Page 18 of Long Way Down

Lana nodded, more tears sliding down her face. “Um. He got my arm and pushed my face into the wall. Really hard. I hit my nose.” She probed at the bridge of it with a hiss, where the skin was deep purple, the once-sleek shape of it humped now where it had broken and been reset and taped up. “I screamed, I know that. Tried to push back. But he was strong. I don’t know – he musta been huge. Like,really strong. He grabbed the back of my neck, and he said, ‘Shut your fucking mouth, Iowa girl.’ Then he started hitting me.”

“Iowa girl? You’re sure he said that?”

“Yeah. ‘Cause I thought, ‘How does he know I’m from Iowa?’ And I tried to fight back, but he wasso strong. And he kept hitting me in the face, over and over, and I…” She gasped her next breath, and pressed the wadded tissue to her mouth a moment.

Melissa knew that the majority of rapes were committed by perps who knew the victim. It wasn’t a random, cold-blooded crime.

“Lana. Did he rape you?”

“Yeah.” Her voice was a watery croak, but she didn’t hesitate. “The room was spinning, and I couldn’t breathe, and he was pinning me down, and he kept say-saying he was sorry. While he was doing it. That he wished he didn’t have to, but that it was important. And that I was – that I was – being agood girl– oh God–”

She retched. Melissa snatched the basin off the nightstand and helped her sit up, but Lana’s stomach was empty, and all she could do was work through the dry heaves…and then dissolve into sobs.

~*~

Two-Shoes Jimmy had two pairs of shoes. One that he wore on his feet, and the other tied together by their laces and hooked around his neck, worn like a scarf. He alternated.

Today was a boots-on-feet, sneakers-around-the-neck day, and he was more agitated than usual, which was saying something. The problem, he explained to Pongo, after a good ten-minute rant about the day’s horoscope readings, was with a friend of his, named Titus. They walked two blocks, turned down an alley – Pongo quickly checking that his gun was secure at the small of his back – and knocked on a peeling blue door.

Titus proved to be a bulky guy with sleeve tattoos and a narrow, suspicious gaze. “Who’s this pretty boy piece of shit?” he asked of Pongo.

“A Lean Dog,” Jimmy said. “I told you the Lean Dogs could help.”

“Might help,” Pongo stressed with a smile. “Maybe Titus here doesn’t want a pretty boy’s help, Jimmy.”

The building was residential, but the ground-floor apartment in which they stood had been set up like an office, with several desks and spiral-bound ledgers, Pongo noted, rather than a computer setup. He could hear a baby crying somewhere down the hall, and hadn’t missed the extensive series of locks on the building and interior vestibule doors when they came in.

This was a brothel. Which made Titus a pimp.

A pimp who was sprawled back in his chair, showing off all his muscle and strong fat, and the gun at his hip.

Pongo saw no reason to get crosswise with him, if he could help it. “Good to meet you,” he said, then turned to Jimmy. “You know we don’t run girls, right?”

“Yeah,” Titus said, in his rough, two-packs-a-day voice. “You Dogs think you’re better than everybody else.” He sneered, flashing nicotine-dark teeth.

“Nope. Just got a business model, is all.Youasked for our help, though,” he pointed out.

Titus shot a betrayed look toward Jimmy, which was ignored; Jimmy was busy running his thumb back and forth across the scuffed Nike swoosh on the right shoe hanging against his chest. “It was his idea,” Titus grunted, but he blew out a breath and his attitude drained away. “Look, all my girls work for me ‘cause they want to. I ain’t forcing nobody.”

Pongo nodded.

“I got a one strike rule. If a john spooks one of ‘em, he’s out, and I won’t send anybody to him again.”

“Sounds fair.”

Titus gave him a look, trying to decide if Pongo was mocking him. He snorted, but moved on. “Last time a john put bruises on a girl, I put his face through a mirror, you feel me?”

“Yeah. You look like you could handle anybody who did wrong by one of your girls.” The implied question was:why didn’t you this time?

“Yeah, I can,” Titus said. “If I can find the son of a bitch.” The last was said with a growl, real anger darkening his voice, curling his hand into a fist on the desk. “I don’t even know what the fucker looks like! My girl was in a car with a john, he let her out at a bus stop, and the streetlight was out. Sick fuck dragged her into an alley, nearly beat her into a coma, and carved her up like nothin’ I’ve ever seen before. A fucking Good Samaritan found her there and called an ambulance. She called me from the hospital!”

Pongo could visualize the panic that had ensued: police showing up to try and take a statement from the girl, Titus showing up with PIMP figuratively stamped across his forehead, having to play Concerned Boyfriend so no one called Vice. He wondered if Dixie had ever had a run-in with this particular entrepreneur.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not!” Titus huffed, agitated now. He flicked at a paperclip and sent it spinning across the room to bounce off a file cabinet with aping. “When I finally got her back here, she said the asshole raped her. She was so beat up downstairs she hasn’t been able to work for a week. And I don’t know what the fuck we’re gonna do about her back. If it scars too bad, I guess she can get it covered with a tat.” He gestured to his own arms. “My guy’s good at hiding shit.”

Pongo nodded. “Right. So. I’m sorry about all this. But…” He looked to Jimmy, who appeared to have gone quasi-catatonic on his feet. “I’m not seeing how the Dogs can help you.”