Page 37

She’s got to do it. Belinda and the other girls need her. No matter what she encounters, she has to remember that they live like this, with no hope of escape. Her undercover is their everyday.

At one o’clock in the morning, Maddy joins a group of young people gathered at the 59th Street Bridge.

The start of her adventure begins badly. In fact, it begins very badly.

Maddy arrives quietly and leans against the side wall of a luxury apartment building. A few yards away from her is another girl, clearly working the same job as Maddy. They exchange a glance, and after a minute or two the other girl walks quickly toward Maddy.

“You’re Belinda’s friend,” the girl says.

“How’d you know that?” is what Maddy says.

“Belinda told me a few days ago that her new ‘guardian angel’ was thinking of joining us,” says the girl. Then she adds, “So, you’re a cop, right?”

“No,” Maddy says. “I work for the public defender’s office, but I’m here on my own.”

“Bullshit,” says the girl. “Here on your own for what? You tried, girl, but everything you’re wearing is expensive labels. You don’t need a dime, and you ain’t here for—”

“I want to help,” Maddy says, quickly cutting her off.

The girl’s eyes narrow. “Like I say, bullshit.”

The girl yawns and smiles just a tiny bit. Then she says, “No difference to me, you want to take a walk on the wild side. Just get off my corner. You filch my customers, I’ll tear that expensive hair out by the roots.”

So much for caring about others,Maddy thinks to herself, as she slinks away from the girl.

CHAPTER 52

HEADLIGHTS FROM TRAFFIC on the bridge above give the area below, the area where the girls are waiting for drop-offs and pickups, a weird theatrical glow. Shadows come and go rapidly, the lights in the surrounding apartment buildings flicker on and off, car horns blare, and tires screech. People on the nearby streets shout to one another, and sirens add an even greater sense of madness to this New York, this job, this place.

Maddy has become both a participant and an observer. She notices two SUVs arriving, leaving, and then returning to the area at least five times. Sometimes they pick up girls; sometimes the driver hands them packages through the window. Then the girl checks it—for an address or a name, Maddy thinks—and heads out on foot. Both these vehicles are black BMWs. One is driven by a bored-looking middle-aged man. The other BMW is driven—to Maddy’s surprise—by a very beautiful Black woman. How a fellow female can allow these girls to live on the edge like this isbeyond her. But she quickly realizes that her surprise is actually naivete. Hadn’t Detective McCarthy himself told her that the person at the top of this operation was a woman, Carla Spector?

Maddy stands near a filthy loading truck stinking of rotted food. On the other side of her sits a sparkling-clean yellow snowplow. She wonders why, in late summer, a snowplow is sitting, all set to go, under the 59th Street Bridge.

“I’ve never seen you here before,” a whisky-raspy woman’s voice says. Maddy turns around and sees a woman who looks like she’s probably forty-something but is trying hard to look half that age. Lots of white makeup, lots of cheap black hair dye, thighs squeezed into red tights. She’s clearly working a different kind of job than the underage drug mules, participating in the world’s oldest line of employment.

“Yeah. It’s my first time up around here,” says Maddy, surprised at how calm she is when she speaks to this tough-looking woman.

“Listen, hon. It’s crowded enough up here.” Her eyes trail up and down Maddy’s clothing, then one side of her mouth curves. “Never mind. We’re not selling the same thing, are we?”

“Doubt it,” says Maddy, who suddenly realizes that if she should be approached by a buyer, she has nothing to sell—which could land her in a serious problem.

“You got a new friend, Mama-Girl?” one of the girls asks, coming to the prostitute’s side.

Mama-Girl? Who is this woman? Some weird street sorority mother?

“We’ve got a loiterer,” Mama-Girl says, still eyeing Maddy. “Too well-dressed to be one of you. Too, well…dressedto be one like me.”

Remembering the very specific threat from the first girl on the street, Maddy asks, “You’re not going to tear my hair out by the roots, are you?”

The woman and the girl look at each other, then break out into laughter.

“Aw, hell no,” the streetwalker says. “Women got to look out for each other out here; that’s how I roll.”

“Especially now,” the younger girl says, her eyes cast down.

“What do you—” But Maddy doesn’t get to finish her question, as the BMW with the male driver slows down near them.

“Oh, great, Gerard the asshole,” says Mama-Girl, her voice suddenly tight.