Don Winslow - Dawn Patrol

She was with Danny the night of the fire. He told her to wait in the car, but she got bored and impatient. She stood outside and smoked a cigarette, but when that was done, she thought, Fuck Danny, and went inside.

What she saw changed her world.

Dirty mattresses on a concrete floor, an old showerhead surrounded by a torn plastic curtain strung on a clothesline, an open toilet in the corner. Random blankets, no sheets, some stained pillows without covers.

The girls were like zombies.

Later, Tammy would learn that these behaviors were symptomatic of severe and repetitive trauma, but that night Tammy just saw a group of young girls looking at her with dead eyes.

Except one.

One little girl came over, threw her arms around Tammy's legs, pressed her head against her thighs, and held on tight.

That was, of course, Luce.

Tammy didn't know what to do. Didn't know how to handle this girl, didn't know who these children were. She guessed at their ages-the oldest seemed to be a young teenager; the youngest couldn't have been more than eight. The girl clutching her legs was probably eleven or twelve. All the girls had brown skin, black hair, dark eyes. They wore cheap clothes that looked like they'd come from the Salvation Army or an AM VETS store. Most were holding some vestiges of childhood or family-a stuffed dog, a plastic flower, a book.

Luce wore a silver chain with a small cross.

Tammy stroked the girl's hair. It was greasy and dirty, but Tammy didn't mind. She stroked the girl's hair and made soft cooing sounds.

Dan didn't.

Dan blew fucking up.

He came down the hallway, saw Tammy in the room, and yelled, “What the fuck are you doing in here? I told you to wait outside!”

Most of the girls threw themselves facedown on their mattresses and did their best to cover their heads with blankets. Luce held tighter to Tammy and pressed her face harder against her legs.

Tammy didn't back down.

“What the fuck am I doing here!” she yelled back. “What the fuck is this, Dan?”

Dan grabbed her by the arm and started to haul her out, Luce still clinging to Tammy's legs. Dan stopped and grabbed the girl, trying to peel her off, but Tammy shoved and hit out at him and Dan had to let go of Luce to grab Tammy by the wrists.

“You leave her alone!” Tammy yelled. “Or I'll-”

“You'll what?” Danny asked. “You'll fucking what?”

She brought a knee up into Danny's balls.

That was fucking what.

Dan keeled over.

Luce regained her grip on Tammy. One of Dan's bouncers came out of a back room, hoisted Tammy away from the crying girl, hauled her out of the building, and forced her into Dan's car. As he was pushing her out the door, she heard the little girl yelling, “ЎLos campos fresas! ЎLos campos fresas!”

Dan came out a couple of minutes later and got into the driver's seat. Slapped her across the face. “You cunt. ”

“You bastard,” Tammy said. “Who were those girls? What are you doing with them?”

“They're illegals, all right?” Dan said. “I get them jobs as maids.”

“Bull-fucking- shit,” Tammy said. “I know what business you're in, Dan.”

“That's right,” Dan said. “I'm in the sex business, Tammy. I sell sex. You can't handle that?”

“They're children!”

“In Mexico? Half of them would be married by now. They'd be churning out babies already.”

“Keep telling yourself that, you sick motherfucker.”

“They'd be starving back home,” Dan said.

“Yeah, they look like they're doing great here,” Tammy said. “Fuck you, Dan, I'm calling the cops.”

He clamped his hand around her throat, pulled her face close to his, and said, “If you do that, you stupid twat, I'll kill you. And just in case you don't care about your own useless life, think about the kids. Their families owe money to the guys who bring them in. If they don't produce, the snakeheads take it out on their families. Capisce?”

She nodded, but he didn't let her go for a few seconds, just to make a point. To make the point further, he unzipped his fly and forced her head down. “You open your mouth, it's for this. ” When he let her up, she could see, through watery eyes, the bouncer loading the girls into an old van.

A few seconds later, flames blew out the windows.

Dan drove her home.

She didn't go to the cops. She went to the insurance company and told them that she saw him set the fire, that she could put him at the scene. It was a mistake, she'd tell Teddy later. She wanted to get back at Dan Silver, and she wanted them to look harder at the fire. Maybe they'd find something that would put them onto what was really happening there.

She did something else.

She looked for Luce.

Tammy went out to the strawberry fields, los campos fresas, and looked for the girl. Her first few trips, all she saw were the workers in the fields, and then one day, she left the new strip club she was working at and went straight out to the fields, arriving there shortly before dawn.

She saw a bunch of men leave the fields and walk down to the side of the river, where a stand of tall reeds hid the men from view. She drove down the road to the other side, parked her car, and walked in a little ways.

Tammy waited until all the field-workers had gone away and then went in. A Mexican man with a shotgun went to stop her, but Tammy ignored him and he let her pass. She found Luce on a “bed” of stamped-down reeds. Tammy took some hand wipes out of her bag and helped the girl clean herself off.

Speaking broken Spanish and English, she and the girl talked, but mostly she held the girl and stroked her hair. The man with the shotgun told her she'd have to go, that the pimps would come very soon to take the girls back to where they lived.

“Where do they live?” Tammy asked.

“All over the place. The men move them around,” he told her. “They go to different fields all day, or to hidden ‘factories,’ sometimes to the mojado camps at night. But they always bring them to this place, the strawberry fields, at sunrise every day.” The local pedophiles had a cute name for it. They called it “The Dawn Patrol.”

The man with the shotgun told Tammy again that she had to go.

“Tell her I'll be back,” Tammy said. “What's her name?”

The man, Pablo, asked the girl her name.

“Luce.”

“Luce, I'm Tammy. I'll come back to see you, okay?”

Tammy did go back, three or four times a week. Pablo always escorted her in, and even the pimps who brought the girls in the van came to tolerate her when they saw that she wasn't going to go to the police. She took Luce-and all the girls-food, clothing, cold medication, books. She took them condoms. She took them female love and affection.

It wasn't enough.

Tammy confided in Angela. Told her all about Luce and the strawberry fields.

“They need medical care,” Tammy said. “They need a doctor.”

Angela took her to see Teddy. He had done Angela's boobs-she had done him to get the insider discount.

Teddy didn't believe her at first, thought she was a psycho. He felt sorry for her, figured she had been an abused child who had twisted her trauma into delusion. He was going to recommend a good psychiatrist, but Tammy challenged him to go and see for himself.

So Teddy rode up one day with her. He wanted to call the police. Tammy begged him not to, told him why. What she needed, what the girls needed, was a doctor.

“I'm hoping that's you,” she said.

It was.

He went back again and again. At first, Pablo was hesitant, and the van drivers absolutely forbade it. But Teddy overcame their resistance with wads of cash and assurances of silence, and the men weren't total animals.