HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) (112 page)

“I’m Karla, and alcoholic,” Karla said from the podium.

“Hi, Karla,” we all answered.

She went through the twelve steps, inmates reciting them perfectly, word for word. I was swept up in the spirit of them—admit, believe, decide, search, admit, be ready, ask, list, amend, take, seek, awake. It was a system, a practice, a prayer.

“And now is the time for sharing,” Karla said. “Who would like to share?”

Like always, everyone’s hands shot up. I took a deep breath, clutched the piece of paper with my son’s phone number on it, and raised my hand.

“Wanda,” Karla said, beaming. “Come on up.”

There was a ripple of excitement through the group that I thought I could understand. Week after week, they heard the same stories. Everyone knew that I’d been attending without sharing, and now they’d hear my story. I just hoped I knew how to tell it correctly, not leaving anything out.

“My name is Wanda,” I said. “And I’m an alcoholic.”

“Hi, Wanda,” everyone said, and Marlee raised a big cheer from the back of the crowd.

I smiled briefly and looked down at the podium. It was a strange thing to belong, but wonderful. I felt like anything was possible now.

“I’ve lived a strange life,” I began, and hesitated.

“Amen!”

“I found out right around the time when I was supposed to be getting into high school that I could get whatever I wanted if I used my body,” I said, “offering it to men.”

There had even been a day when I realized the power of my big tits and little waist, the power of a lingering glance. I’d felt giddy at this knowledge, excited by the fact that I could move mountains with a flick of my hair, a sway of my hips.

“The first trick I turned was for cash and alcohol,” I said. “And alcohol stayed with me ever since. It was my constant. I could always lean on it, always celebrate with it, always lament with it.”

I raised my eyes from the surface of the podium to the crowd. Some inmates were nodding emphatically while others looked pensive, biting at their lips or nails.

“I didn’t even stop drinking when one of my johns knocked me up,” I continued. “I knew there was a life growing inside of me. I knew that booze would harm it. I just didn’t give a shit. To me, there was nothing more important than the bottle—nothing. I didn’t even know which of my johns was the father to my son.”

I remembered the feeling of him kicking inside of me even as I leaned against the outside of my apartment building, trolling for a payday. I’d left home at an early age—home hadn’t been conducive to what I really wanted to be doing. I’d always had ideas of what I should be doing, and they never jived with my parents’. Looking to avoid conflict—and gain freedom—I left and found a gang of girls to run around with, shacking up in a hovel with them whenever I wasn’t working hotels or bars or the streets. They all encouraged me to work with their pimps, but I insisted on being my own boss. There was no man who could tell me what to do.

“When my son was born, I didn’t harbor any illusions,” I said. “I knew that I could keep turning tricks and raise him and party as hard as I was. I would sooner miss paying my portion of the rent than not have money to buy a bottle of whiskey. I was managing, though, managing myself, managing my life. There was always a girl at the apartment, so there was someone to look after Marshall—my baby—when I was out working. Or in drinking, too drunk to handle him. Even after creating that life, alcohol was always number one. Always.”

God, he’d cry for me, holding up those chubby little arms, tears and snot running down his face as he wailed. I’d fuss at him, hold him, kiss him, scream at him, but it made no difference. He was always crying, always whining for something I apparently wasn’t giving him. It made me feel like I was constantly doing wrong, and I loathed it.

“Everything was going about as well as it could until one of the other girl’s pimps finally caught wind of me,” I said. “There were plenty of pimps in that area, and they had plenty of girls to keep track of. But there’d been rumors about a girl working on her own, managing herself, and that just didn’t sit well with the pimps. When one of them tracked me down and told me that I was working for him, I laughed in his face. I was drunk. I was always drunk, and I didn’t understand the danger I was in. Alcohol made me not care about anything.”

He’d beaten the shit out of me. Just for laughing. He told me that as soon as my face healed, I was working for him. I wanted to tell him like hell I was, but my mouth was so swollen I couldn’t say anything at all. Even Marshall hadn’t recognized me when I finally found my way home. He cried and cried for his Mama even though I was right there, holding him in one arm and a cold bottle of vodka in the other, using it to ice my bruises and cuts.

As soon as my face healed, I decided to go deeper into the city and start something new. When I told the other girls, they just laughed at me. Nobody had ever had a female pimp before, but I thought it made sense. I could still turn tricks if I felt like it, but I’d manage girls a better way. I wouldn’t beat them, and I’d have the understanding of working on the streets to light my path, influence my decisions. That was the problem with pimps, I decided. They didn’t understand what it was to hustle out there. They could be much better—be better managers, for one—if they understood what we went through.

“I decided that I wanted to make more money and open a brothel, basically,” I said. “Back then, I just wanted to recruit a bunch of girls and act as their pimp. The brothel idea wasn’t all the way formulated yet. But I wanted to move deeper into the heart of New York City, and I had to get out of the neighborhood unless I wanted to work for the pimp—which I didn’t. All I packed was a handful of slutty outfits, what booze I hadn’t gulped down, and my makeup. I convinced one of the prostitutes in my apartment to watch over my son. I told her I’d send her money for him. Just like that, I left him. I didn’t think anything of it. He was five, by then. He was five and I was barely twenty.”

My last memory of him was of him weeping, holding his arms up to me like he’d done when he was still a baby. It should’ve melted my heart, but it didn’t. I’d been drinking, as usual, and it only irritated me. Why the fuck did he cry all the time? I wasn’t that special. He needed to grow the fuck up. Those thoughts filled my mind at the time, and I left without so much as a hug.

I had more than enough money for a bus ride downtown, and I walked the streets. Men knew what I was and stared. I eyed them back, looking them up and down, inviting them to look. I turned three tricks right away in alleys, marveling at the way my cash was stacking up, when I saw it. The nightclub.

“I saw this building and fell in love with it,” I said. “It was the second thing I’d ever loved. The first was the bottle. My son—I didn’t even love my son. He was just a bother. That’s how I felt about it then. God, I feel like shit admitting it. But I up and left him with practically a stranger. I didn’t even know her last name. But all thought of Marshall left me when I saw that building, if I’d even been thinking of him to begin with. I saw nothing but possibility. I could really make something out of that building, make a legitimate business that would shield my pimping from the authorities. It was for sale, so I found a payphone right away and dialed the number listed.”

That had been a strange conversation, and my first contact with Don Costa. He’d been younger back then, of course, and not yet the Don.

“Costa,” is how he answered the phone, breezily, like he didn’t give a shit who was on the other end of the line. And he didn’t have to. He was a Costa—an heir in a long line of powerful mobsters.

“Hello,” I said, lowering my voice to the sexy tone I usually reserved for turning tricks. “I saw this number on a for sale sign of a building I’m interested in purchasing.”

“What’s your name, doll?”

“You can call me Mama,” I said. It was what I had all my johns call me. It was a hell of a lot sexier than Wanda Dupree.

“And that’s how I got involved with the mob,” I said. “I thought it was a good idea at the time. I got them to agree to help me finance the place, cut them in on some of my earnings, offered them little perks. In turn, they gave me the building, helped me buy what I needed to refurbish, and pushed some prostitutes my way. It was a business venture fueled by liquor and greed. I told myself, especially when I was good and drunk, that I was doing this to make a life for my son. But the only one who was benefiting from my business was myself. I only sent money when I could remember, and that wasn’t very often.”

The first few years had been insanity. I was drinking hard and turning tricks about as often as my prostitutes. I was hardly a pimp—just an elevated trick. I got a couple of bartenders to serve drinks and even got the place a liquor license so I could at least look legit if anybody came looking. I found street performers at first and promised them a cut of the tips if they came and played for the crowd. When we started really turning a profit, I hired professional entertainers—dancers, bands, DJs, and the like. When I could afford it, I had the kitchen redone. I could hire cooks now and sell food. There were a few legal hoops and paper work to work through, but I managed. The nightclub began to thrive as a nightspot—good food, good drinks, and pretty girls.

“Everything was looking really good,” I said. “The business was going well, and I culled the girls into a contingency I could trust. I stopped whoring so much—never stopped drinking—and started managing a real business. It was around that time that I got a call from child services wondering why I wasn’t taking care of my son. Apparently, the prostitute I’d left him with had gotten tired of him and called the authorities on me. I told them—I told them—”

I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say this aloud, not to anyone. I didn’t care if I was part of this strange sisterhood of AA. I couldn’t tell anyone about this. This was the root of everything.

In the crowd of inmates, Karla raised her hand and I nodded at her, unable to speak.

“I want to take this chance to remind everyone that this is a safe environment,” she said. “Everything that is said here stays here. We don’t judge one another. We’re here as a support system. We want to help one another work through the twelve steps and stay sober. You can share whatever you think is necessary to your recovery, Wanda. We’re here for you.”

“Amen!”

Even from up here, I couldn’t pick out the “amen” inmate out from the sea of faces in front of me. I took a deep breath.

“I had given birth to my son, and I knew that he was my own flesh and blood,” I said slowly. “At the point of the phone call from child services, he was already eight or nine. I didn’t know my own son’s age. I’d been too busy drinking and earning money to so much as think about him. But when child services called me, I told them that I was too busy to raise him and to put him in the system.”

My lips trembled at my admission and I couldn’t bring myself to look at my fellow inmates. They would hate me for sure. I’d be cast out. I was a monster.

“I’m a monster,” I said. “I turned my back on my own son. I convinced myself that the nightclub was so much more important, that it was what was going to help me rise to the top. I didn’t know what kind of top I was shooting for. I didn’t know how far I could go with the prostitution business. But I was willing to try—and wasn’t willing to let a kid get in the way. I had no desire to even see him, let alone raise him. He—he knew that I rejected him. He probably suffered through hell because of me in the system, raised by absolute strangers. God only knows what happened to him growing up.”

I forced myself to look up. I needed to be punished. I wanted to see the hatred and disgust on my fellow alcoholics’ faces, but all I saw was sympathy. Understanding. Acceptance.

“I haven’t seen him since I left him that day with the prostitute I barely knew,” I said. “I probably couldn’t pick him out from a police lineup. I know that I didn’t give a shit back then. I was too focused on alcohol and on money. But now, it is my biggest regret just discarding him so casually. Nobody deserves that. I’m a—I’m a fucking monster. He hates me, and he has every right to do so.

“I was a terrible mother. I was in no way ready to have a child as young as I did, and even as I grew older, I still didn’t want him. Now that I do want him, that I do care about him, he doesn’t want anything to do with me. You know what? I don’t blame him. I don’t want anything to do with myself. If I could open my skin up and crawl out of it and be someone else, I’d jump at the chance. I swear to God I’d do it.”

The tears came hot from my eyes, scorching their way down my cheeks like they were brimstone. I’d fucked everything up in my life, and I could hardly blame alcohol. I laughed and pawed at my eyes.

“What’s funny, Wanda?” Karla asked softly. “What’s funny when you’re so shattered?”

“I’m laughing because me abandoning my son was shitty, but it’s not like it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done,” I said, shaking my head, the tears trailing down to my chin, slipping down my neck. “I’m just a bad person. I don’t see how I’m going to get through this.”

The applause started slowly, then began to pick up. Stunned, I looked up and out over the crowd of inmates. Why were they clapping? Surely it couldn’t be for me, could it?

Karla crossed to the podium, beaming.

“I think we’ve had a real breakthrough today, Wanda,” she said. “Would you lead us in the Serenity Prayer?”

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” we all recited. I realized with no small degree of guilt that I’d eaten up all the sharing time with my story that wasn’t even half told.