Paradise Burning

by Blair Bancroft

  The teenager eyed Jade from the tips of her turquoise pumps to the shining crown of her sun-kissed blond hair. “Well, sugar, you kin jus’ kiss my black ass,” she drawled, emphasizing her retort with a sinuous swagger that ended with one lime green hip cocked defiantly in the older girl’s direction.

  For a moment Peter’s professional aplomb wavered. “Uh–ladies,” he said brightly, “how about some wine and cheese?”

  While the women—all three of them—were still gaping at the absurdity of wine and cheese in this particular situation, Peter eased Jade back onto the sofa and seated the newcomer in an easy chair across from Mandy. Hoping there would be no outbreaks of violence, he bravely turned his back and headed toward the dining table. When he whisked the napkin off the cheese, Peter eyed the small cheese knife with some misgiving. Its edges were not as rounded as he could have wished. He did an interference run into the dense quiet resonating among the three women, placing the cheeseboard on the coffee table in front of the sofa, praying the girls would sample the cheese and not each other.

  “Chardon . . . uh, white wine or ah–pink?” he inquired, smiling down at the young black girl who was sitting as primly on the edge of the overstuffed chair as if she were at a royal tea party.

  “Whatever,” she said with a grand wave of her hand. “I ain’t never had no kind but red.”

  Odd that he hadn’t recognized her when he opened the door, Peter thought. He had a good memory for faces. But the hooker he had stopped while cruising the more notorious streets of Manatee Bay last week had been wearing faded blue jeans and a scruffy T-shirt. Her hair had been done up in those tiny braids and, as far as he could recall, she hadn’t been wearing any makeup at all. Actually . . . he couldn’t even be sure it was the same girl. When she’d leaned in his car window, asking if he wanted a date, Peter had explained that all he wanted was to talk and handed her a card on which he’d written the address of the apartment, the date and time. He’d also added a fifty dollar bill, promising two hundred more if she showed up.

  It had to be the same girl. She had simply made an heroic effort to give him his money’s worth. Not for the first time, Peter’s stomach churned. He was using other people’s misery for his own gain. In the end, if he got it right, what he wrote in his book might help, but girls like this were already lost. She’d be dead of drugs, or AIDS, a violent john, or an overly greedy pimp before she was old enough to have a legal drink.

  “Delilah?” he asked as he handed her a glass of white zinfandel. “Isn’t that what you said your name was?”

  Peter was offering the quirky, vulnerable smile that always gave Mandy goosebumps. Offering it to a teenage streetwalker.

  Mentally, she took a step back, looked at herself, and her lips turned down. How unprofessional could she get? Yet how absolutely astonishing that these two creatures of the cultural underworld could, with one flip of the hip, turn her into a jealous shrew.

  “Yeah, Delilah’s my street name. Y’know,” the black girl added, casting an appreciative eye over Peter, “you must be really hot if you gonna do us all.”

  Peter swallowed a cracker the wrong way, coughing until Mandy gave him a hearty, very hearty, slap on the back. “I thought I explained,” he sputtered at last. “I told you when I spoke to you, and I wrote it in the note I gave you. I only want to talk. Ms. Armitage is my assistant. We’re working on a book. We’re going to have lunch and talk. And, believe me, that’s all we’re going to do.”

  Mandy noticed that even though Jade still had her nose in the air, her ears were standing at full attention.

  “Well, you couldn’t prove it by me,” Delilah said. “I was flyin’ the other night and, besides, I can’t read worth shit. The letters sort of dance around on the page, y’know. Couldn’t learn nothin’ no how. That’s how I took to the streets. Wasn’t much else I c’d do. About all I kin read is the numbers on cash money. And, a’course the pictures help. Y’know—all them dead presidents.”

  Delilah crunched the remainder of her cheese and cracker, washed it down with a deliberately dainty sip of wine. “Anybody gives me a fifty for doing nuthin’, I figure I kin find somebody to read what he wrote. So I did, and I’m here,” she concluded with apparent satisfaction.

  “Unless you give change, girl,” Jade declared, “you never saw anything higher than Jackson in your life. You wouldn’t recognize Grant or Ben Franklin if they bit you.”

  “You butch bitch!” Delilah screeched just before Peter clamped his hand hard against her shoulder.

  When the doorbell rang for the third time, Mandy dashed for the buzzer, wondering what fuel was about to be added to the already crackling situation.

  Karim walked, slept, walked again, his long strides crunching sand and shell beneath his feet, the suffocating Florida jungle closing in around him. Nothing assuaged the miasma of the nights. His body burned even as his stomach sickened. He was not meant for this. Those who shook their heads, wisely pronouncing life capricious and cruel, were painfully correct. There was only one way to ease his tortured soul.

  Nadya. He found her walking down the dim hallway, juggling one of those simple conveniences Americans took so casually, a large plastic laundry basket. A delicate, fragile creature, his Nadya. The top of her head, with startled blue eyes peering warily up at him, came only to his shoulder.

  It was so simple, so amusing, to place his hands over hers, to watch her eyes open even wider. Like a surreal waltz for three, they began to turn. The man, the woman, and the laundry basket in the narrow confines of the hallway. The plastic sagged, dented in, as Karim edged closer, his gaze locking on hers. Abruptly, he stopped, removed his hands, holding them out to his sides. See, I’m not pushing you. Go on, run, silly girl. I won’t hurt you.

  But, of course, she wouldn’t. Where could she run?

  He stepped forward, forcing her backwards down the hall, still holding the basket before her. Her eyes were huge. Full of anger, not terror. Too bad. Today he needed terror. Control. He needed to be a man.

  She was determined to be defiant, he saw, as she backed straight past the door to his room. He kicked the door open even as his long bronzed arm seized her forearm in a sudden grip of rage. A waterfall of white—caftans, sheets and frothy undergarments—spilled onto the ugly brown linoleum. The blue plastic basket thudded down on top.

  Karim did not see the laundry. He did not even look at the woman except to propel her inside his room, holding her fast until the door was closed, locked, the ancient sliding bolt shot home. He wouldn’t have noticed what she was wearing, except that the shorts, T-top, bra, and panties took longer to strip away than the caftans she usually wore. He did not bother to remove his shirt, but took the time to remove his khaki trousers and alligator shoes only because, even with the door locked and bolted, he was too experienced, too wary, to be caught with his trousers around his ankles.

  When he plunged into her, he knew he hurt her. But there wasn’t so much as a whimper. Just silent resignation, eyes squeezed shut, fists clenched tightly at her side. He smothered his face in the softness of her breasts, felt satisfaction at her involuntary squirm as his teeth closed around one firm pink nipple. And then he thought no more. Pounding out his frustration, anger, horror and shame on the one bright spot in his life. The person he most needed. And least wanted to hurt.

  His convulsions were as frenzied as his thoughts, as if catching him before he was ready. Before he could understand why he was here, doing what he was doing with bright sunlight pouring through the window in a house full of people just rising, in early afternoon, to greet another day.

  He lay heavily on her, knowing he was a burden, but unwilling to move. A hand threaded itself through his dark curls, tugged softly, then slid down to cup a high cheekbone on one side of his fierce proud face.

  Nadya understood. He was forgiven.

  Not that it mattered.

  He rolled toward the side of the bed nearest the wall. He would be better now. Pain seared away, the
man he once was would return. For a while. He knew it was not right, but was it not the way of the world? Women were put on earth to be useful. To be used. It was enough. He needed nothing more.

  Without so much as a glance in his direction, Nadya rose, dressed, and left, softly closing the door behind her. In the hall she bent down, retrieved the freshly laundered clothing, picked up the basket and headed back toward the open roofed area at the side of the house where the washer and dryer stood.

  She would have to do it over. But she would not complain. Washers and dryers were a miracle. More like delightful toys than a chore.

  As she was a toy to Karim, who was a very bad man. Yet somehow she could not hate him. Nadya Semyonova flipped her long blond hair back over her shoulders and began to pile the clothes back into the washing machine.

  Fawn wasn’t sure why she was standing on the sidewalk in the hot Florida sun, leaning on the doorbell of some second-floor walk-up. Except the man who’d come to the club had given her a fifty dollar tip along with the note he tucked into the elastic above the scrap of sequined fabric that was all she was wearing at the time. And he’d looked at her without a hint of the lust that filled other men’s eyes. Besides . . . two fifty was a hunk of money. And she needed a pile of it. Money so she could stay off the street. And as far away from home as possible. Money so she could travel. Not Vegas or L.A., where the other girls dreamed of going, but maybe Paris or Rome or the Riviera. Some place real far away. There were only two things Fawn was sure of. She didn’t want to be a thousand dollar stripper any more than a thousand dollar whore. And she was never going home. She didn’t care what the pastor used to preach, home was where hell was.

  Compared to home, the club was heaven. More family than she’d ever had before. If Max hadn’t fudged the age requirements when she’d first started dancing, she’d probably be dead by now. But she’d made it to eighteen, and now she was legit. All she had to do was peel down to the least little bit the law would allow—and sometimes less—and let a lot of guys pop their eyeballs at what she’d got. No hands allowed. Except for tips. Fawn smiled. There were a lot of tips. And Max made sure his bouncers never let an overly eager hand stray. Unless the girls wanted them to. But that had to be private, or at least discreet. Fawn didn’t do private or discreet. She was finished with men the day she left home.

  She pulled open the door to reveal a set of worn wooden stairs, a banister, and not a sign of life. Clutching her black leather purse with the .22 Max had given her, she began to climb. If there was a bunch of johns up there ready to jump her, she was prepared to use it. She was never, ever, going to be used by a man again. But the woman who opened the door was so far from what Fawn expected that apprehension faded into hot embarrassment. She must of got the wrong address.

  “It’s okay,” Mandy said, easily reading the young woman’s flaming face. “This is the right place. See, there’s Peter over there, and a couple of other girls. We do just want to talk to you. And whatever money Peter promised you, that’s what you’ll get. And nothing else but lunch.”

  Compared to this sprite of girl who said her name was Fawn, Mandy felt like a giant. An old giant. An old clumsy giant. The dancer was at least half a foot shorter than herself and couldn’t weigh more than ninety pounds. Her pale, piquant face was framed by a mass of long brown hair that fell in waves down her slender back. Fawn’s appeal was universal. Every man would either want to protect her, cherish her, or break her. Mandy’s ego, never very strong unless she was at a keyboard, slipped another notch.

  Somehow they got through lunch on the strength of an impressive menu—steak, shrimp, and asparagus hollandaise. Peter was fulfilling his promises, Mandy noted, and establishing rapport like a diplomat about to negotiate a particularly delicate treaty. Their talk was confined to classic, if innocuous, chitchat like where were you born and how long have you lived in Manatee Bay.

  They were nearly finished with the main course when Peter took advantage of a pause in the conversation. “Ladies, I’d like to say how much I appreciate your taking a chance on coming here today. I swear to you this is no sting. I am who I say I am.” Peter bent down to retrieve several items from his briefcase, which was on the floor beside his chair. “I’m going to pass around copies of the two books I’ve written . . . and my passport. You’ll find my picture on all three.”

  There was a general murmur of approval as Peter’s full-color—and definitely swashbuckling—photo circulated among the three women. This was the confirmation they’d all needed. Peter Pennington was legit.

  “Remarkable,” Jade drawled, along with a lingering glance at the genuine original from under the canopy of her luxuriant artificial lashes. “Even your passport photo looks good.”

  Peter grinned his appreciation. “Okay,” he declared, “I’m going to try to explain what we’re doing here. Please go right ahead and finish your lunch while I talk.” Dutifully, all four women returned to their food. “I’ve spent a lot of time traveling around the world, and I’ve seen things that were pretty ugly. Fortunately, the books I just showed you were successful enough that my publisher said he was willing to take a chance on my writing about something real.”

  Mandy leaned back in her chair, noting with satisfaction that even Jade wasn’t bothering to look bored.

  “What I’m writing about,” Peter continued, “is modern-day slavery. Everything from migrant workers to forced prostitution. Mostly, though, I’m writing about women who never intended to be involved in sex work, and most certainly not to be sold into slavery. Sometimes, these are women who were just looking for a better job, or simply women and children who set out for the market or for school and never came home. Or sometimes a woman may feel she has no other choice.

  “I was hoping,” Peter added, watching each girl’s reaction carefully, “that one or more of you might have had some experience with that.”

  Jaws had stopped moving. Forks rested on plates or were clutched in frozen fingers. Surprise, anger, but not a sound until Delilah breathed a long, heartfelt, “Shee-it, you mean people jes git taken?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Peter said, as if Delilah were a student who had done all her homework and just gone to the top of the class. “Trafficking in women and children used to be called white slavery to distinguish it from the early African slave trade, but the women and children being kidnapped these days are every race and color, so it’s more accurate to call it sexual slavery or forced prostitution.”

  “What about if it happens at home?” Fawn’s voice was soft, her blue eyes huge.

  “Sexual slavery isn’t something that just happens in foreign countries, Fawn,” Peter replied gently. “It happens here too.”

  He held up his hand, regarding the four solemn faces around him. “Sorry, ladies, I didn’t mean to spoil lunch. “We’ll talk later. Just think about what I said, okay?”

  By the time key lime pie had been washed down with mocha almond coffee, Mandy was optimistic about the success of the interviews. The girls had been touched by what Peter said, of that she was certain. No matter how good or bad their own situations, they had caught a glimpse of something worse. She sensed a spark of sisterhood, of feminine outrage. The air quivered with anticipation as they moved back into the living area of the large room.

  When they were settled, Peter laid his digital recorder on the coffee table and switched it on, making sure each girl saw what he was doing. “Okay?” he asked.

  A shrug, a nod, the wave of a hand, but no protests. Good.

  “Jade, you were the first to arrive, so you can start us off, if you don’t mind. Did you ever feel forced into doing what you’re doing?”

  “Not now I don’t.” Jade twisted a lock of pale blond hair in her slim, perfectly manicured fingers. “At first I was pretty hot about what you said. Forced? Who, me? I do it for money. I was never forced in my life. And then I remembered a few things.” The confident beauty from the Escort Service had been replaced by a thoughtful you
ng woman from the suburbs, a wife and mother.

  “My mother was into beauty pageants,” Jade said. “I can’t remember a time I wasn’t being made up, dressed up, and sent out on stage with a lot of people staring at me. I was in fourth grade before I realized every little girl didn’t live that way.” The blond beauty shrugged. “By the time I was seventeen, I’d done it all. There’d even been a hush-hush abortion. I had only two months to get my figure back in shape for Miss Manatee Bay. That’s what you do before competing for Miss Florida and then Miss America,” she explained.

  “I didn’t make it that year, but when I was nineteen I got to go to Miami for Miss Florida. Mom was fit to be tied when I lost. My whole life, that’s all she’d wanted—for me to be Miss America. And I blew it. So, yeah, I guess you could say I was forced. There never was time to learn how to do anything except be pretty. And attract men. And since I was real good at that . . .” Jade’s voice trailed away.

  Mandy felt a surge of compassion for this stunning young woman, but she couldn’t ignore her role as researcher. “Does your husband know what you do?”

  “God, no!” Jade groaned. “He’d kill me.”

  “Aren’t you risking a lot?” Mandy was genuinely puzzled.

  “He thinks I’ve got a part-time job, and I put most of the money in a mutual fund he doesn’t know a thing about. I need that money,” Jade insisted. “My girls are going to college, and they aren’t ever going near a beauty pageant.”