as a waitress in a local restaurant and usually stayed for a few beers after her shift was over.
She was a lonely little girl. A latchkey kid who made herself instant macaroni and cheese, which she ate while watching celebrity shows on television and dreaming about becoming one of the actresses on the red carpet. It didn't seem likely then-she was skinny and gangly and had red hair, which the boys made fun of.
They stopped making jokes around the time she turned fourteen. Tammy didn't blossom-she exploded into a sexuality that seemed to happen overnight and was scary and confusing to her. Suddenly, boys wanted her, and she saw the way that grown men looked at her when she'd go to the restaurant to say hello to her mom. She wanted to say to them, I'm fourteen years old; I'm a kid. But she was afraid to speak to or even look back at them.
A good thing. Men would see the intensity in those incredible green eyes and mistake it for something else.
Okay, she learned to use it, she admits it freely. Why not? High school was a nightmare. She was never good at school-there were diagnoses of dyslexia and ADD-so being an actress wasn't going to happen. She couldn't read a script out loud and never got cast in the Drama Club productions. She thought about being a model, but you don't exactly bump into Eileen Ford in El Cajon, and she couldn't afford the money for photographers to create a portfolio. She did a little modeling for a local “sportswear” catalog and made a couple hundred dollars, but that was about it.
Tammy graduated from high school with a C-minus average, and it looked like waiting tables was her future. She did it for a year or so, enduring the crappy tips, the leers, the comments, and the offers, and then one day when she was twenty, she was walking home in the hundred-plus heat along the flat sunbaked sidewalk and decided that she had to do something, anything, to get out of there. So she took her red hair, amazing green eyes, and long legs, got on a bus to Mira Mesa, walked into a strip club, and auditioned.
She thought it would be hard, but it wasn't so hard, taking her clothes off. Okay, so it wasn't the red carpet; it was a platform and a pole. And yes, it was a clichй. But Tammy learned quickly that if she paused in her dance and cast those eyes out over the front row, she would get tips; if she picked out one guy and trained those cat eyes on him, she could easily get him into the Champagne Room, or the VIP Room, or whatever the hell room where the bigger money got made.
A year or so later, she found her way to Silver Dan's.
A couple of weeks after that, Dan Silver found his way to her.
Of course he did.
The owner of a strip club-in this case, a chain of strip clubs-has a sort of droit du seigneur when it comes to the girls. They don't have to date him, and if they do date him, they don't have to sleep with him, but it's a good professional move if they do.
You sleep with the boss, you don't have to blow the night manager to get a good shift. The bartenders pour your drinks without coming on to you or wanting a cut. The other girls find space for you in front of the mirror. The really creepy customers pick up on the vibe and keep their distance.
Tammy had been around long enough to know that, and even if she hadn't, Angela would have told her. Angela was her best friend at Silver Dan's. They hit it off right away-similar background, similar outlook, same tough attitude. It was Angela who told her that if the boss came calling, she'd better open the gates, or life could get impossible for her at the club.
So she dated Dan.
Yeah, but it was more than that, wasn't it, if she really wants to look at the truth of herself. Dan wasn't just a convenient lay or a good dinner- like most pimps, he was a daddy. He was that fucking father figure she'd been missing. Clichй, clichй, stereotype, and clichй but there it was. He treated her like a daughter and a fuck, incest sans the DNA and felony concerns, made her obey him and wear the clothes he picked out, made her call him “Daddy” as he did her from behind and pulled her hair like you'd jerk on the reins of a recalcitrant filly. She hated it and she loved it.
She started sleeping with Mick Penner as rebellion. He was the opposite of a daddy-a boy-child lady-killer who fucked up and fell in love with her. She'd still come when Dan beckoned-and God knows how many other women he was doing on the side-but she'd go bang Mick and play house with him, and Mick treated her gently and with consideration, and she couldn't get too much of that.
She was with Danny the night of the fire. He told her to wait in the car, but she got bored and impatient. She stood outside and smoked a cigarette, but when that was done, she thought, Fuck Danny, and went inside.
What she saw changed her world.
Dirty mattresses on a concrete floor, an old showerhead surrounded by a torn plastic curtain strung on a clothesline, an open toilet in the corner. Random blankets, no sheets, some stained pillows without covers.
The girls were like zombies.
Later, Tammy would learn that these behaviors were symptomatic of severe and repetitive trauma, but that night Tammy just saw a group of young girls looking at her with dead eyes.
Except one.
One little girl came over, threw her arms around Tammy's legs, pressed her head against her thighs, and held on tight.
That was, of course, Luce.
Tammy didn't know what to do. Didn't know how to handle this girl, didn't know who these children were. She guessed at their ages-the oldest seemed to be a young teenager; the youngest couldn't have been more than eight. The girl clutching her legs was probably eleven or twelve. All the girls had brown skin, black hair, dark eyes. They wore cheap clothes that looked like they'd come from the Salvation Army or an AM VETS store. Most were holding some vestiges of childhood or family-a stuffed dog, a plastic flower, a book.
Luce wore a silver chain with a small cross.
Tammy stroked the girl's hair. It was greasy and dirty, but Tammy didn't mind. She stroked the girl's hair and made soft cooing sounds.
Dan didn't.
Dan blew fucking up.
He came down the hallway, saw Tammy in the room, and yelled, “What the fuck are you doing in here? I told you to wait outside!”
Most of the girls threw themselves facedown on their mattresses and did their best to cover their heads with blankets. Luce held tighter to Tammy and pressed her face harder against her legs.
Tammy didn't back down.
“What the fuck am I doing here!” she yelled back. “What the fuck is this, Dan?”
Dan grabbed her by the arm and started to haul her out, Luce still clinging to Tammy's legs. Dan stopped and grabbed the girl, trying to peel her off, but Tammy shoved and hit out at him and Dan had to let go of Luce to grab Tammy by the wrists.
“You leave her alone!” Tammy yelled. “Or I'll-”
“You'll what?” Danny asked. “You'll fucking what?”
She brought a knee up into Danny's balls.
That was fucking what.
Dan keeled over.
Luce regained her grip on Tammy. One of Dan's bouncers came out of a back room, hoisted Tammy away from the crying girl, hauled her out of the building, and forced her into Dan's car. As he was pushing her out the door, she heard the little girl yelling, “ЎLos campos fresas! ЎLos campos fresas!”
Dan came out a couple of minutes later and got into the driver's seat. Slapped her across the face. “You cunt. ”
“You bastard,” Tammy said. “Who were those girls? What are you doing with them?”
“They're illegals, all right?” Dan said. “I get them jobs as maids.”
“Bull-fucking- shit,” Tammy said. “I know what business you're in, Dan.”
“That's right,” Dan said. “I'm in the sex business, Tammy. I sell sex. You can't handle that?”
“They're children!”
“In Mexico? Half of them would be married by now. They'd be churning out babies already.”
“Keep telling yourself that, you sick motherfucker.”
“They'd be starving back home,” Dan said.
