No Shelter (6 page)

“So what’s the deal?” Nova asks.
 

“The deal is that she is one of at least twenty women kept prisoner in a place out in the desert.”
 

Scooter is already shaking his head, knowing exactly where this is going. “Don’t even th-th-think about it. Our job here is done. Now it’s time to go home.”
 

“You know I can’t do that.”
 

“Holly—” Nova begins.
 

“The girls at this ranch only get five percent of what they make. Until they make five thousand dollars each, not one of them is free to go. They’re slaves. Their whole purpose is to be a whore. They fuck and suck and most times they get beat by the men that request them. Apparently that’s what the place specializes in—very rough sex.”
 

Both men are silent, staring back at me. I glance over my shoulder and see Rosalina standing right where I left her, still sobbing. Now in brighter light and away from danger, it’s clear just how emaciated she has become. That was another thing she had said, something I don’t bother mentioning to the boys because I’m sure they already know the truth: the men who run this place starve the girls, get them addicted to drugs, sometimes beat and rape them if they’re bored.
 

When it’s clear neither of the boys is going to say anything, I shake my head in disgust. “You both are cowards.”
 

Nova keeps his arms crossed, his face impassive. “Holly, this isn’t our problem. If you want to call the police about this, be my guest. But we can’t get involved.”
 

“You’ve said that before.”
 

“Yeah, but this time I mean it. Remember what happened in Berlin? I do. We almost got killed working on one of your fucking crusades.”
 

“One of my fucking crusades,” I say, nodding. “That’s nice, Nova. Thanks for that.”
 

“Holly”—Scooter now, his voice back to normal—“just th-th-think for a moment. Just one moment. I’ve said this to you before and I’ll say it again: You can’t save the world. It’s just not possible. Yeah, I feel bad for this girl—for all the girls there—and yeah, those men no doubt deserve to pay. But let the police handle it. Our time here is up.”
 

I stare back at them for another long moment. I’m thinking about Rosalina of course, and the rest of the girls back at what she calls “the ranch.” But I’m also thinking about another woman I once knew, someone I’d called a friend, someone who had something terrible happen to her and then killed herself.
 

It’s her face I see now as I stare back at Scooter and Nova, her ragged, sorrow-filled face, and before I know it I’m turning away from the boys.
 

“Don’t,” Nova says, and I pause. “Holly, if you go through with this, you’re on your own. I’m sorry, but neither of us can involve ourselves. It isn’t our fight.”
 

I wait there a moment, just one moment, and then I turn away completely, start walking, staring intently at Rosalina until I come to stand directly in front of her.
 

“Rosalina, this place you told me about, the ranch—do you know where it’s located in the desert?”
 

Her eyes shift again, this time toward the floor. They stay there for a moment, then shift back up to stare into mine. Wiping at her face, she slowly nods.
 

I reach out a hand, place it on her arm. “Show me.”
 

10

After I let the Town Car roll to a stop, I place it in park and shut off the engine. We just sit there then in darkness, neither one of us speaking. Eventually I look over at Rosalina. She looks at me. After a moment she nods and points out through the windshield, at the rocky hills in front of us.
 

“There,” she says. “It’s over there.”
 

Rosalina had taken me down the road that leads to the private drive that leads back to the ranch. I’d backtracked then to the highway, taken that for a half mile north. At some point I turned off the highway, cut the headlights and did a good job of not hitting the brakes, rolling over the sand and rocks and through the sagebrush for a quarter mile, so that anybody driving by on the highway wouldn’t see us. Now we’re wrapped in darkness, the moon almost full, the stars bright, and Rosalina has just confirmed what I already know.
 

“Wait here,” I say.
 

I’ve already flicked the dome light off, so when I open the door the darkness remains. I open the backdoor, reach in and grab the sports bag the boys had given me before I left the garage. They may be cowards but they’re not complete assholes, and they didn’t let me walk away empty-handed.
 

I’ve changed out of the schoolgirl outfit, put back on my jeans and tee. The only weapon I have on me now is my trusty two-shot strapped to my ankle. The other two weapons I pull out of the sports bag: a nine-millimeter and an AK-47.
 

Rosalina opens her door and slowly steps out. Despite everything she still wears her heels and they crunch the sand in the dead silence.
 

“You are really going by yourself?”
 

I set the nine-millimeter on the roof to check the AK-47, ejecting the clip, slamming it back in.
 

“These are very bad men,” Rosalina says. “They will kill you.”
 

I strap the rifle over my shoulder, grab the nine, check its clip then rack the slide. Reach back into the sports bag for its holster, clip the holster to my pants.
 

Rosalina persists. “Why are you doing this?”
 

It makes me pause. Sure, Nova and Scooter asking the same question, that’s one thing, but a complete stranger, an illegal who has been forced into prostitution asking why I’m trying to help save her?
 

Before I can respond, she says, “You are a killer, yes? A ... assassin?”
 

Actually, when people ask what it is I do for work, I tell them I’m a nanny. I tell them I watch two perfect children, a boy and a girl, who I sometimes wish were my own children and who I sometimes wish would shut the hell up and quit being brats.
 

The killing people thing, the non-sanctioned government missions, that’s just work on the side that I keep to myself.
 

“Do you not want me to kill these men, Rosalina?”
 

She takes a moment to think about this, raising her thumb to her mouth, biting the nail. Finally she shakes her head.
 

“These men,” she says, “they are very, very bad. But ...”
 

“But?”
 

“But us women, we are all here in this country illegally. What ... what will then become of us?”
 

It’s like a giant corkscrew jammed into my stomach, being twisted and twisted, this question of hers catching me so off guard. Here is a girl younger than me but yet looks ten years older, who has been forced into a life of prostitution where half the time she is beaten to an inch of her life—here is this girl finding herself preferring this rather than being sent back home.
 

“Who says you’ll be sent back?”
 

Rosalina gives a soft, sardonic laugh. “Everyone in this country hates people like me. We are ... less than human. We are trash. They will send me back to my country without a second’s thought or care.”
 

“But wouldn’t you rather be back in your country? Don’t you have anyone there?”
 

“I have my husband and children, yes.”
 

Rosalina sees my expression and quickly shakes her head.
 

“No, no, believe me when I say I love and miss my family more than anything in the world. We came over here four years ago, us and a dozen others. But then the police came and took my husband and children and many of the others away. There were only a few of us left, women, and we had nothing—no money, no shelter, absolutely nothing.”
 

“I still don’t understand. Why then wouldn’t you want to go back?”
 

“Because this ... this is America.” She says this in such an obvious way, a soft light starting to burn in her eyes. “This is the land of wealth and freedom. You have to work to get it, and once I get it, I will send for my husband and children.”
 

I see where she’s going with this and slowly ask, “Rosalina, how much money have you earned since you’ve been at the ranch?”
 

She looks away, tallying the amount up in her head. “About six hundred dollars.”
 

“So that means you need another four thousand four hundred dollars before you are free.”
 

She nods, slowly, that soft light dimming bit by bit in her eyes.
 

I don’t tell her the obvious, something she must already know but something she has blinded herself to. She just stares back at me, her eyes filling again, and slowly shakes her head.
 

“I cannot return empty-handed.”
 

I reach back into the sports bag, pull out the last toy Scooter has provided me. It’s a night-vision scope which I stuff into the front of my pants pocket. Then I softly shut the back door and walk around to the other side, keeping my gaze level with Rosalina. When I reach her I place my hand on her shoulder and ask her to again tell me everything she can about the ranch.
 

She wipes at her eyes, slowly shakes her head. “Please tell me—why are you doing this?”
 

I think of that woman from years ago, the one I used to know, the one who called me a friend, and I say to Rosalina, “Because nobody else will.”
 

11

The darkness has taken on a greenish-yellow tint. I can distinctly see the ranch house at the base of the desert, a squat brick building with bars over the windows. Adjacent to this is another building, just one room, a shack where Rosalina says the guards spend most of their time.
 

There is no electricity, no indoor plumbing to either building. A generator growls softly in the night, keeping the lights on inside the guards’ house.
 

I lie on my stomach on top of the rocky hill, the night-vision scope to my eye. I sit up and turn, focus back down to the other side of the hill where I parked the Town Car. Rosalina is inside, the keys in the ignition. I told her if I don’t return within an hour, or if she senses trouble, to take the car and never return.
 

In the heavy and cold silence a sound comes from down the hill. Rusty hinges screech as a door opens. A man steps outside. I focus the scope on him. He’s tall, Hispanic, wearing a holstered gun on his belt. He stands there a moment, looking out over the dark. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes, lights one, then starts toward the sagebrush, unzipping his pants as he walks.
 

I watch the man smoke and piss, then watch as he zips back up, turns away, takes one last drag before dropping the spent butt to the ground, smashing it with the heel of his boot. The man walks back to the building, turns to glance once more at the dark, his eyes roaming like he’s searching for something, and then he turns and walks back inside.
 

Putting away the scope, taking the AK-47 from where it hangs off my shoulder, I grip the rifle in both hands and then slowly start down the hill. I take my time. The light here isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either, and I put one foot in front of the other, make sure it’s solid ground before I place all my weight onto it and continue on. It takes awhile, but then I’m less than one hundred yards away from the ranch house. Close now, I can hear voices and music inside the guards’ building. Someone laughs, someone else coughs. I listen another minute, determine there is at least four guards inside.
 

I start toward the ranch house. I keep the AK-47 aimed at the guards’ building as I move forward. Rosalina said that most times the men lock the ranch house. Sometimes they don’t lock it on purpose, to give the girls a false sense of freedom, and any girl stupid enough to try to escape gets raped and beaten.
 

Tonight the guards haven’t played one of their mind games. The door is locked. Maybe it has to do with the trouble earlier tonight. Surely the men know what has happened, since at least one of their girls was involved.
 

The rusty hinges of the door scream out into the night. Another man exits the guards’ house, a different man than before but a man who still wears a holstered gun. I expect him to pull a pack of smokes out of his pocket, but instead he starts walking off toward the same patch of sagebrush, what seems to be the favored pissing ground.
 

I think about my options. I don’t have many. Hell, I don’t have any.
 

The guy stops at the edge of the sagebrush, unzips his pants. He stands there a moment, murmuring something in Spanish, and then I hear the steady stream of his piss splash the dry ground.
 

I don’t have time to think. He’s fifty yards away, maybe forty. His back is exposed. He has a gun but I have three, and before another moment of hesitation I start toward him, quickly, doing my best to keep my sneakers from making any sound on the hard sand. Past the guards’ house where I hear voices and laughter and music—someone inside now saying, “Anyone else want a beer?”—closer and closer to the man who keeps pissing, now whistling something, a tune I don’t recognize.
 

Twenty yards away ... fifteen yards ... ten yards ...
 

He hears me when I’m five yards away. He starts to turn, starts to reach for his holstered gun. I come up right behind him, the AK-47 now strapped back over my shoulder. I jab him in the kidneys once, then take his head in my hands, twist it to break his neck. This isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies. The guy’s at a bad angle and my twist does nothing more than help him turn around. He’s still reaching for his gun, his hand on the handle, trying to pull it out. He wasn’t done pissing and his dick is exposed, dripping.