Somebody's Daughter (6 page)

Well, maybe he could find out a bit more from Stacey.

“What do those boys do?” he asked, calmly.

“Nothing, really. Kenny is a student, and Terrance doesn't have a job right now.”

“Really? That's an awful nice car for someone without work.”

Stacey blushed and didn't offer an explanation. Gordon didn't need to hear more. “Debbie, those boys are pimps.” No dissertation, a simple comment that brought the house down around him, as mother and daughter launched into a heated argument. Stacey became defiant and angry, as was her habit in arguments with her mom, and she bluntly conceded that Terrance and Kenny were pimps, even defending their choice by repeating Kenny's assertion that prostitution was better than living off “the system.” Her frustration mounting, Debbie Howard demanded to know if Stacey was working as a prostitute. Stacey accused her mother of mistrusting her as her anger grew. She was Kenny's
girlfriend
, she insisted; his “working girls” were an entirely different matter. At that point Gordon Howard offered an opinion. “If a pimp is spending that much time with you, he plans to turn you out. Those boys don't spend time on a girl unless they believe they will get it, and more, back.”

An infuriated Stacey asked the Howards to leave—probably because Gordon had hit the nail on the head. Earlier in the day, Kenny suggested that the planned shopping trip to Toronto would happen sooner if Stacey could help him raise a little money. She had balked at the idea of working on Hollis Street, where her friends or relatives could see her, but was contemplating his idea that she work at a local escort agency—no-one would see her, and he could arrange everything. Kenny had worked fast: Stacey was really wondering if she could sell her body for money—only a few weeks after meeting Kenny Sims, the pimp who, unbeknownst to her, was only pretending to be her boyfriend. Stacey had hoped her mother would agree to pay for her ticket to Toronto—she didn't want to ask Kenny—but now Gordon Howard had gone and screwed that one up. How did he figure out what K-bar and T-bar were doing? He even knew the language; “turn you out,” he had said, referring to a prostitute's first foray onto the stroll after her pimp considers her ready to handle herself. Gordon knew much more about prostitution than Stacey ever imagined. Years earlier he had befriended a local pimp. Gordon didn't like what the man did, but he didn't judge him either. The two were only casual acquaintances but the pimp often bragged about The Game when they met at a local bar.

Stacey believed Kenny loved her and that he would not let her become a full-time prostitute, but if turning a trick once in a while would help them out.… Besides, these escort agencies were listed in the phone book, as Kenny had shown her; they sounded quite legitimate. She would definitely be able to earn enough for the trip to Toronto, and she'd be doing something positive for her future, and Michael's. Rachel had made even street prostitution sound like a fascinating life—such a variety of people, the companionship of other girls. It also sounded frightening.… All night the teenager tossed and turned, trying to decide what to do. Debbie Howard had left Stacey when her daughter needed her most. The anger of the moment had driven them apart but the moment was the most important so far in Stacey's young life. She felt she had to make a decision, and she made it alone. By dawn she was already preparing herself mentally for the first visit to the escort service where she would work.

Stacey's reasoning might seem unbelievably naive even for a girl with no exposure to prostitution, but that gullibility was exactly what Kenny was counting on, along with any adolescent's natural rebelliousness against the adults in her life. Other than the Howards, there was no-one in Stacey's life who would offer her a warning. Her friends could not help, because they were caught in the same trap: Stacey was spending all her time in the company of young prostitutes and their pimps. Even her son was being tended by a fledging pimp. When she and Kenny went out for the evening, he provided the baby-sitter. The sitter was his fourteen-year-old cousin Vincent; a “bubble-gummer” trying to prove his value to experienced pimps by offering them a variety of services, from baby-sitting the children of young mothers, to running errands and keeping an eye out for possible recruits, preferable teenagers.

While Vincent looked after Michael, his mom usually accompanied Kenny on one of his outings to a colleague's apartment for a card game. There would usually be a group of them gathered at the table, cellular phones at the ready so they could keep in touch with the girls on the street. Occasionally, one or more of the men would drive down to Hollis Street to check on their charges and collect some money from them. The other pimps tolerated Stacey's presence; they were polite and offered her compliments. A few wondered why K-bar was playing this girl for so long when he could be making money from her. The pimps all knew K-bar was in the process of turning this girl though and didn't interfere. It was his business and they allowed him the freedom to conduct it his way. The more experienced players considered Kenny a minor pimp who spent too much time playing his girls and not enough working them.

Roman Neville was one of the more experienced players whose place Stacey visited with Kenny. He was the first pimp Stacey had met so far whose street name seemed to fit him perfectly. He stood five foot three and was almost as wide at the shoulders or at least he looked that wide to Stacey. Tank was short, stout and as strong as an ox. He was a human tank who had chosen not to work girls in Montreal or Toronto. Even the most successful pimps who had left Halifax for the profitable cities respected Tank. At age thirty he had been flirting with the prostitution game for fifteen years. He began in the mid 1970s as the “eyes” of an older pimp who did not want to drive downtown to check on his girls every night. The older pimp gave his sporty car to Tank who would cruise Hollis street like a player and watch the girls. He even took it on himself to copy down license numbers as girls went on dates. He figured he could use the information if someone tried to rip off or rough up one of the girls.

The pay phone, the link between the girl in the street and her pimp with his cellular phone. [Print from ATV video tape]

That protective instinct stayed with Neville long after he struck out on his own, Tank set his own rules: he stayed away from juveniles, often encouraging then to change their minds and leave The Game. Once he informed the police that a thirteen-year-old who had been playing on the edges spending time with local pimps was in Montreal, where a pimp had taken her against her will. Tank even helped find her and get her back to Halifax, and her family—all in all, a dangerous move that could have cost him the respect he had earned from other players and even ended his career. Not to mention that he continued to operate his sideline business—running a small gang of teenage boys who were pulling B&Es for him—breaking into people's homes and bringing stolen goods back for him to sell. Avoiding any contact with the police should have been his main priority but Tank's ego would not allow that. He wanted people in square society to respect him as well. He helped the police in the hope they would look up to him. Tank's unwavering belief that he would not get caught was shared among the Nova Scotian pimps. The men had been playing The Game for more than a decade with little or no interference from police and they felt immune to the laws that govern prostitution. Whenever there was a crackdown on prostitution the girls took the brunt of it as police charged them and not their pimps. Tank was confident but part of him wanted out—maybe his natural protective instinct would make him a good prospect to become a crisis counselor for troubled adolescents.

Tank considered trying out his skills on Stacey the first night they met—taking her aside and advising her to stay away from the crowd she was now moving with—but he was deterred by her obvious excitement at the prospect of going to Toronto. “You could tell she wanted to be in The Game; she was in my front room, just bouncing, telling me where she was going,” he recalled years later. “I figured she knew what she wanted, so I ignored her.” Of course a trained counselor might have wondered if Stacey was being manipulated into believing the trip really would be an innocent shopping expedition, but Tank never took the courses. His recollections of meeting Stacey emerged during an interview in a federal prison, where he was sent in the spring of 1993. Tank's dreams of leaving The Game and becoming a respected citizen were put on hold for three years as he served concurrent sentences for living on the avails of prostitution and running a common bawdy house.

Stacey's time to work in the escort service arrived in early July. Kenny came to the apartment to get her and then drove to a small older home in the South end of Dartmouth. Stacey's image of where and how prostitutes worked changed the second she saw the old gray house that served as a brothel and escort service. She had expected to be in a plush apartment with a well-stocked bar. She thought she would sip Champaign and wait until well-dressed customers came to her. The escort service was about as far from plush as you could get and still have a roof over your head. The run down old house needed a paint job both outside and in. When Stacey walked in the first thing she saw was a filthy, tattered old sofa that had been shoved up against the wall in the entry hallway. A girl about Stacey's age sat silently in the middle of the sofa and paid not attention as Stacey walked in with Kenny. The girl didn't smile, she didn't even bother to look up. It was as though she'd been shoved there along with the beat-up old piece of furniture.

The hallway opened on one side to a large room that probably had served as a family room when the building had been a home. Now the room was an office with a desk, a phone, some cabinets and a couple of chairs. The man seated at the desk looked up when Stacey walked in, his eyes skirting past her to Kenny who walked into the room without waiting for an invitation. Kenny and the man spoke briefly, and then Kenny gave Stacey a kiss and promised he would be back later. Stacey sat next to the young girl on the sofa and waited for the man to call on her. Kenny had already explained the workings of the house to her.

Clients calling the escort service could ask to have a girl come to them or they could arrange to come to the house to meet with a girl in the private bedroom at the end of the hall. Inside the bedroom there was a single bed, a night table with a lamp on top, and a small waste basket. The night table had one drawer; inside were an assortment of condoms. The waste basket beside the bed was half filled with discarded condoms and their wrappers. Stacey would not be asked to leave the house on her first night. She was there for in service customers only, as part of the deal Kenny made with the owner. On that first night Stacey had either oral or straight sex with four different men. Two of those men promised they would be back to see her again. Stacey was polite to the men and while she did not like what she was doing she was proud of herself for having the nerve to do it. She couldn't wait to swap stories with Rachel when she returned to the apartment.

Kenny returned to the Escort Service shortly after midnight. The old man behind the desk opened a cash box and pulled out an envelope which he handed to Kenny without comment. Stacey pulled herself up from the uncomfortable sofa and silently followed him outside. Back in the car Kenny kissed her and asked how it went. Stacey told him it was okay but Kenny wasn't really listening. He was busy opening the envelope and counting out just over two hundred dollars stuffed inside. He pulled out twenty and gave it to Stacey.

“Just in case you want to get some cigarettes or something. I'll keep the rest for the trip. Two or three more shifts and you won't have to go back there any more.”

Stacey sat quietly in the car as Kenny headed back to her apartment. She didn't really want to go back to the old man and his dirty little house but she was happy Kenny knew it was just a temporary thing. She was sure Kenny would understand when she told him she would never go back to the service after they returned from Toronto. Kenny may have known that was what Stacey wanted but it was not what he had planned for his new recruit.

In the days that followed Stacey could detect a slight change in the way Kenny treated her. He was still attentive and still talked about the trip to Toronto but he didn't spend nearly as much time with her and rarely took her to the mall anymore. A new routine developed almost overnight. Kenny would pick her up at the apartment, take her to the escort service, pick her up at the end of the night, give her twenty dollars from the envelope and then take her home.

It was the same way T-bar shuttled Rachel back and forth from Hollis Street—just as every pimp controlled the every movement of his girls, not out of concern for her welfare but in order to keep track of the money. His money, not hers; Stacey Jackson had become a commodity, and the “trip” was just a come-on K-bar had used to obtain that commodity. She had no emotional significance to him, and never had.