The John Milton Series: Books 1-3 (66 page)

She could do it all herself.

That was when she had started advertising on Craigslist.

THAT NIGHT’S JOB had been booked on the phone. The john had emailed her to say that he was interested, and she had done what she always did: gave him the number of her work phone so that she could talk with him and lay out the prices and what he could expect to get in return. Insisting on a call also gave her the chance to screen the guys who had never booked her before. There were always weirdos, and she’d been knocked around by a couple. Talking to someone was better than reading an email to get an idea of what they were like. She had refused bookings with several men who had just sounded wrong on the phone. Tabby liked to say that she was a good judge of character. She was careful, too.

This guy, though? He sounded all right. A Southern accent, a bit of a hillbilly twang going on, but he’d been polite and well spoken. He’d explained to her that he was a police officer, in town for a law enforcement conference, and said that he wanted a little bit of fun. He had no problem with her charges, so she had arranged to meet him.

She was on the corner of Franklin and Turk at eight, just as they had arranged, smoking a cigarette and watching the traffic go by. She was thinking about her kids and about how she had made enough money already this week to pay the rent, pay for the groceries, and maybe even take them to Six Flags for a treat. There was one at Vallejo. She was thinking about that as the Cadillac slowed to a stop beside her. Her old man had been a mechanic, and she had been big into cars when she was younger so that she could impress him; she recognised it as an Eldorado, probably twenty years old. It wasn’t in the best condition. The front-right wing was dinged, the registration plate was barely attached to the chassis, and the engine backfired as the driver reached over and opened the passenger-side door for her.

He called out her name in the same redneck accent that she remembered from the phone call.

She picked up her bag and stepped into the car.

She was never seen again.

THE GREY SEPTEMBER MIST had rolled in off the bay two days earlier, and it hadn’t lifted yet. It softened the edges of objects within easy sight, but out beyond ten or fifteen feet, it fell across everything like a damp, cold veil. June was often the time when it was at its worst—they called it June Gloom for a reason—but the fog was always there, seeping down over the city at any time, without warning, and often staying for hours. The twin foghorns—one at either end of the Golden Gate Bridge—sounded out their long, mournful, muffled ululations. John Milton had been in town for six months, and he still found it haunting.

It was nine in the evening, the streetlamps glowing with fuzzy coronas in the damp mist. Milton was in the Mission District, a once-blighted area that was being given new life by the artists and students who swarmed in now that crime had been halted and rents were still low. It was self-consciously hip now, the harlequinade of youth much in evidence: long-haired young men in vintage suits and fur-trimmed Afghans, and girls in short dresses. The streets looked run-down and shabby. The girl Milton had come to pick up was sitting on a bench on the corner. He saw her through the fog, difficult to distinguish until he was a little closer. He indicated right, filtered out of the late evening traffic, and pulled up against the kerb.

He rolled the passenger-side window down. The damp air drifted into the car.

“Madison?” he called, using the name that he had been given.

The girl, who was young and pretty, took a piece of gum out of her mouth and stuck it to the back of the bench upon which she was sitting. She reached down for a rucksack, slung it over her shoulder, picked up a garment bag, and crossed the pavement to the Explorer. Milton unlocked the door for her, and she got in.

“Hi,” she said in a lazy drawl.

“Hi.”

“Thanks for being so quick. You’re a lifesaver.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“You know the McDonald’s in Balboa Park?”

He thought for a moment. Six months driving around San Francisco had given him a decent grasp of local geography. “I know it.”

“That’s where we’re headed.”

“Okay then.”

Milton changed into first and pulled back out into the sparse traffic. The rush hour had dissipated. He settled back into his seat and nudged the car up to a steady forty-five. He looked in the mirror at his passenger; Madison had opened her rucksack and taken out a book. It looked thick and substantial; a textbook, he thought. The dispatcher had told him to look for a blonde when she had relayed the booking although her skin was a very dark brown, almost black. Her hair was light and straightened, and Milton wondered whether it might be a wig. She was curvaceous and small, and dressed in jeans and a chunky sweater. Definitely very pretty. She read her book in silence. Milton flicked his eyes away again and concentrated on the road.

They passed through Mission Bay, Potrero Hill and into Balboa Park. The McDonald’s, a large drive-thru, was in the grid of streets south of Ocean Avenue. There were advertisements for three-for-two on steak burritos and cups of premium roast coffee for a dollar.

“Here you go,” he said.

“Thanks. Is it okay to wait?”

“What for?”

“A call. We’re just stopping here.”

“Fine—but I’ll have to keep the clock running.”

“That’s okay. I got to wait until the call comes, and then we’ll be going someplace else. Is that okay with you?”

“As long as you can pay, we can stay here all night.”

“I can pay,” she said with a broad smile. “How much do I owe you?”

Milton looked down at the meter. “Twenty so far.”

“Twenty’s no problem.” She took a purse out of her bag, opened it, and took out a note. She reached forward and handed it to him. It was a hundred.

He started to feel a little uncomfortable.

“That should cover it for a couple of hours, right?”

Milton folded it and wedged it beneath the meter. “I’ll leave it here,” he said. “I’ll give you change.”

“Whatever.” She nodded at the restaurant, bright light spilling out of the window onto the line of cars parked tight up against it. “I’d kill for a Big Mac,” she said. “You want anything?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“You sure?”

“I ate earlier.”

“All right.”

She got out. He clenched and unclenched his fists. He rolled the window down.

“Actually,” he said, “could you get me a coffee? Here.” He reached in his pocket for a dollar bill.

She waved him off. “Forget it. My treat.”

Milton watched as she crossed the car park and went into the restaurant. There was a queue, and as she slotted into it to await her turn, Milton undid his seat belt and turned around so that he could reach into the back. She had left her bag on the seat. He checked that she was facing away and quickly unzipped it, going through the contents: there was a clutch bag, two books, a mobile phone, a bottle of vodka, a box of Trojans and a change of clothes. He zipped the bag and put it back. He leant back against the headrest and scrubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand.

He had been very, very stupid.

The girl returned with a bagged-up Happy Meal, a tall soda and a large coffee. She passed the Styrofoam cup through the open window, slid into the back seat, took the bottle of Stolichnaya from her bag, flipped the plastic lid from the soda, and poured in a large measure.

“Want a drop in your coffee?”

“No, thanks,” he said. “I don’t drink.”

“Not at all?”

“Never.”

“Wow. What is that, like, a lifestyle choice?”

He wasn’t about to get into that with her. “Something like that,” he said vaguely.

“Suit yourself.”

She put the straw to her mouth and drew down a long draught.

“Madison,” Milton said, “I need you to be honest with me.”

She looked up at him warily. “Yeah?”

“There’s no delicate way to put this.”

She stiffened, anticipating what was coming next. “Spit it out.”

“Are you a prostitute?”

“You’re a real charmer,” she said.

“Please, Madison—no attitude. Just answer the question.”

“I prefer ‘escort.’”

“Are you an escort?”

“Yes. You got a problem with it?”

“Of course I do. If we get pulled over, I could get charged with promoting prostitution. That’s a felony.”

“If that happens, which it won’t, then you just tell them that I’m your friend. How they gonna say otherwise?”

“You make it sound like it’s happened to you before.”

“Hardly ever, and whenever it has, it’s never been a big deal.”

“No,” Milton said. “I’m sorry. It’s a big deal for me.”

“Seriously?”

“I don’t need a criminal record. You’re going to have to get out. You can call another cab from here.”

“Please, John,” she said. He wondered for a moment how she knew his name, and then he remembered that his picture and details were displayed on the laminated card that he had fixed to the back of his seat. “I can’t afford this right now.”

“And I can’t take the risk.”

“Please,” she said again. He looked up into the mirror. She was staring straight at him. “Come on, man. If you leave me here, I’ll never get a ride before they call me. I’ll miss the party, and these guys, man, this agency I work for, they’ve got a zero-tolerance policy when the girls no-show. They’ll fire me for sure, and I can’t afford that right now.”

“I’m sorry. That’s not my problem.”

“Look, man, I’m begging you. I’ve got a little kid. Eliza. She’s just two years old—you’ve got no idea how cute she is. If I get fired tonight, then there’s no way I’m going to be able to pay the rent. Social services will try to take her away from me again, and that just can’t happen.”

Milton stared out at the queued traffic on Ocean Avenue, the glow of a hundred brake lights blooming on and off in the soupy fog as they waited for the junction to go to green. He drummed his fingers on the wheel as he turned the prospect over in his mind, aware that the girl was looking at him in the mirror with big, soulful, hopeful eyes.

He knew he was going to regret this.

“On one condition: no drugs.”

“Sure thing. No drugs.”

“You’re not carrying anything?”

“No, man. Nothing, I swear.”

“No cocaine. No pills. No weed.”

“I swear it, on my daughter’s life, I haven’t got a thing. I’m already on probation. I got to pee in a cup twice a week, man. If I get caught with anything in my system, they take her away from me just like that. People say a lot of things about me, John, but one thing they don’t say is that I’m stupid. It’s not worth the risk.”

He watched her answer very carefully. She was emphatic and convincing, and he was as satisfied as he could be that she was telling the truth.

“This is against my better judgment,” he said, “but, all right.”

“Thanks, John. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”

He was about to answer when her cellphone buzzed. She fumbled for it in her bag and put it to her ear. Her tone became deferential and compliant. He didn’t catch any names, but it was obviously about where they were headed next. The conversation was short. She put the phone back into her bag.

“You know Belvedere?”

“Don’t get up there very often.”

“Full of rich folks.”

“I know that. That’s where we’re headed?”

“Please.”

“You got an address?”

She gave it to him, and he entered it into the satnav slotted into a holder that was suction-cupped to the windshield. The little unit calculated and displayed the best route.

“The 101 up to the bridge,” he said, reading off the screen. “It’s going to take forty minutes. That all right?”

“Perfect.”

“You going to tell me what’s out there?”

“Like I say, rich folks throwing a mad party. That’s where it’s at.”

MADISON WAS TALKATIVE as they drove north through Sunset, Richmond and Presidio, hanging a left at Crissy Field and joining the 101 as it became the Golden Gate Bridge. She explained how the business worked as they drove north. She met her driver at a prearranged spot every night. She said he was called Aaron and that he was twitchy but, generally, a stand-up kind of guy. He had let her down badly tonight. They were supposed to have met at eight at Nob Hill, but he hadn’t showed, and when she finally got through to him on his cell, he said that he was unwell and that he wouldn’t be able to come out. There was a number for a taxi firm on the back of the bench she had been sitting on. She called it. It was one of the firms that sent jobs Milton’s way. The dispatcher had called him with her details, and he had taken the job.

She wasn’t shy about her work. She explained how she got jobs through an agency, with the rest coming from online ads she posted on Craigslist. The agency gigs were the easiest; they made the booking, and all she had to do was just show up, do whatever it was that needed to be done, collect the cash, and then go. The money was split three ways: the driver got twenty percent, and the rest was split equally between the agency and the girl. Milton asked how much she made, and she was a little evasive, saying that she did okay but skimping on the detail. There was a moment’s silence as he thought of the flippant way that she had given him the hundred. He concluded that she was probably earning rather a lot, and then he chastised himself for his credulity. The story about the struggle to find the rent suddenly seemed a little less likely. He wondered whether there even was a little girl. Probably not. He chuckled a little as he realised that he had been well and truly suckered.

The bridge was lit up rusty gold as they passed across it, the tops of the tall struts lost in the darkness and the sterling-grey fog.

He heard the sound of a zipper being unfastened. He looked into the mirror and saw her taking a black dress from the garment bag.

“I need to get changed,” she said. “No peeking, John, all right?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t be a pervert.”