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Mayte Diaz could not stop gushing about her shopping experience. “We have nothing like Walmart in Cuba. That place, it is like, amazing. There is a mall in Havana, but it’s just a bunch of small stores. The stores don’t have much in them either. Walmart had everything. It was amazing.”
Bat glanced at Alexander, who was sitting on the couch nursing a Scotch. “I think she liked Walmart,” he said.
“Maybe you should take her to the Galleria in Houston. I bet she’d like it.”
Bat shrugged. “We might. It’d be a good day trip.”
“Did I say how amazing Walmart was? It’s so amazing. I can’t believe all the stuff they had. Clothes, phones, food, shoes, dishes. Even televisions. Not just one brand, lots of different brands of everything.”
Alexander wanted to cut her off but didn’t have the heart. For him, it was hard to imagine life without large discount stores. “Did you two get what you needed?” he asked.
“I did. Bat even said I should get some clothes, so I wouldn’t have to keep wearing the stuff from the beach. He said I should have my own underwear.” May blushed slightly. “Not that I mind wearing your stuff, some of it is pretty, but Bat thought I should get some clothes that fit me better.”
“We picked out a couple of outfits. I think they will look better than the mishmash May’s been wearing,” Bat said. “She needed some good shoes too.”
“Thank you so much, Bat,” May said as she gave him a quick kiss on the lips.
“Have you guys eaten?”
“Yes,” Bat replied. “I treated her to Texmex. Casa Ole. She loved the green sauce.”
“Oh, it was so good. It was all good. It’s way different from Cuban food. I ate too much. I blew the diet. I’ll have to run farther tomorrow.”
“We both will,” Bat said, patting his stomach.
“How ‘bout a drink?” Alexander asked.
“I have some work I need to do. I’ve sluffed off the past couple of days. I need to catch up. I’ll take a raincheck.”
“What’s a raincheck?” May asked.
“It means we’ll do it another time. Later,” Bat told her.
“Oh,” May said. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
“Bright and early. For our beach run. Well, your run, my walk.”
“Thank you again for all the stuff.” May put her arms around Bat and kissed him.
“You’re welcome,” Bat said, smiling.
Alexander watched the show of affection, wondering where it was headed. Maybe May was cleverer than he’d given her credit for. She could be showing him affection to manipulate him. Whatever the reason, he hoped neither his old friend nor his new friend would be hurt.
May turned to Alexander once Bat left. “I’m going to take a shower. Is that okay?”
“Absolutely. You don’t need to ask. You’ve been here two weeks now. You should know that. Mi casa es su casa.”
“Muchas gracias. Thank you. I may go to bed after my shower. I’m tired.”
“You had a long day. G’night.”
“Good night,” May said and went into her room.
Alexander sipped on his Scotch. May had been with him for two weeks. He’d learned the name of the boat she jumped from and the name of the crew members. Otherwise, he was no closer to finding her sister Briana than he was the day he cut the fishhook out of her hand.
“Right or wrong, I need to get off my ass.” Alexander sat the tumbler of Scotch down and picked up his laptop. He clicked the saved bookmark of the escort named Mia. “Wow, what a beautiful girl. As May would say, ‘amazing.’”
As he studied the pictures of the escort, he doubted the validity of the photographs. This girl being an escort was hard to fathom. She only had one tattoo, between her breasts and barely visible below the sports bra. From what he could tell, it was not a particularly attractive tattoo. In Alexander’s opinion, no tattoos were attractive, but this one was worse than most. He was not sure what it was supposed to be. Maybe it would be worth the price of admission just to see the rest of the tattoo.
Alexander laughed at himself. It wasn’t the tattoo he wanted to see. It was the canvas it was etched on. That’s what he wanted to see. He’d never been tempted to hire a prostitute, but he had been to strip joints. He reckoned he could pay her to ask a few questions...while she danced naked in front of him. It didn’t mean he’d have sex with her. Alexander laughed, much louder this time. He took a sip of whiskey then continued to peruse the escort ads.
He found the taglines fascinating. They included: “I’m not a professional sex worker, I do it just for financial problems,” “100 percent independent,” “Safe,” “Discreet,” or “No Explicit Talk.” Even more fascinating was that when propositioning an escort, “explicit talk” was not allowed.
Local law enforcement jurisdictions enforce prostitution and other forms of vice crimes, so Alexander saw little, if any, during his twenty years with the FBI. This was new to him. Escorts in the Houston area were in the hundreds, if not thousands. Were all these girls being forced into it? Did whatever money they made go straight into a pimp, boyfriend, or drug dealer’s pocket? It was hard to believe the smiling, posing girls were doing it under duress. Many of the posted photos were selfies. Maybe they took the pictures for their boyfriends, then used them to post an escort ad.
None of the girls looked underage. Most looked well past eighteen. In the ads, the age of the escort was listed. The age could be as bogus as the name displayed, but to Alexander, the age and the girl in the pictures were a close match. Of course, he was not good at estimating the ages of women. He pegged the twenty-two-year-old Cuban girl in his guest room as a sixteen-year-old boy, so what did he know?
Every ad listed included a phone number with a request to call or text. Alexander didn’t take notes, but most of the escorts listed their age, breast size and disclosed that they had a “bald kitty.”
Some of the ads listed rates. They ranged from around one hundred dollars per hour to over five hundred dollars an hour. Overnight was an option, going for fifteen hundred to five thousand a night. Incall was less expensive than outcall.
Most of the ads listed explicitly what the escort would or would not do. Though not naïve by any stretch of the imagination, Alexander still needed to Google a few of the terms used in the escort ads – typically abbreviated terms to describe what the escort would not do.
Although his perusal of escort ads got him nowhere, Alexander didn’t think it was a waste of time. On the contrary, it was enlightening. He had opened the ads of the most attractive escorts in new tabs in his browser and as he clicked through them, studying the pictures, he again wondered if the escort profession – prostitution – was voluntary or if they were being forced into it. How many, he wondered, had serious drug habits, and were supporting these habits by selling their body for a hundred bucks an hour, but would not allow “BBBJWF” or “MSOG”? Alexander had to Google the acronyms.
Alexander leaned back and sipped his single malt Scotch, now slightly watered down by the melted ice. The images of the smiling faces and seductive poses were engraved in his brain. Unless the ads were fake, a good number of those girls were in the sex business – for whatever reason. Hopefully, it was of their own free will. But this was not where he was going to find Briana Diaz. Human traffickers weren’t going to splash these girls’ images over the internet. They might put the image of an attractive, sexy girl like “Mia” in the ad, then substitute a young Cuban girl with a similar look. The client might think it’s the same girl, just different makeup. They might think the substitute escort was better looking than the one in the picture. They wouldn’t care if it was Mia, Briana, or Morticia Addams, as long as the girl was hot and performed.
Finding Briana, or any of the Cuban girls, in an escort ad was about as likely as finding a meth addict with teeth, but the whole escort business fascinated Alexander. He would have to meet up with one of his Houston Police Department acquaintances and get more info on the business. He was particularly interested in how often they busted, or tried to bust, the girls advertising on the escort pages. Judging by the number of ads, it couldn’t be often. Unless the ads were placed by the cops to snare the men who use the escort services. Alexander didn’t think so. Too many ads. Surely cops – even vice cops – had bigger fish to fry.
Getting his mind off the escorts was not easy and was made more difficult by the fact that he’d not had female company in some time. He could not remember precisely when, but he knew it was before he acquired his new roommate. His last romantic relationship had ended on a sour note months before. He’d met an attractive woman while walking on the beach. She was from Port Arthur and liked having someone with a beach house she could spend weekends with. No driving home after a day of drinking in the sun.
Their relationship was fun in the beginning. The woman was in her late thirties with bleached blond hair, augmented breasts above a flat waist, and trim legs. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much going on inside her head. It didn’t take Alexander long to realize she was several cans short of a six-pack.
In an attempt to let her down easily, Alexander told her he had an out-of-town assignment. In case she came by to check, he took off for the Ozarks. A few weeks of driving the hills, trout fishing, and exploring local pubs kept his mind off the woman from Port Arthur.
One night, after a few drinks and too many texts from the lady, Alexander texted her that he had met someone and it was love at first sight. He knew dumping her was the right choice when he turned his phone on the following morning and found her reply.
That’s great. I’m happy for you. Is she into 3somes?
Luckily, Alexander never heard any more from the woman. He poured himself another Scotch. This time a blended. The good stuff is for the first and second drinks. After two, blended is fine.
He texted Bat.
You busy?
It took a full minute, but the reply came.
No. What’s up?
Can you meet me in the street?
Now?
Yeah.
Sure. What is it? May okay?
She’s fine. Asleep. I need to talk a minute.
On my way.
Alexander was down the steps and on Bat’s side of the street when Bat made it to the bottom of his steps.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Alexander said.
“No problem. What is it?”
“Remember the other day when I said I needed to do some old-fashioned police work?”
Bat nodded.
“I’ve been thinking about it, and I need to get out and do some investigating. That’s how we got the picture of the boat – that and your cyber work. I think that’s how we’ll find May’s sister.”
“You’re probably right. We aren’t making much progress the way we’re going.”
“I didn’t want to bring it up in front of May. You two are getting on nicely.”
“We are. I like the girl. She’s sweet as can be, and she seems to like me. I’m not sure why.”
“Your boyish good looks probably.” Alexander let out a laugh.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“I know she’d like you better if you shaved. She thinks your beard is scraggly. I think she used a Spanish term for it. I don’t remember what it was, but I don’t think it was complimentary.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Is that what you brought me down here for?”
“No. I digress. You’ve had some experience in strip joints and...what do they call them? The clubs that are fronts for prostitution?”
“I’m not an expert, but I am aware of them, yes. I don’t think the clubs that are a front have a name. They’re just bars with backrooms with girls.”
“And massage parlors?”
“That’s why we’re here, so you can address my moral standards?”
Alexander shrugged off his friend’s comment. “I’m going to do a little digging tomorrow. I hoped you might offer some suggestions. I can’t go in as a cop. I can’t even carry my old badge. I could say I’m a private investigator, make up a reason to be asking questions. Maybe I’m looking for the daughter of a wealthy businessman. If they think there’s a reward, they may give me some info.”
“They might, but not on young Cuban girls. I think you’d be better off acting like a perv. Tell them you’re looking for young girls. Not underage girls, but young, teenagers eighteen or nineteen. If they try to get you to take an older woman, one in her mid-twenties, refuse. Haha! Say, no, you like them young. You’ll pay.”
“That does sound like a better strategy.”
“Take extra cash with you. You may have to buy the girl if they produce one. You don’t want to blow your cover. I’d empty your wallet of everything except your ID and one credit card. If you have any expired credit cards lying around, put those in. Fill it with twenty-dollar bills if you have them. When you open your wallet, you want to look loaded.”
“Why empty my wallet?”
“Let’s say these aren’t hookers with a heart of gold. They’ll rip you off in a heartbeat. It’d be a good idea to stick one of your fake driver’s licenses in too, in case they steal your wallet.”
“Makes sense.”
“Mention that it’s okay if they don’t speak English. You aren’t hiring them for conversation. May said none of the girls on the boat spoke English. If you want a girl who speaks English, you won’t get any from the boat.”
“May said her sister speaks English as well as she does. I’ll say a girl that can speak English would be nice, but not necessary.”
Bat pulled on his beard. “I don’t see anything wrong with that. It’d be best if you got a girl who speaks English. You could ask her if she knows of any Cuban girls. If they bring you a girl who doesn’t speak English, what are you going to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, your Spanish isn’t good enough to question her. You can’t ask her questions. You just going to slap the sherbet to her and leave?”
“I’d like to avoid having sex with her. That’s the plan.”
“If you don’t, the people running the place will get suspicious really quickly. If it’s not the plan, what is the plan? Do you have a plan?”
“Kind of. If it gets that far, I thought I’d try to talk to her when I’m alone with the girl. Make small talk. Ask questions about her, but nothing that might make her suspicious. She won’t understand. She might but pretend she doesn’t. I’d use the translator on the phone to talk to her. Ask the same questions. Ask her where she’s from. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and she’ll be from Cuba.”
“I’d say the odds are fifty-to-one. A hundred-to-one. Maybe more. Most of these girls are going to be from Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela. Most likely some from Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala too. They’re all going to speak Spanish.”
Alexander scratched his head. “Probably not the best idea I’ve had.”
“Not the worst idea either. If you don’t mind having sex with many Latin girls, it might not be a bad plan. Maybe I should do some investigating too. You footing the bill?”
“What about your relationship with May?” Alexander said, ignoring Bat’s rhetorical question.
“Hey, we like each other. We’ve kissed a few times. That’s all.”
“You think she’d appreciate it?”
“We’re trying to find her sister. Sacrifices must be made.”
“Yeah, she’d accept that.” Alexander laughed.
“Hey, she might. But, truth be told, I wouldn’t mess around. I want to see where this goes with May.”
“Wow. What happed to the Bartholomew Farnsworth the Third I know?”
“Frightening, huh?”
“Yeah. In a good way. I think I may go investigate. If that many Hispanic girls are out there, I need to narrow it down.”
“Try this. Hit the bars that are fronts for prostitution. They’re all clumped in a few areas of town. Start on Telephone Road, north of 610. Go in, order a beer, chat. Most likely, an older woman will hit you up for a drink. Buy her one and talk to her. She’ll speak decent English. Tell them you met a guy at a convention somewhere who hooked up with a Cuban girl in Houston. He couldn’t remember where, but he said it was on Telephone Road, or whatever road you happen to be on. They’re going to be suspicious. Act cool. Try to rub their tits. They may or may not let you. If they don’t, laugh it off. If they do, and they ask you if you want to have sex, say you want a young Cuban girl. One that speaks English would be a plus.”
“What if they ask, ‘why a Cuban’?”
“Easy. Explain that you travel. You’ve had girls from almost every country in Central, South, and Latin America, and the Caribbean. Most of the other countries you will get to, except Cuba. You can’t get into Cuba. You need a Cuban girl to complete the list. When you heard about young attractive Cuban girls in Houston, you came looking. If you can’t find one, Miami is the next stop. But those are likely to be second-generation Cuban Americans. That doesn’t count. You need a full-blooded, born-in-Cuba Cuban chick.”
Alexander was stunned. “Did you just make that up?”
“Not exactly. Some of it. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. You know how some people do the Century club – travel to at least one hundred different countries? I was thinking about a Girl From One Hundred Different Counties club.”
“I’d say that’s disturbing. But honestly, it sounds intriguing. I hope you aren’t romancing May to check off a Cuban.”
“No. As I said, I like her. What’s going to happen, I don’t know. If we stay together, my one-hundred-country girl goal will have to be put on hold. I will have a Cuban girl, though.”
“I’m tempted to ask what number she’d be, but I don’t want to know.”
Bat smiled at his friend.
“Well, thanks. You’ve given me some ideas. I do like the one-hundred girl ploy. It’s crazy enough to be plausible.”
“Cool. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Bat said as he turned to leave.
“Oh, by the way, can you make up those fliers with the picture of Miss Jana on it? I’ll take them around tomorrow.
“Sure. How many do you think you need?”
“Oh, a hundred should be plenty.” Alexander winked at him.