Milena, or the Most Beautiful Femur in the World

by Jorge Zepeda Patterson

  But Jaime thought he would surpass him one of these days. The opportunity to bring El Mundo into his sphere of influence was an unmistakable sign.

  Thinking about Lemlock reminded him of the importance of bringing Vidal into the business. In case he fell, the kid could carry on with the project. He had no heirs, and though he was healthy for forty-three, he knew he was running a high-risk operation. The year before, he had barely sidestepped the Sinaloa Cartel’s execution order.

  He liked Vidal’s smarts and his good intentions; the fact that he was savvy with computers made him the perfect person to consolidate Jaime’s cybersurveillance operations. Not yet twenty-two, he was still naïve and immature, but Jaime hadn’t been much different at that age, and anyway, the confidential information that filtered through the office would do away with the boy’s illusions. There was no rush; he had all the time in the world to get him ready. It was more important to do it right than to do it quickly.

  For now, Vidal had done him a favor without knowing it. The iPhone 5S he’d given him months back, to be able to contact him in case of danger, had now helped him figure out where they had Milena hidden.

  His team had managed to identify the gang that had exploited her: a Romanian with the nickname of Bonso seemed to be in charge, but Jaime knew that in the prostitution world there was overlap between groups in charge of different aspects of the business: transport, production and sale of pornography, supplying women for table dances, escort services and brothels.

  The information from the call logs showed that the Romanian and four other women had come in on the same flight as Milena, from Marbella to Madrid and on to Mexico. One of the foreigners had renewed her papers two months before to get into a clinic where they treated the early symptoms of AIDS. Patricia Mendiola, one of his investigators, interviewed the girl that same morning. She went by Danica, but her passport identified her as Barbara Petrescu, and she was only twenty-eight years old, though she looked forty in the photo in her file at the clinic. It took a lot of patience and a “donation” of a thousand dollars to convince her to let them drive her to Lemlock’s offices to tell her and Milena’s story. Jaime called Patricia and told her how to run the interrogation. He would watch on the monitors.

  The woman they guided into the room looked terminally ill. Dark bags under her eyes, her haggard face, her partly bald scalp, and her hunched posture gave little doubt about the gravity of her infection. Her broken voice was the very sound of desolation.

  “When we showed up in Mexico, they stuck us in a house close to the Colonía Irrigación,” Danica said in an unmistakable gypsy accent.

  “Who gathered you up? The same people who put you to work?” Patricia asked.

  “The Turk, a real bad guy,” the prostitute responded with a tremor.

  “And what’s the Turk’s name?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s nothing Turkish about him. I think he’s Algerian or something. I had a Turkish boyfriend once and he didn’t look anything like that fucker.”

  “Who’s the Turk’s boss?”

  “Who else? Bonso, the midget.”

  “What’s that guy’s name? Where’s he from?”

  “He’s Romanian, like me,” Danica said. “But I don’t know his name, everybody calls him Bonso. That’s why they put this B on us.” She stood up, turned around, and lifted her skirt to show a tattoo on the upper-right-hand part of her backside. “They mark us so everyone knows we’re their livestock. The Turk says it’s for our own good, so the doctors don’t have to struggle when they give us an injection. It never hurts if they aim for the spot just under the B.” She laughed, revealing that she was missing two of her upper front teeth.

  “Did you know Milena? Was she in the same house?”

  “I told you before. We got to the country together, but they always gave her special treatment. I don’t know why. I mean, she was the prettiest one.”

  “Special treatment? Like what?”

  “It’s not like they were nicer to her, but they always kept an eye on her… The fucking circus when she disappeared, you should have seen it.”

  “What do you mean, when she disappeared?”

  “It was a thing for me because that was one of the last parties I got to go to. Before I got sick, you know?”

  “So what happened at the party, Danica?” Patricia asked. She had given up the neutral tone she had maintained throughout the interview and was now addressing Danica warmly.

  “It was in March or April, close to Holy Week. There were six or seven guys there who had been partying since earlier. We didn’t show up till around midnight. From the beginning, this big, tough-looking old guy was glued to Milena, he wouldn’t leave her alone. Then we heard he’d started asking for her every week, and I don’t remember too well when, but like two months later, she didn’t come back from her date with him.”

  “She didn’t come back? What happened?”

  “The guard who had taken her came back, but she wasn’t with him. The old guy’s escorts said she wasn’t going to work as a whore anymore and they should leave her alone. You should have seen the shitstorm after that.”

  “Bonso and the Turk didn’t go try and get her back?”

  “First, they beat the shit out of Brigite, Milena’s roommate, for not warning them she was about to fly the coop. They had to pull the Turk off her because she was half-dead. And when Bonso showed up, he started kicking her, too. Real bad stuff.”

  “They didn’t go look for Milena?”

  “It was really weird. Like they were scared that she had left them. I don’t get why they were freaking out so much over one whore. Well, it turns out the old guy’s the owner of a newspaper and he’s someone with a lot of pull, because the next day this big-shot from the anti-human-trafficking office shows up, this guy we used to service from time to time. He talked to Bonso and told him not to stir up any shit.”

  “And they obeyed him?”

  “They were bummed out. I never saw Bonso like that. The other day I ran into Sonia, the Venezuelan chick, during a checkup—I think she got the bug, too—and she said that like a month ago these dudes came through and tore up the room Milena had stayed in. Apparently they didn’t find anything, because Sonia says they grilled her to see if she’d left anything behind or if she’d seen any notebooks.”

  “Notebooks? That belonged to Milena?”

  “Yeah, right, she was always writing shit in these little pads. But it looks like she didn’t leave any of that, just some clothes and books the guys took with them.”

  “And Brigite? You think she’d know anything?”

  “If she knew something, she took it to the grave with her. The guys that tore up the apartment took her away and Sonia says she never came back. She says later she saw a photo of a half-rotten body in a tabloid and it had the same mole by its bellybutton as Brigitte. Go ask her. Sonia’s got a big mouth.”

  “When did you leave the house? Have you found out anything else?”

  “It was like six months ago they found my problem during a checkup. Once that happens, you’re no use to them.”

  “And they let you go?”

  “Fuck that. I worked my way out. For two weeks I worked my ass off for the sadists. The shit those sons-of-bitches did to me…” She lifted her sweatshirt to show the scars and burns on her belly.

  Patricia shook her head, and the girl covered back up.

  Jaime turned down the volume and started thinking. Why would Bonso start threatening Milena when the newspaper owner was protecting her and the inspector knew about him? He was taking a risk the economic consequences of losing a single prostitute didn’t justify. Franco was a guy who could sit at the same table as the attorney general, even the president. He could have put an end to the whole gang, or gotten the Romanian kicked out of the country at the very least. What did Milena represent to make the pimp take such a risk? There was something explosive in that woman’s past, or in her notebook.

  He called his cre
w to get them tracking Claudia right away; that night, Vidal would drive her to where they had hidden the Croatian. They’d have to be careful with Claudia’s security detail, the one that used to take care of her father. Tomás and Amelia’s attempts to hide Milena from him were childish and futile, but they still offended him. He didn’t have their trust yet, but he would. He swiped his finger across his screen, tracing the red dot that followed Vidal’s movements.

  ‌14

  Claudia and Milena

  Tuesday, November 11, 9:20 p.m.

  This kind of decadence required money, time, and taste, Claudia decided after sinking into a sofa. The apartment, really half of a duplex, had a cluttered vintage look: red velvet, folding screens with oriental patterns, antique wood furniture and armchairs covered in fabric with arabesque prints, tufted carpets in disarray, thrown over one another as in a fabric store. The owner of the place, a certain Marina Alcántara, who went by the name of Rina, had an unclassifiable face, a slightly strident voice, and moved her torso in time with her head, as if her neck and spine were welded together. Her large hands and feet accentuated the impression of slowness her languid movements produced. The boy who accompanied her, undoubtedly her lover, to judge by the rapturous way those strange eyes of hers followed him around the room, looked normal, if normal meant handsome, five-foot-eleven with perfect teeth. Like a twenty-two-year-old Ben Affleck. They made an attractive, sophisticated couple that fit the setting perfectly.

  “Sorry I can’t offer you anything,” Rina said. “They just put in my kitchen and I don’t have a single glass or anything in the pantry yet.”

  “Don’t worry,” Claudia said. “But let me send one of my men out for groceries for you. The basics. Do you need anything in particular?”

  “I have no idea what she’d want,” the hostess said, pointing to the bedroom where Milena had gone. “Anyway, Vidal already went to the convenience store for some drinks and stuff for sandwiches. Tomorrow I’ll stock the kitchen properly.”

  Luis explained how they found the Croatian and slipped past the three men chasing her. Claudia liked his orderly mind, the precise way he chose his words, and the almost cinematic wealth of details in his description.

  “Why did you take such unnecessary risks? You didn’t even know her, did you?” she said when Luis had finished his story.

  The two young people tried to explain the admiration they felt for Amelia and Tomás and the solidarity they felt for a person in danger, but Claudia was convinced that behind those reasons, what mattered most was the excitement of solving a mystery, the allure of adventure, and the wish to break the monotony of two lives in which so much was already taken care of.

  When Milena walked out, she forgot everything. The Croatian recognized her immediately, sat down beside her, and embraced her. Claudia had expected any other reaction, and yet she hugged the girl back, moved. She guessed that being Franco’s daughter meant she was now the closest person to that girl on the continent. As the embrace lingered on, Claudia felt less and less comfortable. Sunk down in the couch and by far the shorter of the two, she found her head pressed against Milena’s breasts. The firm implants reminded her of Milena’s work and the sexual tie that had brought her and Claudia’s father together.

  Luis and Rina watched. He was embarrassed, she relished it. Eventually, they left them alone and walked out to the street, saying they would wait for Vidal to return. The bodyguard took the hint and went for a smoke.

  “First, tell me how he died,” Claudia finally said, her eyes focused on Milena’s bare feet.

  “He died on top of me.”

  Claudia suppressed a wave of nausea as she imagined her father agonizing on top of those huge fake breasts. She stood up to suck in a breath and turned her back to Milena. A sordid image crept into her mind: a naked old body on top of a girl who could be his granddaughter.

  “Don’t judge him,” Milena said. “What we had was beautiful.”

  “With an almost fifty-year age difference between you? And an economic arrangement to boot?”

  “You don’t understand anything.”

  The two women fell silent. Claudia had a knot in her throat. She felt she had said something callous, and yet she didn’t feel like taking her words back. She regretted agreeing to meet Milena. Had she looked for her to express grievances she’d barely guessed at until now? Was she indignant because her father hadn’t died in his family home, surrounded by those close to him, instead of in the arms of an unknown woman whose only link to the Franco family was a young, ready, and willing vagina? Then she remembered her father’s order to get back Milena’s notebook to eliminate whatever danger the family might be in. She decided to calm down and try to slowly gain the girl’s confidence.

  When she turned around to face her, she saw Milena had started to cry in silence, without making the least effort to wipe off the thick tears draining down her slender face. Then she spoke.

  “All I wanted was for the kids not to play war with my bones. I got out of Jastrebarsko when I was sixteen…”

  ‌15

  Milena

  2006–2010

  As the days slipped by, the men ceased to be eyes offering her hope and became a succession of lustful mouths and dicks. After she saw Natasha Vela’s fate, Milena gave up any thought of going back to her life from before. Now every day’s purpose was to do what she had to, keep pulling in the highest fees, and stay out of the underworld of those sleazy brothels she’d been thrown into for her week of punishment. Milena blotted out every corner of her existence, and the life she’d led as Alka Moritz was left behind in an impenetrable and growing fog. Even her memories of Croatia were painful. Desperation inoculated her against any outbreak of nostalgia.

  The house routine was like iron. The girls who lived there—between twelve and twenty of them, depending on the season—were treated as high-priced goods. Once a week, they went to the salon for a trim, a touch-up, and a mani-pedi. Every morning, one of their overseers led them through the exercises in a workout video, and a cook made sure their diets didn’t have too many carbs. “A pig stuffing himself on acorns doesn’t eat better than this,” the Turk used to tell them.

  Occasionally, they’d have to do a line of coke so that they wouldn’t turn it down at a party or with some especially generous client, but the handlers also made sure the girls didn’t get hooked on anything. In other brothels, the pimps would get the girls addicted and use that to control them, but that wasn’t the case for the elite girls who were enslaved. Surveillance was such that there was no need to drug the girls up to control them, plus doing so could harm the merchandise.

  They never saw their clients at the house. Usually they’d go to hotels or apartments, and sometimes their customers had a special suite in some trusted hotel.

  In reality, the girls had a lot of free time inside the confines of the large house where they resided. They worked seven days a week, depending on demand, and during the day, lots of them would talk or watch television. They weren’t allowed cell phones or computers. The first year, Milena grew close to several of the girls, but she decided to keep her distance once she found out one of them was in tight with their captors. They moved the girls around anyway, and that made it hard to form close friendships. The mafia that had bought Milena ran brothels all over the Mediterranean, and the girls were transported from place to place, depending on where tourism was heaviest. That meant they could offer new merchandise to their clients in Istanbul, the Greek islands, Rome, Venice, and Marseille. Milena was one of the girls who stayed in Marbella longest, because three or four regular customers, high rollers, took a liking to her. She got used to losing friends as they shifted the prostitutes around, and even she had to spend a few summers in Ibiza.

  Soon, she began taking refuge in reading. She had been an excellent student in school and had always had a fascination with words. In the last year of high school, in an attempt to attract the attention of the handsome professor who came once on a visit from
Zagreb, she even wrote reviews of some of the books they were required to read. At first, she devoured the cheap novels thrown out by the tourists she serviced at night. She read everything without a second thought. But, little by little, she acquired a taste for good prose, for more intelligent, elaborate plots, and when she saw a book on a client’s nightstand, she wouldn’t hold back her questions. That led to her getting recommendations that better suited her preferences. The first time she asked her captors for a book, they laughed at her pretentiousness, but when the stylist who visited once a week brought along the titles she requested, they didn’t stop her. They got used to seeing Milena stretched out in an armchair, absorbed in her reading. They even ended up encouraging her passion, because it made their jobs easier: she gave them fewer problems than her nervous, noisy colleagues.

  The hundreds of men who passed between Milena’s legs left less of a mark than the pages that turned before her eyes. The sordid black and white of her brutal existence lost substance alongside the rich array of colors left in her mind by the stories she’d read.

  At some point, she started writing tales about her clients. Looking at their clothes, she tried to guess what they did and where they were from. She deduced their temperament and personality from the way they initiated sex or took off their clothes. She didn’t care if the biographies she pinned on those bodies were true or false; she just wanted them to be consistent, plausible. The way they left money on the table told her whether the guy was cheap or reckless, timid or stern when it came to business. His reaction as he was caressed betrayed his mental health, or lack thereof; his postcoital behavior gave away more than any psychological exam.