Brides Of The Impaler by Edward Lee Read Free Book Online Page A

them on the security camera, and we even busted one of them a few days later.”
    “Exactly. And you said it was the dumbest-ass thing you ever heard for somebody to pinch a bunch of Christmas tree stands. Gotta say I agree with you on that.”
    “Don’t tell me it was the same homeless girls,” Vernon ventured.
    “Got no idea.”
    “But they got a security camera.”
    “Yeah, and the guy who closed last night forgot to put a new disc in. But Vice called me on the wire and said they got a witness.”
    “Slouch is bringing her up from booking,” Vernon told him and then the door clicked open.
    “Well, what have we here?” Taylor trumpeted. “Looks like a thirteen-year-old hooker.”
    “She’s twenty-five, no lie,” Slouch said. “Got a legit state ID and a rap sheet for soliciting. She’s also got an associate’s degree from the city college…Sit’cher tush down right there, Shirley Temple,” he told the handcuffed girl. “Inspector Vernon wants to rap with ya.”
    Tears smeared the girl/woman’s garish eye makeup. The physique facing Vernon was reed-slim, nearly breastless and hipless, and she looked back at him with huge, watery Little Bo Peep eyes. She dressed like a little girl in Catholic school: knee-high white socks, black tap shoes, plaid knee-skirt, veiling blouse, but the image was made outrageous by the loud, whorey lipstick and eye makeup.
    “You’re really twenty- five ?” Vernon asked, astonished.
    She nodded, sniffling.
    Slouch laughed, “Hey, How—we ought to give her back to Vice so they can make her a controlled decoy. Young as she looks, we’d have half the perverts in New York behind bars in two weeks. Oh, and her name’s Cinzia .”
    “Cinzia, huh? What’s your gig, Cinzia? Crack, pills, meth?”
    “I don’t do drugs,” she peeped.
    “Bullshit,” Vernon said stiffly. “Why else would you be doing this? ”
    She even tried to sit like a little girl, hands in lap. “For the money ,” she insisted. “There are guys out there who pay a
lot
because—”
    “Because you look like a little kid,” Vernon smirked, “and that means instead of working a job like the rest of us stiffs, you strut your skinny tush as chicken bait. Honey, believe me, there are better ways to get the things that you need than being a meat-magnet for scumbags who like to fuck kids.”
    The expletive jolted her; more tears welled. “I know.”
    “You give those freaks a taste, then they’ll go out and rape real kids. You ought to be ashamed.”
    “Time Magazine Woman of the Year,” Slouch laughed.
    “I’m sorry!” she sobbed. “I know it’s a shitty thing to do but I’ve got to make a living! It’s hard out there. I’m paying nineteen hundred dollars a month to rent four hundred square feet.”
    “Welcome to New York,” Vernon said. “Move to Minnesota and take your sob story with you.”
    Now she was crying like a genuine child. “I-I can’t go to jail—I can’t stand it—”
    “This is her second strike,” Slouch informed.
    Taylor jerked her chair around—Good Cop/Bad Cop time. “We’re just a precinct, Cinzia . We’re not like a division in one of the boroughs. There’s nothing we can do to help you stay out of the lezzie-tank. You’ll be the hit of the cell block to all those Big Bertha mamas.” Then he jerked her chair back to face Vernon.
    “Maybe, maybe not. Give us a solid crack contact, and we might be able to help you out a little.”
    The girl began to blubber. “I don’t have any crack contacts—I told you. I don’t do drugs. Please! I screwed up, I’m sorry. You got no idea what it was like for me when I had to do time.”
    “We can all imagine, little girl,” Taylor said.
    But she’s not lying about the drugs , Vernon could tell at a glance. The women always sung like canaries after a second or third bust. “Did you agree to a blood test when you got booked?”
    “That she did, How,” Slouch offered. “Makes ya wonder.”
    Vernon watched her