Vanish

Joe was talking to her again. She raised her head, still too dazed to understand what he wanted from her.

“There must be someone you trust,” he said. “Someone you work with. Another cop. Maybe your partner.”

She gave a weary shake of her head. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“What if I held this gun to your head?”

She froze as he suddenly raised his weapon and pressed it to her temple. She heard the receptionist give a gasp. Felt her fellow hostages on the couch shrink away from the victim between them.

“Now tell me,” Joe said coldly. Reasonably. “Is there anyone who’d take this bullet for you?”

“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

“I’m just asking. Who would take this bullet for you? Who would you trust with your life?”

She stared at the hand holding the gun, and she thought: It’s a test. And I don’t know the answer. I don’t know what he wants to hear.

“Tell me, Detective. Isn’t there someone you completely believe in?”

“Gabriel…” She swallowed. “My husband. I trust my husband.”

“I’m not talking about family. I’m talking about someone with a badge, like you. Someone clean. Someone who’ll do his duty.”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Answer the question!”

“I told you. I gave you an answer.”

“You said your husband.”

“Yes!”

“Is he a cop?”

“No, he’s…” She stopped.

“What is he?”

She straightened. Looked past the gun, and focused instead on the eyes of the man holding it. “He’s FBI,” she said.

Joe stared at her for a moment. Then he looked at his partner. “This changes everything,” he said.

SEVENTEEN

Mila

There is a new girl in our house.

This morning, a van pulled up in the driveway, and the men carried her up to our room. All day she has been lying on Olena’s cot, sleeping off the drugs they gave her for the journey. We all watch her, staring down at a face so pale that it does not look like living flesh, but translucent marble. Her breaths come in soft little puffs, a strand of her blond hair fluttering every time she exhales. Her hands are small-a doll’s hands, I think, looking at the little fist, at the thumb pressed against her lips. Even when the Mother unlocks the door and steps into the room, the girl does not stir.

“Wake her,” the Mother orders.

“How old is she?” Olena asks.

“Just get her up.”

“She’s only a child. What is she, twelve? Thirteen?”

“Old enough to work.” The Mother crosses to the cot and gives the girl a shake. “Come on,” she snaps, yanking off the blanket. “You’ve slept too long.”

The girl stirs and rolls onto her back. That’s when I see the bruises on her arm. She opens her eyes, sees us staring at her, and her frail body instantly stiffens in alarm.

“Don’t make him wait,” the Mother says.

We hear the car approaching the house. Darkness has fallen, and when I look out the window, I see headlights winking through the trees. Tires crackle over gravel as the car pulls into the driveway. The first client of the evening, I think with dread, but the Mother does not even look at us. She grabs the new girl’s hand and pulls her to her feet. The girl stumbles, sleepy-eyed, out of the room.

“How did they get a girl that young?” whispers Katya.

We hear the door buzzer. It is a sound we have learned to shrink from, the sound of our tormentors’ arrival. We all fall still, listening to the voices downstairs. The Mother greets a client in English. The man says little; we hear only a few words from him. Then there are his heavy footsteps on the stairs, and we back away from the door. He walks right past our room and continues down the hall.

Downstairs, the girl raises her voice in protest. We hear a slap, a sob. Then footsteps thump up the stairs again as the Mother drags the girl to the client’s room. The door slams shut, and the Mother walks away, leaving the girl with the man.

“The bitch,” Olena mutters. “She’ll burn in hell.”

But tonight, at least I will not suffer. I feel guilty as soon as that thought crosses my mind. Still, the thought is there. Better her than me. I go to the window and stare out at the night, at darkness that cannot see my shame. Katya pulls a blanket over her head. All of us are trying not to listen, but even through closed doors, we can hear the girl’s screams, and we can imagine what he is doing to her, because the same has been done to us. Only the faces of the men vary; the pain they inflict does not.

When it is over, when the cries finally cease, we hear the man walk down the stairs, and out of the house. I release a deep breath. No more, I think. Please, let there be no more clients tonight.

The Mother comes back up the stairs to retrieve the girl, and there is a long, strange silence. Suddenly she is running past our door and down the stairs again. We hear her talking to someone on her cell phone. Quiet, urgent words. I look at Olena, wondering if she understands what is going on. But Olena does not return my glance. She hunches on her cot, her hands turned to fists in her lap. Outside, something flutters past the window, like a white moth, twirling on the wind.

It is starting to snow.

The girl did not work out. She scratched the client’s face, and he was angry. A girl like that is bad for business, so she is being sent back to Ukraine. That is what the Mother told us last night, when the girl did not come back to the room.

That, at least, is the story.

“Maybe it’s true,” I say, and my breath is a puff of steam in the darkness. Olena and I are once again sitting on the roof. Tonight it sparkles like a frosted cake under the moonlight. Last night it snowed, barely a centimeter, but enough to make me think of home, where there has surely been snow on the ground for weeks. I am glad to see the stars again, to be sharing this sky with Olena. We have brought both our blankets outside, and we sit with our bodies pressed together.

“You’re stupid if you really believe that,” says Olena. She lights a cigarette, the last one from the party on the boat, and she savors it, looking up at the sky as she inhales the smoke, as though offering thanks to heaven for the blessings of tobacco.

“Why don’t you believe it?”

She laughs. “Maybe they sell you to another house, or another pimp, but they don’t ever send you home. Anyway, I don’t believe anything the Mother says, the old whore. Can you believe it? She used to turn tricks herself, about a hundred years ago. Before she got so fat.”