked and dunk them in cold water and tell them the horrible things they are going to do to them. It’s all talk, and the girls know this, but it’s impossible not to believe it.

  The sick girl’s ring wound is bandaged, but there’s no hiding how bad it is. Maja can see it in her wan complexion, the lifelessness in her eyes, the slow speed with which she knots. The other girls are working to make up for her limitation; they’ve crowded next to her to hide her hands from the watchers.

  Maja sees the shop differently today. She resents the reporter’s visit. Why it should look any different is beyond her, but it does. The residents, especially. The reminder that those entering the van alone never return. Of the strict rules and harsh consequences when violated. Of her missing school for this. Of her mother’s paranoia sending her off this morning.

  She flashes a signal: Bad?

  Her coworker returns it: Yes. Trouble. You?

  Maja signals. It dawns on her: Me. This place. The sick girl.

  The sound of the van’s engine turning over resonates through all the girls. No one looks up, but they all tense. The timing is wrong. The van is used only at the start and end of the day to transport the residents from wherever they’re kept. If it’s being used at this time, it’s to remove one or more of them.

  Maja can’t breathe. Her limbs are frozen.

  A watcher crosses through the stations, heading directly for her.

  The immediate reaction to Sonia’s celebrity reminds Knox how difficult it will be to hide. The woman behind the counter of the school office can’t contain her excitement; it explodes from her eyes and her suppressed gr
in. Bubbly and self-conscious, she knocks over a child-decorated tin can, sending pencils flying like pick-up sticks as she reaches for the phone. She can’t stop staring.

  Equally convincing is Sonia’s calm and practiced reaction. She is gracious and polite. The two women shake hands. It settles the receptionist.

  They are asked to stand before a webcam and have their pictures taken. Knox and Sonia exchange a telling glance. A sticker is produced for each that they affix to themselves.

  “Not terribly flattering,” Sonia says, patting her collarbone.

  In Knox’s photo, his camera hangs out of view, only its neck strap showing.

  The phone call brings the head of school to the desk, a sad-looking woman in her fifties in need of a makeover. Her tired eyes speak of alcoholism or drug abuse. She strives to look interested but the effort is exhausting.

  “Please,” she says, motioning Sonia and Knox through and into the outer office. Heads turn toward Sonia. The woman’s office reflects her personality, austere and unchanged for far too long.

  To this point, Sonia has asked for nothing. She and Knox are the victims of ceremony. Knox believes the clerk out front would have given Sonia anything she asked for, whereas this woman may need a defibrillator if she’s to speak a coherent sentence.

  The head of school, Sienna Galbraith, according to the plastic stand on her desk, absorbs a lungful of air at great effort and says, “What may we do for you, Ms. Pangarkar?”

  The Royal We, Knox assumes.

  “I am a repor—”

  “I know who you are. We are . . . so honored to have you.”

  She looks over at Knox as if he’s Sonia’s Great Dane and therefore something to keep an eye on.

  “I am working on a story—”

  “Maja Sehovic.”

  The HVAC emits an occluded, throaty rasp. Knox catches himself looking over his shoulder, searching for the source of the growl.