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“And we all know that’s not what happens . . .” Matt said.
Jim grunted, nodding as he sipped his bourbon.
Mickey looked between them.
“And we know that’s not what happens,” Mickey parroted. “The cruel reality of what happens is that Joyce is fourteen going on twenty-four. She has a father she’s never known. Her mother, who might have two or three baby daddies, is bipolar, a crackhead, a hooker, dead. Pick one, or more. The courts send Joyce to CPS. But there are no available foster homes, so Joyce winds up, if lucky, at a place like Mary’s House, run by someone like Maggie. Or at a larger facility that has, shall we say, less considerate caretakers. Now, one of two things can happen. One, Joyce remains there in the group home due to the lack of an available foster family. Or two, she gets placed in a foster home, where she learns that the foster parents may mean well but really are not a helluva lot better than the caretakers in the large group home. Many foster parents do not supervise the kids. Cannot, because they’re working to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.”
“There’s the subsidy check,” Payne said.
O’Hara nodded. “There is that. But try covering your monthly nut with three hundred bucks from CPS, maybe another three hundred in food stamps.”
Payne shook his head. “That’s not even seven grand a year.”
“If that much,” Mickey said. “Further, a lot of foster families, sad to say, are not going to win Parent of the Year by, for example, slapping around Joyce for not cleaning house quietly enough while they’re on their fat asses watching the Eagles lose. And if there are other kids in the house, and there usually are, either other foster kids or biological ones, they take advantage of the new kid on the block, including abusing Joyce physically and/or sexually.” He paused, then raised an eyebrow. “Maggie phrased it, ‘Think Cinderella but a triple-X-rated version.’”
“Kids can be incredibly cruel,” Jim said matter-of-factly.
“And so much for any chance of Joyce’s fairy-tale ending,” Payne said bitterly, then shook his head. He took a healthy swallow of scotch.
“So,” Mickey went on, “Joyce, enduring a living hell, has limited options. She can go back to step one, the group home, and hope for a better foster family to come along and take a chance on her. Or she can run away. Let’s say Joyce is sixteen now. What is she going to do to survive? How does she provide basic food and shelter? And safety?”
He looked between Jim and Matt.
“So, she goes back to square one,” Matt said.
“And reserves the runaway option,” Jim added.
“Joyce is still essentially a child and operating in survival mode, doing the best she can with what little she has learned the hard way. Keep in mind that she has never had any good adult role models.” Mickey sipped his beer for a moment, then went on: “Okay, so she’s back in the group home. She’s frustrated to the point that she’s contemplating the runaway option when one of the staff—say, someone in the kitchen who’s been watching her—approaches Joyce and says, ‘You’re a beautiful girl. I know how you can make a lot of money. I can hook you up with this guy. . . .’ And Joyce hears all about the other girls who at her age went to work waiting tables or as a hostess and earned enough money to get out on their own.”
“Bingo,” Matt said. “Just what Joyce wants to hear. She’s sold.”
Jim grunted again. “Literally. Sold out.”
“For a lousy hundred-buck kickback,” O’Hara said, nodding. “You’ve got kitchen staff making maybe eight bucks an hour. At forty hours, that’s three-twenty a week—sixteen grand a year—before taxes, et cetera.”
“And the social workers don’t make a helluva lot more,” Payne put in, grabbing an onion ring.
O’Hara, still nodding, said, “At this level they average about forty grand, give or take. To get that, they have to have a good degree, which means they’re strapped with college student loans to repay. A couple hundred bucks coming in tax-free is golden. Better than manna from the heavens! They justify it by saying what they’re doing is a matching service. They’re just getting the girls a job, an opportunity. If the girl decides to go and dabble in something on the side, that’s the girl’s decision. So, one girl goes out the door, and new ones come in.”
Payne was shaking his head. “I was about to say it’s disgusting that people in a position of power over kids would take advantage of them. But then I had the mental flash of those high school teachers banging their students.”
“Obviously not everyone’s dirty,” O’Hara said. “But that certainly doesn’t ease the pain caused by those who are.”
He waved for the bartender to bring them another round.
“Meanwhile,” O’Hara went on, “Joyce meets the guy, who then says he has no openings for waitresses. He tells her he’s got something higher paying but he’s not sure she can do the job—which of course only makes her want it more. Then he quote unquote reluctantly agrees to give Joyce a chance, saying he’ll personally show her the ropes. He says it’s a massage business. Really just body rubs. He tells her that he will bring in the customers, she massages them for a half hour, then they split the hundred bucks.
“Suddenly she sees that the guy is giving her the attention she’s been craving. He lays on the affection and the material things to make Joyce feel special. Then he feeds her drugs, her inhibitions go down, and next thing she knows it’s no longer massages. She’s being paid for sex. And he’s keeping all the money. And she’s trapped.”
“Did Maggie say she’d seen this happen?” Payne said.
“Last time we spoke, I guess maybe six months or so ago, she said she’d heard about it from the girls and other case workers. Nothing concrete that she could take to the cops. And she said absolutely nothing at Mary’s House.”
“Well,” Payne said, “that would be an expected answer. But clearly Maggie would never do it. Money is not an issue. Not to mention sex trafficking a minor carries a sentence of ten years minimum. But what about the other women, Emily Quan and Jocelyn Spencer?”
O’Hara shrugged. “Who can say? I don’t think so. But it cannot be automatically dismissed.”
Payne, looking at O’Hara, then looked beyond him to the front door. “Here comes Jason. And he doesn’t look happy.”
