Jack Wilder - The Missionary

And then, between one breath and another, the man vanished. Stone stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, scanning the crowds, the street-side carts and vendors of tourist trinkets, the alleys and doorways. All to no avail. He cursed under his breath, moving into the lee of a doorway, and scanned the crowd again, hunting for some clue to where his target had gone—a closing doorway, a knot of people disrupted, as if pushed aside by someone in a hurry.

Something cold and hard pressed into Stone’s ribs, and fetid breath huffed in his face. “What you want, huh?” The voice was pitched low, thickly accented but fluent.

Stone shifted slightly, and saw the man he’d been following standing beside him, a pistol pressed against Stone’s side, hidden from view by their bodies. “I’m looking for a girl.”

The man chuckled. “I know lots of girls. Maybe you new here, yeah? Pollow me not smart. Pind girls some odder way.”

Stone clenched his fist and forced himself to play a role. “I’m looking for a certain kind of girl.”

“Keep talking.”

“I think you can find the right girl for me. Young. American. I’ll pay good money.”

Silence strung out a little too long, and Stone braced for the shot that would kill him, but it never came. “Show me money. American dollars.”

Stone held his hand out to show it was empty, then rooted in his hip pocket for his emergency stash of US dollars. “There’s a thousand here. I can get more.”

The man laughed again. “You need more. Much more. Dat kind of girl, she not cheap, huh? Maybe you a cop? Work por goberment? Yeah. You smell bad. You smell like po-liss-man.”

“Fuck that. I just wanna get off. You know? Stick my dick in someone warm. She ain’t even gotta be willing, know what I’m saying?” Stone grated the words out. “But I like American girls, and I heard you got ‘em around here.”

“Sometin’ wrong with Pilippines girl? Not so sexy por you, huh?”

Stone shrugged, affecting nonchalance. “Nah, they’re fine. You just get homesick, you know?”

The pistol barrel was still touching his ribs, but wasn’t pressed quite so hard. And then it was gone and the man was gesturing for Stone to follow him. “Dis way. Dis way. I got girls. You got dollars, I got girls.”

Stone tamped down his disgust and followed as the man led him down a block and into an apartment building, up and up and up around endless stairs. Through a doorway marked with a tilted brass number and into a low, dank, dark apartment. Threadbare blankets hung over the windows, sunlight streaming in through cracks along the edges. A drooping couch faced away from the doorway, and a coffee table stood just beyond, covered in empty beer bottles, full ashtrays, empty baggies that had once held drugs. Three girls were draped on the couch, slumped sideways against each other, one resting on the armrest, another drooling onto the first girl’s shoulder, and the third across both their laps. All three were mostly naked, clad in nothing but panties. They were skinny, ribs showing, arms and legs like sticks, hair lank and greasy and unwashed. They didn’t look up as the door opened, but when they saw Stone’s escort, they righted themselves quickly, blinking, eyes going wide and fearful. They cringed as the man rounded the couch.

Stone made himself stay still and not react. The man latched his fist around one girl’s wrist, yanking her upright. She stumbled, bleary-eyed, clearly strung out into dazed incoherency. She stood awkwardly, weight on one leg, the other bent slightly and turned inward, arms hanging at her sides. Her eyes were green, bright moss-green, her hair black. Her filthy, scarred, needle-tracked skin had once been porcelain.

She had once been beautiful.

Now, as the man shoved her toward Stone, she blinked once, slowly, realizing this was a cue. She glanced up at Stone, forced an empty smile onto her slack, dry lips, and shoved her panties down around her thighs, stepped out of them. She pushed herself against him, fumbling for his belt.

The pimp, or whatever he was, stood with his back to the window, watching, a leering grin on his face.

“What, are you gonna just gonna fuckin’ stand there and watch?” Stone growled.

“Ha, no. You want, I charge extra for dat. Tree hundred dollar, you do what you want with all dese girls. Couch, fine. Room ova dere, fine.” He pointed at a slightly ajar door at the end of a short, narrow hallway. There was one other door, leading to a bathroom, and a tiny galley kitchen.

“What about you?” Stone asked.

“Smoke, out da door. Not far.” He stepped between Stone and the girl, who was waiting apathetically, eyes crossing as she fought to stay conscious. He pinched her nipple hard enough that she whined and stumbled away, but didn’t try to stop him. “Only rule, no cutting, no burning, no makin’ dem bleed. Yeah?”

Stone nodded, and made himself look at the girls as if he wanted them. Inside, his gut was churning, clenching, revolting. This girl couldn’t be more than twenty, but she looked old and used, uncaring and empty, as if this was a scene she’d experienced too many times to count. There was no hope in her eyes, no life.

The pimp held out his hand, and Stone fished the American money from his pocket, peeled three bills away, and shoved the rest back into his pants. When the pimp took the money and smoothed a bill out, holding it up to the light, Stone struck. He lashed out with his hand, jabbing the ‘Y’ between his thumb and index finger against the man’s throat.

The pimp gasped, surprised, choking, dropping the money and clutching his throat. Stone lunged, driving his knee upward into the pimp’s groin. The girl stumbled backward, fell against the couch and sat down hard. Stone knocked the pimp to the floor and, kneeling astride him, pulled his pistol and pressed the barrel against the man’s exposed throat, knee in his sternum.

“I’m looking for a girl,” Stone growled.

“I—got you girl,” he gasped. “Tree girls. No charge, do what you want. No charge.”

Stone slammed the butt of the pistol against the Filipino man’s forehead, gashing it open and loosing rivulets of blood. “No, see, I’m looking for a particular girl. New. American. Not on the market yet. I think you took her. I want her back.”

“No new girls. I don’t—please, I don’t know!” He writhed, trying to get at his own gun.

Stone put the barrel between his eyes and pulled the hammer back. “Liar.”

“Okay, okay! I know! I don’t take her. I gonna buy her, but I don’t take. I know where she is. Please, I show you.”

“Tell me.”

“Ha, you neber pind it alone. You kill me, you neber pind your girlpriend.”

Stone gritted his teeth, knowing the pimp was right. There were no addresses, no streets, no way to navigate unless you’d been there already. He reached under the Filipino man and extracted the pistol, tucked it into his own waistband. He hauled the man to his feet, keeping the 9mm trained on him. How was he going to manage this? If he took his eyes off the pimp for even a split second, he’d be gone, but he couldn’t very well navigate Manila with a handgun out in broad daylight. There wasn’t any good solution to the problem, but the longer he stood here trying to think through it, the worse off Wren would be. Stone gathered the dropped bills, shoved them back into his pocket, and gestured with the barrel of his pistol.

“Go,” he grunted. “Show me. And don’t think I won’t shoot you if you try to run.”

“You pind da girl, den what? Dey won’ let you go wit’ her.”

“Let me worry about that. Just take me to her.”

“Okay, dead man.”

Stone followed him out of the apartment, down the stairs and onto the street, back onto the bus, returning the way they’d come. Stone kept close to his guide, his pistol tucked into the front of his jeans, wedged uncomfortably and not entirely safely, but within easy reach.