Searching for Pilar, page 11
“Diego, I’ll be honest,” John said. “I am just a corporate lawyer with a large civil law firm. I don’t know anything about criminal law. And obviously, I don’t know anything about sex trafficking in Houston. I wouldn’t know where to tell you to start—”
“Of course, we will help you,” said Mary, cutting him off and smiling encouragingly at Diego. “But I must caution you that the Houston metropolitan area has about five million people. It is enormous. So is the state of Texas. It’s a thousand miles from Beaumont to El Paso. Finding one girl who is probably being kept hidden will be like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
CHAPTER 12
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GALLERIA
Pilar let the hot water fall all over her head, feeling the soap suds wash away the filth that had accumulated in her long hair and on her body. It was the first opportunity to wash her entire body since the morning when she left San José. She had no idea how long ago that had been. Though the water cleaned her skin, it did nothing to remove the degradation and shame that she felt inside.
How foolish I was. I thought I could do anything—that I could save our family. I was just a stupid, naïve girl. I have ruined my life and caused everyone I love pain. I would give anything to hold my baby again and feel Alejandro’s arms.
“Time’s up! Get out of there before you use all the hot water,” a man named Guillermo yelled at her, pulling back the shower curtain. He grabbed her arm, his thumb pressing hard against her soft flesh. Then he jerked her toward him so that her foot slipped in the wet tub and her knee jammed against the side of the tub. Pain shot through her body.
Josefina stood next to him in the bathroom, naked, shivering with fear and embarrassment, although all of them were long past innocence. Pilar thought that Josefina looked like a scared child. That’s because she is only a child, like Concepción. I must do a better job of protecting her than I have done for my own daughter, Pilar told herself.
That morning, in early January 2008, Guillermo had come to the stash house off Broadway, east of I-45, where the girls had been staying. The guards knew him. He ordered the girls to get in the backseat of his dual-cab truck and said he was going to get them ready for work. The motel room he took them to was small and shabby, with walls that had once been painted light green but were now almost gray. There was a broken table lamp on a small table, a dirty polyester floral bedspread, and a worn brown carpet on the floor.
“Put on the clothes that are on the bed,” Guillermo barked at Pilar as she walked out of the bathroom.
There was a bag on the bed. Pilar was dismayed at the stretchy satin tank tops and short sequined skirts. The clothes were black and red and unlike any garments she had ever seen. The tops were cut low in front so that there could be no question as to what was inside.
“Where are the undergarments?” she meekly asked Guillermo, who was still watching Josefina in the shower.
“You won’t need them.”
Shortly after Josefina exited the shower and she, Teresa, and Pilar were dressed, three short, thin girls with black hair came to the room carrying trays full of nail polish, files, and clippers. Pilar feared these were new torture tools, but Guillermo told them to sit still while the girls, who never looked directly at them, cleaned and polished their finger and toe nails with red polish. The girls talked to each other in a strange language Pilar had never heard before. While that was happening, another girl dried Pilar’s long hair with a hair dryer, cut it off just below shoulder length, and used a curling iron to curl the ends. Finally, one of the girls approached Pilar with a safety razor. Pilar froze, not sure what would happen next, but the girl gave Pilar a timid smile and pointed to her legs and armpits.
After they were done, Guillermo instructed Pilar, Teresa, and Josefina to put on black shoes with thin high heels painted gold. Pilar had never worn anything but sandals and low-heeled shoes. She found it difficult to keep her balance and walk.
At 5 p.m., Pilar heard a series of knocks on the door. It was Eduardo. He was dressed in a pair of khaki slacks, a white Polo shirt, a brown leather belt with an oversized silver belt buckle, and brown Italian leather loafers. He flashed a smile and spread his arms to greet the girls, as if he were a young courtier coming to take them to a dance.
“Glad to see me, girls? I know it has not been a pleasant trip. That is regrettable but unavoidable. But now that we are reunited, we can get to work.”
Eduardo smiled at Guillermo and said, “They look like movie stars. Maybe we should get you a job at Neiman Marcus.” He winked at the girls.
Pilar shuddered at the sight of him. “Where are we going?” she asked. “I have a child who needs me. Please have pity and let us go home.”
“I need you too, Pilar. I need you to make me lots of money,” Eduardo said. “Besides, you girls are lucky! I captured you for Rosa Rodriguez, but I have a new client who will pay me more with less work. He owns a couple of classy men’s clubs near the Galleria. Two big conferences are coming to town, and he needs extra girls in the back rooms. You’ll work there for a while, entertaining a higher quality of customer than most girls see. It could be ‘glamorous’ if you look at it the right way. I can go back to Mexico and pick up three more girls off the street for Rosa for now.
“You just dance and smile and do whatever the customer tells you to do. Then you bring any money they give you to me. Any money, understand? Now let’s go!”
“No!” Teresa said.
Everyone turned.
“I won’t do your filthy work so you can make money off our backs!” Teresa sat on the floor with her arms and legs crossed and her mouth set in a grimace. “If I wanted to be a prostitute, I could have stayed home and done it. I don’t care what you do to me or my damn family. They deserve to die.”
“Guillermo,” Eduardo said slowly, “take Teresa into the bathroom and persuade her that she will do what I tell her to do—but no marks on the face.”
Guillermo strode across the room and picked up Teresa. He snatched the curling iron from where the girls had left it. She tried to scratch his face and bite his arm, but he was too big. He dragged her to the bathroom, slamming the door behind them. In a few minutes, they could hear Teresa’s piercing screams.
Pilar held Josefina in her arms as the little girl sobbed. Pilar was terrified.
“Did you think that curling iron was just to make you look pretty?” Eduardo laughed. “It is also an excellent tool to make uncooperative girls behave. It will leave burns on her body but not anywhere obvious. She will heal, eventually.”
Pilar felt light-headed. She had never imagined anyone could be so cruel to another human being. “Ay Diós!” she exclaimed.
“God has abandoned us,” Josefina said.
“Shut up, you two,” Eduardo said sharply. “There is no God. There is only Eduardo. Obey me and you might survive.”
When Guillermo and Teresa emerged from the bathroom, Teresa’s shirt had been torn. She had bright red burn marks on her stomach and lower back. She was writhing in pain.
“Ready to work now, Teresa?” Eduardo asked. Guillermo threw a new blouse at her.
As they prepared to leave the motel that evening, Eduardo said, “If you don’t do what Guillermo tells you to do, he will beat and burn you, and our brother, Jesús, will kill your families in Mexico.”
Pilar froze when she heard this. Not only have I enslaved myself, but I have put Concepción, Alejandro, and my parents and brothers in mortal danger. She wished this were a nightmare from which she could wake up.
Josefina was still holding on to her tight, and Teresa was moaning with pain from her burns.
• • •
Pilar sat in the backseat of a black Cadillac Escalade. The car followed the feeder road onto an entry ramp. She saw a sign that said they were traveling west on Interstate 10. In about ten minutes, to her left, she saw a cluster of the tallest buildings she had ever seen. They were close together and were beautiful. Glittering glass walls covered their sides, and some were topped with fanciful rooflines. Lights were coming on in some of the buildings. Crowded highways full of bright headlights circled. She felt very small. The car turned left off the highway onto a freeway marked 610 South. After they’d passed through a wooded area, another cluster of tall buildings appeared on the right. How can a city have so many tall towers and cars? Pilar wondered. How will I ever find my way home if I do escape from Eduardo? Josefina was holding her hand in a tight grip.
Guillermo exited the freeway. He turned right and drove on a six-lane street through what she guessed were stores because people were coming out of them carrying shopping bags. She sounded out the English letters of a large sign: “The Galleria.” The people on the street looked like they were in a hurry but happy.
I want to scream for help! But these people don’t see us.
The buildings grew smaller and more spread apart. Then Guillermo pulled into a parking lot behind a long white two-story building without any windows that looked like a walled castle in a children’s book. The sign outside read “Jewel Box.” Eduardo ushered them inside, where a large bald white man greeted him with a handshake. Eduardo spoke to the man in English. Pilar thought the man looked at the three girls as if he were inspecting a group of pots in the Mendoza Pottery Factory, deciding at the end of the day if they were good enough to be shipped off to a customer.
“They’ll do,” the man said. “Louise, get them ready.”
A very thin middle-aged blonde white woman in a low-cut black sequined dress stood behind him, holding a cane in her hands. “Come with me,” she ordered.
Louise led them to a small room with a CD player sitting on a table. She put on some salsa music and told them in Spanish to dance. When they stood numb, she ordered Josefina to dance, prodding her behind her knees with the cane. Josefina started to cry, but the woman yelled at her to stop acting like a baby. “Clients don’t come here to see babies cry,” she snickered. “They come here to feel the pleasure of being with a pleasant, compliant woman. You are a woman. If anyone asks you how old you are, say you are eighteen.”
“I am only thirteen,” Josefina sobbed. “I want my mama and papa. I want to go home.”
The blonde woman smacked her across the back with the cane. “You were old enough to run away from home, now act like it. You are eighteen. Understand?” She whacked her again to make her point. “Now, how old are you?”
“Eighteen,” Josefina sobbed.
“Good. Pull yourself together, and put on some of this mascara, blush, and lipstick. I am going to give each of you a room and bring clients to you. You must do whatever they tell you to do. But if they want intercourse, tell them it will cost extra, and make them wear a condom.”
Horrified, Pilar put her arm around Josefina. She looked at Teresa, but the girl was tight-lipped and standing tall, although she still winced with pain from time to time.
“Condoms and price lists are on the tables in the rooms. Look like you are happy to be with them. When the time they paid for is up, a bell will ring in the room, and they should leave.” The woman went on. “If they don’t offer you a tip, ask for one. When they give it to you, put it in the slot at the top of the blue box on the table next to the couch. Someone will come by and collect the money at the end of the night. Comprende?”
Inside the building were no clocks, no windows. Louise put Pilar in a little room by herself with only a gold velvet-covered settee, a chair, and a small glass-and-chrome side table. A CD player, a box of condoms, and the box for tips sat on the table. She could hear music, a woman moaning, and male laughter coming from the next room. As she sat, Guillermo walked in and grabbed her, pulling at her neck.
“What is this?” he asked as he held out her silver crucifix.
“It was a gift from my parents. Please, please, don’t take it,” Pilar begged.
“Clients don’t want to be reminded of religion when they are cheating on their wives with whores,” Guillermo said, drawing his hand back quickly, breaking the chain. “Make no mistake, Pilar, you are a whore now, and you always will be a whore.”
He threw the crucifix on the ground and walked out. As quickly as she could, Pilar rushed to the corner where her crucifix had fallen, snatched it up, and sat on the settee. She’d just hidden it beneath the pillow when the first client of the night came in.
After that, the night was a continuous stream of different men ordering her to do things for them. At first, Pilar thought they each looked different. But over time, they all began to look the same.
Because Pilar was in shock, she couldn’t think of the words to communicate with the men—how to ask them for help or tell them what had happened to her. But none of them were interested in talking to her anyway. Most of them only wanted her to do things to them that Alejandro had never asked her to do. She knew the men thought they were having sex, but this was not the sex she knew and cherished. What was done in this place was impersonal, disgusting, and humiliating. But she was afraid not to comply.
When the night finally ended, Guillermo escorted the girls to the car. Pilar’s eyes squinted at the early morning light. She was exhausted and thoroughly humiliated. She wanted to be detached from her body. After the long, horrible trip from Mexico City to the Jewel Box what was left of Pilar Chavez, wife of Alejandro Chavez, daughter of Yolanda and José Gonzales was dead.
• • •
Pilar awoke when Guillermo shook her.
“It’s time to eat something and get ready for work,” he said.
She had been too tired to notice where she’d fallen into bed last night, but now she realized she was back in the dingy motel room, sharing a bed with Josefina and Teresa. In the daylight, she could see that the windows were barred. During the night, she thought she had heard girls and customers in other rooms speaking Spanish, some English, even languages she had never heard before.
Every night for two years, Guillermo took Pilar, Josefina, and Teresa to the Jewel Box or another club that the same people owned. There were no calendars, clocks, or any way to keep track of time. But there had been Christmas decorations in the Jewel Box when they’d first gone there, and much later, the same decorations reappeared and then were taken down—making Pilar realize a year had passed.
In the small, windowless rooms in the back of these clubs, the men never stopped coming. There were old men and young men. Some were white, some were Hispanic, some were black or shades of brown. During sports seasons, athletes came to the clubs. Pilar tried to get the American men to talk so that she could learn more English and prepare for making her way home, should she escape, but most of the time she was too tired to try. Pilar and the other girls slept the majority of the days after their shifts. Sleep let them forget.
Despite Pilar’s efforts to keep hope of escape alive in the younger girls, Teresa grew increasingly depressed. Sometimes she would cry uncontrollably, and this made her an unreliable worker. One day, Guillermo opened the bathroom door and discovered Teresa holding the shard from a glass she had broken on the floor against her wrists. He injected her with something that made her very calm. Before long, Teresa craved the injections. Pilar tried to talk Teresa into refusing. Another girl at the club told Pilar that Teresa was addicted to heroin. “She is beyond your help,” the other girl said.
Maybe we are all beyond help, Pilar thought. After that, Pilar did not try to stop Teresa. She did not try to stop anything or anyone; she silently did what she was told to do. She was losing hope of ever getting home to her baby again. The basic human instinct to suffer to survive began to replace hope.
• • •
One night, a small Mexican man in a suit came into Pilar’s room. He seemed somewhat uncomfortable, unlike most of her customers. He did not look her in the eyes at first. As if by rote, Pilar asked him if he wanted a dance, and he replied, “Sí, señorita, por favor,” looking directly at her for the first time.
Pilar had stopped looking at the men as individuals; they were all just part of an unending flow of men. But something about his face and his accent made her look more closely at him. Slowly, she realized that she had once known this man, in her prior life, in Mexico. He was a buyer for a big company that purchased pottery from the Mendoza Pottery Factory. He visited the factory several times a year.
“Señor Trevino!” Pilar said. “I can’t believe it is you! Gracias a Diós!”
The man looked unnerved. “I am sorry, señorita, how do you know my name? I didn’t give my real name to anyone.”
Rafael Trevino looked over the woman in front of him. She was made up and dressed like a high-class call girl and spoke the dialect of northern Mexico, but he never visited whores in Mexico. This was his first trip to Houston. How did she know who he was?
Sensing his confusion and discomfort, Pilar said, “You do not recognize me like this. I am Pilar Chavez. I worked in the office of the Mendoza factory in San José.”
“Pilar Chavez? Pilar, what are you doing in this place dressed like this?”
“Oh, señor, evil people kidnapped me and are holding me captive,” Pilar whispered. “Please help me get out of here.” Pilar reached for his hand, but he pulled away before she could grab it.
Señor Trevino looked around nervously. “Pilar, there are guards all around this building and a high fence. I can’t help you get out of here. These people would kill both of us.”
“I don’t care if they kill me. I am dead here anyway,” Pilar said. “Please, please, señor, could you at least call the police when you leave and tell them there are girls being held captive here? Maybe they are honest. Maybe they will come rescue us and take the terrible people who are enslaving us to jail.”
“I don’t think the American police would take the word of a Mexican man and arrest rich American men, Pilar.”
“You are my only chance, señor. I haven’t seen anyone else who knows me or knows what happened to me since I was brought across the Rio Grande. I don’t even know how long ago that was. But I know you must be here for a reason.”
