Anybody's Daughter (Angela Evans Series No. 2) (16 page)

D
re and Angela had been sitting in a booth at Denny’s for about fifteen minutes.

“You sure she’s coming?” His eyes had been pinned on the entrance from the second they’d arrived.

“She’s coming,” Angela said. “Just relax. She probably had an emergency with one of her girls. If she’s not here in a few more minutes, I’ll call her.”

Dre took a bite of the hamburger he’d ordered. He still had no appetite, but knew he needed to get something into his system besides caffeine.

His eyes darted back to the door. “Is that her?”

A petite woman with dreadlocks had just entered the restaurant. She was wearing jeans and a heavy military-type jacket. Angela held up a hand, waving her over.

Dre couldn’t stop staring. He was both surprised and embarrassed that a woman no taller than Brianna had gotten the jump on him. He could tell that Loretha Johnson had been a very attractive woman in her day. He pegged her to be in her early thirties, but she had a frayed look about her. The streets had definitely taken its toll. It wasn’t just the crow’s feet or the coarseness of her skin. It was as if a bubble of exhaustion encased her.

Loretha eased into the booth, placing Dre in the middle.

She smiled sheepishly. “Sorry about our little confrontation. I’m like a mother bear when it comes to my girls.”

“No prob,” Dre said. “I’m just glad that gun didn’t go off.”

“I know how to handle a weapon,” Loretha said confidently. “The only way it would’ve gone off is if you’d tried something. I definitely would’ve shot you.”

She turned to Angela. “I’m not supposed to have a gun in the house with the girls, but I’ve had a couple of pimps come knocking before and I refuse to go unprotected.” She smiled. “So, I won’t mention that little incident again if you don’t.”

“No problem,” Angela said. “That’s enough talk about guns. We have a problem and we hope you can help.”

After a waitress poured Loretha a cup of coffee, Dre began by telling her everything that had happened to date. He stopped short of mentioning his virtual meeting with The Shepherd, fearing that information would upset Angela.

“I feel like I’m trapped in a nightmare that won’t end,” he said.

Loretha sighed heavily. “You are. What’s going on out there in the streets today is nothing like it was in my day. The girls are getting younger and younger. And now that the gangs are in on it, it’s big business.”

“But how can they be bold enough to just snatch a kid off the street and turn her out without fearing that her family’ll come looking for her?” Dre asked.

“The girls they typically target don’t have much of a family in the first place. How many times have you seen news coverage about a missing brown or black girl from Compton or Watts on TV? Our kids don’t get media coverage when they go missing. These girls are society’s throwaways. But I have to say that I am seeing cases where they’re snatching girls from nice neighborhoods who don’t fit this profile. The so-called guerilla pimps are getting bolder because the risks of getting caught are low and the financial rewards are extremely high. And then you have the romeo pimps who don’t have to snatch them. It’s easy for an impressive-looking guy all dressed up in jewelry and fancy clothes to gain a girl’s trust.”

“I can understand how a girl might be initially lured in,” Dre said, “but why don’t they just run away?”

“It’s not that simple. First, the pimp keeps really close tabs on them. And by the time a pimp puts a girl on the street, she’s so traumatized and brainwashed that she’ll do whatever she’s told to do out of fear. They’re beaten or threatened with death or the death of someone close to them. The girls I see show the same signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as the soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. The only difference is they never get treated for it.”

Loretha was growing animated, pointing her finger as she spoke.

“And you have to remember that we’re talking about children. The youngest one I’ve seen was nine. The first few times they have sex with a john is bad, but after being raped day after day, they become numb to it. You ever heard of the Stockholm Syndrome? That’s where hostages begin to bond with their captors. Well, it’s real.”

Angela saw alarm in Dre’s face and knew he was imagining this happening to his niece. She could feel his leg bouncing up and down underneath the table. She wanted to stop Loretha. To tell her that they’d heard enough.

“It’s like a rat who realizes that he’s trapped. He finally stops trying to escape, even after the gate’s been opened. Those three girls who were kidnapped by that psycho in Cleveland a while back were there for over ten years before one of them tried to escape. The psychological beat down these girls experience is way worse than the physical one. Bruises eventually heal. It can take years to heal your soul.”

Loretha poured cream and sugar into her coffee.

“Frankly, many girls don’t leave because they’re too embarrassed to return home. And even if she could leave, where is she going to go? Her family didn’t want her in the first place and there aren’t nearly enough facilities like mine to house them.

“Her pimp, however, promises to always take care of her. In the beginning, he romances her, tells her he loves her and praises her for all the money she’s making him. For many of these girls, it’s the first time they’ve
ever
been praised by
anybody
. So they begin to feel okay about what they’re doing. Then a month or two, or four or five later, there’s a new girl, a younger girl, who’s demanding the pimp’s time and attention. He now uses beatings, not praise to control her. She either makes him money or she’s gets beat up. And every dime she makes goes to her pimp. It’s slavery.”

Loretha paused. “That’s basically my story, but it’s being repeated over and over and over again all over the country and even around the world.”

Dre picked up his hamburger, then put it back down. He wasn’t sure how to respectfully ask his next question. “How long ago were you—uh, when did you leave The Shepherd?”

Loretha grimaced. “A little over five years ago. I was no longer working the streets when I left. Shep hadn’t taken his operation online yet. I was the one—” She paused as her eyes moistened. “I was the one who lured girls in for him. They were much more likely to trust a woman.”

Angela squeezed Loretha’s forearm. “How old were you when you first met him?”

She laughed softly. “Sixteen and as grown as hell.”

“So you were a teen prostitute?” Dre asked.

Loretha nearly bared her teeth. “There’s no such thing as a
teen prostitute
,” she snapped. “They’re children. Sexually exploited children.”

Dre held up both hands, palms out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” Loretha said, slumping against the booth and cupping her forehead. “But that’s another term that really pisses me off. If a teacher is caught sleeping with a fifteen-year-old student—a student who claims she’s
in love
—she’s an abuse victim. But if a grown-ass man picks up a child off the street and pays her for sex, she’s a prostitute. There’s an adult taking advantage of a child in both situations.

“In the school scenario, the child gets counseling,” Loretha continued. “In my world, the child goes to jail. The teacher might spend years in prison, but the john will get nothing more than a slap on the wrist, if he’s even caught, that is. Let’s not talk about the pimp because he rarely faces any jail time. In both cases, children are being sexually exploited. The only difference is the exchange of money. That shouldn’t make a difference.”

Dre took in what she was saying. “I guess I never thought about it like that.”

Loretha sucked in air and took a moment to collect herself. “When Shep got his hands on me, I was fresh off the bus from Cleveland. I was certain I was going be the next big female rapper. Queen Loretha.” She laughed. “I had saved up forty-two hundred dollars from babysitting, braiding hair and my job at the mall. I thought it would last me until I signed my record deal.

“One of Shep’s guys zeroed in on me ten minutes after I stepped off the Greyhound bus. I probably had
lost little girl
stamped across my forehead. He fed me, gave me a place to stay and promised to hook me up with one of his record producer friends. I was so naive.”

“And they put you on the street, just like that?” Angela asked.

“Nope. They groomed me. At first, I was Shep’s girlfriend. Treated like royalty. Always praised for my body. The first thing he did was put me on the pole at City Stars. I actually enjoyed the dancing and having men throw money at me. And by the way, ninety percent of the women in the sex industry have a history of sexual abuse. I was no different. In no time, I went from lap dancing to private dancing. After that, hitting the track and turning my first trick didn’t seem like that big of a deal. Shep constantly told me I was special. He ultimately took me off the streets and saved me for his high rollers. I was making upwards of five grand a week. Except I was making it for him, not me.”

Dre thought about Katrina and wondered if she’d end up following that same path.

“What can you tell us about The Shepherd?” Dre asked.

Loretha shrugged. “Shep is a businessman first and a pimp second, which is why he’s never spent a day in jail. He thinks of himself as some supreme being. In his mind, he’s like a David Koresh or a Jim Jones.”

“Hold up,” Dre said. “This cat sounds delusional.”

Loretha laughed. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think he is. Has an ego the size of a mountain. There’re two things he covets: power and money. He demands respect and will be offended by the most harmless slight. Like someone walking into a room and failing to acknowledge him. And no matter how much money he makes, he’ll never have enough of it.”

“Is the business really that lucrative?” Angela asked.

“He’s made millions of dollars over the years.”

Angela’s face contorted. “Millions?”

“Millions,” Loretha repeated. “He’s got a lot of girls, and not just here in California.”

“Is he violent?” Angela asked.

“He never laid a hand on me and I never saw him get violent with any of the other girls. But there were rumors that he’d paid others to kill for him. Frankly, I think he put those rumors out there so people would fear him. He’s basically a punk at heart who’s hiding behind this illusion of power that he’s created in his head.”

Dre folded his hands and set them on the table. This was all very interesting, but there was really only one thing he wanted to know. “Where do you think he might be holding Brianna?”

“Finding your niece is going to be hard,” Loretha said. “His girls never stay in one place very long. He has several properties in L.A. and I hear he now owns a couple of rundown motels in the Valley.”

“We should go online and search for properties in his name,” Angela said.

“That’ll be a waste of time. Shep has so many shell corporations, you’ll never find anything that’s directly tied to him.”

“Where does he send the girls to…” Dre had a hard time coming up with the right words. “Do what they do?”

“I hear he runs most of his operation online now. The guys make appointments online and go to his motels for their
dates
. He may have a few girls on the tracks in the Hollywood area, but he only puts them on the street to punish them for some infraction, like being too sick to turn a trick.”

Loretha lowered her head and rubbed the back of her neck.

“How’d you break away?” Angela asked.

“Shep eventually got me strung out on heroin. He never touched the stuff himself, but he used drugs to control others. I was just worn out. I couldn’t take it anymore. I also started to feel guilty about the girls I was bringing into the fold. One in particular.”

A heavy silence settled over the booth. Neither Angela nor Dre said a word, willing to let Loretha reveal her story at her own pace.

“There was this long-time client we called Demonic. Guy in his fifties. Professional man. Looked like somebody’s grandfather. He liked getting a little rough with the girls. He paid big for this privilege. Shep charged him three grand for an hour with a girl. He only let him have girls who mouthed off.”

Loretha stopped to take a sip of her coffee, then continued.

“Rena was seventeen. Back then, Shep didn’t mess with the really young ones. She was raised in the foster care system and had been in and out of trouble. One of Shep’s guys found her at a park. The girl had a strong personality, always talking back. To teach her a lesson, Shep gave her to Demonic. When she came back later that night, she was all bloody and beaten to a pulp. Rena told me that Demonic punched her in the face and sodomized her with a broomstick. He also used a lighter to burn her breasts and groin. She had blisters everywhere. I swear he’d never done anything that sick to any of the other girls.”

Loretha wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

“Rena was never the same after that. A week later, she ran off. After I got my life together, I started looking for her. I only found her several months ago, pushing a grocery cart up Figueroa. She lives underneath the freeway. I brought her to Harmony House once, but she disappeared within a couple of days. One of my social worker friends tried to help her too, but Rena would always go right back to the street.”

Angela reached out and placed a hand on top of Loretha’s.

“After Rena told me what Demonic had done to her that night, I was never the same either.
I
let that happen to her. My addiction was no excuse. A few days later, Shep sent me out to the mall to recruit some new girls. But I couldn’t get the image of Rena out of my head. It was a Sunday morning and there was a church right across the street from the mall. Something drew me inside. When I stepped in there, I swear that minister was preaching a message for me and nobody else. When I finally gathered the courage to walk down the aisle to join the church, I was crying so hard, I could barely stand. They took me to a women’s shelter and the rest is history.”