Authors: M. D. Grayson
“Would one of those other guys be this Mikey character?” Toni said.
“Mikey,” Reverend Art said, slowly. “Yeah. I think that’d most likely be DeMichael Hollins. He’s Donnie’s usual sidekick. He grew up here in the neighborhood, too.”
We wrote this down.
“What’re these guys’ natures?” I asked. “What are they like? Are they dangerous? Psychos? The kind of guys that hurt people for fun?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Wow,” he said. “Let me think about that. I’ve got to try and recall my college psychology classes here.” He pondered the question for a few moments, and then he leaned forward and said, “I wouldn’t say these boys are crazy—not in the clinical sense, anyway. I don’t believe they were born with some sort of physiological deficiency that made them into the guys they are now. That’s the good news. The bad news is, it doesn’t matter. They still show many of the same symptoms. Mostly, I think they’re just fools who grew up without the proper guidance and developed the wrong moral compass. It happens all the time around here. They didn’t start out bad—they just grew into it.”
“You’re right,” I said. “In the end, what’s the difference?”
He smiled. “Maybe something in the nature of reformability, I suppose. Can’t really cure a guy with a loose screw in his brain. But you might be able to reshape someone who grew up bad. Look at me. I was a pretty bad dude, myself. Not like Donnie, but I was no saint. I wasn’t mentally ill, though. So when the calling came, I was able to answer, praise the Lord.” He paused for a moment, and then he said, “But as to your real point—what’s the difference? Ain’t no difference at all if either of ’em’s got the drop on you. Don’t matter if the guy holding the gun is a natural-born psycho or if it’s someone who just grew up mean and stupid. Either way, they don’t care about you, and you’re going to be dead right quick.”
He paused again.
“Just so you understand clearly,” he spoke slowly, “I can flat out guarantee you that Donnie for certain—and that probably means the other guys, too—they’re all armed to the teeth. I know Donnie well enough to say that he’s not afraid to pull out his gun and start shooting if he feels threatened.” Reverend Art leaned forward. “And the thing of it is, he’s likely to feel threatened over almost anything—you can’t tell. He’s like one of them rattlesnakes some of those crazy preachers in the South hold. They pick it up and stroke it twenty-five times. Snake’s cool with it. Flicks his little tongue out at ’em, but he don’t do anything else. Then they pick it up the twenty-sixth time—wham! Snake bites ’em right in the neck for no reason anyone can see. Snake knows—but no one else can tell.” He leaned back and looked at us—first one and then the other. “Case you’re not getting me, don’t take this kid too lightly just because he’s young. Word on the street is that he’s vowed to never go back to jail. He says he’d rather die shooting. He’s a dangerous young man. I agree 100 percent that you need to get in there and rescue Isabel, or else Donnie’s going to consume her like Satan himself. But when you do, understand that Donnie’s not just going to sit back and watch you. He’s going to put up a fight.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Reverend Art. We’ll watch out.”
I WAS HOME by myself later that night. I’d just popped in
Songbird
by Eva Cassidy. As is my usual custom, I automatically skipped over track one—“Fields of Gold.” Don’t get me wrong, I like the song. I’m not what you’d call a “weeper” (okay, just a little) but to this day, I can’t listen to Eva Cassidy sing “Fields of Gold” without breaking down and becoming a useless, blubbering fool. Doesn’t matter where I’m at or who I’m with—if that song comes on, I have to get out before I lose it. Even if they played it at a friggin’ Seahawks game, I’d still have to bolt for the tunnels (me and probably forty thousand other people). I love all her music, but with that particular song, she reaches into me and touches something, and I’m a goner. I think it probably starts with Eva’s incredible voice. Then I think of her sad story, and then I move to thinking about all the friends I lost in combat, and then I think of lost relatives, and then it just spirals completely out of control altogether. Happens fast, too. It leaves me a wreck. So I generally do the safe thing and skip it.
Especially tonight. Toni was having dinner with her mom and sister. Cool. I mean, I need my space, right? Give me time to get some stuff done around my place. Guy stuff. So I picked up my guitar and twanged through a couple of songs I’d been working on. I’m a decent guitar player, but it wasn’t happening tonight, so I put it away. I picked up an epic James Jones novel I was halfway through, read about half a page, and then I stalled out, so I set it down. I sat there on the sofa and looked around for a minute. I got up and turned the stereo off and the television on. Five minutes later, bored, I got back up and turned the TV off and the stereo back on. I went down and sat at the table with my laptop.
Eva sang “Wade in the Water” while I stared a hole right through the computer screen, lost in thought. Damn! What was the matter with me? What the hell was going on around here?
I shook my head and refocused on the computer. Maybe I could do some work. I’d already mapped out the NSSB area north of the U-District where Reverend Art had said Donnie was living. Tomorrow, Toni and Doc and I were going to split up and start canvasing all the businesses. Our idea was to start showing pictures of Isabel around to the shop owners in hopes someone might recognize her and help us zero in on her. A bit of a long shot, to be sure. But at least we’d be doing something.
Now, I found myself staring at a map of what the Seattle Police Department calls the Track—a high-activity prostitution area just south of my apartment. The area—bounded on the north by Mercer, Westlake on the east, Fifth Avenue on the west, and Lenore on the south—is primarily a business district loaded with business-type hotels, meaning Holiday Inn, Travelodge, Comfort Suites—that sort of establishment. At the same time, it’s such a high-profile area for prostitutes that the city has actually designated it as what they call a SOAP zone—“Stay Out of Area of Prostitution.” Penalties for prostitutes with arrest records who are arrested again in a SOAP zone are high.
I never knew it before, but this area almost reaches my front door. When I saw this, I was suddenly struck with an idea. I’d never noticed any prostitution-type activity around my place before, but I suppose it could happen. But if it was happening, how did it take place? What did it look like? I decided to hop in the Jeep and take a cruise around the Track for an hour or so, just to see what I could see. I was under no illusions that I would find Isabel out there, at least not tonight. Hell, for that matter, I’d only seen one little picture of Isabel before, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to recognize her on sight anyway. But maybe I would see some activity. I was thinking that perhaps I might be able to get a sense as to what the girls went through on the streets. I didn’t plan on talking to anybody or even stopping. Just observe, maybe get a feel for the area.
Of course, getting out and doing a little recon could have another benefit. It might help me to get my mind off Toni—at least for a while.
I shut off the computer and the stereo, strapped on my sidearm, turned out the lights, and shut the door behind me. I had no idea what to expect.
* * * *
Maybe I’d formed pictures in my mind of the stereotypical scenes of streetwalkers standing in dark doorways, approaching cars as they slowed down for stop signs. Nope—I didn’t see anything like this. Maybe the fact that it had rained earlier had something to do with it, I don’t know. Fortunately, the rain had stopped, but the streets and the sidewalks were still wet. I drove around for maybe half an hour, and I think I saw three or four girls who looked more like secretaries than prostitutes. I saw no prostitutes or, I should say, no one who I thought looked like a prostitute. I suppose I should mention that I have very little experience identifying prostitutes, so it’s possible that I wouldn’t recognize one even if I saw one.
After about a half hour of burning gas with this fruitless exercise, I had a sudden, enlightening thought. I am a detective, after all. Eventually, I figure shit out. Here was my thought. If the Track fell within an official SOAP area, the girls probably knew this. If they were going to get busted, they didn’t want it to be here. So they probably didn’t make a habit of streetwalking in areas that were heavily patrolled by the police, as this area appeared to be. I’d have to get a little smarter if I wanted to discover any activity. See how this detective stuff works?
So I drove into the parking lot of a hotel called the Snuggle Inn, right off Aurora, right in the heart of the Track. The place looked like a typical suites-type business hotel—one of those where all the rooms have Wi-Fi and little mini-fridges tucked beneath a counter that holds a mini-coffee pot and a small basket of coffee packets with brand names no one’s ever heard of. The hotel was only a few years old, still neat and clean. It consisted of four buildings surrounding a central courtyard with a swimming pool.
I drove around to the back and found a space near the stairway. Then I switched off the lights and waited.
Ten minutes later, a girl walked past. Was she a prostitute? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t get a chance to see her face as she passed in front of the Jeep, but I watched her walk up the stairs and saw her knock on one of the doors and be let inside. Then, thirty minutes later, the door opened, and she walked out.
As she walked down the stairs, she was facing me, and I could see that she was a cute blond girl. She wore a bulky coat over loose, billowy pants that appeared to be gathered at the ankle. As she passed beneath the outside lights, I could see that she was heavily made up—it was impossible for me to tell her age–she could have been sixteen or she could have been twenty six. She turned and walked back to the front entrance, a path that would take her right past the front of the Jeep.
When she reached the edge of the Jeep, she noticed me. She slowed down and looked at me. Our eyes locked, and I knew. She paused for a moment, but I didn’t move, so she picked up her pace and hurried past the Jeep. I probably scared her—she must have thought I was at least a little strange, sitting in the dark parking lot. She turned the corner and walked quickly away, silhouetted in the gap between the buildings by the overhead lights.
* * * *
I’d been home maybe fifteen minutes when the phone rang. Caller ID: Toni.
“I’m home,” she said. “Safe and sound.” I’d asked her to call when she got home. Don’t ask me to explain this sudden propensity to worry about her just because I’m not there. Truth be told, she’s more than capable of taking care of herself. Still . . .
“Good,” I answered. “I’m glad.”
“You miss me?”
“A little.”
“Just a little?”
“Well, I had a good book.”
“Bastard.”
I laughed. “Just kidding. I missed you. A lot. How was your dinner?”
“It was nice. Mom’s good. Kell’s all antsy about us finding Isabel.”
“It’s only been two days,” I said. “Tell her I’m supposed to get my magic wand out of the shop tomorrow. Then, I’ll just go ahead and give it a wave, and Isabel will appear.”
“Very funny.”
“It’s not like we’re sitting on our hands. It won’t happen overnight.”
“I know. But she doesn’t. And besides, patience isn’t her strong suit.”
“Did you explain things to her?”
“Yeah, she’s cool. She’ll be okay. For a while.”
It was silent for a few seconds.
“What’d you really do tonight?” she asked.
I chuckled. “Really? I played the guitar. I read. I watched TV. Then I did some work.”
“You
were
busy,” she said. “What kind of work did you do?”
“I did a little prep work for our canvas tomorrow. Looked at maps. Looked at aerials, that kind of stuff. Then, I got a crazy idea and decided I’d go for a recon drive through the Track. You know where that is?”
“Yeah. You see anything useful?”
“It was weird. There were actually more SPD squad cars than there were people. The area seems to be really heavily patrolled. I didn’t see any prostitutes.”
“Uh, gee whiz. Maybe that’s because it’s so heavily patrolled,” she said.
“Duh.”
“Besides, most of the girls probably work through the Internet now, anyway.”
“I figured all that shit out all by myself about half an hour after I started driving around. That, plus the fact that the entire area called the Track falls into a special anti-prostitution zone.”
“A SOAP zone?” she asked.
“You know about SOAP zones?”
“Duh.” Again with the “duh.”
“Touché. I should have known. Anyway, after that, I went and parked at a little hotel, just to see if I could see anything there.”
“Did you? See anything?”
“Sure enough. A few minutes after I park, a girl walks past me, walks up the stairs, and knocks on a door. Door opens—she heads on in. Half hour later, out she comes.”
“Could you see her?” she asked.
“On the way out? Yeah, I could see her.”
What’d she look like?”
“I think she looked like a prostitute,” I said.
“Really? How could you tell?” she asked. “What does a prostitute look like? Dress? Makeup?” She asked.