He wasn’t sleeping well. The stress was getting to him. But this was his gig—he’d wanted it. Except this time he was flying solo. There were no rules, no guidelines about what to do when. He wondered how he’d perform when they gave him a job that required more than surveillance. He needed to come through. He had a feeling he knew what that job was going to be. And he couldn’t let his personal feelings get in the way.
AT FIRST
Georgia didn’t hear the knock at her door. She was working on the computer and the TV was on. When the tapping persisted, she thought about ignoring it. She was in the middle of searching articles on teenage prostitution. Then she realized whoever was there probably could hear the TV’s babble from the hall and knew she was home. Easier just to get rid of them.
She opened the door to see her upstairs neighbor, Pete Dellinger, leaning on a pair of crutches.
Her eyes widened. “What happened to you?”
He smiled sheepishly. “Fractured my ankle playing basketball two days ago.”
She opened the door wider. “Well, I guess you’d better come in and sit down.” So much for getting rid of them.
He hobbled in. He’d cut off the right jeans leg, and the leg was encased in plaster from his toes to his knee. She examined the cast. “All that for an ankle?”
He shrugged, or as good a facsimile as he could while manipulating the crutches. When he reached the couch, he turned around and leaned the crutches against it. Plopping down on the cushions, he blew out a breath.
Georgia followed him over. “Does it hurt?”
“Not too much.” He patted his shirt pocket. “Vicodin.”
She nodded. “What can I get you?”
“You got a beer?”
“You’re on Vicodin.”
“One beer won’t kill me.”
She eyed him, then shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t drink.”
He frowned. “Then what were you doing at Mickey’s the other night?”
“Making a mistake.” She shot him a look, daring him to contradict her.
He looked back. Then his eyebrows smoothed out. “No problem. I’ll take whatever you have.”
She went into the kitchen, got out a couple of Snapples and poured them into glasses. Coming back into the living room, she handed one over. “Did you at least make the shot?” She pointed to his foot.
“Nope. Lost by two points.”
“The final indignity.” She settled on the other end of the couch. “What about your job? Can you work?”
“I’m a bureaucrat. I’m always able to push paper around.”
She thought back to his comments about fish waste and how to dispose of them. “You do environmental stuff?”
He grinned. “Nope. But I used to go fly fishing with my father in the North Woods.” He paused. “I work for the State of Illinois. In the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Weights and Measures.”
“Never heard of it.”
“I’m the director.”
“Oh.” She crossed her legs uncertainly.
“Don’t worry. No one else knows we exist either,” he said. “And with any luck, we’ll keep it that way.”
“What do you do?”
“I travel around the state measuring and weighing products.”
“Why?”
“To make sure you get what you pay for. For example, I make sure you’re really getting a gallon of gas, a bushel of potatoes, or a pound of hamburger.”
“How?”
“I weigh things. With my scales.”
“You have a special set?”
“I do. See, most people take for granted they’re getting what they pay for. But the cost of even tiny inaccuracies can add up. For example, an error of one tablespoon per five gallons of gas can mean $125 million a year.”
“No kidding.” She tried to look interested.
“Yeah.” He seemed to be warming to his subject. “And when you compute the added costs of—” He cut himself off. “Hey. You don’t really care about this, do you?”
“Not really,” she smiled.
“That’s okay. No one else does either.” He sipped his drink and looked around the living room. “You live—sparingly.”
Her smile disappeared. “What does that mean?”
“It’s just that you don’t have a lot of things, you know? Pictures, knickknacks, vases.”
She imagined the home he used to share with his wife. It was probably stuffed with “things.” She looked around, trying to see her place through his eyes. It did look bare. Untended. Still. She felt a grain of irritation. “I’m not into clutter.”
He backtracked. “I didn’t mean to—actually I like it this way. More space.”
She figured he was lying but let it go.
“So, what’s been happening with your case?”
She set the glass on the coffee table. “You watch the news tonight?”
He nodded. “I had a feeling you were involved.”
She filled him in, including her suspicions about Sara Long and Derek Janowitz. He listened so intently that her irritation dissolved, but when she finished, he shot her a disbelieving look. “Are you saying a bunch of suburban teenagers are running their own prostitution ring?”
“It might be tied into a larger operation.” She explained about Derek’s Eastern European roommates. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” She teased.
“Me?” A flush crept up his neck. “No. But I don’t run in those—oh, never mind.” He threw his arm over the back of the couch. “Tell me something. Why would girls do something like this?”
He’d asked the same question she’d been mulling over. “Money, mostly.”
Pete shook his head. “Pretty extreme way to make it.”
“Depends on your perspective,” Georgia said. “You make a lot of money in a short period of time. And all you have to do is take off your clothes and fuck someone.”
He gazed at her. She wondered what was going through his mind. Then he said, “Does that mean the Monica Ramsey angle is a dead end?”
“I’ll continue to pursue it. But this—well, this could lead in a very different direction. It might turn out the only thing the Ramsey girl is guilty of is showing up at the Forest Preserve on the day Sara Long was killed.”
He went quiet again and sipped his Snapple, then held it out and examined it. “This is good. I’ve never had it before.”
“It’s pricey, but I like it too.”
He set down the glass and motioned to the computer. “I interrupted you.”
“It’s okay.”
“What are you doing?”
“You really want to know?”
“It’s got to be more interesting than weighing produce.”
Georgia pulled one of the kitchen chairs over to her desk. Pete got himself across the room on his crutches.
An hour later, they’d printed out and skimmed half a dozen articles about suburban teenage hookers. How girls were approached at malls and recruited with promises of clothes, makeup, and accessories. How one girl started stripping in hotel rooms and “graduated” to placing ads on a personals service. How the term “Trix are for Kids” had a new meaning when girls as young as nine were recruited. They read how educated girls—particularly blondes—were considered preferable, because they worked harder and brought in more money. How the johns in the suburbs were mostly family men in SUVs with baby seats in the back. They also found an article on a new breed of pimp: “Popcorn pimps,” high school students themselves.
“Maybe I’m hopelessly naive, but I still don’t get it,” Pete said.
“Get what?”
His brow wrinkled, and he looked almost pained. “Why?”
Georgia pointed to the pile of articles. “What it says there. Money. Independence. A sense of power.”
“Still, for a girl to go to bed with someone at that age, just for what you can earn....”
“Actually, I think there’s something else at work.”
“What?”
“Peer pressure.”
“Huh?”
“Status—the acquisition of things—is so much more important for kids today. I saw that when I was on the force. It’s not about having a pair of jeans from Gap. It’s about having a four hundred dollar pair of jeans. It’s not about having a Walkman or a stereo; it’s about having an iPod. Or an iPhone. Or a Blackberry.” She paused. “You can’t get those things working at Starbucks or McDonald’s.”
“So they’re having sex for them?”
“Tell me something. If your parents can’t afford to buy them for you, and you can’t earn enough money to buy them yourself, what are your options? Besides shoplifting?”
The monitor cast a bluish light over his face. He looked upset.
“Think about it,” she went on. “For years girls have been getting the message that flaunting and using their bodies is okay. Some of them have just taken it to the next level. So what if you give a few blow jobs? Fuck a few men? If that’s what it takes to buy a Michael Stars shirt or a pair of Jimmy Choos...”
“I suppose I could understand if they were older. Over twenty-one and on their own. But these are teenagers. Living at home. From good families.”
Georgia didn’t answer.
He fidgeted on the couch. “Whatever happened to kids going steady? Dating? Proms?”
“There’s still some of that.” She leaned back. “But a lot of teenagers don’t date like we used to. Or do romance.”
“Come on.”
“I didn’t say they’re not having sex. They are. In fact, it’s all about hooking up. Friends with benefits. That’s what they call it.”
“Call what?”
“Sex without complications. Or consequences. Or even real connections. Like I said, maybe teenage hookers are just...” she paused “... the natural evolution of that.”
He frowned. “How do you know all this?”
“I told you. I used to be the youth officer on the force.”
He didn’t say anything. Then he flipped his hand sideways, knocking his crutch off the chair. It clattered to the floor. “What about their parents? Do they know what their kids are doing?”
She leaned over and picked up his crutch. An image of Sara Long’s parents came into her mind. “They’re working their asses off, trying to make ends meet and give their kids a better life.”
He went quiet. Then, “Both of my parents worked. I’ll bet yours did too. But you didn’t turn into a hooker, and I didn’t end up a pimp. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“It bothers me more when one of those girls gets killed.”
Pete laced his hands behind his head. “You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?”
Georgia stood up. “Do you have a sister?”
Pete nodded. “She’s twenty-nine. Lives in California.”
“What would you do if you found out she was hooking?”
His brows knit. “She wouldn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Why? What are you implying?”
“I’m just asking.”
“I guess the real answer is I don’t know. We’re not that close.”
Georgia glanced at the monitor, then back at Pete. “Maybe you should be.”
***
After Pete left Georgia went through the articles again. One mentioned how prostitution had gone online. How if you knew the right web-sites, you could register by email, enter your zip code, even request a specific girl. Twenty-four hours later you’d get a response—guaranteed. The article went on to say how pimps no longer had to troll the streets any more. With a computer and a high-speed modem, they could run girls from the comfort of home.
She took the empty glasses into the kitchen and rinsed them. When she interviewed Jerry Horner at the gas station, he’d told her how Derek claimed you could get anything you wanted online these days. “The future of the world was in that damn little mouse,” he’d said.
She hurried back to her computer. Starting with Google, she entered “Escort Services.” A flood of websites surfaced; so many she was overwhelmed. She re-entered the words, this time adding the word, “Chicago.” She was still inundated. She started clicking through them. Most had photos of nude women—all of them young and glamorous—in provocative poses. The text invited you to request either a blonde, a brunette, an Asian. Others touted European beauties or Polish princesses.
She ran an irritated hand through her hair. How were these websites allowed to operate so brazenly? Granted, the term “escort service” was a euphemism, but judging from these websites, there was no difference between “escort” and “prostitute.” There ought to be some way to come down on them, shut them down. Then again, vice was always the poor stepchild of every police operation. The oldest profession still didn’t merit the same attention as narcotics or rape or even identity theft. Moreover, a lot of these websites originated offshore, well beyond the reach of U.S. law. In the unlikely event they were shut down, they would simply resurface the next day on another back alley of the Internet.
She kept going, tunneling deeper into online sex. It disturbed her to see pictures of women touching themselves or each other with rapturous, come-hither expressions. Who were these girls? Did they come from families like Sara Long’s? Most looked over twenty-one, but how could you really tell? Were some of the girls’ smiles pasted on? Did some of those toothy grins mask an air of desperation?
She remembered a woman she’d met last year. Mika had left her home in Eastern Europe after the Soviet Union collapsed. She’d fallen into a white slavery operation run by the Russian mafia. Georgia remembered her own rage and helplessness when she’d heard about it. Rage at the exploitation, helplessness because she couldn’t do anything about it.
She stared at the screen, wanting to transfer some of that rage to Derek Janowitz. He was the pimp. The recruiter. But he was dead. Whether or not his death had anything to do with his pimping, he’d paid dearly. And to be fair, she couldn’t hold him solely accountable. She thought back to the expensive clothes she’d seen in Sara’s closet. If Sara
was
hooking, presumably she was profiting from the arrangement.
After slogging through more websites and come-ons, Georgia spotted a link to a site that offered “hot young babes.” When she clicked, another montage of naked women popped up. The text claimed they were under twenty-one, but some of the women, clearly older, had braided hair tied with gingham ribbons, and wore bobby sox on their feet. Others had no pubic hair and were positioned in gangly teenager poses.
She clicked on the photo of the youngest looking girl and was immediately taken to a website with no name, just an IP address. There were no photos or text on the site either, with the exception of a request for a zip code. She entered the zip for Newfield High School. A moment later, a registration form popped up that asked for her email, a user name, and password. Underneath that, she was to fill in what she was looking for and the dates she wanted her “escort.”