Don Winslow - Dawn Patrol

They had some compassion, and Teddy convinced them that it was in their interest to have the girls checked for venereal disease, that it was just good business.

“The girls are raped multiple time a day, six days a week,” Teddy tells Boone now. “They give them Sundays off. The men pay five to ten dollars to have sex with them. It doesn't sound like this would add up to a lot of money, but multiply it by several locations a day, all over California. Hell, all over the country, more and more. Now you're talking serious money. The variety of potential and actual STDs is staggering. No matter what we do, a third of these girls are going to become HIV-positive. And then there's vaginal trauma… anal tears. Not to mention the day-to-day garden-variety colds, flu, respiratory infections, hygiene issues. You could set up a clinic there and staff it twenty-four/seven and you'd still be overwhelmed.”

But Teddy did what he could.

He did set up a clinic. He rented a full-time room at the motel and stocked it with antibiotics and other drugs, hiding them in locked cabinets, as otherwise the room would be broken into and the drugs stolen. He went up there two, three, five times a week as his schedule allowed, usually with Tammy.

The pimps tolerated them.

As long as they got the girls in and out, as long as the girls met their schedule, as long as nobody breathed a word, it was okay. Just. There was always the threat that the operation would be shut down, and Teddy, no matter how hard he tried to argue, no matter what kind of cash he threw at them, was never, ever allowed anywhere near the “safe houses” where the girls lived.

“‘Safe houses,’” he says to Boone. “There's a tasty irony. More like petri dishes, fecund hothouses for bacteria. If I could get to them and institute just some basic hygienic procedures, we could eliminate at least half of the chronic diseases they suffer from.”

But it was no good. They could never find out where the girls were housed, and they were afraid to push it. And the girls themselves changed all the time. They were shuffled around, disappearing, sometimes returning, new girls arriving every few weeks.

It made Tammy crazy with fear.

Once, Luce went missing for two weeks and Teddy had to sedate Tammy. When the girl returned, Tammy swore that she couldn't go through that again, that they had to do something.

“She loved the girl,” Teddy says. “Do you have kids?”

Boone shakes his head.

“I have three,” Teddy says. “By a couple of different wives. You fall in love with them, you know? And the thought of anything happening to them…”

She decided to take Luce.

Tammy and Angela decided that they would take the girl and raise her themselves. They knew they just couldn't take her-that would endanger Luce's family back in Guanajuato-so they decided to buy her.

What kind of life could Luce have otherwise? If she survived the chronic rape, the STDs, the trauma, the exposure, the beatings, the malnutrition, psychological abuse, emotional deprivation, if she lived through her teenage years, then into her twenties, what could she expect? To be moved to an actual brothel? To a sweatshop? If she went through all of that without going to crack or getting hooked on meth, even then, what kind of life would she have?

What's the price of a twelve-year-old girl?

Twenty thousand dollars.

Because they not only had to pay for the price of a lucrative working girl; they also had to pay the always-accruing interest on her debt, the money she owed the smugglers for getting her into the country, and the interest on the debt she owed for room and board.

Twenty large, growing every day.

So Tammy and Angela ramped it up. They worked extra shifts. They used every trick they knew to manipulate men into taking them into the VIP Room. Once inside, they turned on all their charms to make the men fork over big tips.

Every dance, every slide down the pole, every lap they ground themselves on went into the purchase price for Luce.

It wasn't enough.

Teddy gave them the rest of the money.

Tammy went to Danny and bought Luce.

Cash on the barrel.

It was good, it was done, and then “The lawyers came knocking,” Boone says.

Teddy nods.

Danny went ballistic; he was terrified about what might come out in court, never mind just the arson suit; he made all kinds of threats. He told Tammy she could forget about Luce. The women decided to run and take the girl with them. They left their apartments and checked into the Crest Motel, intending to get a train out of town the next morning.

They never made it.

Luce had an sick stomach-she was upset and nervous. The vending machine at the motel was broken, so Tammy walked down to a convenience store to get a soda to try to settle Luce's stomach.

When she got back, Angela was dead and Luce was gone.

Tammy panicked. She was afraid to go to her place, so she went to Angela's, got scared there, too, and called Teddy. He picked her up and took her to Shrink's, then volunteered to go and try to find Luce.

Which he did.

The girl had gone back to the only familiar place she could find.

The strawberry fields.

Where Boone found them.

The rest of the story he knows.

Boone saved Tammy from Dan at the beach below Shrink's and then took her home. He made his deal with Red Eddie that she wouldn't be touched. But Dan figured out something that was worth more to her than her own life, worth more than revenge or even justice for Angela's killing.

Luce.

“Do you have her now?” Boone asks.

Thinking, you're a total fucking idiot, Daniels. You read both these people so wrong, it's pathetic. You're not looking at a dumb, dishonest stripper and a pervert plastic surgeon. You're looking at two heroes. And the late Angela Hart was a third.

Tammy drops her face into her hands and starts to cry.

Teddy says, “No, they said if everything went well, they'd call late tonight or early tomorrow morning and turn Luce over to us. The deal is that Tammy takes Luce and never comes back.”

Dan gets away with having Angela killed, but what's more important? Justice, or a girl's life? If we could talk to Angela, she'd tell us to make that trade. We can't save them all-hell, we can't save most of them. But we can save one. One girl gets a life.

What's the life of one little girl worth? Boone asks himself.

Alot.

Everything.

“I can call John Kodani,” Boone says. “He'll understand. He'll-”

“No cops,” Tammy says through splayed fingers.

“Silver said that if he as much as smells the police,” Teddy says, “he'll kill Luce.”

He'll kill the three of you anyway, Boone thinks. A man that evil won't keep his word, not to you, not even to Red Eddie. A man who sinks that far into darkness fears nothing, no one, not even God or eternity.

Tammy lifts her head and looks right at Boone. Her emerald eyes are wet with tears, swollen, and rimmed with red. She's been crying a lot since Boone last saw her. What I've seen. “I'm begging you,” she says. “I'm begging you. Leave it alone. Let the girl have a shot at a life.”

“He's going to kill you.”

“I'll take the chance,” Tammy says.

Boone says, “I'll go with you.”

“No,” Tammy says. “He said just me. Not even Teddy.”

“He's setting you up, Tammy.”

She shrugs. Then says, “Promise me.”

“Promise you what?” Boone asks.

“Promise me you won't call the police,” she says. “Promise me you won't interfere.”

“Okay.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

Boone starts to leave. He stops at the door, looks back, and says, “I'm sorry. For what I thought about you both. I was wrong and I'm sorry.”