The little one, Linda, nodded, her expression very serious. It was Laura, the middle child, who said, hesitantly, “Can’t we just run away?”
“We talked about that, Linda.” Pauline nodded toward the hallway. “We don’t have any money, and you know he won’t let us go until men don’t want us anymore.” She picked up the remote and clicked on the television and flicked the channel to a local news show. The couple on-screen were attractive without being glamorous, and the woman, a brunette with long hair, had a motherly look to her. “I’ve been watching all the local news stations. I think this is the one.”
This time Linda squirmed. “Do we really have to tell them?” she said in a small voice.
“Yes,” Pauline said.
“Everything?” Linda said. She stared at her shoes. “Everything he made us do?”
“Everything Rod made us do, too?” Laura said, picking at her sparkly blue fingernail polish.
“Yes,” Pauline said. She muted the sound and nodded at the screen. “There’s a thing called sweeps week coming up. It measures how many people are watching every channel. It means the TV stations need lots of people to watch so they can charge more money for commercials. So they run stories they think people will watch the most.”
“And you think they’ll watch us?” Laura said.
“We’ll make them watch us,” Pauline said.
“And people will give us money?”
“Yes. We’ll get a grown-up to start us a bank account, and we’ll say we have no money, and everyone will send us some.”
“And we’ll get a real mother and father?” Linda said, still looking at her shoes.
Pauline’s eyes softened. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?” Laura said. “Are you sure they won’t make us go back to the village? Go back to …”
“I’m sure,” Pauline said. “But only if we tell them everything. The grown-ups will make someone take us, and” — she nodded at the screen — “those people will make everyone pay attention so they give us to someone good.” She put down the remote and picked up a yellow sticky note and held it out to Laura. “Here’s the number. In case it isn’t on the screen when … you know.”
“No,” Linda said, looking up. “It should be me. I should call. I’m the littlest. They’ll feel sorriest for me.”
Pauline’s eyes met Laura’s. “All right,” she said, and handed her sister the phone. “Don’t forget, leave the TV on until they come.”
She rose to her feet, the.357 held firmly at her side, and walked on steady legs down the hall.
“THEY FOUND THE AKULURAK GIRLS?” Kate said, her expression lightening. “God, that’s great, Auntie Balasha will be so relieved, I can’t wait to …” Her voice trailed away.
“It’s not so great,” Jim said, scratching behind Mutt’s ears. Mutt’s tongue lolled out of her mouth, her eyes half closed in an expression of blissful idiocy. “Brendan says they killed their pimp.”
“Their pimp?” Kate said. And then she said, “They killed him?”
“That’s not the worst of it, Kate,” he said. “Believe it or not. They say that asshole Rod Jimmieskin has been molesting them ever since their mother died. They say that’s why they ran off.”
“ISN’T THE GANG executioner’s weapon of choice usually a.22?” Kate said.
“Yeah,” Brendan said, “but the girls said the.357 was always right there on the nightstand.” He paused. “He trained the three of them on it, you know.”
“So they said.” On camera, on every channel, in every television studio in the state.
“Took them all out to the firing range. Taught them how to sight in, fire, reload. How to clean it when they came home.”
“I wonder whose idea that was,” Kate said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s kind of funny he didn’t take any of his other girls out on the firing range to practice with his personal weapon.”
“The sisters were living with him,” Brendan said. “His other girls had their own places. And he was engaged in a business that was not what you might call low risk. He wanted them to be able to protect themselves, is what they’re saying. That’s how their attorney is going to explain away the GSR. They’d been to the range the day before.”
“It is a problem,” Kate agreed.
He totally missed the irony. “He probably wanted them to be able to protect him, if it came to that.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Kate said. She read down through the case file. “Why did they call the station? Why not 911?”
“They said the television was on and the number was on the bottom of the screen.”
“Was it?”
Brendan nodded. “We looked at a tape of the news. KKAK runs a daily feature where they invite viewers to call or e-mail comments. They run the number and the address at the bottom of the screen through the whole feature. Linda said it was the first number she saw after they heard the gunshot.”
“Why did she call?”
“She was closest to the phone.”
Kate was silent for a moment. “They didn’t even run. They just sat there and waited for the cops to show. Why didn’t they run?”
He gave her a quizzical look. “Aren’t you testifying as a character witness for the defense, Kate?”
“NOTHING PERSONAL, KATE, but you look kinda grubby,” Brendan said. He sniffed. “You smell kinda grubby, too.”
“Like, no showers at the mall, man,” she said, pouring coffee into a foam cup.
His eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. The mall?”
She sat across from him. “Yeah, man, like, you know, the mall.”
He took a deep breath and let it out. “The Dimond Mall?”
“That’d be the one.” She sipped, winced, and sipped again.
“Where Da Prez picked up the Akulurak sisters.”
“Where they say he did. Funny thing.”
“What?”
“Not one of the kids I talked to remembered seeing the girls there.”
He digested this in silence for a moment. “Not the most reliable witnesses, mall rats.”
She drank more coffee. “So I spent the better part of the last five days hanging out there, Brendan. Talked to a lot of kids, and a couple of their pimps while I was at it. One of whom offered me a job, by the way. Said some of his clients liked ’em a little long in the tooth. Kinda perverted, but, hey, he had a business, he provided product for a price, whaddya gonna do.”
“Is he still living?”
“Barely.” She leaned forward, empty cup dangling from one hand. “The thing is, Brendan, they’ve all seen the Akulurak sisters on television by now. And none of them remember seeing them at the mall. Where the sisters say they hung out for a week, fighting for leftover pizza out of Round Table’s Dumpster, before Da Prez came along and made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.”
“Doesn’t prove anything one way or another.” He looked at her, puzzled. “Kate, they are already caught. They’re going on trial for murder on Monday. Why pick holes in their story now? What’s the point?”
She looked down at the dog, who leaned against her knee and gazed up at her with big yellow eyes. “You said he was a relatively good guy, for a pimp.”
“And you said he was still a pimp.”
She shrugged. “It’s just interesting that fresh out of the village, first time in the big city, and the girls wind up with him.”
“No,” he said, “not really. It’s what he does. Did. He had a farm team of girls from the villages, stashed in his house and a couple of duplexes. He had a Web site, Kate. He advertised them on the Internet as Thai and
