Katrina Prado - The Whore of Babylon, A Memoir

I cross the floor, careful to avoid as much debris as I can. I step over a half burned bottle of Heinz catsup as the odor of burnt wood and catsup and pickles invade my nostrils.

At the far end of the store, I catch sight of a long mass of twisted, melted steel, and realize those must have been shopping carts. Beyond me, ahead by about ten yards, I hear a sudden noise dart across the floor and realize that I’m not the only one making my way through the charred groceries. The hairs on the back of my neck shoot up and a shiver of repulsion flies across my skin as I try to dispel the image of rats scuttling around near me.

Towards the very back of the store, I see a faint outline of a doorway. As I approach, I glimpse a door, ajar, outlined by a diffuse light on the other side. My heart thuds wildly in my chest as I draw near to the door. My mouth is dry as ashes and the stench of the burnt and rotting food causes waves of nausea to roll through my body. I take another cautious step towards the door. I am near enough now that I can reach out and touch it. But before I can raise my hand I hear a sound. A whimper. I bolt through the door. What I see causes me to freeze in shock.

The room is small, perhaps what used to be an office or small break room for the employees of the store. On the left wall, a door leading outside a back alley stands open, letting in light. In the shadows I see a long table and bench lie on their sides, charred and twisted from the fire. In the center of the room two chairs set back to back a foot apart from each other. Two girls tied and gagged are in the chairs; both looking at me, abject terror fills their eyes. Robyn sits in the chair on the right and Chevy is on the left.

“Oh my God,” I murmur. “It’s okay girls, it’s going to be okay.”

I make a move towards them, but from the darkness he emerges. BLU BOY saunters towards the girls, a gun in each of his hands. He gives me a malevolent grin.

“Jou think jou are so smart,” he says. “Jou go on TV, think you do something big.” He waves both guns around in the air. “But you see?” he says, aiming a gun at each girl’s head. “I am the one that do something big.”

“No! Please,” I beg; my eyes well with tears. “I’m sorry. Please!”

“Now is too late,” he says. “Jou habe to choose. One girl live, one girl die.”

Robyn and Chevy let out plaintive cries of panic.

“Whish one you want to live?” he asks.

“Look,” I begin. “If you want to kill somebody, kill me.”

As I plead my mind races with scenarios. My hand is still inside my purse and although my palm is drenched with sweat, I am still clutching the Colt. I flashback in my mind to the day that Freddie took me target practicing, trying desperately to recall what he taught me. But in my heart of hearts I realize there is no way I can pull my handgun from my purse, aim and fire before Peña would be able to get off at least one shot, maybe two. I lose, no matter how I play my cards. But I also realize that Peña gets off on fear. I can at least try to stall him while I try to figure a way out of this. Slowly, I pull the.22 from my purse, aiming directly at him.

Peña’s eyes register a jolt of surprise and then amusement. “Look at jou!” he lets out an arrogant laugh.

I grasp the Colt with both hands.

“If you kill either of them, I kill you,” I say, doing my best to inject strength into my voice. “Is that what you want?”

He laughs again, but the amusement in his eyes quickly turns to rage.

“No one fucks with me, jou hear me? No one!” he shouts. “Jou think jou turn my cholos against me? Make them rat me out for money? I run this fucking city!”

His outburst frightens me. Needles of fear shoot through my veins.

“Look, Peña,” I say, trying to reason with him. “You let the girls go, right here, right now, and everybody walks away. I swear to God, I won’t notify the police. Do you even see any cops here? No! Because I did exactly as you said. I haven’t called anyone.”

As if to make me a liar, a siren breaks through the gloom of space. My mind races back to the note I left at home for Rob. I should have realized that the first thing he’d do would be to call the San Francisco police department. I grit my teeth in angst. But San Francisco is a big city. Sirens go off all the time. I am hoping that is what Peña is thinking.

“I count to ten, and then I kill one girl. Jou choose.”

“Peña, don’t do this,” I say.

“One, two, three,” he starts counting.

He wants me to beg for my daughter’s life. But begging for Robyn’s life means consigning Chevy to death. It is an impossible option.

“If you shoot either of them, you die. Is that what you want?”

“Four, fibe, seex,” he continues his countdown.

The siren, which began far away, now wails louder and has been joined by others. They are so loud, in fact, that they sound as if they are just down the block. Could it be the police coming here? And if so, will they get here in time?

“Leave right now, while you still can,” I say. “Because so help me God, I will kill you,” I threaten.

“Seben, eight, nine,” Peña continues. He jabs the barrels of both guns sharply into each girl’s head. They both let out muted sobs of panic.

Just as Peña opens his mouth to say the word ‘ten’, a shadowy figure darkens the doorway to the left. Everything seems to happen simultaneously. A look of alarm jerks across Peña’s face as he looks to the left and sees a cop. The policeman’s gun is drawn. He is aiming directly at Peña’s head.

“Drop it!” the policeman shouts.

“Fuck you all,” Peña says. He raises the gun in his left hand, aims it at the policeman. Suddenly, the deafening cacophony of explosions shakes the room.

It is only after I fire the Colt that I realize I closed my eyes when I pulled the trigger. When I open my eyes, I see Peña, sprawled on the floor, lying in an expanding pool of blood.

“Drop your weapon!” the cop shouts at me.

I do as I am told and dare myself to look in the direction of the girls, holding my breath in desperation. Chevy sits quietly crying.

Peña was able to fire both guns simultaneously. His shot towards the policeman evidently missed. But the shot from the gun in his right hand, at point blank range, aimed directly at Robyn, hit home.

“Come on folks, let her through,” Freddie says. His arm is entwined in mine on my left side. Sister Margaret and Chevy are on my right as we climb the steps of the state capitol in Sacramento. We are flanked by scores of reporters who follow us like a swarm of sea snakes.

“Mrs. Skinner is it true that your husband blames you for your daughter’s death and has filed for divorce?” a voice from the pack of reporters shouts into the air.

“No comment,” Freddie says.

But yes, it is true. After the dust settled from the shooting a year ago, three things were clear: one, according to police, Antonio Peña was dead by a bullet from my gun and would never again victimize young girls. Two, Robyn paid the ultimate price in the dangerous and harrowing world of child prostitution. And three, Rob will probably always blame me for that fact.

After Robyn’s death, when I felt I too would die hemorrhaging tears, Rob refused to speak with me. Even weeks after the funeral we went about our daily lives in silence. Whenever I tried to talk to him, he would either leave the room or the house depending on his state of rage. When finally he did speak it was solely to inform me that he was leaving, filing for divorce, that he could no longer live under the same roof as the person responsible for the death of his daughter.

A month later, when served with the divorce papers, I could no longer clutch the illusion that my life would ever again be normal.