Chapter 3

After a couple of months, Mindy’s father, Phillip Montgomery, decided to see firsthand where Mindy was working. Unannounced, he showed up at Mary’s shelter. Around 5 on a Tuesday evening.

I’ve grown fond of Phillip. He’s a good father, despite Mindy’s problems ... what teenager doesn’t have problems? He and Rebecca seem to like each other, not the case for every married couple. Even when they’re in love.

Phillip is a banker, a senior VP at the Kansas City branch of OneBank, a New York-based institution dating back a couple of centuries. He didn’t tell me, but my financial adviser, my office neighbor, Gertie Oppenheimer did, “He’s a player.”

“Oh?”

Gertie should know. She’s retired from Chase. And is one my favorites. Chain smokes, cusses, is flinty. Doesn’t suffer fools. Luckily, I’m cool-adjacent.

She said, “Phillip Montgomery is listed as only a VP in New York. Out here he does run the KC branch. But his real job is back in New York. OneBank has an activist hedge fund. Phillip oversees it. Envoy Assets.”

“What’s an activist fund?”

“They take stakes in publicly traded companies. Buy influence through stock ownership. Then, for better or worse, they push to improve the stock prices.”

There was a hint of a sneer in her voice. I said, “What’s wrong with improving stock prices?”

“Nothing. Or not much if you take the long-term approach like Envoy does. But too many funds force companies to sell well-performing divisions, lay off employees for short-term gains. That can drive the stock up, then the fund dumps it.”

“Oh. But Phillip is a good guy?”?

“Mostly. Envoy gives companies strategic direction over the years. Pumps resources into them. Sometimes they supply key executives to run a division. Or the entire company.”

Gertie contrasted Envoy’s approach with that of the funds who bought shares in Valeant. A pharmaceutical company I had a vague recollection of.

Gertie said, “Those cunts at Valeant borrowed money to buy competitors.”

“What’s wrong with that?” I like to nudge Gertie when she’s building up steam.

“I tell you what’s wrong! They raised the fucking price of life-saving drugs. Hundreds of percent. More. Most people couldn’t afford them.”

That’s where I’d heard of Valeant. When the feds started investigating them and the stock price plunged. Good.

When I visit Mary’s shelter, I see my friend fighting a losing battle. I see frightened girls trying to act tough. I see one nun sharing her love of humanity without a single Biblical quote.

Phillip Montgomery probably saw that too. But he has a much more sophisticated perspective. A world viewpoint.

I saw what was there. He saw would could be there.

After an hour or so of watching Mary and Mindy cooking rice and beans, topping it with pork chops, then spooning ladles of the simple meal on chipped white plates for the girls, he drew Mary aside.

“How can I help? What do you need?”

“More beds.”

Today the Sister Mary Foundation in the Northeast oversees a six-house complex with a central building that serves as a visitor’s reception area, Mary’s sparse office and the communal kitchen. Plus a small cafeteria to serve three meals a day. A private security company makes regular rounds 24 / 7. Very visible rounds, especially after dark.

The Foundation has a professional counselor in on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Consultations with the girls are 100% voluntary.

Mary Packer was grateful, but still realistic. Always realistic. “I don’t know what happens to them when they leave here.”

More beds meant more girls. She was still turning a few away each day. Like adding a couple of lanes to those fucking freeways. More traffic.

But what pleased me the most, made me the most proud, was Mindy’s idea. An idea she thought of all by her own damned self.

She took her time, wrote out a game plan, and went over it with Vanessa, Walker and me. We made a few minor suggestions then Vanessa said, “Roll with it.”

The implementation took longer, and was more difficult, but isn’t that usually the case?

Mindy convinced L’École Culinaire to cycle their students through the Sister Mary kitchen. Hands-on experience cooking of course. And buying in bulk, sticking to a budget. And serving in the communal cafeteria.

Many of the students, in their late teens and 20s, were from poor neighborhoods not that different from where the lost souls they were feeding came from. But it was still a good reminder of why they were in school. A visceral prompt to knuckle down.

But the genius part of Mindy’s brainstorm was the effect it had on those homeless girls. It gave them a real-life glimpse, a sliver of hope, a hint of a way out of the sorry cycle they were trapped in.

Phillip never told us, but I bet anything he subsidized the start of the Sister Mary Scholarship Fund. Which was available only to those Sister Mary Foundation kids. A full ride to the culinary school. Room and board for as long as you kept your grades up.

And, through Vanessa, introductions to restaurant managers all over the KC metro area. Even in fucking Kansas, that political cesspool. And those introductions were the equivalent of job interviews.

Rebecca Montgomery is now a frequent visitor to the shelter. Not, definitely not, as a wealthy swan trailing a scent of elegance. She comforts the girls. Listens. Extends sympathy. Is, for moments at a time, the mother they never had. But she bides her time, seeing only the ones who voluntarily come into her makeshift office in a corner of the cafeteria.

I smiled as I overheard one little girl tell another, “I thought Mindy was smart, but Rebecca is woke.”

It was an eye-opener for Rebecca, seeing those girls. Mindy’s age and younger. Intellectually she knew they were around town. That poverty existed. But seeing these real-life girls, talking with them, hugging them ... well the contrast with her own daughter was brought home in a powerful way.

Rebecca told me, yet again, “I don’t know how to thank you, Winter. Sorry, I keep saying that.” She is so chic. Tall, elegant, intelligent gray eyes.

Being almost cool, I refrained from saying, “Give Walker some pussy, he’s always had the hots for you.”

Adjacent-cool, that’s me.

Sergeant Finch closed the blinds in her little cubical-like office. Locked the door. Mouth turned down in distaste, she inserted the DVD. Didn’t say a word to me.

Surprisingly, it had been shot outdoors. Of course it would have to be a sunny day.

A blindfolded boy, white, nude, so young it broke my heart, was led to the back of a one-story cinderblock building. Noise from freeway traffic was in the background. The man, face fully covered by a hood and mask, was Jin. I could tell.

Sergeant Finch muttered, “Just off Southwest Boulevard.” Which meant the police had found the crime scene.

The teen was smiling as Jin turned him to face the camera. Probably thought he was in some sort of game. The camera moved from time to time and the focus was adjusted frequently which meant there were at least two cocksuckers involved.

The boy kept smiling as his wrists were secured at shoulder level by wall-mounted steel cuffs that I hadn’t noticed before. His ankles were left free. Why bother? He didn’t stand a chance once he was clamped to the wall.

Jin took the blindfold off the boy and stripped naked himself. Except for the mask. He was erect. Not that large, but very erect. Throbbing, in heat.

I forced myself to watch the entire, slow, sickening, mutilation and sexual abuse. Jin took his time on that pitiful boy. He screamed until he didn’t have any scream left. The finish, which looked almost ritualistic, was drawn out for an excruciatingly long time.