Misery Bay: A Mystery by Chris Angus Page A

chair.
    “I’ll handle it from here, Lloyd,” Garrett said.
    Lloyd paused abruptly at his dismissal, started to say something, thought better of it and disappeared down the path.
    Garrett looked at Lila and then at Lloyd’s disappearing frame. “He ever put any clothes on?”
    Lila hooted. “He’d prance around starkers if he could get away with it.” She climbed up onto the porch and leaned against the railing. “Not that he’s got anything I haven’t seen.”
    Garrett looked at her world-weary eyes. Fifteen years old. It was already clear that any semblance of a normal future, falling in love, marriage, a job, and kids was going to be a very long shot for this girl. She was right. There wasn’t much she hadn’t already seen.
    “You get to read any papers here?”
    “What, you mean newspapers? Hell, no. They don’t let us see nothin’ from outside.” She waved a hand that took in the entire surroundings. “Looks pretty, don’t it? But it’s just a cage all the same. No bars, but if you run away, they catch you before you make it halfway to Halifax. There’s only the one highway running to town. I’ve got to stick it out here another six months. It’s nothing but a bloody reform school. They make us get up at six and do calisthenics, for Christ’s sake. Like that’s gonna prevent us from wanting some pot. Then they force us to swim—and the water’s fucking cold! Then we spend the day listening to stupid motivational speeches or working in the gardens. It’s the pits.”
    He nodded. “The life you were leading was probably lots more fun.”
    She sniffed. “You get used to it. One trick’s pretty much like the next. Sometimes you get one’s crazy in the head, wants stupid stuff, you know. But you learn how to deal with it.”
    He considered this and said, “Lila, there was a boat found offshore the other day. It had four young girls on it, we think headed for the escort services in the city. When we stopped them, the men on board killed the girls and got away.”
    Her face turned white. “Bastards,” she said softly.
    “Exactly. I know you’ve been out of the scene for a while. But anything you might be able to tell me about how the services got their supply when you were there might help save other girls from going through what you did—or worse.”
    She looked out at the gardens. Even though she was sweaty and tired, her stringy, blonde hair unkempt and her face flushed, Garrett could still see why a pimp would want to latch onto her. She had a button nose, small mouth, and deep, wide-set eyes. She had long, slim legs and for her age was very well developed. She would have been a good moneymaker.
    “If I help you, can you get me out of here quicker?”
    “I can’t make any guarantees, but I’ll look into your case and help if I can. That much is a promise.”
    She nodded. “Lloyd said he told you the name of my service?”
    “Sweet Angels.”
    “Some hoot, huh? If we were angels, I’d sure like to see the other guys—you know, the ones live a little farther down. But that’s how they told us to market ourselves. Sweet angels who will do whatever you want.”
    “Who ran the business?”
    “Margaret Allen was her name. Big Margaret. She had the biggest butt I’ve ever seen. She was all right, though. Took care of us okay, long’s we did what we were told. Her old man was a different story. Hank was his name. ’Bout fifty. He had some other job and wasn’t around a whole lot of the time. He let Margaret run things, but he’d come by couple times a month to sample the merchandise. The girls hated him ’cause he liked it rough and he beat one girl half to death when she was slow to do what he told her.”
    “Any idea where the girls came from?”
    “We got a delivery three, four times a year. They always came by boat. We knew ’cause a lot of ’em were so seasick when they first arrived they could hardly walk. Hank cured ’em of that right quick and then they couldn’t