Somebody's Daughter

by Jessome, Phonse;

  Greer swore as he looked between two of the houses at the next street and saw police cars. Two of the cars giving chase had circled the block when Greer headed down the delivery lane and they were already on the street in front of him. Greer crawled beneath a sprawling evergreen bush and tried to figure out a route of escape.

  He could hear the officers behind him. They had already scaled the fence but were moving very slowly with their flashlights trained ahead of them. Adrenaline flowed through the officers leading the search. They had all been briefed on the violent nature of the man they were hunting and while they all wanted to make the arrest, no one wanted to find the cornered suspect alone.

  The fugitive began to consider what was happening; he had a violent temper and he was angry but he was not stupid. There was no way to escape and he wasn’t about to start a fight with a bunch of armed men in a darkened back yard. Greer was pretty sure someone would just shoot him. Some of his cockiness began to return as Greer considered what it would take to convict him. None of the Big Man’s girls would dare to sign on him. He might do a little time for the attempted escape but nothing serious. As the officers approached, Manning Greer knelt with his hands behind his head welcoming them. There would be no struggle from the Big Man. He was too smart.

  The police pushed Greer face down into the grass and cuffed his hands behind his back. Greer could smell the freshly cut lawn clippings as they patted him down, carefully looking for the weapon he was supposed to be carrying. It was not there. Greer had left the gun in the van. His favorite 9-mm was for the war with the other pimps and Greer hadn’t even considered grabbing it as he ran from the police. He knew he could use the system in his war with the police and a gun would just complicate his problems. Many of the older pimps had told Greer how easy it was to beat a charge—as long as your girls don’t sign you’re safe they’d told him. Greer also knew he could beat a wrap even if a girl did sign. He had to make sure she did not testify at his trial. Manning Greer was startled as he was led out of the field to the next street and the waiting police cruisers. He was suddenly blinded by the lights from television cameras and the quick burst from flash cameras used by the newspaper photographers. Greer hung his head and leaned forward to shield himself from the cameras. His big upper torso leaned so far forward the officers leading him to the car had a difficult time preventing Greer from falling in front of them.

  Back at the station, the task force officers began to sort out the suspects and charges. Eddy and the Big Man could face counts of exercising control and living on the avails of prostitution arising from Gizelle’s statement; but Perry realized he would need cooperation from Taunya and Teri to prosecute Slugger and extend the charges against Greer. While Perry did the paperwork, other officers interrogated Smit and Peanut about Stacey’s whereabouts, and were met with a wall of silent contempt. It didn’t phase the investigators; they’d seen it in almost every pimp they arrested. The Scotians, like the others before them, had confidently defied the law for so long that even under arrest, they were confident the police were just spinning their wheels. Soon enough, they were certain it would be back to business as usual.

  At Joystick’s apartment, Stacey’s respite was coming to an end; her new pimp made it clear he expected her to repay his kindness, starting that very night. She had no choice but to return to the stroll. As she stood silently on Church Street, Stacey began to wonder where the other Nova Scotia girls were. Taunya and Teri were at the station, and by now, so was Annie Mae. Smit and Peanut had given the Toronto address of the apartment when they were booked, and police found her there waiting for her ride downtown. Meanwhile, one of the task force’s informants spotted Stacey on the stroll, and only an hour after she arrived for work, two unmarked cars and a cruiser pulled up the curb. Mesmerized by the flashing lights glinting off their badges, the confused, exhausted teenager allowed herself to be led to a car and whisked off to the station.

  Taunya, Teri, and Annie Mae had been taken to a waiting room while members of the task force waded through the paperwork and made arrangements for Taunya and Teri to be flown back to Nova Scotia. Both fourteen, they could be held by police and returned to their families, unlike Annie Mae, who at nineteen was considered an adult—and a very noisy, angry adult who had been demonstrating her feelings for the police ever since they’d brought her in. Why had she been arrested? When was she going to be released? Where was her friend Stacey? The answer to at least one of those questions was right around the corner. Annie Mae suddenly screamed as she looked through a window out into the busy squad room—Stacey was being led in by two officers. The three girls tried to get to their friend, but police stopped them at the door and soon afterward, the still-befuddled Stacey was led to an interrogation room for questioning, while Dave Perry made the call he’d been looking forward to all evening—“Mrs. Howard?” he asked, and his cheerful voice was all she had to hear to know that Stacey was safe.

  The interrogating officers immediately noticed Stacey’s horribly mangled legs, and asked her what had happened. No more stories about accidents on the stairs—Stacey was ready to tell the truth. In the same flat, off-handed manner she’d been using all day, she told them how Smit had whipped her. Well, any further questioning would have to wait; much as they and Perry wanted to hear more, they wanted most of all, to get a signed statement against the pimp. This girl needed medical attention, fast; the emotionless tone of her description indicated a state of shock. The police officers accompanied Stacey to a hospital where they photographed the marks left by Smit and his wire whip; she would heal before the trial and they wanted a jury to see what they were seeing.

  Stacey’s legs had almost healed when this photo was taken, but still show bruises from the awful beating.

  While Stacey was being treated at a nearby hospital, Taunya, who had been guzzling can after can of pop from the squad-room machine, found herself in dire need of a bathroom. As a female officer escorted her down a narrow hallway, she noticed the open door to a small room; peering inside, she saw Manning Greer, shirtless, his feet bare. Glancing up, Greer saw his main girl and flashed her a bright smile, completely unrestrained by the presence of the officers in the room with him, or the policewoman at Taunya’s side. She walked on, surprised by her own reaction. Taunya hadn’t felt in the least frightened at the sight of Greer; she was deeply relieved that he was in custody, and she decided then and there to give police the statement they wanted—and advise Teri to do the same. The police hadn’t been able to help her in Montreal, but maybe that was because she hadn’t signed on her pimp. Well, she wouldn’t make that mistake again: Taunya was tired, and she wanted to go home, and she wanted to live like a normal human being again.

  Taunya and Teri gave their statements and Dave Perry had what he wanted, solid evidence to go with the information he had been gathering on the Scotians. By the time all of the statements were analyzed Manning Greer faced a total of twenty charges ranging from kidnapping and living on the avails of prostitution to possession of a weapon. Slugger, Eddy, Peanut and Smit faced twenty-six charges among them.

  Meanwhile, the treatment Stacey received at the hospital was clearly restoring her usual mood—which is to say, the arrogant, angry and defiant attitude task force officers often observed in prostitutes first dealing with the police. Oddly, though, the teenager also answered every question the investigators asked. It was a strange interview for the investigators who listened as Stacey alternately cursed them, then responded to every query in great detail, without hesitation, from her recruitment into The Game to her experiences in Toronto. They had their signed statement, but what were the police going to do with Stacey now? Perry pondered the question as he read through the account of her nightmare. Understandably, her mother desperately wanted Stacey home in Halifax, but it wasn’t quite as easy as that. She was seventeen, and hadn’t been declared a ward of the court, so he had no authority to hold her or send her home.

  Perry would have to play it by ear: he started
by telling Stacey who he was and that he’d been speaking with her mother. The girl promptly turned on him, cursing and shouting and demanding to be released; familiar with this reaction, the officer gently explained that everyone around her, including her mom, knew she was a victim and had no intention of pointing fingers at her. Perry understood that Stacey was judging herself, that she believed everyone would think she was nothing but a “whore,” and that her sense of guilt could be very dangerous; it was a feeling that could drive a girl back to prostitution as much as a year after she’d left the streets. A girl misjudged or ostracized by former friends in the “square” world often began to feel cut off from mainstream society, and understandably inclined to seek questionable comfort even in the welcoming arms of a pimp.

  Dave Perry knew he had to keep this from happening if he possibly could, and his first step was to make sure Stacey stayed away from the lawyers arriving at the station to see to the needs of Manning Greer and the other Scotian players. These lawyers, who had previously represented Annie Mae and a few other incarcerated prostitutes, also wanted to talk with Stacey and her friends, to ensure their rights were respected.

  As the police tried to find a way to convince Stacey to return home they took her back to the waiting room where Annie Mae was sitting alone. Incredibly, Annie Mae who had no intention of leaving The Game had given the police a signed statement. She did it, she told Stacey, because she was angry at Smit and Peanut for their behavior the night before and she wanted to scare them a little. Annie Mae told Stacey she would not testify and would not cooperate any further when the cases came to trial. She kept her word and avoided the police after that night. She also gave Stacey a bit of advice. “Our lawyers are coming now honey, you talk to them and they’ll get you outta here. If you want to testify against Smit that’s your choice, but first you need some cool down time and they’ll get you away from the police.”

  Stacey thought she would testify but she still wasn’t considering leaving The Game, even as she glimpsed the horrible results of its down side each time she looked at her injured legs. It was only sheer circumstance—or luck—that got the seventeen-year-old Haligonian away from the pimps and their high-priced legal help, and out to the Toronto airport. Mrs. Howard had told Perry that her brother was on the next flight to Toronto, so the constable asked two task force officers to drive with Stacey, treat her to some coffee or a snack, then get her to the airport to meet that flight. Her uncle could take it from there. When the two men in suits came to the interrogation room and told her to follow them, she thought she was being freed by those lawyers Annie Mae had told her about. Annie Mae waited, and when the real lawyers arrived she left the police station with them. Annie Mae was free but her pimp was not. She returned to the stroll and told the few Nova Scotia girls left there what had happened. Ever the “Choosy Suzy” Annie Mae picked one of their pimps and, agreeing with his assessment that Toronto was too dangerous, returned to Halifax and continued to play her part in The Game.

  As Annie Mae linked up with another player, Stacey drove around with the two police officers, convinced the pimps were making sure she was safe. Even when they got to the airport, she did not realize something unusual was going on: Stacey sat numbly, watching as a throng of journalists, some wielding huge cameras, begin to gather around a man walking towards her and the officers. Suddenly he was beside her, smiling. It was her Uncle Henry.

  Now completely confused, she stared uncomprehendingly at Henry Peterson. How had he known where to find her? Why were those reporters bothering him? And what would these lawyers do if she tried to talk with someone from home? Stacey’s uncle embraced her in a big hug, but he could feel her whole body recoil, partly because the physical contact renewed the discomfort in her arms and legs, partly because she did not want affection. His concern mounted as he glanced at her bruises and her street clothes. The two officers guided them outside to escape the suddenly converging reporters who wanted a word with the Maritime teenager who’d been at the centre of the police raid, and as they sat in the officers’ car near the entrance to the terminal, Peterson started chatting encouragingly about how happy the family was that she was coming home. “I’m not going back to Halifax,” Stacey retorted defiantly, looking at the “lawyers” for confirmation. Instead, they started talking to her uncle about severe trauma, and recovery period, and support mechanisms—what did that have to do with the family? Heartbreakingly, Stacey was still thinking of the Scotians as her family—not her devoted uncle, or her mom waiting anxiously at home. Stacey’s uncle described everything he felt she had to look forward to at home—her old friends, her plans to go back to school—and finally he hit on an effective approach. “Stacey, if you don’t come home now you can forget about ever seeing your son again,” Henry Peterson said, bluntly. “They’ll take Michael away forever.”

  “They can’t do that, can they?” He nodded, gravely. In the weeks since coming to Toronto, Stacey had banished all conscious thoughts of her child, telling herself he’d be better off with any of his other relatives, hers or Roger’s, than growing up with a prostitute for a mother and pimps for baby-sitters. Suddenly she desperately wanted to see her baby again. “Do you think it’d be okay if I went home for a little while?” she asked the two men, who glanced at each other, confused; didn’t she understand that home was exactly where they wanted her to be? They didn’t understand that Stacey still thought they were lawyers for the Scotians—lucky thing, too, for the officers. “Of course you should go home” would have met with utter opposition, coming as it did from the police. Well, she would go home for a bit, but as Stacey sat next to her uncle on the plane, her mood grew aggressive again; she answered all Peterson’s questions with contempt and defiance. Her whole family was so square it hurt! Then she saw Taunya and Teri sitting a few rows away, and Stacey felt a bit better just knowing the girls were there. She couldn’t have known that her two friends were experiencing an entirely different range of emotion—guilt at having turned to prostitution when all they had wanted out of their trip to Montreal was a bit of adventure; anxiety that their families would hate them for making that decision; and fear that they would be unable to fulfill their goal of leaving The Game.

  At the Halifax airport, Constable Brad Sullivan was sitting with Debbie Howard, waiting for the arrival of Stacey and the other girls. Sullivan had made sure there was a private room for the families, so they could have a reunion untroubled by a barrage of journalists’ questions about what it was like to be a juvenile prostitute. Debbie Howard appreciated media efforts to focus public attention on the serious issue, but she too wanted to avoid a mob scene. As she sat waiting with the other families, a woman walked over and asked who she was.

  Mrs. Howard smiled and introduced herself but the answer was not what the woman was looking for.

  “No I mean who are you, you must be someone important the way everybody is talking about your girl. It was on TV and the radio and everything.”

  Debbie was puzzled by the question and explained that she wasn’t anyone special, just a mother who wanted her girl back. That answer didn’t wash; Teri’s mother, Lorraine MacDonald, also wanted her daughter back, but she explained, no one had seemed to care.

  “Did you call any reporters and tell them about her?”

  “No.”

  Teri’s mom had been trying to hide what had happened to her daughter from others in her family. She had considered it a very private matter to be dealt with discretely, she had contacted police and filled out a missing persons report but had not gone further. Debbie explained it was a police officer from Toronto who told her to contact the media and she was glad she followed the advice. Mrs. Howard had a very different view of what had happened to her daughter. Mrs. MacDonald believed Teri had chosen to run away and be with the pimps and she was ashamed of her young daughter’s decision. Debbie knew Stacey had gone with the pimps but she knew first-hand how an abusive man could force a young woman into almost any decision. Debbie wasn’t m
uch older than Stacey when she married her first husband and she knew when she walked down the aisle that he had a drinking problem and that he was prone to beating her but she still went through with the marriage. Debbie had gone through a great deal of self analysis in the years since she walked away from Stacey’s father. Her understanding of her own guilt and confusion would be a valuable asset as she tried to help Stacey cope with the decisions the teen had made.

  When the flight arrived and the girls were re-united with their families Brad Sullivan introduced himself to Stacey and told her he would like to have the opportunity to talk with her about the people in the Halifax area that had been involved in her recruitment. Stacey became defiant very quickly; she still believed it was the lawyers for her pimp who had freed her and allowed her to return to Halifax. She had no intention of talking to some cop and getting herself into trouble with the family. For weeks Smit had been lecturing Stacey about how she was now a part of the family and that only the family would look after her if there was ever trouble. At the time Stacey thought he was being foolish but the moment she was free of Smit and her life in the street she began to use the expression “my family” whenever she talked about Annie Mae or the others she had left behind. The phrase would lead to some heated arguments between Stacey and her mother.