Hard Candy

107

MAX WALKED IN, kids hanging on him like amateur mountain climbers. Before I could say a word, Lily pushed past Max, holding Elvira's hand. She gave me a "stay where you are" look. Told Elvira, "Go with Max. I have to talk to Burke for a minute before he takes you back."

Elvira obediently held out her hand. It disappeared in Max's. He went back toward the gym, leaving a wake of rowdy kids running to catch up.

I lit a smoke. Lily sat down. Her voice had that distanced, professional tone she uses when the anger laps at the boundaries of her self-control.

"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Long-standing. Original stressor undoubtedly the mother. Compounded by numerous instances of sexual exploitation so frequent that they merged into a real-world distortion pattern. Amoral, almost sociopathic aura to her productions. She imitates affect, but has very little sense of feeling things. Nerve-endings blunted. Some indication of Borderline Syndrome too. She actually…physically feels a void inside of her. Relates to mother almost as a rival. Tested clean on the MMPI Lie Scale. Telling the truth. Guiltless. Heavily bonded to this Train individual. And she's pregnant, maybe two, three months gone."

I let her see my eyes, willing her to relax. "All that means…?"

"I don't have time for games, Burke. You know damn well what every single word I said means. You've spent years studying. Just because it wasn't in college doesn't make you a stupid thug."

I held up my hands. "Okay, okay. I wasn't being cute. I meant what's the bottom line? Where she is: it's better than being with her mother?"

"There's no better to any of this. Where she is now is just one of the places kids like her end up. Nobody wants you, so you hit the streets. And there, somebody always wants you. For something. They prove they want you by paying you money. A child like that, she couldn't tell a rescue mission from a cult."

"Is she being abused now?"

"Not in her mind. She's working for this wonderful goal. This island they're going to buy someplace. Where they can all live in peace…a big, loving family."

"Yeah, like every pimp is going to let his woman retire someday. Open up her own boutique, right? They have her turning tricks?"

Lily's eyes were dark, soulful. Little dots glowing like plutonium around the iris. Holding something in check.

"No. She was in Germany. Making porno movies. But she's too old now."

"Fifteen."

"Yes, fifteen. All she could bring in as a prostitute would be a couple of hundred a day. And she'd have to work outdoors, take a lot of risks. Train doesn't let his people take risks. No, she's not turning tricks…they're breeding her."

"What?"

"Breeding her. Like a brood mare. She told me she was 'mated' to one of the young men in the cult. When she has her baby, Train's going to sell it. You know the going rate for a healthy white baby with a solid medical history, educated parents, the whole works?"

"Fifty K and up."

"Yes."

"Doesn't she want the baby?"

"She doesn't want any baby. She expects to have a baby a year for a few years. So Train will love her. He takes the best of care of her. A special diet, exercise, regular visits to a doctor."

"The boys… he can't use them all for breeding."

"She's so cold about it, it's frightening. She says boys are worth more than girls. They can earn money even when they're old…she means like eighteen, nineteen. They go on the circuit too. The boy she mated with, he was in Amsterdam for a few years, then he came back here to work."

"She told you a lot."

"Don't you get it? She doesn't see anything wrong with it! You know what the words mean. She's not a child in her soul. Hasn't been for a long time. It's all okay. Train saved her. He saved all of them."

"She tell you about Danielle?"

"Yes. And she told me you brought Danielle back to her father. Don't blame yourself."

"You think it's true, then?"

"Oh yes. All true."

Wesley's voice in my mind: "They didn't pay me." Somebody owed me too. "Isn't she afraid Train will do something to her when he finds out she talked?"

"She's not afraid. She thinks you're a criminal. She says Train knows you. He's in control. Two of the young men, they're his bodyguards. She says they took one of the girls out of there when the girl went crazy. She wouldn't answer my questions about it- she just assumes the girl is dead. And she says her mother knows you too."

"So she thinks…"

"I don't know what's going on in that damaged brain of hers. She thinks you and her mother want to blackmail Train, or that you're going to work for Train, or you have your own organization like Train's…or God knows what. It's a simple world to her: the big fish eat the smaller fish. They eat enough little fish, they grow into big fish themselves. Here's what she said: 'Everybody gets used. The way to keep from getting used up is to learn to be useful.'"

"That's not her line."

"No. But she recites it like a fundamentalist quoting the Bible."

"You said she was bonded to Train…sounds more like bondage than bonding."

"It isn't. The bonding is real. Train is real to her. He saved her. Remember that. She's a bright girl. She knows her life was short on the streets. Drugs, a trick with a razor, a sadistic pimp…it doesn't take much to snuff out a candle in a hurricane."

Homicide danced in my mind. "Rescue me." My blue Belle. That was all she'd asked. I took her off the runway and into the ground. Like I took Danielle from her pimp. I ground out my smoke with the tip of my boot. Lily was too focused to even frown at me.

"What happens to her if Train goes down?"

She shrugged. "Elvira would find another."

"There's no place for her?"

"A psychiatric hospital. A prison, maybe. No place good."

"What should I do?"

Lily's hands went to her hips, titanium threads in her soft voice. "You brought her to me for a reason. To find out some things. Are your questions answered?"

"Yeah. Are you making any calls?" Lily was best pals with Wolfe, the head of the City-Wide Special Victims Unit. Wolfe was part of the tribe of warrior-women in the city. I'd met a few of them over the years. Catherine, the beautiful social worker in City-Wide's office who specialized in elderly victims. Storm, the brand-new head of the hospital's Rape Crisis Unit. Queenie, an investment banker who left her lizard briefcase and upscale outfits at home when she volunteered at Lily's joint on weekends. All of them not taking prisoners, slugging it out aboveground. Where it's legal. Where the light doesn't shine for men like me. Wolfe had crossed the line with me once. Just for a minute in time. Then she dropped my hand and went back to her life. I wouldn't ask her again.

"Should I?" she asked.

"Can you stay quiet for a bit?"

"I'm a mandated reporter. The law requires that I report every case of suspected child abuse that comes before me in my professional capacity."

"You just did."

"I'm calling it into the Hot Line. But I don't know her full name or her address."

"Okay."

"I will know, Burke. And then I have to call Wolfe."

"Okay."

"When will I know."

"Ten days, two weeks."

I lit another smoke, waiting for her answer. So much for me to carry. Dead weight. Unreasonable anger flared in me. Lily, she could do the right thing, sleep easy. She walked the line. Part of me wanted to pull her over it.

"Lily, can I consult you in your professional capacity? As a client?"

"Sure." Absentminded, still thinking about waiting to call the Hot Line.

"I have a problem that's affecting my mental state."

"What?" Impatiently.

"I'm going to kill someone."

She got it. Never flinched. "Ten days, Burke. It's too late for Elvira, but not for the others…not for all of them."

But for my love.