Paul Levine: Illegal

She gripped the stem of a brilliant red rose, avoiding the thorns. Snipped with the shears. Soon, she would carry two armloads inside to the parlor. White roses as fluffy as a bride's gown. Pink roses, delicate as a blush. Purples, as dark and rich as wine. All far too beautiful for such a place.

Mr. Zaga had put her on yard and kitchen duty. She sensed that it was temporary, that they had other plans for her. The women working there, the putas, whispered about her. Strangely, many of them-Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans-did not seem to mind their despoliation. This morning, in an adjacent bedroom, three women from Chihuahua, dumber than cows, were fixing one another's hair, giggling and babbling. Marisol thought of them as putas parlanchinas.

Chatterbox whores.

Giggling, they described their customers' genitals in disgusting terms and boasted about providing extras in return for bigger tips. One of the women slapped her rump, shouting, "?Metemela por el culo, vaquero!"

Demanding it in her back door. How vulgar. How crude.

The other women laughed. They claimed to be sending home enormous sums of money. Marisol could stand it no longer. "Do you tell your families how you make this money?"

"?Chingate!" the ass-slapper hissed.

"She'd better," another one brayed. "No one else will."

More laughter.

"You are free to leave," Marisol told them. "Why don't you just walk away?"

"To where? The fields?"

"I have no man to protect me," the third one said. "I'd be raped every night."

"Better to be paid for it," the ass-slapper said. "And have good food, too."

"If you don't like it here," the second one said, "go back to whatever shithole you came from."

Marisol would have gone in an instant. But there were different rules for her. These women, the trusted ones, could go into town to shop. They could use the telephone.

Just now, the daytime guard stood on the rear porch watching her. An Asian face. Said to be from Vietnam. Not young and not appearing physically strong, but Marisol had heard whispers that he was a trained killer from a long-ago war, that he enjoyed hurting women with his knife. There were many such rumors here.

The guard kept his eyes on Marisol. Had Mr. Rutledge ordered it? She tried to suppress the memory of his trips to her room but could not. She had struggled at first, then realized he enjoyed it more when she fought back. She had gone limp. Motionless. Silent. Eyes squeezed shut. Imagining she was far away, floating on a cloud, oblivious to his violation of her. Hoping his interest would wane.

Instead, he slapped her across the face and pulled her hair.

"Move your ass, chica!"

His face aflame and the vein in his neck throbbing. If she had the pruning shears then, she would have snipped that vein like the stem of a rose.

When he was finished, she asked him to let her go. Didn't beg. Just asked, saying she would never cause trouble. But he just pulled up his jeans, cinched his belt, and left her room.

Now she carried the flowers by their thorny stems to the kitchen, avoiding the gaze of the guard. The building was old, maybe a hundred years. To Marisol, it looked like something from England she had seen on television.

Four stories with turrets and towers, painted the same color as the pink blushing roses. To her, the house resembled a steamship, chimneys like smokestacks and wide porches like covered decks. But it was a burdel, a den of debauchery. And for her, a prison.

Jacqueline would be in the kitchen preparing the evening meal for el jefe 's guests. A black woman from Georgia, Jacqueline had befriended Marisol, giving her ice for her bruises and advice on dealing with her situation.

"Just don't rile Mr. Simeon. You don't wanna get yourself buried in the cellar like some of the girls."

The warning shook her. Marisol had heard about the cellar from the putas parlanchinas. Stories of pregnant women who refused abortions. Forced to drink poison, they miscarried. Sometimes, they died. The cellar was said to contain the bones of these women and their unborn babies.

Jacqueline said the cellar scared her. Cobwebs and dirt floors and the spirits of the dead. Yesterday, she asked Marisol to haul up a case of liquor. Marisol tiptoed down the creaking wooden staircase. Even with its shadows and musty corners, the cellar was not as frightening as the cook had said. No ghosts hiding in the dark.

Marisol took her time. Examined the shelves of canned foods, bottles of liquor and wine. Found a door with a rusted iron frame, and vertical bars. Through the bars, nothing but darkness, and air as cool as in a mine shaft. An antique padlock fastened the door to its frame.

Marisol did not ask Jacqueline about the door or where it led. She didn't have to. Two days earlier, Marisol had been carrying a tray of clean glasses to the room called the "library," but really it was a bar. The bartender, a man in his fifties, was talking to a customer, saying that his grandfather had worked for Mr. Rutledge's grandfather.

"In those days, half the Legislature drove down here on weekends. Told their wives they had meetings at the Valley Improvement Society. That's the empty building next door. They'd play billiards and drink whiskey and take bribes to divvy up land and water for the big growers. Then the old tomcats would sneak through a tunnel right into our basement and up the stairs. All of 'em sniffing after pussy!"

The customer laughed, and the bartender joined in. Barely noticing Marisol stacking glasses on the shelves.

Now she planned her escape. The rusted iron door in the basement must lead to the tunnel. The tunnel led to the building next door. The road was just beyond. That would be her route. She prayed that the tunnel would not collapse and bury her with the other corpses, cold and forgotten belowground.

She knew there was a chance the guard would catch her. But she vowed to fight until one of them was dead. With that thought, she tucked the pruning shears into her apron, her fingers caressing the cool steel blade.

Chief Javier Cardenas felt powerless. An L.A.P.D. detective was roaming his office like a jungle cat.

Just how much does Detective Eugene Rigney know?

Cardenas had never faced anything like this. He could scarcely remember a time he hadn't been taking orders from Uncle Sim. They had an unspoken arrangement. If Cardenas did what he was told, Simeon would boost his career, make his life more comfortable, and protect him.

Neither man had ever used the word "bribe." Not even "gift" or "present." Sometimes, Simeon would say, "I'm sending over a little something for the fridge." Slabs of freshly butchered ribs would arrive on ice, a stack of cold cash bagged separately. Other times, a Rutledge truck would deliver cartons of vegetables, Ben Franklin's quizzical face peering out from beneath the lettuce leaves.

Whenever Cardenas had a problem, Simeon was there to help. Except today. Hell, Uncle Sim's to blame for the spot I'm in.

Cardenas put on his friendly smile and leaned back in his ergonomically correct chair. His desk was an asymmetrical glass slab mounted on blocks of blue glass that resembled chunks of glacial ice. Outside, the thermometer on the Rutledge State Bank read 110. Inside the police station, the smooth, silent flow of the A/C kept the temperature a brisk 72.

So why am I sweating?

Maybe because at this moment, a swinging dick from L.A. was inspecting the office as if it were a crime scene.

"Never saw a cop shop like this." Detective Rigney stared at a lionfish darting in and out of a coral house in the chief's aquarium. "Must have cost a fortune."

"Private donations." He chose not to say that the donations all came from Simeon Rutledge. From the high-tech communications gear to the cushy leather chairs and sofas, it was all Uncle Sim's doing.