Choke Point (8 page)

“You could ask after her while you do that work. I’m known on the streets. My face. The television.”

“I suppose.” He nods. He’s not accustomed to making a game out of being sought after. He finds it interesting to be on the receiving end of such attention. Marvels at her ability to manipulate. Realizes the longer and deeper he allows his ruse to stray from the truth, the more damaging the eventual revelation will be. He’s locking himself into an identity he’s uncomfortable with.

“It would help us both,” she says. “I don’t want to end up next on the victim list.” But of course he does. If he becomes the target, the entire operation is expedited. The risk is also a rush.

“It might move the story forward, get us paid sooner.”

“I like being paid,” he says. “Until something better comes along, why not?”

Sonia uses the pen to cross-hatch half the wider of the two circles around the clinic. The dividing line falls on a street. “We will start from the clinic and work our way out.”

“We? You said you’re too well known.”

“Yes, well, how much time do you think Berna has? Her face is known as well. She’s a threat to them. Her story’s out there.” She hesitates. “My fault.”

“The school records,” he says. “Expediting that search—”

“I’m on it.”

—

T
HE SIGN
IS
where the vendor told her it would be.
MALL
. Grace expected a retail center, but the sign is above a darkened alleyway. She walks past on the opposite sidewalk and continues to the next street corner, where she pauses and leans against a wrought-iron railing. It’s five thirty-five but feels more like midnight.

The entrance to the building to the left of the dark alley is up four steps from the sidewalk. It’s an unattractive brick box, a single structure occupying the space of four canal houses. There are security bars across most of the lower-level windows, potted flowers on either side of the steps. She’s guessing five to ten apartments. Was this the address the vendor meant to give her, or did she mean the alley itself? Grace has no idea what to expect: Berna? her family? a school chum? a girl who looks like Berna? the thugs responsible? Had the vendor called ahead to make sure that a curious EU official is greeted appropriately? There can’t possibly be a shopping mall down the dark alley beneath the sign.

She double-checks her iPhone confirming the “Find My iPhone” feature is activated. She texts Knox.

if no text in 10 mins use Find My iPhone

Her finger hesitates above the blue iMessage bubble. She knows if he’s not back there watching her already, he’ll take the text as a call to action. She regrets it, but she can’t be responsible for Knox’s decisions.

She hits
SEND
.

—

A C
HINESE
GUY
speaking Dutch and wearing Tom Ford gets take-out.

Sonia’s voice is tight when she speaks. “I shouldn’t have published the piece.”

“It’s a sweatshop,” Knox says. The restaurant has become claustrophobic. “They need workers. They don’t get rid of what they need.”

“Berna was not going home at night. You don’t chain girls who go home.”

“So they’ll keep her alive.”

“I believe we’re talking about two different kinds of workers. Those who are recruited locally, and those who were not offered a choice. This second group of girls never leaves.”

“Locals and residents,” he says.

She grimaces. “There’s another more lucrative market for girls this age.”

Knox’s collar is suddenly too tight. He reaches there only to realize he’s wearing a T-shirt under the windbreaker. “We have a girl in a sweatshop. That’s all.” She forces images into his thoughts. Maybe he’s a photographer after all.

“We,” the writer says.

The buzzing of his phone rescues him. He reads the incoming text.

“I have to go,” he announces. “I’ll start tomorrow morning.”

T
he enclosed alleyway reminds her of a subway tunnel. One with no lights. One that smells sour and sordid. Tobacco. Marijuana. Stale beer. Human piss. Dog excrement. The entire urban experience reduced to olfactory overload. She enters the dark with trepidation. The woman in the scarf haunts her.
Be careful,
haunts her. The path beneath her is covered in a viscous goo, a residual sediment not washed away by rain. Her soles smack with it. It seems to move beneath her. She’s through the space in less than thirty seconds, but in that short time her heart accelerates to an aerobic level and her mouth goes dry. She’d give anything for a Coke.

God hears her: there’s a lighted vending machine alongside the entrance to a two-story brick building that fills the front half of an inner courtyard. Its windows hide behind black chain link. Graffiti has been sandblasted and chemically removed, leaving the brick two-tone.

She time-checks her phone, remembering to call off Knox. But not yet. Not so soon. She senses six minutes could prove to be an eternity here.

Corner lights on the building have either burned out or been stoned and broken. The interior lights are ablaze. She checks behind herself. Her long thin shadow stretches behind her like a crooked finger. No one back there. No one coming for her.

But they could be waiting. This could be a trap.

She walks fully around the building, behind which she discovers a blacktop playground. She puts her face to a back window. It’s a recreation room. A half dozen kids sitting at battered folding tables in battered folding chairs. There’s a kiddie station at the far end: a blue plastic fort and slide, some yellow plastic cubes and an orange airplane that can be straddled like a horse. It’s a neighborhood youth center. She sucks down some Coke. Nothing has ever tasted better. She pauses for another sip before letting herself inside.

It’s study time and quiet. Against the wall are long-outdated computers, their screens glowing. She’s approached by a woman in her sixties who has a slight limp to her right leg, a face creased by the sun and dull blue eyes.

She speaks Dutch, welcoming Grace, who returns a thank-you and continues in Dutch. After two or three exchanges they have settled into English without discussing the switch.

Grace identifies herself as being with the EU. She offers her business card. The woman slips it into a sweater pocket without looking at it.

“How may I help you?”

Grace proffers the newspaper photo of Berna.

The woman sees it, studies it, but it’s radioactive; she does not reach out to take hold of it.

“I am familiar with the story,” she says.

“I am trying to find the girl.”

“It exaggerates. You know this, yes? The story? These ankle wounds described are more likely from a game or an accident. We see every kind of thing on our playgrounds.”

“You do not believe the article?” Grace says, trying her best to mask her own surprise.

“You cannot possibly believe everything you read in the papers.”

Grace says, “I believe this.”

The woman openly displays her cynicism.

Grace crosses her arms tightly in annoyance. “No matter what caused her health issues—malnutrition and dehydration among them—she is a minor who fled the clinic and has not been found.”

“I understand.” Genuine concern seeps through the woman’s cold exterior. “How many others each week? Each month?” She motions to the kids studying. “No one has it easy. Just because a reporter happens to be there one afternoon . . . all this attention. How many since then? How many before?” She lowers her voice. “Listen to me: If this little one is working in a shop, as reported, she has it good. Do you understand? Prostitution is legal here. Do you know how many girls enter Amsterdam each year looking to be a window girl? And what happens to them? Where do they end up? Is anyone counting them? Looking for them? All this—the EU”—she motions to Grace—“for one little girl. It’s touching,” she mocks, “but pardon me if it strikes me as hypocrisy.”

“These children have families,” Grace says, indicating the kids studying at the desks.

The woman looks over her flock. “Most have a parent, or an aunt or uncle, it’s true. A place to sleep. Someone to feed them a meal a day if they’re lucky. They might sleep five or more to a room. They come here to do the book work. They are good children.”

“And during the day?”

“The little ones. Day care. Physical recreation after school. That is when we are busiest. Seventy-five to a hundred each day. I have one other on my staff. We receive donations: balls, pencils and paper, clothing. A local bakery provides yesterday’s unsold pastries. We get by.”

Grace takes it all in.

“I would say . . . it is impossible to know . . . but I would say at least one a month goes missing. Running away? Sex slavery? Or this labor shop of yours? Of the choices, I would take the shop.”

“You are saying she has it good?” Grace is on the edge of indignant.

“I hope you find this girl.”

“Do you know her? Recognize her?”

“Does her face look familiar to me? If I say yes, I give you false hope. If I say no, maybe you give up. I would prefer to say nothing.”

“She is familiar then.”

“Listen to me: there are no jobs out there. None. No fathers, half the time. The children who find work provide for their families, no matter how meager the wage, no matter the working conditions. You take away that small amount of income and many would starve. If you think you will find support here in the neighborhoods, you are sadly mistaken. Communities like this solve problems others cannot or choose not to solve for them. Is the solution always legal? No. But the mothers would rather have their girls sewing or gluing trainers than selling themselves or dealing dope. It is the lesser of two evils.”

“I won’t get help?”

The woman shrugs. She says nothing.

—

T
HE CLICK
OF THE DOOR
behind Grace feels ominous. She leaves the community center, heads for the alley tunnel leading back to Van Speijkstraat. She walks the ten meters to its entrance and stops, aware of the charged particles in the air. The unexpected whiff of fresh cigarette smoke. She turns.

Two men come at her in a blur of shadow and muscle. The first thing she notices is their height; neither is tall. They are fast and they are strong, and while one twists and pulls on her purse, the other blocks her left arm as it comes forward and runs his hand up under her skirt and between her legs and cups her. She surprises him by clamping her legs together so fast that he has no time to remove his hand. She traps it there and then head-butts him in the nose. The other one has her so tangled in her purse that by the time she lifts her knee to finish off the one in front of her, she’s turned and her knee misses. The hand comes free and punches her left breast with such force that sparks fly and her stomach lurches. She’s dizzy and going down. No more than a few seconds have passed.

The purse strap slips down her arm but she grabs for it. With her right hand she claps the one in front of her on the ear and he cries out. She stabs him in the eye with a locked finger and a manicured nail. He cries again, this time louder. She kicks at his knee, but misses.

He winds up a clenched fist. She regrets everything she has just done. She can’t take a second chest punch.

Her opponent collapses, all joints failing simultaneously.

Grace slumps into the disgusting, sticky goo of the tunnel floor amid the sound of the other mugger thief fleeing. She’s kneeling. A shadow looms over her.

The headlights of a passing car flood the tunnel with light. Before her stands the woman in the scarf from the market. It’s not a gun in her hand but a stun stick, explaining the doll-like collapse of her assailant.

“You ask too many questions.”

“Thank you for your help.”

“You will get yourself killed.”

Grace extends her arm for the woman to help her up. The woman reaches for her, but stops.

“Grace?” It’s Knox, a backlit figure at the end of the tunnel. He switches on a small penlight that casts a faint blue light at this distance like a train’s dim headlight.

“Here!”

Before the word is out of her mouth, the woman in the scarf is gone.

—

K
NOX DRAGS
THE KID
by the back of his coat collar—a kid, not a grown man. Eighteen? Nineteen? Pulls him through the door of the community center.

“What’s this?” the director asks, her voice breaking.

Knox lifts the semi-conscious kid with one arm and deposits him into a vinyl chair. The studying students are all made of marble and are turned toward them.

“You must take this outside,” the director says, sensing Knox’s intentions.

The kid’s left eye is swollen nearly shut and oozing. His nose is a bloody mess.

Grace enters last, a ripe bruise already forming on her forehead, her right shoulder lowered to favor her painful chest. Her skirt has slipped down a few inches, revealing the elastic of her bikini underwear.

“The toilet?” Grace speaks Dutch.

The director helps Grace by the arm, guiding her across the room. “What happened? What has happened?” She looks back over her shoulder at Knox. “Not in here.”

Knox takes in the studying kids frozen in their seats. “He slipped and fell,” Knox tells them, “but he’s going to be all right.” He hauls the kid to his feet and leads him back out the doors, pounding him against the brick wall and allowing him to sag to the concrete. He keeps him close to the doors for the sake of the ambient light. Knox squats. The kid is still dazed from the stun stick, though no longer paralyzed. Knox unlaces the kid’s military-style boot and uses the lace to tie the boy’s hands behind his back.

Taking the boy by the chin, he lifts and turns his face into the light. The eye is worse by the minute; the nose is clotting.

Knox speaks Dutch. “If you play tough, it will get rough. Understand?”

The one good eye fills with contempt. Knox grabs the boy’s crotch. Takes a handful and twists. The eye rolls back into its socket. “She tells me you touched her like this.” He twists harder. The kid groans. “One good tug and you’re singing soprano for life. Your call.” He tightens his hold. “Who put you up to this?”

The eye rolls back, filled with an innocent terror. The kid tries to shake his head but Knox holds his chin firmly in hand. But not with his right hand; that one turns a few more degrees clockwise. “Who? And where do I find him?”

“The purse. A little fun. That’s all.”

Another half turn and Knox will do permanent damage. He squeezes instead. “Fun yet?”

The color drains from the boy’s face. He’s not breathing.

The earlier look of fright goes a long way to convincing Knox the kid was not on orders, but he doesn’t want to believe his own intuition. Fahiz was attacked and beaten. For Knox, this kid will do. An act of random violence won’t satisfy his craving for conspiracy and connection. He wants an easy route to follow back to the knot shop. He takes the kid’s wallet, but removes the cash and a debit card and stuffs them into the front pocket of the boy’s jeans. Confirms there’s ID with an address.

“If I should ever see you again, I am coming after you with the full intention of ending your life. Do you understand?”

The boy is slow to respond. Knox loosens his grip on his testicles. The boy’s chin tries to nod.

Behind him, Grace stands framed by the door, looking out. She has put herself back together; her dark hair covers her forehead.

Knox opens the door for her. Says to the director, “Do you know this boy?”

The director shakes her head without looking. “These are hard times. There are many such boys. Too many.”

“Fix the lights in the tunnel,” Knox says.

The woman nods. “Yes. Of course.”

“Do not untie him. He can make it home without his arms. Lock the door until he’s gone. If he doesn’t leave, call the police.”

Another nod from the director. “I already have.”

The boy struggles to get up. Knox kicks him back down. “Ladies first.”

Knox offers his hand to Grace, and to his surprise she accepts it.

—

K
NOX HELPS
G
RACE
feed the key card into the hotel room door, her hand shaking too violently.

“I can come in,” he says. “Make you a drink. You could use one.”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” She pushes open the door but doesn’t move. Knox slips past her. He checks the bathroom, the closet and the rest of the room.

“Clear.”

She enters. “Vodka, rocks.” She is unbuttoning her blouse as she enters the bathroom. Shuts and locks the door.

He hears the bath water running, not a shower. She’ll be a while. He’s got her room key. He fetches ice and waits to make her drink. Takes a Scotch for himself. Drinks it from a plastic cup that he removes from a plastic wrapper.

The water stops running.

He hears the door lock pop as she cracks the door.

“Thank you,” she calls out.

“No problem.” He pours the vodka and approaches with his back to the bathroom door, then passes the drink inside. They touch hands. Hers is ice cold.