Katrina Prado - The Whore of Babylon, A Memoir

He stops a moment letting me take this in. He looks at me steady, a gaze of solid steel.

“She could be prostituting to make money. A pimp has maybe even taken her in. If that’s the case, she could be anywhere. He’ll be keeping her as hidden as possible because she’s underage. Or he might be running an escort service, which will make it even harder to find her.”

“But she’s only fifteen,” I say.

“There’s been a seventy percent increase in the last three years of juveniles in prostitution. The average age is twelve to thirteen. Some as young as ten. Some of these girls come from bad homes where there was some kind of abuse, be it physical, sexual or else the parents were drug addicts.”

He pauses. Does he expect me to admit something?

I sit stiffly in my seat. “There is no abuse in our home.”

A prostitute. I can’t even get my mind to wrap itself around the word.

“Nearly half these girls come from good homes. They’re good kids with good grades looking to make some money on the side. These pimps tell them they’ll be in music videos or models. Buy them clothes, show them a good time. Sometimes they use their own girls to lure in new recruits. They hunt for new blood in halfway houses, youth shelters, and bus stations.”

Money. Always an issue in our house. My mind flashes to half a dozen arguments I’ve had with Robyn about why I could never buy her the name brand purse or coat or shoes she always seemed to require.

“The FBI estimates there’s anywhere between one hundred to three hundred thousand of these kids on the streets in America. But no one really knows for sure.”

I sink into the chair. A pillowy air smelling of old leather from the cushion covers my face. I feel as if I’ve been sucker-punched and all the air expelled from my lungs. I wipe the tears from my cheeks, sniffling and Bart is suddenly offering a box of tissue. I grab two and swab my eyes and nose and mouth.

“What can you do?” I ask.

Bart shakes his head. His eyes look weary and his mouth forms a deep frown.

“I can look for her,” he says. “But I have to tell you, the odds aren’t in your favor. Kids who don’t get off the streets within a month or two are usually lost forever; dead within eight years.”

I gather my purse to my side and stand.

“Just please find my daughter,” I say.

I drive home in a fog. My eyes scan the sidewalks as I drive, searching, just in case. Nightmarish images of child prostitutes cloud my brain, lurid apparitions of little girls wearing garish red lipstick and little else flit in front of me. I simply can’t believe that Robyn would do such a thing. I find it impossible to suppose that she could find her way to some filthy motel room, allow her young, perfect body to be ravaged by a sweating, grunting, middle-aged, overweight pig of a man.

“She comes from a good home,” I say to the air, as if to refute everything Bart has told me.

I drive all over Pittsburg and Antioch, searching out the worst possible places in town, hunting for Robyn. But in the end I drive home, empty-handed.

I trudge up the walk, noticing that the grass has all but died in the front lawn. A handful of weeds eek out an existence, choked by the parched dirt. The hot summer air stinks of dirt and grime. Absently, I yank the mail from the mailbox and unlock the door. I hear the answering machine beep. I feel the ineffable rise of hope clamber in my chest, though I realize that all of the messages are probably crank calls.

Still, I drop the mail to the floor and head directly for the kitchen and the answering machine. A red digital light flashes before me. I punch the playback button and wait, my heart throbbing with desire.

The first two are indeed crank calls. The third is from Robyn’s friend, Jenny. My mouth is tinder dry as I await her message.

“Hi.” Jenny’s voice is tentative. “It’s me, Jenny. I um, saw the thing on TV,” she says. Her voice is a whisper, as if she doesn’t want anyone to know what she’s saying. “Um, I feel really bad, you know? But I um, know where Robyn is.”

“This is Rob.” He’s working a late shift to pick up some extra money.

“Rob, it’s me. Jenny said that Robyn’s in San Francisco,” I say into the cordless, which is cradled between my ear and shoulder.

“ San Francisco?” Rob’s voice rattles with disbelief. “What the hell’s she doing in San Francisco?”

“I don’t know,” I reply defensively. “All Jenny would say is that Robyn was ‘partying in frisco’.”

As I talk I am bolting through the house, finding a jacket, gathering my purse, ferreting through its contents for my keys.

“But I’m going to find out.” I say.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m driving to San Francisco,” I say.

“When?” Rob asks.

“Now.”

“Now? You’re crazy; it’s almost dark. You don’t even know the city.”

“I found a map. Remember that time we were going to go to Fisherman’s Wharf but then you got sick?” I ask, and then continue on, not waiting for him to answer. “Well I found that map of the city we bought.”

“Margot, don’t,” he warns. “Call the cops; let them handle it.”

“I already did. They told me they’d fax Robyn’s picture to S.F.P.D. and put out a BOLO.”

“A BOLO?” Rob asks.

“It means be on the look out,” I say.

“And?”

“And, that’s it. That’s all they’ll do.” I huff into the phone.

“What about Jenny’s parents?” Rob asks.

“I spoke with Jenny’s mother. She said she has no knowledge of where Robyn could be. Anyway, Jenny told me.”

“Don’t,” Rob warns.

I know he hears the hopefulness in my voice. His ‘don’t’ is as much for the action I am about to take as it is for my emotion.

“You’re not going to stop me.” I reach the door, yanking it open with my one free hand.

“Margot-”

I punch the ‘end’ button and toss the phone on the couch, sprinting for the car, slamming the front door behind me.

The City is cold. It is just after seven and most of the commuters have gone home for the day. Although traffic on the bridge coming into San Francisco was relatively light, cars seem to jumble up as I stagger along Fremont Street making my way left onto Market. The electric Muni buses dominate the landscape, rushing by with authority. I scan the streets looking for any sight of Robyn. The cold, windy air floods the car and I’m forced to roll up the window, sneaking alternate peeks at the streets and my map, which is difficult to read in the dusky evening. I don’t know, really, what I am looking for; I see a spot on the map labeled Union Square and that seems as good a place as any to start.

But I make a wrong turn and then another one and suddenly, the city streets seem too narrow; the cars drive by too fast and some just park in the road for no reason at all. I am hot, sweating now, from nervousness. I catch the name of a street, Hayes, and a small sign that says: City Hall with an arrow angled towards the left. It is almost dark now and in my indecision about where to go I stop completely. The blare of an angry horn sounds behind me. I look in my rear view mirror to see the bead of sharp, bright lights. I speed up switching on my right turn indicator only to see that at the end of the block, the street ahead is one way the other way. Another halting block and traffic thins a bit. I look around and see several adult stores sandwiched together. A man whose clothing is nearly black with filth stumbles along the sidewalk. His hair is disheveled and as I drive past, he leers in my direction and I see that most of his teeth are missing. A shiver of disgust washes over my skin. I avert my eyes and turn quickly, noting the street: Turk. It is then I see her.