Inhuman Trafficking

by Mike Papantonio

  “It’s not my story, jackoff. And like I already told you, if you don’t want to hear it, fine by me.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Lily shrugged her shoulders, feigning indifference. It was a good thing he couldn’t hear her heart pounding. “Let’s just skip it. It’s not like I really believed what he was telling me. But it kept me interested, especially with the music and stuff. Or maybe I’ve finally gone over the deep end. This place would drive anyone out of their mind.”

  “Get back to your story,” Max said.

  “Not my story. His story.”

  Max acknowledged her distinction with a nod.

  “Don’t expect me to tell it like he did. I don’t have his voice, or orchestra.”

  “Go on.”

  “So, Mr. Moon told me he was all keen on getting his coat. And not just any jacket. Like I already told you, it had to fit him perfectly and be good for all occasions.

  “His mama tried to put the brakes on this idea of his. She said there was no way she could make such a jacket. Mama said, ‘There is no coat that is always right for you, young Moon. Yesterday you were the New Moon. And tomorrow you will change again. Every day you’re different. Think of the cycle of life. A baby becomes a boy, a boy become man, and a man becomes a grandpa. There is no jacket that can fit a baby, and boy, and man, and grandpa, just as there is no jacket that will fit you for all occasions. You go from being big and bright, to something small and pale. And over time you become little, until you disappear altogether. How do you expect me to make a jacket that would always fit?’”

  That was the end of the story, or at least the story Lily remembered having been told as a child. But she needed to buy more time. She looked at Max’s hungry expression. He wanted more.

  “What happened then?” he asked.

  “He nagged her big-time. Kept asking her to make him his coat. But even for the mother of the Moon, it wasn’t easy. And when she finally agreed, it took her a long, long time to make, ’cause there were all sorts of things she had to do.”

  “Such as?”

  Was Max leading her on? Playing games with her? Or was he really interested in the story?

  “There was a ton of stuff she had to gather. We’re talking bizarre shit, like sci-fi kind of crap. She went around the universe, getting some of this, and some of that. It wasn’t easy, because she had to take into account the way he changed from day to day.”

  “His phases.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. His jacket had to work for the phase when he was full and bright, and the phase when he was tiny and dark, and everything in-between. He said everything had to dance.”

  Max seemed to get excited at that. “Everything had to dance?”

  “Yeah, his coat needed these elements of stardust, and pulsars, and I think even lightning bugs. And that was for his light side. It was the opposite to take care of his dark side. She had to distill the shade from black holes and dark matter.”

  Lily desperately tried to remember what Mrs. Turner had taught her during ninth-grade earth science. It was a subject she had enjoyed; she had even gotten an A.

  Now, Lily wanted another passing grade. If she got one, she might live to see the morning.

  “I thought he was bullshitting me when he said lots of secret ingredients went into making his coat. But he had an answer for everything.”

  Max’s eyes didn’t leave her. They were his lie detectors. “I would like to hear those answers.”

  “Fine, but don’t blame me for what he said. Like, explain to me how you could use murky dreams to make a jacket.”

  “Murky dreams?”

  “That’s what he said. They were like a binder that helped the fabric be not totally dark, and not totally light.”

  “Yin-yang,” Max said, not hiding his excitement.

  “That’s the word he used. I forgot to mention that. He said there had to be this balance.”

  “Go on.”

  “He talked a lot about the threading. It sounded all involved, but then I don’t know shit about sewing or knitting. Luckily for him, his mom was an expert at those things. She used spiderwebs, and the cocoons of wild silk moths. But it got stranger than that. He said she gathered the mist from moving clouds, and sea-foam from waves coming in and going out. That was necessary for his coat to be able to grow and shrink. It was all very yin-yang.”

  The word resonated with him. “Yin-yang,” he repeated.

  Leave him wanting more, Lily told herself. The instinct, the thought, felt right. The light from the moon was retreating. Even a full moon had a limited reign. Dawn wasn’t far off.

  She raised her hand up to her mouth and yawned. “I’m exhausted. All that music. All his stories. It was like I traveled around the universe.”

  Lily yawned again. She didn’t need to fake her exhaustion; she was spent.

  “There’s more to tell, lots more, but I’m too tired to go on. Remind me to tell you about the buttons for his coat. Ma Moon took some pieces from orbiting satellites to make those. And for his collar, she got the material from the dust trail of comets.”

  Another yawn.

  Without saying anything, Lily stepped around Max and went to her bed. “We’ll talk tomorrow,” she mumbled.

  She closed her eyes and feigned sleep. Even when she was sure Max was gone from the room, Lily didn’t open her eyes for fear of what the cameras would report back to him.

  A little later, though, she opened her eyes with just the tiniest slits to see the rays of a rising sun. She had survived. And the next full moon wouldn’t arrive for another twenty-nine days.

  XLIV

  Sorry I’m late,” Deke said, grabbing a chair and sitting down at the conference room table where Gina Romano was waiting for him.

  Even though the Welcome Mat trial was still months away, preparing for the contest was an involved juggling act, with the to-do list constantly being checked and revamped. Gina was the point person coordinating with their team of lawyers and staff. Getting ready for any big trial required tending to hundreds of moving parts and delegating areas of responsibility, including motions to be filed, witness outlines to be written up, and exhibits to be finalized. That didn’t even take into account the searching of cases, codes, and statutes and the scrutinizing of case summaries from across the country.

  “How goes our cases and codes search?” he asked.

  Gina pointed to two boxes of paperwork in the corner. “Lots of late-night reading for you. Those are case summaries and published opinions from the Supreme Court, circuit courts, as well as state and appellate courts on any cases that might have a connection with ours. We’ve highlighted those areas we think might be applicable.”

  Deke knew that amassing information was the easy part; distilling it was much more challenging. You had to do a lot of mining in the hopes of finding any pay dirt.

  “And we’re still sifting through potentially pertinent statues and local ordinances,” Gina added. “We should get those to you by next week.”

  Gina pushed a folder Deke’s way. “We might have gotten lucky on another front. A few weeks back you suggested we ‘follow the brief,’ so that’s what we did. We studied the amicus brief Nathan Bines filed on lowering the age restrictions on H2B workers. What struck me was that it didn’t read like any of the other briefs Bines previously authored. In fact, some of the wording was so atypical we decided to run searches. We wondered if the wording—such as ‘American cultural exceptionalism,’ and ‘age as a fluid concept’—might correspond with any other writings.”

  Deke started leafing through the folder’s paperwork. His face showed his surprise. “GUM?” he said.

  Gina nodded. “We found similarities between the wording used in Bines’s amicus brief, and in position papers espoused by Global Union Manifest.”

  “Isn’t GUM supposed to be all about human rights, and freedom, and the support of democratic institutions?”

  “That’s what I thought, but some of their po
sition papers surprised me,” Gina said.

  “For example, even though GUM claims to support the rights of sex workers, and advocates for the legalization of prostitution, they also suggest that prostitution is a victimless crime.”

  Deke shrugged. “That’s not surprising. Lots of well-intentioned sorts don’t know the differences between those who have chosen to be sex workers and those who are sexually trafficked. If it was only a financial transaction between two consenting adults, you could justify GUM’s assertion of it being a victimless crime.”

  “GUM position papers also promote less restrictive borders, including the idea of putting fewer governmental limitations on allowing foreign workers into industrialized nations, including younger workers. GUM’s stated position is that they believe workers younger than the age of eighteen should be allowed into the US on apprenticeship programs and be given access to H2B work visas.”

  “That was Bines’s position in his amicus brief.”

  “It was. And you’ll see in a number of highlighted sections that the same wording he used in the brief can also be found in these position papers.”

  Deke pressed his back against his chair. There was something here, even if he didn’t know what it was.

  “Isn’t there some progressive billionaire behind GUM? Salazar, right?”

  “Right name, right billionaire, but our recent findings suggest that the reality of Geofredo Salazar might not be in keeping with his public image.”

  “So, you’re thinking there’s a connection between Bines and Salazar?”

  “We’re finding lots of smoke.”

  “I’m not usually one for conspiracy theories,” Deke said.

  “Nor am I, but you’re the one who keeps telling me your radar says something is off with Bines working the Welcome Mat case.”

  Deke found himself nodding. He had thought it an odd pairing.

  “You also suspected the mob might have its hooks in Welcome Mat’s ownership.”

  “You’re thinking the common denominator between Bines, Salazar, and Welcome Mat is the mob?” Deke said.

  “It would explain a lot,” Gina said. “Organized crime does control human and sex trafficking. In fact, it’s their fastest-growing enterprise, and at one hundred and fifty billion dollars annually, probably their most profitable. Given that, wouldn’t it make sense for organized crime to utilize properties with which they have ties or influence for their illegal enterprises?”

  Deke thought about the implications. “What do we have that connects Salazar with the mob?”

  “When Salazar started his hedge fund a quarter of a century ago, it attracted huge sums of money. The source of those funds has always been a subject for speculation. What if organized crime got its hooks into Salazar early on?”

  “That would explain a lot,” Deke said.

  “Assuming the mob is a silent partner in Welcome Mat Hospitality, it only makes sense that they’d have someone like Salazar working for their interests. As for Bines, Salazar must have some kind of leverage over him, or maybe Bines has been willing to turn a blind eye to what’s going on in his case so that the money faucet doesn’t get turned off.”

  Deke nodded. “I’ve seen that happen time and time again. People don’t even know they’re on a slippery slope until they’re falling off a cliff. Welcome to the contagion that is human trafficking.”

  “Bines said he had a fifteen-year-old daughter,” Gina said derisively. “Maybe we should send him the picture I have on my desk of those billboards in Minnesota.” Deke was familiar with Gina’s picture. The billboard showed an outline of a girl’s head and the caption, WHAT IF THIS WERE YOUR DAUGHTER? accompanied by a damning statistic from the Department of Justice that said the average age of those entering sex slavery in the United States was thirteen years old. Deke knew Gina kept that picture on her desk for a reason.

  Sighing, Deke said, “I hope drivers are taking notice of those billboards. These days I’m probably responsible for more billboard advertising in Florida than General Motors. But all of those billboards haven’t brought Lily home, or put handcuffs on Rodríguez.”

  “Carol said they’ve provided some solid leads.”

  “Not solid enough, and not soon enough. I need to find another way, a better way, to stir the pot.”

  XLV

  Michael paced the exterior grounds of what had been the Pussy Cat Palace, staying behind the caution tape set around its burned remains. Firefighters were still doing mop-up work on the smoldering ruins, and Jake was documenting the destruction. Overnight, the Pussy Cat Palace had burned to the ground. Michael wondered if his case had gone up in smoke as well.

  “I think I’ve taken enough shots,” Jake said. “Are you ready to roll?”

  “Unless you’ve got some marshmallows,” Michael said. “This fire was deliberately set.”

  “That’s what I heard you telling the assistant fire chief.”

  “The chemicals and solvents that were brought in for the supposed remodel were just smoke screens made to explain away the fire.”

  He hadn’t spared the chief that opinion either. The chief had promised that when the conditions were safe for investigators to look around, they would conduct a thorough origin and cause investigation.

  Michael added, “That’s the same chief who also said that wherever there are hazardous materials and chemicals, the chance of spontaneous combustion always exists.”

  “We know it was arson, so what difference will the fire department’s determination make?”

  “Probably none, but it might complicate my Driscoll deposition. Of course, that’s assuming she hasn’t fled to Ukraine along with her workers.”

  “Is that a possibility?” asked Jake.

  “At this point I’m not ruling out anything. I’ll feel more at ease when her whereabouts are confirmed.”

  * * *

  Between her groans and cries, the woman called out, “No more!” Then she began mumbling and muttering in her native tongue.

  The man known as the Undertaker checked her vitals. His last interrogation of the woman hadn’t gone well for her. She was dying. That was the necessary outcome, of course, but not before he was satisfied that she had told him everything.

  The woman had proved far more resilient than most of the men he had questioned during his time being a grand inquisitor. It usually took only five or ten minutes before the toughest of men were spilling their guts. This one had held out far longer. She had eventually broken down, but not without effort on his part. Her reluctance to be forthcoming had only made matters worse for her. During this last session, he had provided a small mercy on his part, sparing her from seeing what he had done to her face. The woman would die with her vanity intact.

  The Undertaker began putting away the tools of his trade. He had worked within the privacy of a closed forty-foot shipping container. A small generator provided him with the little power he needed. There was no need to worry about prying ears and eyes; the area was off limits to the ship’s small crew. He had been left alone to apply his craft.

  The Undertaker was old school. He did not need elaborate implements for his work. The pursuit of truth involved as much psychological torture as it did physical torture. He employed the thought of pain, the anticipation of it, as much as he did the application of it. The water-boarding had started her talking, and the cattle prod had kept her talking. He had brought out other tools, including a blowtorch, a poker, a dull knife, and his vintage dental extractors, items that fit quite neatly in his small leather attaché case.

  In the end, she had kept crying, “Vbyy mene.” The Undertaker was not a linguist, but then he didn’t have to be. He always knew when his victims were begging for the same thing.

  Kill me.

  It was time for him to see to what she wanted.

  In the darkness, the Undertaker brought the body from out of the shipping container. The woman was still clinging to life, but only barely.

  He wrapped the chains a
round her torso and limbs, then secured the weights. Deckhands knew to fear getting caught in the grip of the fishing lines they threw overboard, the weight of which could drag them into the depths. The Undertaker, too, knew to stay clear. It was an apt phrase, he thought. The grip, as in death’s grip. The woman was already in that terrible embrace.

  * * *

  Peter Stone had done this to her, Vicky knew. Death was coming. But that thought provided her with an awakening of sorts. The pain was still there, but it no longer dominated her every thought. The devil who had questioned her, who had tortured her, had wanted her soul and more. Over and over again, he’d asked his questions.

  Come clean, and the pain will stop. Confess, and you will no longer have to suffer.

  More. Tell me more. It was never enough. Along with her screams, he had drawn out her secrets. He had gotten her passwords and her access codes to the security tapes on the cloud. But there was one secret that she had managed to hold on to.

  Maybe it would be enough to avenge her death. That thought, and nothing else, had sustained her.

  She was no longer aware of her body or her surroundings. Vicky did not know she was now only inches away from death, or that the sea was waiting to take her. Any consciousness she retained was shutting down, or so it seemed.

  * * *

  The Undertaker finally got the body where he wanted it. He moved the deadweight, getting it into position. Another foot, he thought, and he should be good. All was going as planned—until the woman began talking. She was supposed to be dead, but her delirium had her babbling wildly in her native tongue.

  When she opened her eyes, she didn’t see him but looked beyond him. Whatever she saw terrified her.

  Over and over, she began screaming a single word. The Undertaker was glad he did not know what that word meant. The woman should have had the decency to be dead; now she was screaming to wake the dead.

  He maneuvered her deadweight over the rail. As she fell to the water, he heard her cry out that word, that terror, that horror: “Rusalki!”