Once Craved

Riley felt that too much of today had already been wasted. It had taken most of the day to round up the prostitutes and bring them in. Riley had told Special Agent in Charge Elgin Morley that she wanted to talk to the women without any men present. Perhaps they’d be more open with another woman. Now she thought she’d observe and listen to them unseen for a few minutes before actually questioning them. Through the speaker, she could hear their conversation.

Their styles and personalities were distinctive. Short, blonde, buxom Mitzi displayed a certain small-town, girl-next-door image.

“So has Kip popped the question?” Mitzi asked Koreen.

“Not yet,” Koreen said with a conspiratorial smile. She was a slender brunette with something of the grace of a ballerina. “I’ve got a feeling he’s bought a ring, though.”

“Does he still want to have four kids?” Mitzi asked.

Koreen let out a high, lilting laugh. “I’ve talked him down to three. But between you and me, he’s only going to get two.”

Mitzi joined in Koreen’s laughter.

Tantra gave Koreen a nudge. She was a tall African-American with a tawny complexion. She seemed to have adopted the glamorous poise of a supermodel.

“Better make sure he doesn’t find out what you do for a living, girl,” Tantra said.

All three women laughed heartily. Riley was taken by surprise. These three prostitutes were talking about having families, just like any ordinary women in a beauty parlor. Was that kind of normality really in the cards for any of them? She couldn’t imagine that such a thing was possible.

Riley decided that she’d kept the women waiting long enough. When she walked into the interview room, she could feel the relaxed atmosphere suddenly pop like a bubble. Now the women were visibly on edge.

“I’m Agent Riley Paige,” she said. “I’d like to ask you all a few questions.”

All three women let out groans of dismay.

“Oh, God, not more questions!” Mitzi said. “We’ve talked to the cops already.”

“I’d like to ask a few questions of my own, if you don’t mind,” Riley said.

Mitzi shook her head. “This is starting to feel like harassment,” she said.

“What we do is perfectly legal,” Koreen said.

“I don’t care about what you do,” Riley said. “I’m an FBI investigator, not a judge.”

Koreen murmured under her breath, “Like hell.”

Mitzi looked at her wristwatch. “Can we make this quick?” she said. “I’ve got three classes today.”

“How many credits are you taking this semester?” Koreen asked.

“Twenty,” Mitzi said.

Koreen gasped. “That’s a pretty big load.”

“Yeah, well, I want to get my degree as soon as I can.”

Riley was taken aback again.

Mitzi is going to college, she thought.

She had heard that sometimes women pursuing an education chose prostitution as a way of paying tuition. With the money she was making, she might not have to go too deeply in debt. Still, it struck Riley as strangely unsettling.

“I’ll try to keep this short,” Riley said. “I just want to know more about Nanette.”

Koreen’s expression suddenly turned pensive. “Poor Nanette,” she said.

But Mitzi seemed unperturbed. “What happened to Nanette’s got nothing to do with us,” she said.

“I’m afraid it does,” Riley said. “We have good reason to believe that her murderer is a serial killer. And I can tell you from years of experience, serial killers are relentless. He’ll kill again. And one of you might be his next victim.”

Mitzi frowned disdainfully.

“Not a chance,” she said. “We’re not like Nanette.”

Now Riley was shocked. Could these women possibly be naive enough to think that what they did for a living was safe?

“But you work for the same business, doing the same kind of work,” Riley said.

Mitzi was starting to get defensive.

“Hey, I thought you weren’t here to judge,” she said. “You can look down your nose at us if you like. But what we do is as respectable as this kind of thing can be. And as safe. We can turn down any clients we don’t like. We keep the sex safe, and we get regular check-ups, so we don’t have diseases. If a guy gets too kinky or violent, we can walk away. But it usually doesn’t come to that.”

Riley wondered about that word “usually.” Surely their business sometimes took them into pretty dark territory. And how “safe” could hired sex possibly be? How long could they continue without falling prey to AIDS?

“As far as Nanette goes,” Mitzi continued, “she was on her way down. She’d lost all her class. She was meeting clients outside of the service, shooting smack, losing her health and her looks. She wouldn’t have lasted at Ishtar’s a lot longer. She’d have been fired for sure.”

As Riley took notes, she eyed the women, trying to understand them better. Little by little, she sensed something behind their placid expressions. She was pretty sure it was denial. They refused to accept that theirs was a losing way of life, and that they’d all fall into the same decline as Nanette sooner or later. Their dreams of family, education, and success were ultimately doomed. And deep down, they knew it.

Riley noticed that Tantra had gotten quiet and was looking off into space. She had something to say, but hadn’t yet said it.

Riley said, “We believe that Nanette was killed about a week ago, probably on Saturday. Do you know who her client was that night?”

Koreen shrugged. “I’ve got no idea.”

“Me, neither,” Mitzi said. “Actually, that’s none of our business, you’d have to ask Ishtar about that.”

Riley knew that the local agents were already looking for the escort service owner and would bring her in for questioning.

“What about other places of work?” Riley asked.

“We’re contracted to Ishtar,” Mitzi said firmly. “We’re not allowed to follow our line of work through any other agency or on our own.”

The other two women were looking downward, avoiding Riley’s eyes. She asked the question more directly.

“Did Nanette ever do extra work anywhere else? Did she ever go out on her own without having a date made through Ishtar?”

The room was silent. Finally, in a barely audible voice, Tantra said, “She told me she’d just started working at Hank’s Derby.”

“What?” Mitzi said, sounding surprised.

“She didn’t want me to tell anybody,” Tantra told the other women.

“Jesus,” Mitzi said. “So she was turning into a lot lizard. She was in worse shape than I’d thought.”

Riley’s mind was buzzing with questions.

“What’s a ‘lot lizard’?” she asked.

“It’s the lowest class kind of whore,” Koreen said. “They work truck stops, like Hank’s Derby. It’s really a rock bottom life.”

“She was just so strung out,” Tantra said. “She wasn’t getting the clients she used to at Ishtar’s. She told me she wasn’t making enough to feed her habit. She said she was just doing it on the side. I told her how dangerous it was. I mean, hookers just disappear from truck stops without a trace, it happens all the time. But she wouldn’t listen.”

A cloud of gloom had settled over the women. Riley didn’t guess that they had a lot more information to give. They’d given her one important lead already.