Somebody's Daughter

by Jessome, Phonse;

  Greer could feel the force of the blows, but not the pain, and he tried to force himself up. One of them stepped on his back and pushed down, and somebody else shouted: “Stay down, motherfucker, or we’ll kill you!” Greer tried to ignore the threat, but the guy with the bat struck him hard in the right shoulder, and he suddenly was unable to push against the sidewalk. Finally, the beating stopped. The Jamaicans picked up their fallen comrade and helped him into the van. As High T. was led past Greer, he spat on the fallen Nova Scotia pimp, gasping: “Get your ugly ass out of my town or you’re dead.”

  Laughter echoed down the street as the Jamaicans drove off; certain they had seen the last of this so-called Big Man. They would have been surprised to learn that Manning Greer was furious, not at all cowed by the savage beating he had taken. Within a few moments he had pulled himself up on a parking meter and begun making his way back to his car. Passersby glanced away at the sight of the bruised, bleeding man—probably because of the look of sheer rage in his eyes—but he didn’t care. They were just chumps. Safe behind the wheel, he reached for his phone, using his left hand—the pain in his right shoulder made it impossible to use that hand—and told his cousin to find him. No way he could drive; he needed his shifting arm.

  “Shit, man, we shoulda been there. Fuck.”

  “C.C.”

  “Yeah, man, what?”

  “Beat that ’ho.” Greer hung up, knowing his cousin would punish the girl who was foolish enough to get herself arrested, leaving him in a bar without back-up. It didn’t matter what went wrong in the family business; ultimately one of the girls paid the price. Greer tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and reached across his lap with his left hand. He pulled the Beretta out of its hiding place and slid the safety on and off as he contemplated revenge. The weight of the deadly weapon was reassuring—as reassuring as the Big Man’s knowledge that he would be able to count on his family in the next battle with the Jamaicans. They had been there before, and they would be again. It was time for the Blowfish to inflate.

  The first war between the Scotians and the Jamaicans began late in 1989, when Nova Scotia pimps were already running girls in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa, but not at the level they would attain by the 1990s. One aggressive Jamaican-Canadian working in Montreal took a liking to the pretty, fresh young Nova Scotia girls he was seeing and—deciding the Scotians were country hicks who didn’t deserve his respect—he planned a trip to Halifax to find some girls for his stable, which he ran in New York as well as Montreal. What the man lacked in common sense he more than made up for in nerve: on his first visit to Halifax, the pimp took his shiny Cadillac down to Hollis Street, opened the door, and asked three likely looking girls to get in. When they hesitated, he placed a gun on the seat beside him, and the request became an order. Then he simply headed out of town and back to Montreal: the Nova Scotia pimps had no idea who had pulled this bold manoeuvre.

  The information pipeline worked quickly; within weeks, the girls had been traced to a stroll in Buffalo. Meanwhile, the Jamaican decided to go back to the well, this time in the company of some protection; an enforcer reputed to be a member of the Hell’s Angels. The Nova Scotia pimps had been keeping close watch on their territory; in particular, Tank—the man who would later predict Stacey Jackson’s attraction for The Game—was spending hours on end in a parking lot near the stroll, monitoring the action and recording the license numbers of suspicious-looking cars. He would have been hanging out there anyway; Tank liked The Game and spent as much as time around it as he could. His beat-up old Caddie didn’t even draw a glance from the raiders as they cruised the stroll—but their gleaming car, with its darkened windows, certainly attracted Tank’s attention, and he phoned the home where several of the North Preston players were involved in a card game.

  The word spread like wildfire, and a convoy of more than ten cars and trucks soon left North Preston for downtown Halifax. The New York pimp probably would have gotten away, but he was being more selective on this trip and he cruised the stroll repeatedly eyeing the girls as they worked. He wanted the busiest girls if not the prettiest. He wasted valuable time shopping the stroll for the best catch—just enough time for the contingent from the country, as Scotians liked to refer to North Preston, to get into town. Tank cut him off at the corner of Hollis and Prince streets, and while he was cursing at this fool, whoever he was, there was another car, positioned behind him. Suddenly there were men jumping from their vehicles, surrounding him. The pimp’s enforcer didn’t even get the chance to threaten anyone: the first blow, from a wooden club, came from behind; it broke his forearm. That was enough for the muscle man: “Get me the fuck out of here!” he ordered, jumping into the Caddy. The young men from North Preston weren’t quite finished—they furiously pounded on the fancy black car, denting it badly and cracking a couple of windows before the pimp managed to force his way past Tank’s Cadillac and make for the nearest route out of town. A few of the Scotians gave chase, but most just celebrated the easy victory. The response showed the strength of the Scotian group: this was a family unit, whose members trusted each other and were ready to fight for each other. It didn’t matter whose girls the pimp was trying to steal: if he was raiding a Scotian’s stable, he was raiding every pimp working in Halifax.

  That fierce loyalty was characteristic of the Scotians’ rise to dominance on the strolls of Toronto and Montreal by 1992. Now a new breed from New York was showing some muscle, and Manning Greer was not about to sit back and let these Jamaicans walk all over him all over again. When he heard that these jerks had actually had the audacity to scoop one of the family’s girls, only weeks after his beating at the hands of High T. and his friends, the Big Man figured it was pay-back time. This looked like a job for Bullet he figured—the enforcer. Not everyone in the Big Man’s family was a pimp; occasionally, he relied on a very special friend from home to handle trouble with other players or to provide that little extra incentive for girls who weren’t convinced of the error of their ways even after their pimps beat them.

  A cousin and childhood friend of Manning Greer’s, Cam “Bullet” Greer was neither bright enough nor patient enough to be a player himself, but he was unquestioningly loyal and uncompromisingly violent. The twenty-eight-year-old enforcer split his time between Montreal and Halifax, and was occasionally parachuted in to handle a problem in Ottawa, Toronto, or Niagara Falls. He too was part of the street myth that surrounded Manning Greer. The Big Man did not need an enforcer; he was simply loyal to a cousin who wanted to spend time with the other players. Greer found a role for Cam to play and Cam, or Bullet, remained a loyal soldier as a result.

  Bullet’s street name originated in his bizarre habit of playing with his ammunition before loading his .9-mm handgun, a predilection he parlayed into a sick game that his friends always enjoyed watching him practice on any girl in need of a lesson. At 6′1″ and about 250 pounds, Bullet never had to pull a gun to scare a young prostitute, but if he had even half an excuse to take out his toy and play, he would.

  While Greer and three of his fellow Scotians were parked on the stroll in Montreal on a warm night in early July waiting for their Jamaican target who thought he could steal one of their prettiest young prospects, Bullet filled them in on his latest exploit, involving another young prostitute who was giving the Scotians some trouble. This girl, Clara Ferguson, was a sixteen-year-old working for the family in Halifax—yeah, the one with the crack habit, Bullet said, and they all rolled their eyes in disgust. Crack cocaine was a serious violation of the rules set by the Scotians for their young “employees”; contrary to popular belief, no serious pimp allows one of his girls to even experiment with drugs, not out of any concern for her health, but because a prostitute with a drug habit costs—the money she could be giving him is going into a crack pipe, and up in smoke. Crack pushers were impossible to control, but the pimps could, and did, use any means necessary to keep the girls away from the highly addictive drug. Clara, who had made
a lot of money for the family since being turned out at the age of thirteen—another runaway from an abusive home—was beginning to look like a lost cause, she might even have to be shuffled out of the deck. A girl with no value in The Game was dropped by the serious players. If some other pimp wanted to pick her up he would have to pay a fee; if not Clara would be relegated to working the crack stroll with the other addicts. The girls working the crack stroll had no pimps, they just worked to get high and they were not considered a threat to business since they charged only twenty five dollars for a blow job and most men avoided the crack stroll anyway. Clara had been a profitable girl though and the Big Man knew that if anyone could scare some sense into her, it was Bullet; he and the others were more than willing listen to his story. Clara was being held at her pimp’s house in North Preston and had been there for a couple of days before Bullet paid her a visit. Her pimp had done his best: Bullet laughed as he recalled that the man even went so far as to dangle her off a highway bridge by her ankles in an effort to scare her off the drug, but she somehow contrived to get some more crack even after that. When Bullet arrived at the house, Clara had been locked in an upstairs bedroom; she was taken downstairs to the big enforcer. He was sitting in the kitchen, rolling several bullets across the table, his palm grazing their smooth, round surfaces. He called Clara over and asked her to look closely at the shells—they weren’t all the same, he said. Every bullet is slightly different, girl, and one of these is very, very special—because it belongs to you. Hold it in your hand, he said. Look at it real close.… Now, give it back to me. He set the bullet aside, then delivered the punch line: the one she chose was the one he would use to kill her. Clara never forgot the encounter; years later she still talked about “her” bullet, and her fear that it is out there waiting for her. She needn’t worry, the pimps have long forgotten her, knowing well enough the crack would kill her for them. The men all had a good chuckle listening to the story, but now it was time for bullet to deliver another lesson in the etiquette of The Game. They had spotted the arrogant Jamaican’s car pulling away from its parking spot on the downtown stroll; at the wheel was the New York pimp who had scooped their girl. The Big Man leaned forward in his seat: “Drive,” he ordered. First they would show these fools whose city Montreal really was; then he, personally, would take care of that little bitch Taunya.

  Taunya Terriault had just celebrated her fourteenth birthday, in 1992, when she decided to give The Game a try—a choice that, to the three-time runaway, seemed the only option. Taunya’s childhood in the Cole Harbour area outside Dartmouth was not a happy one—although she quickly grew into an extremely attractive child, with glistening blue eyes and nut-brown hair framing classic, delicate features; and although she and her sister Gwen, four years her elder, were very close, Taunya herself had difficulty in school and at home. She had no interest in anything her teachers had to say. For her school was the place you met the people you could have fun with. At home Taunya’s problems were of her own making. Her parents loved and cared for her. Taunya was just a rebellious teen who did not like following anyone’s rules.

  Her parents blamed Taunya’s problems on that rebellious streak, which they thought too “cure” by imposing arbitrary rules on their daughter. Her early life was marred by sexual abuse, the first incident occurring when she was only three years old. Her attacker was arrested and convicted after he grabbed the child, who was playing in his neighborhood backyard, and forced her to touch his penis. The Terriaults never dealt with the issue through family counseling; preferring to try to forget the attack had ever happened. Then, when Taunya was thirteen, a close friend of the family began making suggestive remarks to her: the response of her mother was to tell her to wear less provocative clothing. A few days later, the “friend” left a party he was attending with Taunya’s parents and, under the pretext that her mother had asked him to make sure she didn’t have any friends visiting her—one of the rules imposed after the teenager’s first attempt to runaway—walked into the Terriault home. There, he assaulted Taunya, forcing her into an embrace and grabbing her breasts when she tried to resist the kiss. When she threatened to tell her parents what he’d done, the man left. Taunya said nothing to her mother and father; her actions spoke volumes, though—a few days later, she took off again. Her sister had already moved out after finishing high school and the two girls shared a dingy little apartment in a converted older home in north end Dartmouth. Gwen had a job at the Mic Mac mall, in a shoe store. It paid minimum wage, which meant the sisters could barely pay the rent, and were having trouble scrounging enough money for food. This was particularly hard on Taunya, who loved to party with her friends; she needed a job, and she needed one fast.

  The idea of trying prostitution came from a new friend, Jennifer Kennedy, a twenty-three-year-old single mother and prostitute who lived in the same building. While Gwen went to work in the mall, Jennifer filled Taunya with tales of street life—which she had left behind, although she still worked for escort services once in a while. Taunya’s ears perked up at the sound of such easy money—maybe as much as a couple of hundred dollars for a few hours’ work—and asked how she should go about getting such a job. Her friend offered what advice she could: “When you go, they’ll want to make sure you know what the business is all about, but they won’t come right out and say it, and you shouldn’t either. Otherwise, they’ll tell you that you’re wrong, and you won’t get any farther than that.

  A few days later, Taunya glanced through the escort services listed in the Yellow Pages, chose one with a nice-looking ad and phoned. She was told the agency was looking for a few girls and she could come in to talk about it; someone would come to pick her up in about an hour. The someone was a man in his mid-thirties, who drove her to the office of the escort service in Dartmouth and conducted the interview, asking her several times—as Jennifer had predicted—if she fully understood what would be expected of her. Yes, she knew what it was all about; and Taunya did know. She had had sexual intercourse already, with one of her friends; unlike Stacey Jackson, she was keenly aware that men found her attractive. She figured she might as well take advantage of that fact, and make a few dollars while she was at it.

  Taunya’s first exposure to The Game came in a different arena than that preferred by Manning Greer and his fellow pimps. Escort services offering prostitution to clients do so beneath a thin shroud of legitimacy. That shroud was the reason Taunya could not openly explain to her interviewer that she wanted to sell sex for money and he could not ask her to. It is legal to operate and advertise an “escort service” that offers men, and women, companionship. Brothel/escort services claim to fill a necessary role. They offer clients someone to take out to dinner or to a formal occasion when the client cannot find a date. They offer hostesses, not hookers. Their Yellow Pages advertisements offer up dinner dates, not blow jobs.

  The woman Taunya met when she showed up for the work the next day suggested the teenager would do very well—but she could use a look that was a bit more dramatic. “Go on into the sitting-room, dear, and ask one of the other girls to help you with your make-up.” Wearing more make-up than she liked and with her hair teased and sprayed Taunya headed out on her first assignment. She was told to meet a businessman staying at the Lord Nelson Hotel in Halifax, just across from the Public Gardens. A man in his mid-twenties drove her to the hotel and told her he’d be waiting outside in case anything went wrong. “You make sure he gives you the money as soon as you arrive,” he reminded her. “A lot of these guys try to hold out and then refuse to pay you. And remember, as soon as you have the cash, you call the office so they know everything is okay. You don’t make that call, and they’ll page me—and I’ll be up before you know it.”

  Taunya did not even notice the group of teenage girls walking in the Public Gardens as she arrived at the hotel. The June flowers were in full bloom and the girls were enjoying them after finishing an afternoon of shopping on busy Spring Garden Road. Taunya was just lik
e those girls, but she was about to enter the hotel and begin a career that would separate her from them forever. By the time she got out of the elevator on the fifth floor, the bit of paper that told her what room number to find was clutched in her sweating hand; her heart pounding, she opened the door in response to a slurred “Come in.” The naked man sprawled on the bed had gray hair, a big paunch, and pasty-looking skin; he was in his mid-fifties, but to Taunya he looked about two hundred years old. Grabbing his penis, he ordered the disgusted girl to “come and get it.”

  “You have to pay me first.” Taunya hovered just inside the doorway and waited, and as the client got up and staggered towards her she could see—then smell—that he was drunk. Without a word, he grabbed her and threw her onto the bed, then started pulling at her clothes; Taunya pushed him off her body, and he rolled off the bed. Before he had a chance to haul himself off the floor, Taunya dialed the agency and breathlessly pleaded for help. Then the line was disconnected and the drunken businessman was looming over her again. Tears of fright and anger springing to her eyes, Taunya shouted that she had a bodyguard in the hallway—“and if you don’t leave me the fuck alone, I’ll get him in here.” The man nonchalantly reached for a glass on the bedside table and sipped, then offered her a drink, laughing noisily when she glanced past him towards the doorway. The only way she was getting out that door, he said, was by doing the job she was hired for. Just then came a loud knock, and Taunya flung open the door, pushing the man aside. Her driver stomped into the room and a relieved Taunya scooted out into the hallway. She could hear her “bodyguard” yelling and the drunk laughing. There was a moment of silence; when the younger man joined Taunya in the hallway, he handed the girl five twenty-dollar bills, which she pocketed without asking any questions. Nor did they chat on the way back to the agency. After handing over the cash, Taunya said she wouldn’t be coming back—this was just too much for her. “Give it some thought, sweetie,” the woman urged. “It’s not always so bad”—and she gave the surprised teenager fifty dollars, her share of the hundred. Taunya hated the job but had to admit she liked the feel of money in her pocket as she returned to Gwen’s apartment.