She flirted with the idea of texting Vincent, but decided not to. Mall security had no training in stealth techniques. Bringing them in risked the operation. She did pretend to call him, though, and even made up a conversation so it would look authentic.
Just be cool and casual like everyone else and this will go fine, Angie thought. Calm as she appeared, it was hard to contain her excitement. This man could lead her to straight to Nadine, unless of course he drove.
She had her Ford Taurus back, having ferried Mike to Falls Church after he drove her car to Union Station. The garage had space for more than a thousand cars; the chances of Angie being parked anywhere near her target’s car—if that was how he was getting around—were slim to none. He had gone to the garage on the surveillance tape, so she suspected he wasn’t one for traveling by train. If she managed to get a license plate, she would consider it a victory.
Back on the ground level, her target stopped in front of H&M and browsed the window display. Angie walked right by while he went into the store. She crossed toward the main concourse, mindful to keep a thirty-foot safe distance.
Minutes later, the man with the buzzcut hair style in the gray jacket emerged carrying a small bag. Whatever he’d purchased hadn’t taken long to make his selection. He wandered the corridors holding the bag, and Angie remembered the Heydari bag he’d had on the day he’d met Nadine.
The man spent two hours wandering and window-shopping. Angie stayed a good thirty feet away, keeping close to the densest part of the crowd. Nothing about the man’s behavior changed her thinking about his intention. He was prowling for girls, not presents. She watched him watching. His head would turn with every skirt that passed. His ears were attuned to the sounds of girls’ laughter and chatter.
Angie managed to get a few pictures of him with her smart phone. Nothing worthy of a Facebook profile, but she could make out his face a little better than what she’d seen on the surveillance footage. Thus far his fishing expedition—assuming that’s what it was—hadn’t produced even a nibble.
Her target got lunch at Chipotle—a burrito, a bag of chips, and a soda. Angie didn’t want to feel sluggish, so she grabbed a pre-made salad from Chopt, two doors down.
After lunch, the man was on the move again. Same stores, same browsing habits. Angie gave a repeat performance herself.
Forty minutes later, the man approached a girl not more than twenty who was by herself. She was tall and thin, with luxurious long brown hair, dressed in hip-hugging jeans and a form-fitting top. She wore a backpack and wheeled a black suitcase behind her. Maybe the girl had just gotten off the train. She did look a bit frazzled and unsure of herself. In other words, the perfect mark.
The man walked right by the girl, but Angie could tell his gaze never really left her. Angie kept walking too, but she stopped once her target’s back was to her, sidled over to a store, and pretended to look at her phone.
The man approached the girl. He talked and she listened. He was animated and she seemed cautious, but receptive to whatever he was saying. He opened the H&M bag and Angie’s breath caught when he took out a scarf. He showed it to the girl. She looked at it and nodded her head. She approved. The man smiled and put the scarf back in the bag. He went on his way. The girl remained, seemingly unsure of where she needed to go. The man took four steps, turned around, and approached the girl from behind as she headed off in the opposite direction.
Angie’s body tingled with anticipation. The man tapped the girl’s shoulder. She turned. Nothing registered on her face, not the slightest hint of alarm or concern. She was friendly, open to him. He took out a card from his wallet and handed it to her. She studied it. The man spoke animatedly, gesticulating. Angie pretended to browse her phone. Whatever he was explaining had some urgency. At some point, his phone rang and he took the call. The girl waited patiently for him to finish.
Angie desperately wished she could eavesdrop on the conversation. The girl smiled weakly. The man held up his hands in a gesture that reminded Angie of the phrase now or never. He cocked his head slightly. He waited. Then he gave the girl a faint smile, tinged with disappointment. Ah well, your loss. He turned on his heels and marched away from the girl. She watched him go. It looked like a repeat performance of the Nadine encounter. The man continued, but not a brisk pace. The girl hesitated.
Angie approached the girl from behind. “Go away from him, and go away fast,” she said as she passed. She didn’t break stride. Didn’t stop to engage, but the girl heard Angie’s words loud and clear.
She headed in the opposite direction. It would have been a bonus to get the business card the girl had accepted, but that would have meant stopping to engage. Engaging could have blown Angie’s cover, or worse, let her target disappear. If the man was what Angie believed him to be, the card would be bogus anyway.
The man stopped and looked back. He didn’t notice Angie, who took cover in a crowd. Any girl who took notice of the man’s snarling face would never consider stopping to talk to him. He marched off in a huff. Angie stayed on his heels—thirty feet back, of course. Maybe he’d had enough for the day. Not every hunt was a successful one.
He took the escalator to the mezzanine level. Angie let a group go in front of her, target still in her sights.
He turned toward the parking garage. The crowds had thinned, and Angie’s anxiety levels spiked. She changed her approach as she changed her stride. She was headed for her car, and he was going for his.
She fished the car keys from her purse. He either didn’t notice her behind him or he didn’t turn around to look. He stopped at a gleaming Cadillac Escalade. With her phone out and held in front of her at an angle, she launched her camera app and managed to snap a picture of the license plate as she passed.
He was definitely leaving. Taillights came on as he reversed out of his space and drove by Angie at a good clip. Her car was parked near the ramp on the east side of Union Station, while he had entered from H Street. He would be long gone by the time she retrieved her vehicle.
Still, she tried. She paid at the ticket window and pulled out into traffic. The Escalade was nowhere in sight. Gone. Long gone. She pulled over where it was safe and used her phone to access the DocuFind portal.
DocuFind provided licensed private investigators with a wealth of useful data. The movies made this process look so easy. Jot down a plate, hop on a computer, and wham-o, there’s your guy. A real license plate search was not as straightforward. Free websites frequently provided out-of-date or incorrect information. The DocuFind results came straight from the DMV, but instant was to the DMV as animated was to a mummy.
Angie entered the data into the website forms and submitted her request. The results could come back in an hour or a day. Soon, though, she could begin to build a profile of this man, gathering bits of his background the way a bird builds a nest, piece by piece. Date of birth, current address, criminal record, properties owned, that sort of thing. Who was this man? Did he know Nadine’s whereabouts? Was Angie even watching the right person? Maybe the entire exchange between Mr. Baldy and Nadine was innocuous.
Angie was on a fishing expedition of her own. She had cast her line with a good-sized hook and some tasty bait on the end.
All she needed was a bite.
CHAPTER 22
Excerpts from the journal of Nadine Jessup, pages 38-40
I’ve divided my life into two periods. B.B. for Before Buggy and A.B. for After Buggy. I can’t write what I did with him. I won’t go there. If I wrote it down, it would be permanent and I want it to just fade away. I puked in the wastebasket after he left, I will confess that much. Ricardo came back at some point and said he’d take me out to eat, but I didn’t want to go anywhere with him. I didn’t want to eat either, not that it matters. I guess Ricardo didn’t like my answer. He grabbed my hair and yanked it hard. I screamed because it hurt. He looked me in the eyes and said if he wanted to take me out to eat, I’d go with him. No was never an answer. Then he calmed down beca
use he said he didn’t really care what I did. He let go of my hair and I started to cry.
I asked him why he was being so horrible to me. He told me he was helping me. He was teaching me. You can’t say no here. If I didn’t cooperate every time something gets asked of me, I go into the hole. I wanted to know what the hole was all about, so Ricardo took me by the hand. Not in a loving way, more like a handcuff kind of way.
He pulled me out of my room. Without the blindfold I could see that I was in a basement divided into a bunch of rooms made with that cheap wood. I heard bedsprings creaking and those kinds of groans. The smell made me gag. It was that kind of smell. The corridor was narrow and the floor cement. We stopped at a kitchen area. It was filthy! I always kept the kitchen at home spotless. There was trash on the floor and piles of dirty dishes in the sink. If my mom did the cleaning, that’s what our house would look like. The fluorescent lights were blinking, or maybe I was still high. I wanted to be higher. I wanted to not feel any of this. My stomach was hurting but in a strange way and somehow my body knew if I smoked a little more of what Stephen Macan gave me, the pain would go away.
There were girls sitting at the kitchen table, chain smoking cigarettes and drinking beers. A tall thin blonde girl with a strappy dress and a cocky look got up and approached me. She spoke with a thick accent that reminded me a little of the way Stephen Macan spoke.
She put her hand on my face and caressed my cheek. She said she heard about me. Knew I was the new kid and said she’ll take care of me. She grabbed my chin and forced open my mouth. She shoved a blue pill inside and closed my mouth for me. She gave me a swig of her beer to swallow it down. Then she let me have a few drags of a special cigarette.
You’re safe here if you do what they say. Okay? You understand? Her exact words. I asked her where she was from. She said Russia. She was Natasha from Russia. But I can call her Tasha. She said she’s going to be my big sister here. She asked me my name. I must have given her a blank stare. I couldn’t remember. What did I just smoke and swallow? That warm feeling was coming back. Thank God! Thank God for that feeling. I heard Ricardo say my name was Jessica. Oh yeah, that’s right. I’m Jessica. I’m JBar . . . even if it’s only in my head, even if Stephen Macan said that dream is over . . . if that dream was ever even real.
Tasha called me pretty. She touched my hair. I liked it. I wanted her to like me. My legs felt like rubber, but the sick feeling in my stomach was gone thanks to the pill. Ricardo dragged me out of the kitchen and pulled me into the last room in the hallway. Tasha followed us. The room was completely empty except for a metal door cut into the floor. Like a hatch, you know? Ricardo used a key on a padlock that kept the door secure. Was the lock there to keep people out or in, I wondered. Ricardo pulled open the trapdoor and let it fall to the ground with a bang. Tasha jumped.
Ricardo told me to get inside. I wouldn’t budge and his face got red because I’m not supposed to say no to him. Tasha whispered in my ear to do what he says. That’s how you don’t get hurt. What happens down there? Tasha said nothing. It’s just a dark space. He wants me to get the feeling of it so I understand. All girls go inside once. If you’re good you never go in again. But if we mess up, if we try to leave, the hole is where they put us. Do my job and I’ll be fine. That’s what Tasha whispered in my ear, or something like it anyway.
I knew our job meant Buggy and other gross men like him. I thought I’d rather go into that pit, so I climbed down. I was surprised because it’s not deep at all. It’s a tight space and to get all the way in I had to slide my legs out in front of me and worked my way down onto my back. The floor is bare earth and rocky. Painful on my hands and knees.
Ricardo told me to lie down. On the dirt? I asked. On the dirt he said. I guess my back was sticking out the hatch door. Soon as I got flat, Ricardo slammed the door shut and I was plunged into darkness. I panicked and tried to sit up but my head smacked against the metal door so hard I got dizzy. I reached up to feel for the hatch, but my hands scraped only the rough cerement above my head. It was as if the hatch was a magical portal that vanished when it closed, leaving me in this womb of darkness. I couldn’t see anything. My hands were an inch from my face and I couldn’t see them. The hole was wide, just not deep. Maybe it was the size of the apartment building? I didn’t know. I squirmed into the darkness thinking there might be another way out, but I got worried I’d get lost down there if I went too far. It was like a SCUBA diver going under the arctic ice (I watched a Nature episode about that with my dad once and it’s the only way I can explain the feeling). If I swam too far out from the hole, I’d drown down there.
I didn’t want to move away from the only way out. I was suffocating on fear. I started to hyperventilate and got all sweaty. I. Couldn’t. See. A. Damn. Thing. I mean it was pitch black, the blackest black imaginable. I waved my hand in front of my face, but couldn’t see it. This is what being buried alive must feel like, I thought. There was barely any room to lift my head or my arms. The pill Tasha gave me couldn’t make the horrible smothering feeling go away. I felt the ceiling until I finally found the hatch. I have no idea how long I was down in the hole before I started banging on the door and screaming for Ricardo to let me out. Nothing. No response. I banged harder. Nothing again.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, I screamed. GET ME OUT OF HERE! OPEN UP THIS MOTHER F’NG (INSERT EVERY CURSE WORD I KNOW) DOOR. PLEASE! I listened. I listened so hard my ears hurt but didn’t hear a sound. Did they leave me? Were they going leave down me there to die? My skin, my head, everything buzzed strangely. Each second felt like forever. I couldn’t breathe right. My back ached from scraping against the hard cement. I tried to lift my legs, but I got maybe a few inches off the ground before they hit something hard. I think I wet my pants. Oh hell, I know I did. I was shaking beyond belief. I just kept banging on the door. PLEASE RICARDO! PLEASE OPEN UP! No more cursing. I was sweet to him. I’ll do anything for you baby, that kind of sweet. Anything. How many times did I say that? I can’t remember, but it was a lot. Then I heard laughter, and finally—OH, THANK GOD, FINALLY—the door opened and light spilled in. I’ve never loved light more.
I couldn’t catch my breath and I couldn’t move, either. Ricardo said that was only five minutes and then he laughed. Five minutes! He said he keeps girls down in the hole for days with just water. Those were the longest minutes of my life. Tasha wasn‘t laughing. She looked sorry for me and helped pull me up. And that’s the hole. Ricardo said don’t break the rules and I won’t go in.
After that experience, I changed my mind. I’d let Buggy screw me a thousand times before I’d go back in there.
I live upstairs in a one-bedroom apartment with Tasha. I feel so lucky that she’s my roommate. She’s the only good thing about being here. The drugs aren’t good, but they’re necessary and they’re everywhere. I’m high all the time now. It’s the only way I can get through my day. Writing helps, too, I guess. I keep my diary hidden inside the futon cover, but I think Tasha knows about it. I sleep on the futon because Tasha has the bedroom. It’s only fair because she has more time here, more seniority. I asked her how long she’s been here and she can’t really pinpoint a number. The answer though is in years. I asked her if she likes it here and she said no. I said we should leave and she pointed to the door. “Go ahead,” she said. So I turned the doorknob but it wouldn’t budge and that’s how I found out the apartment is locked from the outside.
The apartment (other than that locked door) is a lot like the other place I lived in when I thought Ricardo was my boyfriend, back when I thought he loved me. There’s a small kitchen, small bathroom, small living room with a TV, the futon (aka my bed), and an old armchair that’s seen better days. The floors are wood, but pretty scratched up. We’re on the third floor of an apartment complex that has a lot of units but not a lot of activity. The girls live in the upstairs units. There are bars on the window but no fire escape. Who’s going to rob us? Spiderman? But then I remembered the locked apartment door an
d the bars made more sense.
Men don’t come and go from the front entrance all day long. They go to a basement entrance in the back and their arrivals are spaced out so there’s no lines or anything. The basement is where the work happens.
That’s what I call it . . . the work.
I found out that Natasha is eight years older than me but she looks a lot older than that. I hope she doesn’t ever read this because I feel bad writing it, but it’s the truth. Her skin is pasty and a bit loose. Her face looks hard like my mom’s and I know it’s from drinking and smoking. I know that I’m going to look that way too because I’m drinking and smoking as much as she does. I haven’t seen Ricardo in a few days. He’s busy. That’s all I’m told. I think he’s with another girl like Mandy . . . or maybe another me . . . another JBar in the making, and I bet he can’t get her photos right either.
The girls are my family now. Tasha, Katrina, Ashley, Nika, Daphne, Lulu, Daisy, Olyesa. Just some of the girls I know. There’s one American who is around my age. Her name is Erin and she’s a runaway like me. Oh wait, there’s also Jade. She’s older. MUCH older. Like thirties or something, but I swear she looks older than that. I think she’s pretty though. She doesn’t talk very much. She just gets high and keeps to herself. Maybe she knows something I don’t.
The other girls have accents and I think they’re from Eastern Europe somewhere. Russia, I think. That’s Eastern Europe? Right? I hope Ms. Margo doesn’t read this. She’s my history teacher and I’m supposed to know this stuff. Whatever. I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, as my mother liked to say.
The girls, we look after each other. Doesn’t matter where we came from, if we were rich or poor, the color of our skin (and all the colors are represented). What matters is we’re here, in this life together. This place forces fast friendships. Some of the clients can be difficult, but you can’t say no to them unless you’re really scared. If you do get scared then you scream, RABBIT RABBIT as loud as you can. Tasha told me people say Rabbit Rabbit at the start of a new month. I guess it’s supposed to bring good luck or something. Down here it brings Casper. Casper’s a big fat guy who shuttles the clients from the waiting area to the girls’ rooms. Casper always wears loose black T-shirts that are as big as sails and black pants and a black baseball hat. He has lots of tattoos and so many gold chains I can’t believe he can walk, let alone run, but boy, can he move fast. Nobody really messes with the girls because nobody wants to mess with Casper.
Forgive Me Page 13
