Somebody's Daughter

by Jessome, Phonse;

  “I guess … I don’t know … I’m not sure.” In response, Greer pulled the rings off his right hand, placed them on the dashboard, and struck Taunya with a fast, ferocious backhand blow across the face. Her lip began to bleed immediately.

  “Don’t play stupid with me, girl. I asked you if you know why you’re here.”

  “Because I left.”

  Greer slapped her three times in rapid succession. “You disrespected my family, girl, and that means you disrespected me. Now what are you going to do about it?” Taunya glanced down at the door as she turned her head away from the Big Man to protect her face. He slapped her again. “I said, what are you going to do about it, girl?”

  “I don’t know, what do you want me to do?” Greer slapped her again, and said again: “Don’t play stupid with me. What are you going to do?”

  “Go back to the escort service and work for Greg?” Wrong response; the Big Man slapped her yet again. “You better tell me what you plan to do to make this right, or I’m going to have to kill you,” he said. “You understand that? I don’t want to kill you, but unless you do the right thing by me, I will. You disrespected me—now what are you going to do?”

  “You want me to go back to Montreal with Eddy?” Once again Greer struck her, and this time the pain didn’t seem as severe. “You disrespected me. How’s working for Eddy going to fix that?” Suddenly Taunya understood, and the slight dizziness became nausea as she realized that Greer wanted her to work for him. Why didn’t he just say so? Why was he beating her? What Taunya didn’t understand was that Greer wouldn’t openly steal a girl from Eddy; they were family, and that would be wrong. If the girl chose him, that would be different; and the leaving fee, if any, would be modest. The girl would still be in the family, and Eddy would be able to maintain his own level of respect without challenging the Big Man. As Taunya sat there, sickened, hesitant, terrified, Greer pushed her head against the passenger window so hard she thought the glass would break; finally she said what she knew he wanted to hear: “I could go with you. I could work for you.”

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  “Yes.”

  Greer put on his rings and took Taunya back to the house, a friend’s place where he was staying while in Halifax. Inside, several of the pimps Taunya had seen in Montreal and at the escort service were playing cards. Neither they nor Lori, who was sitting quietly on the couch, looked up as Greer led Taunya into a bedroom. He sprawled across the bed, propped his head up on the pillow, and fixed her with a stare. “Okay, girl, if you wanna be mine, I gotta see what I’m selling. Take them clothes off.” Taunya trembled as she pulled off her things and obeyed his command for her to turn around. “Well, whatcha gonna do? You just gonna stand there?”

  “Can I put my clothes on, please?”

  “Is that all you’re gonna do?”

  “Please, can I get dressed now?”

  Greer would probably have forced Taunya to have sex with him, but something changed his mind. “Yeah, get dressed now,” he said curtly. “I got things to do.” He walked out of the bedroom and left Taunya to put her clothes on and join Lori on the couch in the family room. The cards were back in the deck, and the players were going back to their primary game.

  “You two clean this house,” Greer told the two girls as he headed for the door; Lori and Taunya scrubbed the place then spent a tense few hours waiting for the Big Man to return. When he did, after midnight, he told Taunya she’d be going to Montreal with him in the morning, then, to her surprise, left her to spend the night on the couch. Her sleeping was fitful and her dreams were lurid with images of the abuse and torture she was sure she faced if she didn’t cooperate with him—although the real nightmare was what she had in store if she did. Her mind raced as she tried to consider her options. She considered calling her real boss from the vacuum shop again but discounted it. Greer would either kill her boss or kill her, if he tried staring down the Big Man as he had with Ricky at the escort service. Her mom couldn’t help—anyway, she kept saying, these days, that Taunya was doing exactly what she wanted, and that her trouble was of her own making. The police hadn’t been much help in Montreal. No, all she could do was return to Montreal with Manning Greer. Somehow, accepting her fate made it easier for her to go to sleep; and there were no more dreams.

  What Taunya didn’t know was that Greer had come back to get her not only because her flight from the family had been an insult, but also because his main girl had vanished, and he needed a replacement—someone fresh, young, pretty. It was a bonus that he had a “justification” for insisting she owed him the ownership of her body; even better, she was just so easy to terrorize. That didn’t mean he had forgotten about Lynn—not that he cared about her as a person, but she had been an extremely profitable and dependable prostitute, and her disappearance angered rather than worried him. At first he thought she had taken another unscheduled vacation but he knew that wasn’t it, he had not beaten her when she returned from the first but he had promised he would if she repeated the behavior. That she might have been killed by a bad date simply didn’t cross his mind. Greer’s constant obsession with the renegade Jamaicans was his only focus for the loss of Lynn, and once again he vowed to hunt down the pimps who had taken a girl of his; they would pay for messing with Manning Greer and his family.

  Manning Greer had no trouble drifting off to sleep; he was safe in Halifax, where Jamaican pimps wouldn’t dare to make a move on him. It was always enjoyable to come home, but the real game was in Quebec and Ontario and he couldn’t stay here with the minor players, not for long. As usual, Greer’s only concerns were with problems other pimps might create for him—not the police. As long as he kept his people in line, and no-one made any trouble for him, the cops would stay away. Greer was certain the police had better things to do with their time than chase him and a few runaway girls. Manning Greer had no idea that two police officers working within a few kilometres of him were very interested in his actions and would soon find out that he had returned to Nova Scotia, and why.

  Brad Sullivan was nothing if not stubborn. He refused to let go of the theory that Kimberly McAndrew had been abducted by pimps and he continued to work that file whenever time permitted. He had failed to win the support of his commanding officers when he tried to have an anti-pimping operation launched but continued to enjoy their support in his pursuit of the McAndrew file. That pursuit kept him abreast of the movements of the Nova Scotia pimps. He continued to share information with Dave Perry and he and John Elliott continued to work with informants and prostitutes as they gathered information on the pimps working the Halifax area. There was still no solid bond linking police investigators in the three cities favored by Manning Greer but a strong bond was developing between two of them. Dave Perry continued to watch for Nova Scotia pimps on his turf and he continued to share that information with Sullivan. The Nova Scotia Mountie was beginning to believe Kimberly McAndrew might be dead, it had been two years since she vanished and he was loosing hope. His latest theory was that she had been abducted by pimps but that when media reports revealed the missing girl was a police officer’s daughter she was killed because the pimps didn’t want that kind of girl in their stables—she would be too much of a risk. That theory strengthened Sullivan’s resolve to go after the pimps. He was patient and he was willing to wait and watch and when the time came he would be ready to jump.

  Manning Greer did not know who Kimberly McAndrew was, or that her disappearance two years earlier had set of a series of events that was leading an angry and dedicated young police officer closer to the Big Man. The next morning, Greer visited his mother for a few hours before going to collect his property and leave for Montreal.

  Lori accompanied them on the flight, and within hours Taunya was back on the stroll with Lori and Teri, who had become Slugger’s main girl.

  The mid-August weather was almost sultry, and business was booming; Taunya did well for her man that night, and felt safe in the company
of her two friends. The Big Man wasn’t impressed; he didn’t trust Taunya, and let her know that she’d be punished if she even contemplated ripping him off. He had no reason to worry. Taunya was changing, fast; that moment of acceptance she’d felt back in North Preston had been cathartic for the teenager, who was no longer inclined to retreat within herself in cowed terror. Instead, Taunya decided to try some guerrilla action in an effort to win Greer’s approval and increase her nightly take. She would rob some of her dates. Her first target was a drunk, who wandered onto the stroll late one night; Taunya walked up to him, put her arm around his waist, and started sweet-talking him, then ran her hand up and down his chest and grabbed him by the buttocks when he made a move to stagger away. The attention was so enjoyable that he didn’t even notice when she pulled the wallet out of his back pocket. As he lurched off down the street, Taunya ducked into the washroom at Harvey’s. Phew! She’d made just over one hundred dollars with almost no effort.

  Back at the Big Man’s apartment that night, she described her exploit; Greer liked what he heard, but warned her to be careful; drunks were a sensible choice, and she should stick with them. Greer was pleased and to celebrate he took Taunya to bed with him. For the first time, the teenager understood the full meaning of the term “main girl”—she was disgusted by the prospect, but she did everything he asked, without protest. His only criticism, and it was a serious one, concerned the flower tattoo on her breast; more to the point, the Sweet Lou monogram above it. His comment was delivered with a quiet venom that was even more menacing than an explosive rage would have been: “Get that fixed. If I see that bitch’s name on my woman again, I’ll kill you and him. I want my name there, ’cause you’re my property and no-one else’s.” Taunya had become almost inured to Greer’s death threats, made daily and for little or no reason, and then forgotten. This was different; she knew instinctively that he really could kill her if she didn’t have the tattoo altered. Maybe she’d ask Greer, in a day or two, whether she could just get Sweet Lou’s name removed, then get a banner or something for the spot above the flower; she certainly didn’t want another name on her chest—especially not Greer’s.

  Her revulsion for the Big Man didn’t prevent her from keeping up her efforts to make him happy: she was learning the survival skills necessary for a girl in The Game—which she had all but given up any notion of leaving. The fact was, she had to constantly be thinking of ways to please her man, or she’d be beaten. Greer had “only” hit her a couple of times since they returned from Halifax, but she believed the next blow was always poised just over her head; the only time Taunya could relax was when Manning Greer was happy—not just with her, but with everyone else—and that was rare. The Big Man’s anger was legendary, and more often than not would be aimed at the nearest target, not necessarily the person responsible. If she had no other recourse, Taunya could always take refuge on the stroll. What Taunya should have feared, sex with strange men in strange places, she looked forward to as her only relief from the stress of life with Manning Greer. She began to look forward to going to work: Greer rarely showed up on the stroll, preferring to have Eddy or Slugger collect her money, or, more and more, have her bring it home herself—a test, Taunya thought, and vowed to pass. Most of all, there was the companionship of her friends Teri and Lori.

  The living arrangements in Montreal had changed since Taunya first arrived on the scene. Eddy and Slugger had given up their dingy apartment and now lived in a rented home with the Big Man. Greer had been sharing the home with Lynn but when she disappeared he told his two closest associates to move their girls into that one spot with him. It wasn’t that Greer wanted company. He had decided the group should remain together until the problems with the Jamaicans were sorted out.

  Taunya and Teri were especially close, and not just because they lived together; they had begun this journey together, and together they would endure its potholes and pitfalls. At the end of the night Taunya and Teri would shower or bathe together back at the house. It was their only opportunity to talk about their problems or gossip about Slugger and the Big Man, something they couldn’t do on the stroll, lest they be overheard by a girl looking for the chance to gain favor with her man through such information.

  In the confines of their shared bath they had created new street names for their pimps. Greer was the Big Mouth, Slugger was Slime Ball and Eddy was Shit Head. They laughed about it in the bathroom but were smart enough to leave it there.

  There was a good deal of camaraderie on the stroll, despite the threat of informants; Taunya, Teri, and Lori always found time to share a smoke and talk for a few minutes.

  Soon the trio became a quartet—Eddy had found a new girl, Gizelle Vachon, a seventeen-year-old Montrealer whom he had spotted near the stroll one evening. The slight blonde looked a bit lost, kind of frightened—just the air of uncertainty that makes a pimp sit up and take notice. He walked away from his car and started chatting her up, telling her she was “real hot” and that he’d love to be her man. Gizelle’s averted gaze and blushing cheeks were Eddy’s cue to keep going; he’d been in The Game for close to twenty years, longer than Greer or Slugger and long enough to recognize the diffidence that characterized an ideal recruit. Had she told him to fuck off, or looked around for assistance—or ignored him—Eddy would have backed away immediately. As it was, Eddy took only a half-hour to play his target, sympathizing with her complaints about an overbearing mother and father who forced her to meet an eight-thirty curfew, even on weekends. Usually he took girls who had already been turned out by a brother or cousin back home, but it was good to know he hadn’t lost his touch—nor did his new look do any harm, he flattered himself, running a hand through his now-tamed curls and glancing down at the heavy gold jewelry around his neck and on his fingers. Gizelle noticed, too—and she noticed the fine clothes, and she especially noticed the gleaming blue Cadillac whose passenger door he gallantly held open for her. Gizelle entered the car after Eddy invited her to join him for a burger. Before she had finished eating, she was hooked.

  Eddy played up the image of a rich, successful businessman, describing his trips he made to Toronto, Vancouver, and Florida to a fascinated Gizelle, who didn’t even ask what business he was in; just confided that she had always dreamed of seeing the world but still wasn’t sure what she would do when she finished school. She hated her classes, she said, and wasn’t doing very well; that didn’t come as a surprise to Eddy. Gizelle seemed to be a very simple girl—simple and sweet, exactly what Eddy was looking for. He tried another test, flashing his wallet when he paid for the food, and smiled at the wide-eyed expression of the little blonde. This was gonna be a piece of cake.

  Finally, Eddy told Gizelle what he did for a living—that he was a player in the prostitution game. Eddy talked about prostitution the way any salesman would talk about his product: this was a huge international business, and he was the man to see if Gizelle wanted to get in on the profits. He told her he and his partners were going to Toronto in a few days; she was welcome to come along if she was interested in the opportunity. He did not explain that her job would be to work herself to exhaustion every night, put herself in mortal danger, risk arrest or disease, and give him every cent of her earnings, in exchange for which he might decide not to beat her.

  Gizelle didn’t even hesitate: she was going to see the world, and this fast-talking stranger was her ticket. Gizelle Vachon was in the family—just like that.

  Taunya, Teri, and Lori liked Gizelle, but quickly realized they would have to constantly remind her of the rules, or she wouldn’t survive. This girl not only missed the point on most of the niceties of the stroll, but was also exceptionally nervous, afraid of everyone and everything. That made her ideal for Eddy—she always obeyed him—but the other girls knew she had to be more aggressive, projecting her own aura of danger, if she was going to avoid being victimized by dates.

  The stress of the four girls’ lives lifted considerably in late August, when the Big Man
, Slugger, and Eddy took off for Toronto, leaving them behind to work in the Montreal stroll. For Taunya, this was a chance to enjoy what freedom she could, even though she still had to work the stroll. If anyone had suggested this was also an opportunity to escape The Game, she would have shrugged as she recalled her most recent attempt to go home. At least right now she didn’t have Manning Greer to contend with and besides, she had a date with “Mr. Rogers,” her favorite regular client; indeed, the favorite of every girl on the stroll. The prostitutes had given him that nickname because they said he brought sunshine to the neighborhood every time he dropped by. When his big red car pulled up to the curb, there would be a chorus of voices: “My turn, Mr. Rogers! My turn!” Invariably he chose Taunya, though, if she was available; she was prettier than the others and usually drew more attention on the stroll.

  The allure of Mr. Rogers was what he liked to do on dates: he paid top dollar for, quite literally, the pleasure of their company. No sex when Mr. Rogers called; just pleasant conversation in a relaxed atmosphere. Sometimes he would drive around for an hour or so and chat with a girl; or they’d go to a café or restaurant for some dinner. This time, he took Taunya to a hotel and rubbed her feet until she fell asleep. She awoke hours later to find him sleeping at her side, still fully dressed; later, he told her that she looked like she needed the rest. Back on St. Catherine Street, he paid her three hundred dollars—a very expensive nap, Taunya smiled to herself. She often wondered about the life of this slim, well-dressed white-haired man, still extremely attractive despite his age, which had to be near seventy. The prevailing theory was that he was a university professor and a widower, but nobody knew for sure. The girls just knew that he brought a rare light into blighted young lives.