Forgive Me(37)

Easy ni?a, Ricardo said. You fine. You fine. All is good. I take off the blindfold in a minute. You gotta work now for your food. You ready to go to work. That’s what I remember him saying. I heard footsteps shuffling toward me. Voices whispering. Laughs. Giggles. Get back, putas! Ricardo yelled. A girl’s voice said look at the freshie. New meat. I like it. Someone grabbed my ass. Nice and firm, a girl said, then laughed.

Ricardo dug his fingers into my arm. His nails pinched my skin and it hurt. This was a warning, a reminder to me that he was love and suffering, pain and relief all rolled into one. I heard the sound of shuffling feet. People scurried away. Where were we? What dark world had he brought me to? Ricardo pulled me to a stop like I was the mule he once called me. At last, he took off my blindfold. I blinked though I didn’t have to adjust my eyes too much because there wasn’t much light.

I was in a room about the size of my bedroom, but the walls were made of wood—cheap stuff, different types of wood all pressed together. What else was in this room? A twin bed on a metal frame, a wastebasket, and nothing else. No other furniture. No windows. A small lamp plugged into an extension chord pulled through a hole in the wall gave off the room’s only light. I heard a man grunting. I know those noises because Ricardo made them with me and because he made me watch a lot of videos. It sounded like it was coming from close by.

Where am I? I asked Ricardo. Your new home he said. I don’t like it here, I said. He threw me onto the thin mattress and started to choke me. My eyes bugged wide. He let go of my throat so I could breathe again, but then he took out a lighter. He grabbed my arm hard and held the flame to my skin until the searing pain got so bad I began to scream. He covered my mouth with his hand and burned me again.

That’s when Stephen Macan entered the room. He was dressed in a suit. He still looked distinguished and handsome, but there was something very cold about him. A darkness I hadn’t seen in him before. He sat on the bed. The springs creaked and groaned under his weight. He told Ricardo to leave. He still had that accent I couldn’t figure out. I was crying and Stephen Macan gave me some tissues. He was drinking a Coke with ice and he offered me a drink. He rubbed an ice cube over the burn on my arm. He said anytime I did something wrong from this point forward I would be burned. I started to cry harder. What do you want from me?

He told me that I worked for him now and that Ricardo wasn’t my boyfriend anymore. I can’t have a boyfriend. Not here. He said he tried to make something happen with the pictures, but I’m not going to be JBar. Not now, not ever. I don’t have what it takes. But I still have to pay him back for all the time and energy he invested in me. I have to earn my keep, he said. I asked how I’m supposed to do that? I’ve never had a real job before and I don’t have any skills.

The grunting sounds I heard became louder, more intense, and they distracted me. Stephen Macan grabbed my chin and turned my head to make me look him in the eyes. The coldness I saw made me shiver. He said my job was to make his clients happy.

I told him I didn’t know how to do that, but he said I was lying. He said I took care of Ricardo just fine. That was my training period. Now I have to take care of others for real. My arm was throbbing. I couldn’t stop crying. I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to puke. Stephen Macan took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I shrank away from the flame, but he grabbed me and pulled me close to it. Close so my face could feel the heat and my eyes stung from the brightness. He put the cigarette to the flame and took a drag. Then he gave me the smoke. I inhaled and coughed because I took a big drag. He told me not to take such a deep breath. He wanted me to smoke it all because the cigarette would calm me. It wasn’t just tobacco in there, he said. He wouldn’t say what else it was, but I smoked it down anyway and felt extremely lightheaded. Calmer. The pain in my arm didn’t go away, but it didn’t hurt as badly anymore.

Stephen Macan said it was time for me to go to work. He said I belonged to him now. He called me a piece of property he owns and said it was time to, “earn your keep little girl.”

How? I asked.

But I knew. I knew.

Stephen Macan got up from the bed and opened the door to my makeshift room. Buggy was standing there smiling a big toothy grin. He strutted in, unbuttoning his bowling shirt. He took off his fedora hat and Stephen Macan took money from him. I saw this exchange. Nobody tried to hide it from me. Ricardo came back into the room. I was sitting on the bed and he leaned down and whispered into my ear to make Buggy smile or Stephen Macan will burn my face so badly my mom won’t recognize me. Then he’d put me down into the hole.

What’s the hole?

He wouldn’t tell me. He just said, you don’t ever want to go into the hole, Jessica. For a second I forgot my name wasn’t Jessica. I forgot I was Nadine. Ricardo said he would wait outside for me to finish then he would take me out for lunch and take me to my new apartment. Don’t I live here now? I asked. He laughed. Nah, he said, this place is for the work. Upstairs is for sleeping.

His voice sounded far away because my head was buzzing from whatever I’d just smoked. Thank God I was high. Thank God because I knew what was coming. Buggy came toward me with a giant smile on his face that put no sparkle into his black eyes.





CHAPTER 20



Day two of Angie’s stakeout and already she was sick of the salads they sold in the food court. She was also sick of the lighting, the pumped-in music, the filtered air, and the echo from the din of constant chatter and footsteps. She felt like a vampire wandering the halls of the Union Station mall, going from floor to floor, store to store, looking for a tall, balding man with a handsome face and good taste in suits.