“They all had sad eyes. It changed things for me-kind of woke me up, I guess.” I paused for a moment, remembering. “So then I just turned and walked back outside. I had another couple of beers and waited for my friends.”
Toni thought about this for a few moments, then she said, “Do you imagine under different circumstances-?”
I shrugged. “What is this? A test? Who knows. I do know that that’s the closest I’ve ever been to being with a prostitute. And there’ve been plenty of opportunities since then.”
“Like you got close to the fire once, and you don’t want to go back.”
“Got that right-I definitely don’t want to go back. It was twelve years ago and today-just thinking about it- mostly all I see are those sad eyes.”
“We’re buried.” Annie Hooper was sitting across from us at an outside table at Paseo, explaining the shortcomings of Angel House. We’d just finished lunch. Annie was a cute, vivacious woman, I’d say in her early forties. She had wavy red hair that fell to her shoulders. Her bright, infectious smile was made all the more endearing by the band of freckles on her face. She wore a black dress with a black necklace. “We’re up to six houses now-that means beds for thirty-six girls-a couple more in a pinch. And that means that at any one time, I probably have four more girls on a waiting list-girls I don’t have room for.”
“There’s that many girls trying to get straight?” Toni said.
“That’s right. The girls are all minors-by our charter with the city, we can only accept minors. Nearly all of them have been working for pimps. We give them a safe, secure home. We try to keep the locations secret to keep the pimps from coming by. They tend to find out anyway, but we have cameras, alarms, and heavy locks-and nearly instant response from the police. If a pimp shows up, he gets hit with a restraining order and a pretty firm warning. After that, most of them figure it’s not worth the trouble, and they don’t show up again. Most of them seem to get the message. At least so far. We’re diligent.” She smiled. “And maybe, just a little lucky.”
She paused and then continued. “Anyway, we work with the girls. We have classes and counseling for them. We encourage them to get their GEDs. The houses have normal house-type rules and structures, but we don’t have real heavy-handed enforcement. And it’s all voluntary-it’s not jail. The girls are all there because they want to be. If they want to leave, they can. But if they want to stay, they have to follow the rules.”
“How successful are you?”
“Let’s have Carla answer that,” Annie said. She turned to the dark-haired girl sitting to her left. When we’d arrived, Annie had introduced herself and Carla Nguyen. Carla was a pretty Asian girl, probably about eighteen years old. She lived at one of the homes in the Angel House network.
“It works pretty good,” Carla said. “The girls are uncertain when they first get there, but they’re surrounded by other girls who’ve already been through it. After a while, most of the girls take it pretty seriously.”
“You went through all of this?” Toni asked. “Out on the streets?”
Carla nodded. “Yeah. I worked. I had a pimp.”
“How long, if you don’t mind me asking,” Toni said.
“I don’t mind,” Carla answered. “Four years. I started when I was twelve. I got arrested for the fourth-no, the fifth time when I was sixteen. That time they told me I could come to Angel House. The first house was just opened then. I got to meet Annie.” She turned and smiled at Annie, the love and respect easy to see. “I’ve been there almost two years. My time’s about up now.”
“You’re happy?” I asked.
She smiled. “Yes. Happier than I’ve ever been in my whole life. For the first time, I feel like I’m in control of my own destiny. I got my GED. I’m already enrolled in U-Dub for the fall semester.”
“That’s great,” Toni said. “Danny and I went to U-Dub, and my little sister’s going this fall, too. What are you going to study?”
“Psychology, I think,” Carla said. “I want to be a therapist. I want to be a counselor for girls in the same position I’ve been in.”
“See?” Annie said, fairly beaming. “What a success story. And Carla’s not the only one. All of these girls are special-every one of them. They all have something to offer this world. They just need a little love and encouragement-sometimes the first they’ve received in their young lives. And protection. They need to be protected. They need people to stop taking advantage of them. We give them that at Angel House.”
“Sounds awesome,” I said. “A very noble cause.”
“Thanks,” Annie said. “It’s hard work, but I go home proud.”
“And thank you for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice,” I said. “I think Nancy told you about our particular problem.”
“She did. Carla and I talked about it on the way over.”
Carla nodded. “Since I got to Angel House, I’ve talked to a lot of girls who got picked up at the Mall and the Alderwood Mall,” Carla said. “I’m pretty sure that there’s a gang working up there-they call themselves the North Side Street Boyz. That’s Boyz with a ‘z.’”
“Do you know anything about this gang?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No-only that they hang out at the north-side malls a lot.”
“And you think they’re basically recruiting these girls and pimping them out?” Toni said.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“How’s it work?” I asked. “After they get recruited, do the girls live with the pimps?”
“Some work it that way,” she said. “Sometimes, if it’s a gang of guys, they live somewhere else, and there’s like a house boss who lives with the girls. I think that’s the way it is with NSSB.”
“Would they at least live close together in that case?”
Carla thought about this. “I don’t know,” she said. “It makes sense, I guess.”
I nodded. “In our case, the only names we have to go by are a woman named Crystal, and two guys-one named Donnie and one named Mikey. Have you ever heard of these people?”
“I haven’t. But I’ll ask around when I get back home. Probably one of the other girls has.”
“I’m going to give you another name, too,” Annie said as she wrote something down on the back of her business card. “Reverend Arthur Jenkins. Reverend Art lives in the area where a lot of the gang members are from. He’s pretty close to a lot of the current gang members.”
“Where would we find him?” I asked.
“He’s the pastor at the Twenty-Third Street Baptist Church on Capitol Hill. If you’d like, I’d be happy to give him a call for you and introduce you.”
“Fantastic,” I said. “We could use all the help we can get.”
“Reverend Art might know these guys,” Annie said. “And he’s a wonderful, caring man. I think the guys in the gang respect him, but still he won’t protect one of them if they’re involved in running prostitutes.”
“That’d be great,” I said. “Meanwhile, let me ask another question. Apparently, Isabel’s been gone about a month-that is, she was recruited about a month ago. Carla, can you describe the process of what happens after someone gets recruited? Maybe the first month?”
“I’ll try,” she said. “First, they’ll try to make her comfortable-safe and secure. They’ll treat her nice and buy her things. She’ll start to feel special. Then, the pimp will probably have sex with her. Even if she’s scared, she’ll go along because he’s been so good to her. She won’t want to disappoint him. He’ll keep treating her nice, and then she’ll start to think she’s in love with him. He’ll even tell her he loves her.”
“And all this happens when?” Toni asked.
“I’d say the first couple of weeks,” Carla said.
“Wow, they move fast.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Then, not very long after, he’ll tell her he needs her to have sex with a friend of his. As a favor to him. She’ll do it because she wants to make him happy. Then it’ll be another. Next thing you know, she’ll have her picture taken, and he’ll tell her she has to start going out on dates. He’ll give her a quota. He’ll tell her that she can’t come home until she brings in her quota. And she’ll want to come home, believe me. When she does, he’ll make her turn over all the money. She can’t keep anything.”
“So she’ll be totally dependent on the pimp?” I asked.
She nodded. “She’ll love him, and she’ll think he loves her. She’ll do anything for him.”
“And what happens if she doesn’t?” Toni asked.
