The kid who answered the door wore the same navy polo and white pants Stan had described. He had enough height to look down his nose at me. Something told me this kid looked down his nose at just about everyone.
“Hey. I’m Lily. Do you know who owns that truck?”
He glanced up the road then back at me, checking out my body as if trying to decide if a girl in muscle tee and cargo shorts was hot enough to waste five minutes of his time. “No. Why?”
I walked backward and held out my hands as if I didn’t care whether he followed me or not. “It was circling the block before it parked. The guy’s been staring at your house for the last half hour. Thought you’d want to know is all.” I turned around and headed across his lawn.
“Wait. What?”
I glanced back. “And there’s a crowbar on the front seat.”
That got his attention.
He followed me down the walkway. “It’s my house. I’ll take care of him.”
I shrugged. “Why do you think I knocked on your door?”
He hurried past me to take the lead—big man on the block. I knew guys like him, apathetic about everything until someone was watching. When we reached the truck, I waited for him to look in the window then snagged his arm in a rear shoulder lock and pinned him against the car.
“What the fuck?” he said, gasping in pain.
I cranked his arm. “Watch your language.”
“Crazy bitch. You’re going to break it.”
I knocked his feet apart, which made him drop and jolted his arm further into the lock. “The last guy who called me a crazy bitch didn’t live to regret it.” When he stopped struggling, I whispered in his ear. “Where’s Emma?”
“Fuck if I know.”
I cranked his arm.
“Okay, okay. Just stop, all right? I don’t know where she is.”
“But you know who took her because my friend watched you make the call.”
He groaned in pain. “All right. I called him. Is that what you want to hear? So what? It’s her own fault—damn crackhead.”
I paused. So Emma was an addict. She hadn’t seemed high when I met her the day before, but that would only have made her cravings stronger. Maybe she had agreed to talk to her parents so she could score drugs through her neighbor.
“You called her dealer?”
“No. Her pimp. And before you break my arm, it wasn’t my idea for her to start hooking. She did that on her own. Again, not my fault.”
Stan came up beside me. “Did he tell you where she is?”
“Not yet. But we’re getting there. Aren’t we—” I shoved the kid’s wrist higher up his back. “What’s your name?”
“None of your—”
I cranked it higher.
“Marc. My name’s Marc, alright?”
I leaned forward so he could see my nod of approval. “And?”
“I told you, I don’t—”
“Uh-uh. Don’t backtrack. We’re already on a first name basis: I’m Lily, this is Stan, and you’re Marc.” I increased the pressure. “What’s the pimp’s name?”
“Manolo. That’s all I know. He came looking for Emma a couple weeks ago, saw my mom watering the roses, asked her if she’d seen Emma. My freaking mom. She calls me out to talk to him, and I’m like, ‘This ain’t cool, man. You can’t just come around my crib and—’”
“Your crib?”
“Whatever. The point is, he threatens to screw things up with my dealer, and that really ain’t cool. I mean, it’s not my fault Emma couldn’t handle her shit. I did her a solid. She’s the one who fell for a freaking pimp.”
I released his arm and spun him around so I could see his face. “What are you talking about?”
Marc leaned against the car and tried to look cool despite the fact that Stan and I were blocking his escape. “She got hooked on coke and started hanging with some bad people. Then she meets Manolo and gets all dreamy. Manolo this, Manolo that. Chicks, man.” He looks at Stan. “Am I right?”
When he didn’t get a response, he shrugged and turned back to me. “Anyway, soon after that, her dreamboat asks her to sleep with some guy—you know, to help him out of a jam. I was like, ‘No. Don’t do it. You’ll ruin your life.’ Shit like that. But did she listen? No. So again—not my fault.”
I shoved my palm into his sternum and pinned him against the car. “Say it’s not your fault one more time, and I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Rough me up some more?” He looked up the street and studied Stan’s Volvo. “You got a simple license plate, man. Easy to remember. And, oh, did I forget to mention my dad’s a lawyer?”
He knocked my hand off his chest and made a great show of smoothing the wrinkles out of his polo. “I’ve said all I’m going to say. It’s time for you to drive off in your shit car and get out of my hood.”
I didn’t stop him but nor did I move. I was so angry that even the smallest action on my part could easily turn into an assault. If it had just been me, I might have taken the chance. But I couldn’t risk Stan getting sued by this punk’s dad.
“When did she run away from home?” I asked.
“Spring break, last March. Her folks did the whole missing persons thing, but you know how that goes. Seventeen-year-old runaway in Los Angeles? Take a number.”
He inched forward, stared down his straight white nose, and grinned. “We done here? Because I have homework to do.”
I clasped my hands to keep my fists from flying and let him pass. “What about the pimp?” I asked as nicely as I could manage. “Could you at least tell me where I might find him?”
Marc stopped on the sidewalk and turned. I was fairly certain he was going to flip us off. Instead, he shook his head sadly, as if deep down inside he might actually care.
“The Blade,” he said.
“Which one?”
“L.B. Boulevard. But it won’t matter if you find Manolo. Emma’s sunk too low to save.”
Chapter Nine
“You sure about this?” Stan asked, as I got out of the car. “Aleisha grew up in Compton. It can be a dangerous place.”
Which was exactly the reason I didn’t want him along. The Blade was a nasty stretch of Long Beach Boulevard notorious for sex trafficking. There were other “tracks” or “blades” in Los Angeles, but Marc had specifically said Long Beach Boulevard, and that stretch was in Compton, south of Rosecrans and north of Alondra. With all the neighborhood side streets and commercial parking lots, I’d be better off on foot where I could run, fight, or hide. At least then, I’d be alone and not saddled with a conspicuous, well-meaning, middle-aged white man driving a Volvo.
I shut the door and leaned in through the open window. “I’ll be fine. Promise.”