Chapter 1

This may be where the rumor about the snuff tape originated -- the 31st Street corridor. At a certain pimp’s domicile in a Kansas City zone now claimed by the Bloods. I’d feel better with some backup, say the 101st Airborne. A few Apache attack helicopters to soften things up.

Then I remind myself that I’m trying to be a cool cookie, a tough girl. Or at least a tougher one. So I park my red F-150 in a tow-away zone directly in front of Ramone’s shabby crib. Two cornrowed black kids, a fat, greasy teenager and a scrawny kid, eyeball me as I walk up the root-cracked sidewalk to the front porch. Which was shaped like a sway-backed mule. Ramone isn’t much into home maintenance.

Someone peeks out of a front window.

“Whatchu want, fish belly?” The kid.

“I’m looking for love in all the wrong places. Tell Ramone that Winter is here.”

The kid looks up at the sky. Probably checking for snow.

A second curtain moves, this one upstairs.

The fat teenager clumps inside.

It’s mid-May and I’m looking for a runaway kid, a girl. The runaways are fewer in number this year, I’m not sure why. Maybe there were too many unhappy endings and the word spread. Maybe we good guys became more efficient. Maybe pimps became softer.

When sows soar.

Brandisha Jefferson had been gone for two weeks before her mother reported her. Concern about losing food stamps was one of the excuses for the delay. Or, as I understand the terminology, these days it’s an EBT card -- Electronic Benefit Transfer. In theory, it can’t be used for booze and cigarettes. Unless you shop at the right stores.

The mother, Krystall, accent on the second syllable, wasn’t quite a total mess. But she was usually on the nod. She was plump, worn down, matted hair, wearing a formless housedress with tatty sneakers. A basement apartment off Prospect Avenue, not one of the city’s premier addresses.

Krystall is basically an absentee mother even when she’s home. This is an all too familiar scenario. In my short time in the cop business I’ve seen what little care some kids receive transferred from the grandmother to the great-grandmother to the state.

Grandmothers in their 20s. Babies having babies.

Brandisha would be another pro bono case for me, but it was better than looking to adjust an abusive husband’s attitude. Anyway that’s what I told myself that fine Spring morning. It was sunny and cool, just right.

I was back in what’s called the Northeast section of Kansas City. It lies just east of downtown. Or the Power & Light District as it’s now known. There are periodic rumblings of a neighborhood revival in the Forgotten Northeast, but there’s not a lot of evidence that it’s taking root.

Trying to change the name to the Historic Northeast hasn’t yet taken hold as it did when marketing types named the Crossroads and the Power & Light District. Maybe someday.

I stopped by my favorite shelter run by my favorite nun, Sister Mary Packer. Although if she’s still a bride of Christ ... well no one from the Church has contacted her since Our Lady of Adversity shut down years ago.

Mary is 60 or so, small and determined. Dresses in shabby jeans and tops, but always sports neon-colored kicks. She provides the first six girls who knock on the door with a meal, a shower, and a bed. No questions asked.

She shook her head at Brandisha’s picture, “No, sorry, Winter. How long’s she been gone?”

“Two and a half weeks.”

Mary sighed, “She’s probably hooking. Better try Harold. Cocksucker.”

“I’m on the way. Although she’s a little old for his stable.”

Mary shrugged, just another movie that she’s seen every day for years. Although as I was leaving that modest house, I had an idea. Well, later. Compartmentalize. Pimp time now.

Harold was actually up and about at 10 in the morning. He doesn’t usually stir until 4 or 5 in the afternoon. How sad is my life that I know a pimp’s daily routine?

He’s long, lanky, mean as a snake. Quick as one too. He and his bodyguard / enforcer, a man-mountain named Colombo, were chilling on the small front porch like a couple of Portuguese grandees looking over their estate. This particular set of nobility was inhaling a couple of large splifs. Easing into the day.

“Go away, cunt.”

“Morning. Seen this girl?”

“No.”

“Look at the picture, asshole.”

He did. When your father is a respected Homicide Captain, and mine is, ... well some lowlifes reluctantly find themselves in a cooperative spirit.

Harold frowned. He had recognized something.

“What?”

He was torn. He didn’t want to talk with me, he was no rat. But something was bothering him.

Columbo murmured, “Zip it.”

I waited. I didn’t have to threaten Harold, he knew what one call from Captain Dave Jennings to Vice could mean.

Harold looked at Colombo. “Shit, man.”

I waited.

Columbo heaved to his feet and went inside. Holding his breath to retain the smoke.

Harold glanced up and down the street. “Look, I take care of my girls.”

“The Chamber is real proud of you, Harold.”

He wanted to slap me. Or worse. He took a breath. “There’s a new guy, been around a month or two. Sort of with the 31 Bloods. But not with them, know what I mean?”

Waiting is one of the things I do well.

“They don’t know where he’s from. Back East maybe. Now I never seen him. Goes by Gin. Like hootch. He’s a Chink. Flashes money, acts tough.” Harold looked at me, hating to be talking with me.

He took a large hit, held it. Let it out. Looked at me again, evaluating. Sighed, “Word is ... sick motherfucker. Buys kids. Or takes them. Shoots snuff films.” Harold stood up, slinking across the porch toward the front door.

I saw two naked, young girls, both with bright pink hair -- a marketing gimmick that Harold is proud of -- scrubbing the living room floor. His whores keep that house spick and span.

I don’t have a good feeling about Brandisha Jefferson. I rarely do when they’re young and have been missing this long. Stir in the snuff rumor ... well, I didn’t have a good feeling.

Pimps.

Our Harold doesn’t beat his girls very often. Works them seven days a week at a couple of sleaze-ball motels on Paseo. But keeps them fed, decently dressed.

The problem with Harold, and there’s one problem or another with every pimp, is that he likes his girls to be young or young looking. He’s the go-to procurer for what we call kiddy-fuckers.

But the pimp in the nearby Bloods neighborhood is just as bad. Maybe worse. Ramone. His girls, and a few boys too, are punching bags. They may get fucked sometimes too, but mainly they’re bottoms for the sadists.

And Kansas City is like any other metropolitan area, there’s always a market for punching bags.

In the 31st Street corridor, some of it controlled by the Bloods, Ramone graced me with his presence. Fat, but not soft. A neck as thick as his head. Pomaded hair slicked back. Manicure. Smelling, not unpleasantly, of Jean Paul Gaultier Le Male for Men Eau De Toilette Spray. I know because that’s what Richie, my ex, still uses. His new wife must approve.