Driving in Traffick: The Victim's Story (Margret Malone Book 2)

by Nancy Cupp

  Back at the truck he shoved Margret inside, “I can still shoot you.”

  When they left Margret ground all the gears.

  9

  Hold One Moment Please

  Joyce had been around the lot three times, walking the rows, looking at every truck. She couldn’t just drive off, why would she? Damn, I need my cell.

  She went inside to call dispatch. A quick look around told her there wasn’t a pay-phone. Impatiently, Joyce waited for her turn at the counter. “Please, I need to use your phone.”

  “We don’t let anyone use our phone—company policy.”

  “But this is an emergency! Why isn’t there a pay-phone?”

  “A pay-phone would be antique these days. Everybody has a cell. Next in line please.”

  “Well, I don’t have a cell, I need your phone.”

  “Company policy. Next.”

  “Come on honey, move aside if you ain’t gonna buy something,” said a driver from somewhere in the line behind her.

  Joyce glared at the clerk and then moved out of line. She stood there a moment, chewing at a hangnail, trying to decide on her next move. She didn’t know the number for dispatch by heart anyway, so she was kind of glad they didn’t let her use the phone. Feeling conspicuous, and a little stupid for losing her truck, she stepped back into the night air. It would be dawn soon and trucks would be moving out.

  Joyce decided she had to get some help from somebody. She set out, determined, for the Hometown Carriers truck parked in the back row. She knocked on the door and waited. The truck rocked as the driver dragged himself out of the bunk. He peaked, half naked, out the window. “Sorry honey, I’m married and I want to stay that way.” He started to move away.

  Joyce pounded on his door again. “I’m not a lot lizard! I’m a driver, I need your help.”

  “You’re a driver?”

  “Yeah, I work for Hometown Carriers too.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Can I use your phone? I gotta call dispatch.”

  “Lock your keys in the truck? My key might…”

  “Ah—no, actually I can’t find it. I think my student drove off…”

  The big man started laughing so hard the truck shook. “Your student—Ha—drove off…”

  Joyce looked at him, annoyed, “Yeah, so…”

  “Hang on a second, while I get some pants on. Student drove off…He-He.” Joyce could still hear him laughing while he got dressed. When he returned he had his cell phone, and brought up the number for night dispatch. He was still chuckling, “That’s why I don’t have a student—not worth the trouble.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’m starting to figure that out.” The auto-answer machine picked up. “Of course, there are four callers ahead of me.” Joyce held the phone away from her ear so the other driver could hear the familiar hold music.

  “Ahhhh—I hate that tune! I’m Bob by the way.”

  “Joyce. Me too—seems like I spend more time listening to this than talking.”

  “You would think they could get a new tune once in a while.”

  When dispatch finally answered, Joyce gave her name and truck number and started to explain the situation. “It sounds like you need to talk to your DM about it.”

  “Well, yeah—I will, but my Driver Manager isn’t at work right now is he.”

  “No, is your load going to be on time?”

  “Is my load going to be on time? I don’t even know where the load is.”

  “Is it stolen? I can transfer you to Safety, they take care of claims.”

  “Just call my student and tell her she has to come back.”

  After a bit of haggling, the dispatch operator agreed to try Margret’s phone and put Joyce on hold again. Bob started laughing as Joyce rolled her eyes.

  “I’m sorry ma’am, it says the number is out of service.”

  “Out of service…oh for crying out loud. Okay, let’s report it stolen then.”

  “If it’s stolen I’ll have to connect you to Safety, just one moment.”

  Joyce stomped her foot and yelled at the hold music before the Safety department answered. Bob smiled and shook his head. It took another ten minutes to explain things again. Joyce had to answer a lot of embarrassing questions about why she was out of the truck, and why she thought the student had driven off. Safety finally concluded they needed to call the police and Joyce gave her exact location.

  When the call ended, Joyce tried to call her own phone, maybe Margret would pick up. It rang and rang, then there was a recording saying the number was out of service.

  Joyce handed the phone back to Bob, “Something isn’t right, my phone should be working.”

  “Do you think she really stole your truck?”

  “Gosh, she seemed like a nice girl…”

  “Ya never know. Hey sorry, but I gotta get going. Good luck to you. The cops should be here soon, they’ll take care of you.”

  “Thanks Bob.”

  ☙

  The woman who got cigarette from Bruce earlier, was wrapping up a long night of work. She spotted his car still parked in same spot and went to bum another smoke. The windows were open, and the keys dangled in the ignition. She looked around and didn’t see him anywhere. “Well, thank you honey, nice of you to leave me your car.” She slipped behind the wheel and drove out of the lot just as a police car drove in.

  ☙

  Joyce made a bee line to the police car when she spotted it. She was relieved when the officers invited her to sit inside, she’d been on her feet all night. Once in the relative comfort of the squad car she realized how tired she was.

  “I’m officer Weston, and this is officer Smith.”

  “Smith and Wesson? You’re kidding right?”

  “Weston. We get that a lot. Why do you think your student stole the truck, didn’t you call her when you realized she left you behind?”

  Joyce took a weary, deep breath, realizing she was going to have to go through the whole scenario again. When they were convinced something was wrong with the situation, the officers took information about the truck.

  “It’s a red Volvo, with the company logo Hometown Carriers. Truck number 532407.” She stopped short when she realized she almost told them the truck’s name was Lucille. “Yes, there was a trailer attached, loaded.”

  “Do you know the License Number?”

  “No, but my company will have that information. They should be able to track the truck with the Zonar system.”

  “We’ll need the phone number for Hometown Carriers.”

  Joyce groaned, “I don’t know it—it’s in my phone, and that’s in the truck.”

  “Her name?”

  “Lucille,—I mean Margret Malone. Brown hair, glasses. About five-seven, a little shorter than I am, kind of pudgy.”

  “What were you carrying? Is it a high-value load?”

  “Some kind of electronic parts, from LGT Industries out of Philadelphia. So yeah, it’s probably worth quite a bit. We were delivering in Denver, Colorado, but I don’t remember the name of the company. Corporate should have all of that.”

  A red truck pulling a Hometown Carriers trailer slowed and turned into the parking lot. Every eye in the police car followed it as the driver smoothly backed it between two trucks.

  “Is that your truck?”

  Joyce laughed, “It looks just like that, but I’m sure it’s not her. There’s a lot of trucks in our fleet.”

  Officer Weston started the car and drove toward the newly arrived truck. “What makes you so sure it’s not her coming back for you?”

  “Because she can’t park like that.”

  He parked the squad in front of the Hometown Carriers truck with the lights flashing. The bewildered driver climbed out. “What’s going on? I didn’t do anything.”

  A quick explanation set him at ease, and Joyce was able to get corporate phone numbers from the driver. It was almost noon when they had all the information they needed. Joyce was tired an
d hungry, she needed a shower, and she was getting crabby.

  “Thank you ma’am, we’ll put out an alert. All the weigh stations will stop Hometown Carriers trucks, and patrols will be on the lookout.”

  “What about me? Can you take me to a hotel?”

  “We can’t transport people, unless its official business.”

  Joyce held a hand to her forehead, “I—just—need—to sleep. Can you call me a cab at least?”

  “It’s not our…”

  “I don’t have a phone, dammit!”

  When Joyce finally got settled in a hotel room, she just wanted to fall into bed. Her body ached and her head was pounding. She found a card with places that would deliver food to the hotel and placed an order. Thank God I had my wallet in my pocket at least, she thought. Next, she took out the folded square of paper with the number for corporate on it. After waiting on hold, and a transfer, John finally answered.

  “Joyce, I’ve been trying to call you all morning. Why aren’t you rolling? My screen shows you parked—still in Kansas. The consignee wants their load.”

  “Night dispatch didn’t talk to you then.”

  “I haven’t heard anything. You know you have to call in if you have a breakdown.”

  Joyce told the wearisome story again. John was thrown into a frenzy of clicks and beeps as he worked his computer keyboard, trying to get all the information to everyone who needed it. He asked Joyce a million questions while he typed. Her fatigued voice was becoming more and more apathetic as she started to drift toward sleep.

  “Joyce, where are you, a hotel?”

  “Um-mm.”

  “Get some sleep and call in when you wake up—Joyce?”

  Joyce was already sleeping when a persistent knocking jolted her back to consciousness. “Pizza-Time delivery.”

  With a groan she dragged herself to the door and paid for her meal. She put the flat box on the tiny table next to the bed and opened it. The pizza glistened with melted cheese and pepperoni, the spicy aroma filling the stale room. She picked up a hot, gooey slice and bit into it. Cheese and grease burned the roof of her mouth, and she quickly dropped the slice back in the box wiping her fingers and lips with the wad of napkins the delivery man included with the order. She flopped back on the pillows waiting for the pizza to cool, and fell sound asleep.

  10

  The Girls

  Afternoon sun beat in the windshield, glaring in Margret’s eyes. Hours of Bruce’s loud rap music slammed into her brain. Her head was pounding as she struggled against the desire to curl into a drooling, fetal position to escape the torture of cigarette smoke and noise.

  Bruce ordered Margret to exit off I-70 at Oakley, heading west on US-40 far out into rural Kansas. The hope of attracting attention from the highway patrol, or getting stopped at a weigh-station, faded as traffic dwindled to an occasional car or farm truck. Towns, only small farming communities, held little chance for help. Shortly after crossing into Colorado, he had her stop on a wide shoulder of the road.

  “I’m gonna drive now, go back there and find me a snack and I need a bottle of water too.”

  Margret was relieved not to be driving. She found a couple of bags of chips, a jar of peanuts, and some candy in the pile of stuff on the floor. From under the bunk, she pulled two bottles of water out of the plastic wrap that bound them. As Bruce drove back onto the highway, Margret noticed with some pleasure that he struggled to find fifth gear. She lurched forward, plopped into the passenger seat with the armload of treats and fastened her seat belt.

  Bruce chose peanuts, and chugged a half-bottle of water in one gulp. Margret popped Skittles. Comforted by the sugar, she tried to defuse the tension with lively banter.

  “So, have you been driving for a long time?”

  “No, I just got my CDL a little—why do you care?”

  “Just wondering. You drive so nice and smooth, I thought you’d been driving for a long time.”

  “Nah, I dropped out of college this spring and took the driver training course. I didn’t go out with a trainer, my dad was a trucker, so I’ve been around trucking for a while.”

  “Oh, where did you go to college?”

  “DeVry, College of Engineering.”

  “Engineering, that’s a difficult course isn’t it?”

  “Nah, I take to it real good. It was easy for me.”

  “Why did you quit?”

  “My ma, she was real sick and I had to take care of her.”

  “She doing okay now?”

  “She—died.”

  “Oh—I’m sorry, I…”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I lost my mom when I was real young. I don’t remember her,” said Margret.

  After that Bruce drove in silence. He seemed deep in thought, and Margret decided it was better not to risk conversation. The terrain changed to rolling hills and gullies. There were few fences as farms became ranches. Clustered in ravines, trees grew where water gathered in small streams or ponds. Often cattle would be submerged to their shoulders trying to escape heat and flies.

  After passing through a small town, Bruce took a narrow gravel road that seemed to disappear between the banks of a ravine. Margret’s anxiety made her stomach flutter, and sweat prickled her armpits. She suspected they were nearing the end of their journey, and feared what it meant for her. Her hand rested near the door handle, she thought about making a run for it if they stopped long enough.

  Dust billowed up behind them obscuring the road. It was almost dusk, Margret thought if she could get out somehow, she could disappear in the dust and dark. She had no plan after that, and had doubts about her chances for survival.

  Bruce made a call on his cell, “We’re here,” was all he said. The arch of a metal building and a tall pole with a ragged orange wind sock was all Margret could make out in the dim light. Bruce drove up to the building and stopped.

  Margret didn’t hesitate, she yanked on the door handle and was almost out the door when she felt Bruce’s iron grip on her arm. He dragged her back in and shoved her onto the bunk. The back of his hand smashed into her face, and she flew back from the force of it. Her ears hummed as she curled up with her arms covering her head, all of her senses focused on the pain.

  The tall metal doors screeched open, and Bruce drove in. “Don’t get out until I tell you to. You’re locked in and there’s no place to go. You don’t want Arnold on you, it won’t be good.” He got out and Margret could hear muffled voices.

  “Anybody follow you?”

  “Not even a weigh-station. The keys were in it.”

  “Is it loaded? We can sell the freight. What’s in there?”

  “Don’t know. Just one little problem—I got the driver.”

  “You got the driver! What the hell were you thinking?”

  “She was in the bunk. I didn’t plan on it.”

  “A woman? Well, that could be good.”

  “What will we do with her?”

  “Put her in the van, I’ll deal with her later.”

  The truck door opened and Bruce dragged her out. Margret stumbled on shaky legs, the side of her face was already swelling, and the cut on her head was bleeding again. She squinted against the yellowish lights. A big, short-necked man with a crew cut looked at her from all sides as he slowly walked around her with an uneven gait. He grinned in a way that made Margret feel dirty.

  “She’s a little homely, but Blaize will fix her up. I can use her, lock her in with the others.”

  “Wait a minute—this one’s mine.”

  “I thought you weren’t no pimp, pansy-boy.”

  “I ain’t—she can help me drive.”

  “She’ll be a pain in the ass.”

  “It’s my ass.”

  “Hey, you can’t…,” screeched Margret.

  “Shut-up,” Arnold wheeled around and grabbed her by both arms and leered within inches of her face. “I can do anything I want.” She could smell his rotten breath, and turned her head away. He release
d her with a shove in Bruce’s direction. “Lock her in.”

  Bruce jerked his head toward another semi-trailer in the other half of the building. Margret trudged that way, hoping to buy enough time to formulate a plan. She noticed the meticulous art work decorating the rig, the devil hologram leaping from painted flames. Arnold unlocked a side door and Bruce took a step as if to force her inside.

  “Get away from me, I’ll get in on my own,” she said, her eyes icy.

  The door locked behind her. The inside of the trailer was finished like a motor home carpeted with garish red and gold colors. The room where she stood was furnished with soft furniture, several interior doors closed off other rooms. Margret took a few tentative steps, gasping when one of the doors flew open.

  “Oh—I didn’t know any one else was here.”

  The young woman was small and pretty, but she was wearing clothes that seemed way to tight for her. She spoke in rapid Spanish.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “I’m Rosa, I was hoping we could talk without the others understanding,” she said, in clear english.

  “There are others?”

  “Just Blaize, and the men out there. Do you have a phone?”

  “No. What are you—we doing here?”

  “I think it’s a prostitution ring.” Rosa pushed back her sleeve revealing a raw, homemade tattoo, the initials A.L. in the outline of a semi tractor-trailer. “He’ll put his mark on you, Blaize has one too.”

  Margret abruptly sat on one of the chairs. “Oh my God! I can’t…I don’t—I mean I never…”

  Another door banged open, “You a virgin? Ooh, ooh. Arnold gonna love this…um-hum.”

  “This is Blaize,” said Rosa.

  “Yes ma’am, I’m Blaize and I’m all that and a bag of chips.” She ran her hands up and down along her curvy hips. “I see we gonna have a little work fixin’ you up some, but you be alright.”

  Margret started to cry. Rosa put her hand on Margret’s shoulder.

  “She be alright, they always cries when they come,” Blaize said, with a dismissive wave of her hand.