Anybody's Daughter (Angela Evans Series No. 2) (6 page)

“The average entry age of American minors into the sex trade is 12-14 years old.”

—
The National Report on Domestic Minor
Sex Trafficking: America’s Prostituted Children

Shared Hope International

D
re’s next stop after leaving Coop’s place was the 7-Eleven on Slauson and Angeles Vista. He withdrew four hundred dollars from the ATM and bought six bottles of 5-hour Energy. He had no intention of sleeping until he got Brianna back.

Though he wasn’t certain that The Shepherd had anything to do with Brianna’s disappearance, based solely on the information he’d obtained from Coop, he was now headed to City Stars to find out everything he could about the dude’s operation.

Dre still couldn’t get his mind around the fact that snatching little girls off the street and forcing them into prostitution was actually an organized crime. He tried, but couldn’t fight the feeling that Brianna’s disappearance was some kind of payback for the wrong he’d done. While he could honestly say that he’d never personally sold crack to a child, he’d surely impacted the lives of hundreds of children by supplying their parents’ habit. Maybe this was God’s way of punishing him.

Exiting the Harbor Freeway on El Segundo, Dre drove about three miles before pulling into the parking lot of City Stars. The neon sign out front boasted
The Best Topless Talent
Around!

After being patted down by the bouncer, Dre stepped into a dark entryway and handed ten bucks to the doorman and then walked through a turnstile and into the club. The bright lights from the stage and loud rap music attacked Dre’s senses at the same time. The club looked almost the same as it had the last time he’d been there. Except back in the day, the place would’ve been clouded with cigarette smoke.

A topless girl was on stage slithering around a silver pole like a wannabe acrobat. Her enormous breasts bounced up and down in rhythm to the music. The small stage was surrounded by cocktail tables with red velvet club chairs. On the opposite wall, a bar ran the entire length of the room. It wasn’t crowded at the moment since most of the married cats had probably gone home.

Dre felt like running up on stage and yelling that he wanted his niece back. Before he could plan his first move, a girl who was almost as tall as he was sauntered up to him. She was tightly stacked with a weave down to her butt.

“Hey, handsome. I hope we can spend some time together tonight.”

She placed a hand on his forearm, then turned sideways so that her bare breasts pressed lightly against his shoulder.

“Not now,” Dre said, brushing her aside as his eyes rotated around the club. He headed toward one of the high tables on the far side of the room. Before he could even get settled on a stool, a woman with flowers tattooed around the areolas of her plump breasts made a beeline in his direction.

“Hey, cutie, how about a private dance?”

A lap dance was the fastest way for a stripper to make some real cash. In his younger days, he’d had a crush on a stripper named Gypsy at the Barbary Coast. He didn’t want to think about how much money he’d spent on lap dances with her.

Dre held up a hand waving the girl away. “Not now.”

“Okay, baby,” she said with a smile. “Maybe later.”

Dre needed a few more minutes to evaluate his surroundings. He was surprised that there was only one bouncer inside. There was probably another one on the second level of the club.

His eyes were drawn across the room to a pretty girl who had an innocence about her. She appeared slightly uncomfortable, dressed in nothing but high heels and the bottom of a string bikini. She was probably new, Dre thought. He would start with her. They made eye contact. She smiled. When Dre smiled back, she pranced over.

“How you doing tonight, handsome?”

Up close, the girl was stunning. Her long hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail. Unlike the first two girls who had approached him, she wasn’t wearing any makeup other than a bright red lipstick. He figured she was twenty-one, twenty-two, tops. He wanted to ask why she was doing this.
Couldn’t a woman this hot find some dude to kick her
down?

“I’m doing pretty good now that you’re here,” Dre replied. “What’s your name?”

“Katrina. What’s yours?”

“Andre.”

“Nice to meet you, Andre. Would you like a dance?”

“Absolutely.”

Katrina took his hand and led him upstairs to the lap dance booths.

They walked past a small stage where a woman was jiggling short tassels from her nipples. Katrina directed Dre to a row of club chairs separated by high dividers. A sheer curtain provided a view of the stage and a modicum of privacy.

“Have a seat, sweetie.”

Before Dre sat down, he made a show of taking out the stack of twenties he’d just withdrawn from the ATM at 7-Eleven.

“Looks like we’re going to have a good time tonight,” Katrina said, her eyes pinned on the roll of cash.

“How much?” Dre asked.

“Fifteen dollars a song,” Katrina said.

He peeled off a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to her.

“You don’t seem too excited,” Katrina said coyly. “But don’t worry. I’m sure I can get you going.”

Dre wanted to tell the girl that she’d have to coat his Johnson in cement to get an erection out of him tonight.

She placed her fabulous rear end in his lap and started grinding against him in rhythm with the music. He placed a hand on her back, stopping her.

“Hold up,” he said. “I wanna talk.”

She glanced back at him with a baffled expression, then shrugged. “Whatever turns you on.”

“I need information,” Dre explained. “And I’m willing to pay for it.”

D
re had definitely lucked up by selecting Katrina. She was new to the club and had no allegiance to The Shepherd or anybody else. Stripping was the fastest way for her to earn some tax-free cash to pay her nursing school tuition. She was more than willing to talk—as long as the money was flowing.

Six songs and a hundred and forty dollars later, Dre made his way back downstairs and found an empty seat at the bar. On both his right and left, half-naked girls were working hard to coax customers upstairs for a lap dance.

Dre shook his head as he listened to the women running their game. Based on what he was hearing, every dude in the place was
handsome
.

Katrina had confirmed that The Shepherd did indeed pimp girls. A couple of the strippers serviced athletes, celebrities and anybody else who could afford the higher price tag. According to Katrina, The Shepherd rarely visited the club, leaving his managers, Clint Winbush and Freda Kelly, to oversee his operation. Katrina had also heard from other girls that The Shepherd had taken his prostitution operation online. But she swore she’d never heard anything about The Shepherd kidnapping young girls.

“What you drinking?” said a female voice to Dre’s rear.

He turned around. The bartender was a cute girl with at least eight hoop hearings in each ear. Unlike the strippers, she was fully dressed in a see-through mesh top and black leggings.

Dre’s regular drink—a Pepsi—would send the wrong message.

“Brandy straight,” he replied.

The two-drink minimum was how the club made the bulk of its profits.

“You got it, sweetie.” The smiling bartender slapped a glass on the countertop and poured a shot.

Dre placed both forearms on the bar and leaned in closer.

“I’m lookin’ for The Shepherd,” he said in a low voice. “Is he here?”

The woman’s demeanor turned from welcoming to frosty. “I don’t know nothing about him.”

“Doesn’t he own this place?”

“I just work here, okay?”

“What’s the deal? You scared of him or something?”

The woman took a step back, as if she feared Dre might hit her. “You asking questions like that, you need to talk to Clint.”

“Who’s Clint?” he asked, not wanting to give any hint that Katrina had already schooled him.

“The general manager.”

“Okay, so go get him.”

The woman turned her back to him and picked up a smartphone from a shelf along the mirrored wall. Dre tried to listen, but couldn’t make out what she was saying over the music.

“He’s coming,” she told Dre, then retreated to the far end of the bar.

He turned back around to see Katrina take the hand of a greasy-looking white guy in a sweatshirt and lead him upstairs to the lap dance area. The sight repulsed him. It still puzzled him that such a gorgeous woman couldn’t find a better way to make some cash.

It was a long wait before a man approached the bartender. Dre didn’t look directly at them, but could see the woman pointing Dre out from the corner of his eye.

Clint had a short afro and was dressed in a nice-fitting navy suit. His expensive clothes and exaggerated swagger couldn’t camouflage his ugly face.

“You the dude lookin’ for Shep?” he asked, stopping a couple feet in front of Dre.

“Yeah. Who are you?”

Dre took in the man’s thick gold chain, Rolex watch and huge diamond pinky ring.

“Clint Winbush. I run this place. What you want with Shep?”

“He took something from me.”

Clint’s lips see-sawed into a smile. “Is that right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“And what’s that?”

“My niece.”

Clint took a smidgen too long to respond. It was as if he’d been knocked off balance and needed a few seconds to regain his footing.

“I don’t know what you talkin’ about. Neither does Shep.”

Clint’s smile stayed put as his eyes bore deeper into Dre’s.

Dre saw evil in the man’s hooded eyes. He knew something about Brianna. Dre could feel it.

“I heard y’all snatching girls off the street and turning ’em out. Young girls.”

“I don’t respond to lies.”

Without taking his eyes off Clint, Dre picked up his drink from the bar. He raised it to his lips, but didn’t take a sip. “I wanna talk to The Shepherd.”

“He ain’t here.”

Their standoff was drawing attention. One of the bouncers headed over.

“So where is he?”

“I said he ain’t here.”

Dre visualized his hands around the man’s neck. He did not know how he had expected Clint to respond to his allegation, but the denial was too weak. As weak as the man standing before him. This wide-nose punk was an underling, not a partner in this operation. He was a flunky who carried out orders, not someone who gave them.

Dre decided to use the opportunity to turn up the heat. He wanted a face-to-face meeting with The Shepherd and only The Shepherd. He raised his voice loud enough to be heard over the music.

“My name’s Andre Thomas,” he yelled to anybody in the vicinity of his voice. “The Shepherd snatched my niece and—”

Clint stepped back, making way for not one, but two burly bouncers. They moved into Dre’s personal space, so close that he felt their foul breath on both sides of his face.

“You need to leave,” said the goon on his right. He had a neck the size of a telephone pole.

Dre’s hand reached toward the pocket of his jacket and the man’s hand quickly gripped the butt of a gun stuck in his waistband.

“If you want it to get ugly in here, I can oblige you,” the bouncer challenged.

Dre didn’t flinch. “I was just reaching for my business card.” He pulled it from his pocket and extended it to Clint. “Tell Shep that Andre Thomas is looking for him. He needs to call me. Right away.”

When Clint didn’t take the card, Dre placed it on the bar behind him.

“Get out,” Clint said.

“I haven’t finished my drink yet.”

In what looked like a synchronized move, the two bouncers grabbed Dre by his biceps and started tugging him toward the door to the left of the bar.

Dre tried to pull away, but the men’s grip felt like steel clamps around his biceps. He looked over his shoulder at Clint.

“The Shepherd has messed with the wrong family!” Dre yelled, just before they opened the door and threw him out of it. “You tell him I said his ass is mine!”

“W
here’s Cece?” Freda Kelly barged into the City Stars dressing room, hands resting on her meaty hips.

Half-dressed girls milled about the oblong room, fluffing their hair, oiling up their legs and piling on makeup. The air was thick with perfume and hairspray.

“She left already,” Katrina volunteered.

Freda pouted. She resented the girls for their taut bodies and youthful faces. Freda had done okay in her day, but a twenty-nine-year-old, overweight stripper was more likely to pull a muscle than break the bank.

If a girl possessed the kind of beauty that stood out, Freda held even greater contempt for her. Katrina, with her high cheekbones, full lips and wide eyes, was the kind of pretty that didn’t take work. God had done it all.

“You better not tell me she left,” Freda said. “Not without paying her fee.”

The strippers who danced at City Stars were independent contractors. They paid sixty-five dollars a day for the privilege of entertaining men at the most popular black strip club in the L.A. area. On most days, it took them only a couple of hours to break even and move into the black. On a night when the house was packed and the men were good and drunk, the girls could rack up several hundred dollars. Especially if they lined up several lap dances.

Katrina rolled her eyes and went back to applying her lipstick. None of the girls liked Freda and she knew it. Freda took pleasure in reminding them that she, along with Clint Winbush, were the powerhouses behind City Stars. But everybody knew they didn’t own the place. They were just The Shepherd’s lackeys.

“Look,” Katrina said, “Cece’s having a hard time. She’s got two babies and a sick mother she’s taking care of. Why can’t you cut her some slack?”

“If I do that, then all of y’all will be skipping out on me without paying. Tell that girl don’t show her face around here again until she has my money.”

Freda stalked out of the dressing room and made her way to the back office. Clint was sitting behind his desk, deep in thought.

“You know that girl we took from Compton this morning?” he said in a low voice. “Her uncle came looking for her.”

“What? How’d he know you took her?”

“I have no idea.”

“You better call Shep.”

“I ain’t callin’ nobody,” Clint said. “He’ll probably blame it on me. I told the dude I didn’t know what he was talking about and had him thrown out. He ain’t comin’ back.”

Clint opened one of six shoe boxes packed with money sitting on his desk. He started putting the bills into neat stacks by denomination. City Stars was a totally cash operation. No Visa, MasterCard or anything else. For customers who wanted a drink or a lap dance, but were short on cash, there was an ATM near the door.

“Looks like we’re having a good night,” Freda said, eyeing the cash.

“It ain’t packed, but the brothers are drinking like fish. Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money!”

Freda peered at the screen of one of four laptops positioned on a long table against the back wall. “We just got online orders for six dates for Shantel and five of ’em are repeat customers.”

“That’s cuz Shantel knows how to treat her clients right,” Clint said. “We need more girls willing to work hard like her.”

The Internet Age made the pimping game a breeze. The smart pimps no longer had to send girls out on the track. Nowadays, the johns could use their smartphones, tablets or laptops to browse through pictures of hundreds of girls, then schedule a date online or via phone. Shep had a crew of six set up at one of his houses in the Valley who did nothing all day but schedule dates for his girls. There were far too many websites for the cops to keep up with, making the threat of detection miniscule.

“Wait until you see the girl we picked up in Compton,” Clint said. “The clients are gonna go nuts over her.”

“You’re not worried about her uncle?” Freda asked.

“Hell naw. If he starts some trouble, we can trade her for a girl from Oakland or Atlanta and he’ll never find her. I just hope it don’t take long to break her in.”

The girls usually came in the door scrapping like animals taken from the wild. But over time—once they realized there was no way out—they gave up and did whatever they were told.

“Why don’t you go check on her?” Clint suggested. “I’m almost done. I’ll be right behind you.”

Taking her keys from her purse, Freda wondered how long it would take to break this one down. She hoped it happened fast because there was a whole lot of money waiting to be made.