Chapter 2

Vanessa and I don’t have a coordinated game plan for waking the kids on school days. She’ll do it, or I’ll do it. It just works out. But it’s a chore. Walker and Mindy sleep the sleep of the dead, lost in Teenage Slumber.

They sleep in one of the two private bedrooms in the loft that the owner, Gene Austin, carved out of the Wrigley for us.

When it was just Walker and me in the morning, I employed the Mom Tickle-Torture method. Time-tested. Time-proven. This tactic doesn’t work with Mindy however. Sometimes Vanessa or I will resort to spritzing ice-cold water on the small of her back. A mild form of hydrostatic shock. Sort of.

In any case, it’s a severe jolt to Mindy’s system each and every time. Her enraged howls help to get the boy sleeping beside her moving. By the time her early morning brain synapses start firing, outraged shock turns to mumbled, “Okay, okay, I’m awake.”

It’s understood that Walker and Mindy must be completely out of bed, actually standing on the floor, before Vanessa and I will leave.

Both kids sleep in the nude, neither is embarrassed about the wakeup routine.

Basically that’s it for early-morning parenting. The four of us will have breakfast here, Mindy cooking when she’s up in time. Or, we often walk over to Baltimore Street to Town Topic, our favorite greasy spoon.

Then Walker is off to Pembroke Hill in his natty school uniform. Mindy attends L’École Culinaire on the Country Club Plaza.

Vanessa heads for BEAR, a terrific restaurant and bar on a sketchy stretch of Broadway in midtown. She’s manager, buyer, bookkeeper, sommelier extraordinaire.

I aim my bright red F-150 north through downtown -- now christened the Power & Light District -- to the stockyards and my little private detective office in the Livestock Exchange Building on Genessee.

Then the day really begins.

Brandisha Jefferson. Ah, Brandisha. No sign of her. No rumors. Other than the two-pimp theory. If Harold could have snagged her, he would have. Even though she’s pushing up against the age ceiling of his whores.

Same with Ramone. She’d be an acceptable punching bag for his customers. His punching bag criteria are: anyone under 20 who is breathing.

The authorities would have her listed in all the proper missing children databases. But Harold and Ramone wouldn’t worry about that. Too many misplaced kids from too many homes.

I kept making the rounds, pimps and shelters. My part time researcher, Cathy Austin kept calling hospitals.

The odds of a happy resolution grew longer every time the sun announced another day.

Let me talk a moment about Vanessa Henderson, a pastime that always pleases me. Not the historical part, though.

Her great-grandmother, Veronica Andrushchenko had been raped and beaten in Kiev by a number of drunken Russian soldiers. Left to die in an alleyway.

Veronika survived and Vanessa’s grandmother, Sasha was born of that rape in 1957.

Life in what was then still Russia was pretty grim for a lot of people. Veronika turned to prostitution to put food on the table. They often slept in train stations, bus depots, backs of cars. Veronika never quite shook what was probably pneumonia and would die of dysentery in 1965.

Earlier that year Veronika sold Sasha to a pedophile from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We think he adopted her in order to bring her home. In any case, he knocked up Sasha Andrushchenko and then either sold her or gave her away to a whorehouse. Which might have been in Chicago.

Along the way, someone acquired US citizenship papers for the girl. Sasha gave birth to Vanessa’s mother, Marina.

Sasha was conceived through one of six or eight rapists. Marina through a pedophile. Vanessa doesn’t talk about who her father is and I don’t ask.

History class dismissed.

But ... my god, look at Vanessa. A former Miss Indiana. At 5’ 10” she was simply gorgeous. Leggy, with curves where they were intended to be, lustrous black hair. Large hazel eyes, with a whisper of gold. Lush, kissable lips. A pageant winner’s cheekbones. A classic Slavic beauty.

Men look at her and see sex personified. I see love personified. Okay, and sex.

Vanessa is cool. Effortlessly. Me, I’m cool-adjacent. Not quite the cookie I’d like to be.

I look for little Brandisha Jefferson every day. But I also have a full caseload of insurance investigations, a revenge-porn fire to put out.

Still, I work my pro bono case every bit as hard as the paying jobs. I make another colorful tour of PimpLand -- Harold, Ramone, others. I hope I don’t wear out my welcome.

Finally, I can admit to being one of the founding members of the Unicorn Club. No, not that Silicon Valley, $1 billion kind of unicorn.

Nor was our little club modeled after the unicorn fuck. (When a girl is getting nailed from behind and she puts her hand on her forehead like a unicorn without the guy noticing it for 10 seconds ... well, there you are.)

Although, come to think of it, that latter example ... knowing the type of members we have, isn’t entirely inappropriate.

Our Unicorn Club is a very casual private drinking and dining establishment. In an overlooked section of the West Bottoms, near the Missouri River.

Boy did this city fuck up river-wise. Turned it’s back on a scenic, potentially bustling opportunity. Think River Walk in San Antonio.

So, five of my friends and I, much smarter than the city, paid the down on an acre of muddy land that had an abandoned storage building on it.

The plan was genius. Renovate the building, add a roof deck and a patio on the river side. Hire a cook, a bartender, sell club memberships. Sell food and drink. Watch the spondulix roll in. We all liked food and we all liked to drink. So we were industry insiders when you think about it.

My best friend Bear saved us. And that was back when I was first getting to know Vanessa.

About Bear. Obviously gay. With long, fuck-you platinum hair. But that isn’t what people first notice about the 29-year old man.

Size. Bear is 6’ 8” and recently added another five pounds of solid muscle. 325 pounds. Solid, being the operative word.

He’s from Appalachia, eastern Kentucky coal country. He left when he was 14 to follow the love of his life, Barry Hopkins, to Kansas City. Barry’s now an audiologist at the KU Med Center. They’re still together.

And Bear owns the wildly successful BEAR restaurant and bar on an iffy stretch of Broadway in midtown. Where my love, Vanessa Henderson, manages the operation, buys the food and drink, does the books and is one of the most respected sommeliers in town.

Her wine list, along with JJs, is ranked at the top of the city by “Wine Spectator.”

So, a failing private club. A successful restaurateur and his managing director.

Could love be in the air?

No Brandisha. The odds are dropping.

At home, in our Wrigley loft, it’s usually just Walker and me at dinnertime. Vanessa is at work, overseeing the dinner service at BEAR. Mindy is usually there too, apprenticing in both the kitchen and in the front of the house. With her culinary school and this on-the-job training she might have a chance to make it in a tough racket.

Having wealthy Mission Hills parents to fall back on must be a comfort. Although I shouldn’t say that about Mindy. She doesn’t act like a little rich girl, not at all. And she’s doing well in school. Vanessa says she’s working hard too.

Dinner is easy tonight. Walker waited until I came home and had my after-work shower. Then he opened me a Heineken Dark and started heating up a pan of Mindy’s leftover chili. Like soup, chili improves during the week.

I like looking at my son. A head taller than I am and still growing. My blonde hair, worn longer these days and looking good. My deep blue eyes too. Alabaster skin -- he doesn’t tan like I do. Blushes easily, though. Living with three occasionally naughty females doesn’t help.

I leaned forward to pour my beer into a frosted mug. My thigh-length white terrycloth robe gaped open. Walker said, “Nice,” and tweaked my left nipple. I let him cop a tiny feel once in a while. Depends on my mood.

I closed the gap and he got up to splash some Near Death hot sauce from Grinders in our bowls. We don’t do the hottest one -- Death Nectar -- because it’s so macho-macho. That, and I’m scared of it. Scared to death.

Walker is wearing one of his favorite tee-shirts, black with white lettering -- ‘My Mom Sucks Cocks.’ My friend Peggy Rawlings gave him a bunch of obscene ones for his 10th birthday.

Which led to some earlier-than-planned sex education classes to explain things like clit and DP. Thanks, Peggy.

But he’s a good kid, Walker. Mostly.

I was happy for the distraction of Walker’s merry chatter at our kitchen table. It shunted that Ramone conversation off to the side a little.

As we stood at the double sink, my turn to wash, Walker’s hip hop playlist blaring, he smiled slyly, “I don’t see any visible panty lines, Winter.”

I snorted, “Gee, I wonder why? Could it be because my robe’s about an inch thick, hmm?”

“Or. Could it be because you went commando, hmm?”

I had to grin. Teenagers can be so ... teenage. He slid his hand to the back of my knee. When I didn’t protest, on up to my butt.

“I knew it!”

“Report to Sergeant Finch, she’s looking for ace detectives.”

He gave me a friendly squeeze and let my robe return to do its duty.

Ramone, round and sleek and smooth, was not a soft pimp. He kept his girls and boys in line and didn’t hesitate to beat them harder even than his customers did.

But this Jin, whoever the fuck he was, had Ramone sweating.

In the morning I skipped breakfast, almost unheard of for me, and went back to see Sergeant Finch. “More gossip, but it’s from Ramone.”

A pimp, a liar, a felon, out on parole, but he doesn’t fuck with the police. Not unless he believes it’s the only thing that can save his ass.

Sergeant Finch nodded. She was familiar with the Kansas City pimp scene. And the sui generis entity known as Ramone.

I said, “Jin appeared out of nowhere. By himself apparently, no posse. Ramone is scared of him.”

“Ramone is not the toughest kid on the block.”

“No.”

“Anything else?”

“I decided not to ask about the snuff tapes. Probably be getting in your way.”

Sergeant Finch smiled, “You’re starting to learn. Hannity over in Assault heard a whisper too.”