Chapter 3

Pilar Paloma entered our lives around three months ago, back in late May. Mindy brought the little girl home from the shelter. From time to time, Mindy would invite one girl or another to spend the night, spend the weekend with us.

Vanessa and I fully approved. It could be healthy, or at least helpful, for the girls to experience something different, something safe, something nurturing. In addition to that, it was good for Walker to meet people outside his usual, comfortable, middle class cocoon.

These girls, ranging in age from roughly 8 to 15, were essentially homeless. Even when they had a home. They weren’t out on the street because they wanted a break from the Partridge Family. That wasn’t why they turned to meth, oxy, crack. And it certainly wasn’t why they found themselves turning tricks.

Pilar is 14, tall for her age. Slender with straight black hair, oval face, round, black eyes. Quiet. Watchful. Alert. And, we would learn, killer bee smart.

She and her mother, Lina, made the long, dangerous trek from Hondo, Colombia, 60 miles northwest of Bogota, to Hidalgo, Texas. Over 3,000 dangerous, anxiety-filled miles that took them almost seven months.

Pilar has a natural affinity for languages, she had studied English back in Colombia. Her father had been a dentist, Lina, a preschool teacher.

The Paloma story was familiar, heartbreaking, all too common. While the revolutionary group FARC and the Colombian government had signed a cease-fire agreement late in 2016, that hardly brought peace to the war-ravaged, cartel-ravaged country.

Her father had been killed in a crossfire. Not between two rival gangs, but between two wannabes. Punks imitating older brothers, cousins, uncles. He was killed on the iron bridge over the Magdalena River.

Lina and Pilar spent the night with a friend, afraid to go home. That night four FARC thugs ransacked the house, stealing everything of value including their passports. Vandalizing, breaking windows, punching holes in walls. Stripping brass pipes. Peeing on the floor. Just because they could. Outlaws in an outlaw nation.

That was the breaking point for Lina. She grabbed Pilar, and left for a cousin’s farm between Hondo and La Dorada. Ironically not that far from Medellin. They stayed on the farm, not exactly in hiding, for almost a year. Lina tried periodically to get their passports reissued. No success.

Lina homeschooled Pilar and her cousin’s children, two preschoolers, as she planned the trip to the Promised Land. The United States.

The loss of two incomes and the rate of inflation were steadily eating away at Lina’s savings. But she didn’t lose any of her determination to find a new life, a better life.

She was a college graduate, intelligent in her own right. She read the literature on immigration, understood the dangers. Talked with friends, colleagues. Planned, prepared, studied maps, routes, trains, buses, for almost a year on that isolated farm.

Her thin hopes of legally immigrating vanished with the 2016 Presidential election. Lina and Pilar left for the United States the next day, Wednesday, November 9.

Lina was gang-raped by two men and three teenage boys in Turbo, Columbia on November 11. The Pan-American Highway is interrupted at Turbo. Lina had paid a Columbian coyote called Hyena $200 to escort them through the Darién Gap to Yaviza, Panama, about 60 miles to the north.

The rapists were loosely affiliated with FARC, but were mostly just roaming thugs. Hyena was beaten, robbed, stripped of his boots, left for dead. Pilar watched silently from a small clump of trees at the edge of a large swamp. Lina didn’t cry, didn’t beg, didn’t resist.

Walker, earnest, “Winter, Vanessa is so beautiful.”

“Yep.”

“But you’re more.”

Aw.

The Paloma family story came out gradually. Pilar was now a regular weekend visitor. She seemed neither embarrassed nor appalled at the harrowing journey from Hondo, Colombia to Hidalgo, Texas to Kansas City, Missouri.

Pilar sat calmly, posture erect, hands folded in her lap, as she answered Mindy and Walker’s questions. The young girl’s visits had started in May, continued through the summer.

Now that Mindy was in Palo Alto, Walker took Uber to the Northeast and brought Pilar here almost every weekend. Sister Mary Packer was keeping Pilar in the shelter full time. There was just something about that young girl. Pilar’s mother, Lina, was sofa-surfing among the large Latino community.

I tried to imagine Pilar’s plight. A stranger in a strange country. Father killed. An inconceivable trek from South America.

Then suddenly her mother disappeared. Lina simply hadn’t come home one night. Two days ago.

Well, I would do something about Lina. Someone, probably a pimp, had to have taken her. Was keeping her by force, by threat, by ... something. Lina was educated and smart. Tough enough to travel thousands of miles through enemy territory. She wouldn’t voluntarily leave her daughter alone, not after all they’d been through.

My private detective work takes me all over the metro area, even to that fucking political cesspool called Kansas. Which, when Brownback was first elected governor, was to become the greatest laboratory for proving supply side economic theory. Trickle down. After cutting taxes for the wealthy even further.

F. U. You fucking laughingstock of a state.

Fair play, Missouri is also fiscally conservative, its representatives voting regularly against the best interests of their constituents. But at least its not Kansas. I guess we’re like residents of another failed state, Louisiana. They say ‘thank god for Mississippi.’ Where things are even worse.

For those of us on the Missouri side of State Line Road, thank god for Kansas.

When I started looking for Lina Paloma, I reached out to one of my freelancers, Joey Viagra. He’s a mess, but he’s also plugged in.

The mess part comes from heavy steroid use combined with a steady intake of Viagra. Bad acne, irritability, and, I’ve heard, but thankfully not seen, tiny balls.

He also tells me more than I want to know. We were sitting in my office and Joey took up more than his share of a red Barcelona guest chair. Muscles so bunched that they held his arms away from his torso, kept his thick thighs separated as he sat.

Pungent body odor too. Sort of metallic. But, I reminded myself, Joey Viagra is plugged in.

“Winter, I had bone last night for 47 minutes.”

“Remarkable.”

We chatted amiably about his erections for a couple of minutes before he would look at Lina’s photo. Which had my contact numbers printed underneath it.

“Nice. I like Spic pussy. It’s just as good as regular.”

“Hmm.”

He heaved to his feet and waddled slowly toward the door, “I’ll ask around.” Leaving a scented trail.

He is plugged in. And he took the photo with him.

I started looking for Lina in the Northeast. Where the shelter is. Where she’d been staying with different friends.

I began with Harold. Not because I thought Lina might be in his stable. She’s eons too old for him. But he’s the pimp I know best. And he’s not stupid. He might hesitate, but he wouldn’t hold out on the daughter of Homicide Captain Dave Jennings.

Man-mountain Columbo, at close to 300 pounds, was stuffed into a wooden rocker on the porch, nursing a breakfast beer. “Go away, cunt.”

“Columbo. I’m so proud to witness your ongoing triumph over anorexia nervosa.”

“Fuck you.” Added, “Bitch.”

Harold’s house gleamed as usual. His girls scrubbed, buffed, shined. I went up the stairs, touched my .38 in the shoulder holster on my left side. Habit, not nervousness. Mostly.

Third door on the right. Fuck, why do I know shit like that? Remind me to sign up for a different life. I moved Harold’s Glock off the nightstand onto the floor. Be prepared.

Harold, long, lanky, black, snoring, was on his back. A young Japanese girl with the signature pink hairdo was sleeping beside her boss, a pillow tucked between her slender thighs.

Both were naked, Harold’s long skinny cock was dangling between his legs. Uncircumcised. I shook the girl’s shoulder gently and she was instantly awake. Staring at a stranger.

I nodded toward the door and she scurried away. I then picked up a glass of water and tossed it into Harold’s face. His shriek of surprise turned into a snarl of hatred as he saw me and patted around for his gun.

“Cunt.”

“Harold.”

He groaned at the unfairness of life, swung his feet to the floor, strode into his bathroom and peed for an hour or two. Came back, glaring at me, “What the fuck is it this time?”

He hadn’t washed his hands, but at least he’d flushed.

“You’re a volunteer in Winter’s Brigade. You’re going to find a woman for me, Harold. Lina Paloma. Colombian. A mother.”

“Fuck I do that for?”

I didn’t answer. Our Harold knew exactly what he’d do that for. Thanks, Daddy.

“Leeny Pa-who?”

He was stalling. Good, that meant he knew something.

Patience. “Lina Paloma.”

Harold scratched his balls, thinking. “I’m not saying. But I mighta run across her. Spick, right?”

“That’s right, Harold.”

He tried crafty, “Reward, right?” He knew about the Sister Mary Packer money. Maybe lightening would strike twice.

“Wrong. Well, let me rephrase that. Your reward will come in heaven.”

“Fuck a bunch of heaven.”

Still stalling. I stood waiting. Not thinking about being in a naked pimp’s bedroom. With Godzilla downstairs. I was just waiting, a skill I’ve been working on.

He sighed, weight of the world. “Okay. Junior owe me, right? On account of that time in ... well, he owe me. He know better than stiff me too. Who don’t, right? So he grabs this bitch. Comin’ out of Price Chopper.”

I waited.

“Junior should know better. I don’t use grannies.”

Lina is 29.

“So. I explain, Junior. He still owe me.”

“And the granny?”

“Oh I keep her a couple of days. Me and Columbo ... no sense letting it go to waste.”

To keep from shooting him I said, “I understand, Harold. What did you do with the granny?”

Indifferent shrug, “Sold her. Pantone. $500.” Yawned, already bored with the conversation.

“He still have her?”

“Fuck do I know? I ain’t the census taker.” Pleased with his wit, our Harold.

I said, “Harold, sometimes you overdo being Harold.”

One evening Walker, suddenly earnest like when he was 7 or 8, “I would rescue you, Winter. If I could. If you needed it.”

“I know, babylove. Right back atcha.”

I found Lina Paloma in Independence, a neighboring town to the east.

Pantone had denied knowing her, denied buying her from Harold. I didn’t say anything, didn’t remind him who my father is. I just looked at him, waiting.

Pantone isn’t quite an albino, although his afro is naturally white. But I’ve seen him out and about in the daytime. Like at Mary’s funeral. He’s around 5’ 5” tall, shorter than I am. And skinny, probably doesn’t weigh more than 90 pounds.

But most people, tough people in a tough business, don’t fuck with Pantone. He’s maybe shot people, I’m not sure. But his weapon of choice is a knife. Word is he’s quick. Faster than quick. Turbo fast.

But the fastest knife in the world is slower than a bullet. Problem is, problem for the opposition is, Pantone doesn’t fight fair. He doesn’t wait for the confrontation to escalate like normal criminals do. If he senses that the conversation has begun traveling even remotely toward an unfriendly direction, someone is suddenly seeing a knife thrust up from around knee level to tummy height.

Now it may be true, it may be legend, that Pantone paid attention in anatomy class. Knows what to do once the epidermis is punctured. Enjoys knowing what to do.

But I just waited. Patiently.

He said, “Shit.”

I continued looking down into his pinkish eyes. Two of his girls started up the sidewalk, saw me on the porch, and detoured around back.