Katrina Prado - The Whore of Babylon, A Memoir

I flip on the porch light and peer through the peephole. I twist the lock back and open the door.

“Freddie? What are you doing here?”

The man who helped Bart and I rescue Robyn stands before me; again, dressed all in black, his black moustache the most prominent thing about him.

“Got a call from Bart,” he explains.

The dark blue van is parked in front of the house.

“Let’s go,” he says.

He opens the passenger side door to the van and I get in, tossing my canvas bag onto the floor in front of me. He closes the door for me and heads for the driver’s side, but not before our eyes meet.

As he hops into the van, I peer out my window to see Mrs. Cotillo staring at us. This time she makes no effort to hide the fact that she is watching my movements. I want to smile, but I don’t. I turn my face away as Freddie pulls from the curb.

“So, what kind of work do you do?” he asks.

“I’m an accountant,” I say; “actually just a bookkeeper,” I amend, though technically not even that is true. “But I’m going to be going back to school to get my degree.”

Freddie nods but doesn’t say anything.

“What about you? What do you do?”

“Actually, I’m a dentist,” he says.

“Really?” I say, surprised.

“I have a practice in Antioch.”

We fall silent a moment.

“Got any other kids?” he asks.

“No. You?”

He shakes his head. “Amanda was an only child too.”

I purse my lips together, my eyes dart from the blur of the East Bay rushing by my window to Freddie’s austere profile. Curiosity about what happened to his daughter Amanda pushes me to ask intrusive questions.

“You mentioned before that Amanda hooked on drugs?”

“Yeah. She had it bad. Started experimenting when she was a freshman in high school, hanging out with the wrong crowd. The usual story.”

I wait for him to give me more information, but his eyes travel to the speedometer and then back to Highway 24. The sky in front of us is a dusky violet crisscrossed by nectarine colored skeins of fragile clouds.

“And that’s how you met Bart?”

Freddie nods.

“I was desperate. Amanda kept running away. Bart was the only one who seemed to care.”

“But things didn’t turn out okay,” I ask, but it comes out sounding more like a statement than a question.

“Things went south. We tried to do an extraction. In Stockton. A boy, a local gangbanger was killed; Bart got arrested for manslaughter but the DA couldn’t make it stick.”

Freddie is silent and I can’t think of a thing to say. He clears his throat.

“Amanda OD’d anyway about a month after that. Whole thing left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.”

“And that’s why you do what you do? Help parents try to save their kids?”

“Something like that.”

“Dentist by day, superhero by night,” I say with a smile.

Freddie smiles but says nothing.

The City is cold as usual. Freddie again displays his driving prowess, piloting the large blue van as if it were a sleek race car, up and down the streets of San Francisco until we are in the heart of the Tenderloin District. Once we hit Turk, Freddie slows to a crawl; both of us scanning the streets; two sparrow hawks searching for the little mouse.

As we approach Larkin, Freddie’s eyes zero in on someone. I follow the direction of his gaze to a small bundle of people strolling down the street, but can’t tell who he has actually spotted.

“What?” I say.

“Someone I know,” he says easing the van into a parking place. He switches off the van but leaves the keys in the ignition. “A guy that used to hang out with Amanda’s friends. He might know something. Stay put. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Within minutes the group has both moved from view and I sit and look around at the bright and glaring lights of the city. Somewhere in the distance I hear a siren intone its mournful tenor. My eyes never stop scanning every person I see in the dim hopes that I might find Robyn, but of course I never do.

Five minutes turns into fifteen and then twenty-five. I reach down at my feet for my canvas bag and my bottle of water, but I evidently didn’t screw the cap on securely enough because the bottle is empty and the bottom of my canvas bag is soaking wet.

“Damn it,” I say to the air.

I suddenly feel parched and look around the inside of the van but apparently Freddie isn’t in the habit of carrying liquid refreshments. I stare out the window at my surroundings. Behind me, across the street and down the block in the shadows is a liquor store. I peer in the direction that Freddie disappeared but see nothing. I pull a five dollar bill from my wallet, and then stuff my purse beneath the van’s seat and yank the keys from the ignition.

Outside the night air is charged with competing odors: Chinese food, bus exhaust, and a noxious thread of stale body odor. Cars jet by, in a single direction, everyone seemingly in a hurry. I wait for a lull and then dive across the street in the direction of Fox Liquor and Grocery. As I make my way down the sidewalk a chilly breeze whips into my skin, but my sweater was another casualty of my water bottle and so I clench my teeth against the cold as I skirt a handful of orange and white construction barriers approaching the liquor store. A few feet away from the entrance of the store is a Muni bus stop. A handful of sad looking people are loitering near the graffiti-laden bench. A large, articulated Muni bus rumbles to the stop just as I approach. Everyone at the stop traipses up the short staircase and into the bus and in another second the bus itself trudges away, as it belches out a pall of heavy exhaust. I purse my lips and hold my nose against the stench.

I realize suddenly, that I am alone. The darkness feels threatening somehow. I shoot a glance over my shoulder and quicken my pace and am only a few feet from the entrance to the liquor store when I am abruptly yanked backward by the hair. I let out a squawk of surprise and instinctively reach back with both hands to fend off my attacker. But within a fraction of a second, both of my hands have been twisted behind my back, rendering me helpless.

“Help!” I shout to the cars rushing by. “Help!”

I feel something hard jab against my spine. And a voice, the voice of evil whispers in my ear.

“Jou are very slow learner.”

It is BLU BOY, Antonio Peña.

“Jou feel dis?” He thrusts the object deeper into my back. He is walking me backwards as he talks. “Jou don scream, or I shoot.” My feet struggle to find purchase, as he wrenches me backwards faster than I can maneuver. I imagine that from a distance it must look like some kind of macabre dance. I make a move with my head trying to see where he is taking me. Instantly, the business end of a silver barreled gun is shoved against my cheek, almost into my eye.

“Walk,” he commands, jerking me backwards by the hair.

I search frantically for sight of Freddie returning to the van but he is nowhere. If BLU BOY gets me into his car I am dead. He could take me anywhere, put a bullet into my head and dump my body. My mind races as we move further and further from the safety of the lighted liquor store. I silently vow that no matter what, I will not get into his car. No matter what. But that is not what BLU BOY has in store for me.

The alley behind the liquor store is rank with the stench of rotting garbage and urine. Shadows seem to tremble in doorways and behind filthy garbage bins. Behind us, movement. Suddenly two silhouettes have me pinned against the bricked wall of the liquor store. Both are wearing dark, hooded jackets, their faces shrouded like specters. BLU BOY stands in front of me inches away. He has shoved the gun into the front waistband of his jeans. Behind him, cars stream by on Larkin Street, their lights creating a strobe of light and shadow that fire and then collapse against us.