Precious Cargo

“At first there was no sex. I felt very uneasy in the club. Señor Frank knew this, so he had me work behind the counter and in the kitchen preparing drinks and food for the women who served the customers of his club. Then one night he said that one of the women servers became sick. He asked if I could take her place. So I put on one of those very short dresses and served the patrons.

“A man I served asked if I would accompany him to the backroom. ‘What backroom?’ I asked. The man laughed and said, ‘Go ask Señor Frank.’ I did. Señor Frank said it would be all right. So I escorted this man to the back of the club. He took me into a room with a bed and pink satin sheets. When he began to get out of his clothes, I ran from the room back to Señor Frank. But now Señor Frank became a monster. He yelled at me, ‘If you don’t please my customers you will never see your parents again.’”

I punched the ceiling in the galley, fighting the urge to act on Miguel’s wishes. Then I took in a deep breath. I leaned over the table and touched Eliana’s arm. She raised her head, her dark eyes now a fathomless pit of sadness.

“You are a very brave woman,” I said, “to endure what you have endured. And, also, to tell the truth about it. Please, I know this is hard but may I ask you some questions?”

“On the second boat, you said you moved faster and felt the motion of the sea more than on the first boat. Can you describe the motion of the waves you felt?”

“Did you feel this?” Clap. Clap. Clap. I smacked my hands together sharply three times. “Or did you feel this?” I raised my hand and traced the outline of a large wave.

“Yes, the second.” Eliana touched her midsection. “My stomach dropped from under me each time the boat dropped down.”

I stepped down into the stateroom and grabbed a folder with the photographs of the three dead women. I walked back into the galley and laid them on the table.

Eliana closed her eyes and nodded “Sí.” Then, through Maria, she said, “Señor Frank kept the Chicano girls in the club at all times. We each had our own tiny room. Like a prison—Señor Frank posted a guard in the hall outside. We couldn’t leave during the day. We couldn’t talk to the other girls. But we found a way. We shared a bathroom. We were not allowed to use it at the same time. So we left messages for each other in lipstick on the toilet paper.”

“We called Juanita Mamasita because she had been there more than a year. Longer than any of us. Señor Frank told her to use the name Francesca with his clients. A few weeks ago, Juanita left a message that she, Melinda, and Carmela planned to escape. She asked if I wanted to go with them. I wanted to, but I’d heard that if Señor Frank caught a girl trying to escape he beat them badly. So I said no.”

Eliana pointed to the pictures. “I did not see any of them for several days. But they returned.” Fingers splayed, Eliana moved her hand in the air in front of her face. “Beaten. Bruised. Black eyes. Then one day, all three disappeared again. I did not hear of them until Maria told me they had been pulled from the ocean. I did not see them again until you showed me these photographs.”

Eliana dropped her head in her hands. “I would not be surprised if they took their own lives,” she said. “Many times I wanted to take mine.”

I asked Maria to explain that we found bricks tied to the women, suggesting that they hadn’t committed suicide. When she finished, I had another question for Eliana.

I’m not sure what Maria said, but Eliana narrowed her eyes and cocked her head. “No comprende,” she said.

“Sí. Sí. Some men always wanted the same girl. Some men always wanted a different girl. Some clients liked more than one girl at a time. So it is possible that Juanita, Melinda, and Carmela could have had the same client.”

She nodded. “Sí. Sí. Once girls had worked at the club for some time, Señor Frank would send them from the club to visit a client in a hotel room, at his home, or even at his office. You, for example”—Eliana pointed to me—“when I came to your hotel room it was the first time that I had been allowed away from the club.”

Eliana shrugged. “Who is to say? I did not use my real name. The men who paid for me I am sure often did not use theirs.”

She dropped her head and mumbled to the table. “I wish I could forget the face of every man who paid to have sex with me, but I can’t. As for those who paid for sex with these women? I probably would not recognize them. Especially if a man paid for all three women at the same time. Very rarely did such men come into the club. These were Señor Frank’s more wealthy clients, who paid for the girls to be delivered to them.”

Eliana held up a finger. “Uno momento. I . . . have . . . one . . . for . . . you.” She struggled through the English, then switched to Spanish, translated by Maria. “Señor Noble, would you promise me that all I have been through and all you have put my mama and papa through has not been for nothing? Would you promise me that no more girls will become sex slaves for bastards like Señor Frank?”

I stared directly at Eliana. “I suppose there are many men in the world like Señor Frank and I cannot stop them all. But I promise you this: I will do my best to see to it that Señor Frank no longer sells young women for sex.”

A weak smile spread over Eliana’s lips. “Mucho gracias, Señor Noble. No más. No más.” And then in English she said, “Thank you, Señor Noble. No more. No more.”

Naida opened the cabin door. She and Eliana stepped out. Raven stepped in. I took a seat at the galley table next to Maria. Raven slipped in beside me.

“What happens next for Eliana and her family?” I asked Maria. “They can’t go back to their migrant camp.”

Maria shook her head. “No, they can’t. So, I will make arrangements for them to relocate to a farm in central California. Abadi won’t find them there.”

“I hope not,” Maria said. “A young woman who’s been through what she has needs help. Professional help, and plenty of it. She has to reclaim a feeling that she owns her life and her body, both of which have been owned by Abadi for all these months. She has a long period of healing ahead, but she’s a strong, smart young woman. She’s a survivor. And she can make it. I mentioned that I knew of a program to help young women like Eliana. It’s in Portland. If she agrees to enter it, I’ll drop her off there when I drive her parents down to California.”

Maria touched my arm. “In this work, you never really know. All you can do is your best. So you do what you’re best at—finding out who killed these women and stopping them; maybe even putting Frank Abadi out of business. And I’ll do what I’m best at—helping Eliana and her family take the first steps toward a new life.”

Maria slipped out from behind the table and walked to the cabin door. When she opened it, Miguel stuck his head in. He placed his hand over his heart, “Gracias, Señor Noble.”

“That a man uses his megayacht to transport illegal immigrants from an offshore freighter into the United States,” Raven said, “and that it’s time we found Longhorn and put an end to all this.”