“What the fuck are you doing?” He knocked the tray from Svetlana’s hand.
“The girls are hungry.”
“Fuck them. They want to eat, they work. They don’t want to work, they can starve.” He kicked the fallen food into the hallway. After giving Svetlana a chilling glance, he walked out.
“I’m so sorry, men are pigs and Kolya is the worst. But he is the boss. I have to do what he says.” The girls looked at her, scared into silence.
“What does he want us to do?” Nika asked in almost a whisper.
“It is nothing, really. Men come here, fellow Russians, nice men, lonely. They pay us to spend time with pretty girls like you.” She made it sound innocent, almost a charity.
“And are we supposed to sleep with these men?” Nika asked.
“We are all women here, I can speak frankly. Which one of you hasn’t slept with a man because he was cute, or had a car, or could afford to buy you dinner and a night on the town? This is the same, you’ll see. Men are pigs and they want what we have, so why not charge them.” She left for a moment and returned with a washbasin, a water jug and fresh towels. “Clean yourselves and I will return for you in ten minutes.”
After the door locked, Zhanna burst into tears.
“She’s right,” Yumma said. “When I fucked Vadic, all he bought me was dinner. If I don’t like the man, I’ll tell him to fuck off. Svetlana wouldn’t make us screw a guy we didn’t want to.”
“You think?” Zhanna said, wiping her eyes.
“Sure.” Yumma splashed water on her face, dropped her dress off her shoulders and cleaned her pits. Slowly Zhanna joined her. Nika sat on her bed, not moving, watching them.
“Come on, Nika, you don’t want to stink up the place,” Yumma said.
“I’m not going,” Nika said.
“You have to eat.”
“No.”
“What if they are cute, and sweet?” Yumma asked.
“I don’t care.”
“What, you’re a virgin?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” Yumma said, “it’s no big deal, really. All you have to do is lay there. The man does all the work.”
“I’m not going,” Nika said.
When Svetlana returned, she took notice of Nika but said nothing, as if she had been expecting her to refuse. She led the other two out and locked Nika in. The lights went out and Nika was left in the dark with her hunger and fear.
CHAPTER 9
“Relax, your fucking dog is fine,” Piper said. We were sitting in the beast in the back parking lot of Club Xtasy. After finding Gregor’s apartment empty, I had gone to her. “Oh yeah, and Gregor and the Russian skirt are ok, too. By the way, are you fucking her or is Gregor?”
“No one’s fucking anyone.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Tell me about it.”
“If you’re not getting laid, then why are you tangled up in this mess?”
“Where are they?”
“Gregor called me, they’re laying low over at his mother’s place, he gave me the address. Now are you going to tell me what the hell you’ve got into?”
“Long story.”
“Will it have a happy ending?”
“I doubt it.” I filled her in, the short version, meeting Anya, the lap dance, the way she made me feel. I kept it simple.
“She must be good,” Piper laughed, “to convince an old cynic like you that she actually had the big O.”
“I don’t think she faked that.”
“Men never do, and you are a man. So you had a couch tumble, fell in love and now mobsters are trying to kill you. No, don’t explain it. It makes perfect sense in Moses World. You do know it is possible to fall in love without people ending up dead?”
“Didn’t say I was in love with her.”
“No, but you’re willing to risk life, limb and Gregor to save her and the baby sister. What’s that sound like to you?”
“Stupidity.”
“Exactly, or in other words, love.”
“Her little sister, she’s lost. Nobody will give a fuck if she lives, dies or anything in between.”
“And if you weren’t trying to get with the big sister, you’d still care?”
“Yes.”
“We have plenty of kids in trouble right here in LA, if it’s sainthood you’re aiming at.”
“I don’t know them, their stories. Hers, I do. If I don’t do something about it, I’m no better than the freaks who have her.”
Piper understood, even if she didn’t admit it. She and I didn’t vote, picket, donate to save the children, we just did what we could for those we met and left the big picture to those with grander visions than ours. She gave me Gregor’s mother’s address and a warm kiss goodbye. For a moment as her lips pressed on mine, I wondered when I was going to come to my senses and fall for her. Then again, even with all her flirting, she knew me too well to ever make the mistake of falling for me.
Gregor’s mother lived in a California bungalow court off Broadway in Glendale. The small house smelled of boiled meat, cabbage and fresh baked bread. Gregor pulled me in the door, looking around to be sure we were free of prying eyes. His mother knew nothing of our troubles, he wanted to make sure I kept it that way.
“Those Russian fucks showed up at your place. I should have stayed, taken them out. I was worried about Anya.”
“You did right.”
“No.”
“I’m alive, you’re alive, Anya’s alive. You did fine. I want you to stay here while I get us a clean car and try and figure out what the hell we’ve stumbled into.”
“We’re going to find Nika.”
“Yeah, we’ll find her.”
From the path outside, I looked in through the kitchen window. Angel was curled up on the floor, gnawing on a bone at the feet of a small plump woman. Anya was chopping carrots into a bowl. She was wearing a large denim shirt that came down to her knees, it had never looked that good on me. Maybe it was the domestic setting, or the lack of makeup and spike heels, but all the sense of stripper was gone. She was a beautiful young woman, the kind you took home to mother, if your mother wasn’t a gin-swilling Jesus freak. I knew, looking at her, I could wake up every morning, roll over, see her and count myself a lucky man.
Gregor came into the kitchen, snatching a bite out of the salad Anya was making. She slapped his hand playfully and they both started laughing. I walked quickly away before I could convince myself I should stay.
I called Helen, my friend from the dog park. She had someone for me to meet. The pink light of sunset was sparkling off the Silver Lake reservoir as I rolled into the hills.
“Bottom line? You could stumble around Ensenada for months and never find their safe house.” Peter Brixon, an LA Times reporter, was sitting across from me in the breakfast nook in Helen’s home.
“And taking you with me will do what?” I asked.
“A, I speak Spanish, helpful when in Mexico. B, I’ve spent the last year investigating Russian sex trafficking, so we won’t be starting from zero.” He spoke in a rapid clipped way that reminded me of a meth freak two grams into a bad bender.
“Rolling with a punk civilian, looking for his shot at a Pulitzer, is an easy way to get dead.”
“Moses, don’t be such a prick,” Helen interjected, “Peter came here to help you.”
“No, he’s right,” Peter said. “You want my credentials? Fine. Somalia riots, Haiti coup, in Afghanistan I was embedded with Air Cav. Now do I strip down, compare bullet scars to prove I’m no fucking cherry?”
I looked from him to Helen. “I like him. If he walks like he talks, he may survive.”
I had only one stipulation and it was a deal breaker: he could come along, he could write his story, I didn’t even care if he turned it into a million dollar movie deal, but he wasn’t to use my name. Not in the paper, not with cops if it went wrong, not even to his favorite girl. Never. I didn’t need the heat that came flooding in with a little notoriety.
While Peter went to pack, I dropped the Crown Vic with Jason B, he was a part-time actor and full-time gear head. He had started a business buying used cop cars and selling them on eBay. But he discovered the real green was in building sleepers for people who needed to run fast and attract as little attention as possible. I had steered illicit business his way, and had hooked him up with a connection for cheap parts of questionable origin. I figured he owed me a solid.