Café Intermezzo Take Ten

- Thank you, Mrs. Roach.
- Have we met before? You a friend of my husband Phil’s?
- No.
- Well, my name tag says Lilly, but you called me by my last name. How come?
- I know your daughter.
- ... Tina? My god, how is she? Where is she? Is she...
- I’d like a piece of pie.
- But...
- I’ll tell you all you need to know, but I am a bit hungry. Please. A piece of pie.

Later.

- Thank you... My name is Agent Graves. Sit down, Mrs. Roach.
- I’m working...
- I think you should sit... That’s better. It’s not easy, raising a child, I gather. I mean, you only want what’s best for them, but you can only do so much...
- Please, tell me she’s all right...
- It’s a little late for that, isn’t it, Mrs. Roach?
- What’re you...?
- The last time you saw her was four years ago. Tina has done a lot of living since then.
- Is she in some kind of trouble? I’ll do any...
- That’s why I’m here. There is something you can do.
- We don’t have much money, but everything we have...
- Tina didn’t have much money either. She had some, but most of it went for a bus ticket.
- My baby...
- ... was young, attractive and scared. She was all alone in the world. An easy mark, for a man who knows one when he sees one. He called himself Panda. He promised to take care of her, treat her right, like she hadn’t been treated before. He put her up in a tenement hotel. You’ve seen the kind. Hourly rates. Besides the rats, there were two mattresses on the floor and three other girls who also worked for him. Taken on face value, you’d think a bright girl like Tina would recognize what she was getting into. But he told her she was special. And she needed to believe him. When he hit her – which was often, he said it was because he loved her. She needed to believe that, too. It’s funny how feeling loved can almost dull the pain of a fat lip or a black eye.
- This can’t be real.
- It is. Very real. Perhaps too real for Tina. When your reality is having to lay under a stranger in a filthy alley or bend down into his lap in a car, it’s no wonder you look for an escape. Tina found hers in a needle.
- Nonono...
- She hated herself, and she hated feeling that way. With heroin, she didn’t feel anything. I don’t have to tell you addiction leads to all sorts of risks, Mrs. Roach. Sharing needles, getting into cars with men who seemed shady...
- Tina...
- She met Robert Corley one cold November night. She asked him if he was looking for a good time. He said yes. What Tina didn’t realize was that a good time for Mr. Corley consisted of handcuffing girls to a bed, cutting their nipples off with a straight razor, and burning their faces with cigarettes. He landed back in an institution. She landed in intensive care. It was there that the attending physician discovered Tina was HIV positive, which came as little surprise, really, given her lifestyle. Of course, she didn’t have any insurance, so she was released from the hospital. One look at her scarred face was all it took for Panda to cut her loose. HIV is one thing, but looking the way she did, she was of no use to him. Tina found herself back where she started from, three years prior. On the streets. That’s where she spent this past year. In that time, due in part to the harshness of her environment, you know – eating out of dumpsters, sleeping in doorways... Her immune system was severely compromised. She became a breeding ground for opportunistic diseases – karbosi sarcoma, cytomeglia virus, pneumonia, wasting syndrome, you name it. She died last week. In an all-night porno theater. When the usher found her, he noticed that someone had stolen her shoes.
- Do you... do you know what today is? Her birthday. She would have been sixteen...
- I can’t give your daughter back, but I can give you something else. In this attaché, you’ll find irrefutable evidence that what I’m telling you is true, a gun, and one hundred rounds of untreacable ammunition. Whatever you choose to do, you’ll be acting above the law. No law enforcement agency can touch you... You’ll get away with it. You have my word.
- Who? Who am I supposed to shoot? The pimp? The psycho that hurt my baby? WHO??
- I have a photograph that should answer all your questions. Take a look.
- Oh my god...
- I’m sorry, Mrs. Roach. Your husband started it all by molesting her since she was seven.

100 Bullets, Issue 11; Heartbreak,Sunny Side Up