Modern Fairy Tales Ch 13

They weren't really little and they weren't really pigs; they were just called that by way of being disrespected by their pimp. Actually, they were all beautiful young black women and classmates, who had been working as prostitutes to pay their way through college. To keep the cops or other pimps from hassling them, they signed on as members of the stable of girls maintained by Tyrone Wolfe, who was known to be the baddest pimp in town. After graduation, when they were ready to leave Tyrone and look for more conventional jobs, the pimp strongly objected to their leaving.

"You pigs ain't gonna leave me 'til I say so, and that ain't gonna be for a long fuckin' time. Maybe never. I been taking good care a you, and I'm gonna keep doin' it. Any of you whores try leavin' me, you gonna get messed up bad. Ya got that?"

"Yes, Tyrone," the women answered him, and repeated it when he insisted on hearing their assent again. All three of them were afraid of the man because they knew he meant what he said.

They also meant what they said about leaving the life of prostitution. The money had been good; the hours were short, and the work had been less tiring and onerous than many other jobs would have been, but there was no future in it, except drug addiction and maybe prison. None of them had ever intended continuing in the profession, once they earned their degrees, and they still didn't. The difference now was that they would have to be sneaky enough to get away from Tyrone and avoid his informants, which included pretty much all the local underworld and a substantial part of the city police department. They were sure there were others, whom none of them knew about, who would rat them out in a minute to get on the good side of the king pimp.

The other two recent graduates looked up to Francine, because she was the smartest of the group, and believed her new degree in Business Administration with an emphasis on Accounting could be her ticket to the good life. She was practical enough to have seen that major as being the most promising, and her presence on the Dean's List for her entire college career almost guaranteed her a position in a major accounting firm, with a partnership in the near future.

"What are we going to do, Frankie," asked Theresa. "I don't want to stay on the streets any longer than I have to. I know we can all do better, but what are we going to do about Tyrone?" She was less practical than her friend, and had just earned her bachelors' degree in Liberal Arts, but was unsure what she would do with it.

"Nothing yet," Francine answered. "Not until we start our periods."

The three women shared an apartment, which had been fine with Tyrone Wolfe, since the living arrangements allowed him to keep track of them more easily. As usual with women sharing living quarters, all three of them could always count on beginning their menses on the same day, which made for a rough few days every month, but the shared apartment was economical and had helped them stay clear of debt while attending college. They had even been able to put away a substantial amount of money in the bank by the time they graduated.

"Can't we just walk away?" asked the third of Tyrone's "pigs." She had majored in the History of Art while in college, even though she had no idea what she would ever do with the degree. She just liked art in general, and always had, and hoped something would turn up.

"No, Carrie. We've made Tyrone suspicious now, so we have to keep working for him until our periods start. He won't expect us to show up when that happens, so it'll give us a couple of days to get away from him."

Although the other two didn't like the idea, they had to admit that Francine was right. As always, she was being the most practical of the trio. The next evening, clad in their short, bright dresses with the plunging necklines, they all turned up at the meeting place where Tyrone was expecting them. He surveyed them critically.

"Okay, you bitches get to work. And I don't wanna hear no more 'a yer bullshit about quittin' on me."

Tyrone was glad to see the young women turned out and ready to work, but he didn't trust them. They were three of the prizes in his first-class stable of prostitutes, young and sexy and beautiful, and in demand from the johns who wanted to do business with him. He had already made a lot of money from their work, and he intended to make a lot more, but he knew that could only happen if he kept them in line by violence or threats of violence.

The boss pimp gave them their assignments, and went about doing the other things that needed to be done in his line of work while Francine, Theresa and Carrie went about their part of his work. When they met him after all their assignments had been completed and all their johns satisfied, he took what he considered to be his share of what they had earned. All three women made sure they didn't hold out anything, because they didn't want to attract any undue attention from their pimp or do anything to antagonize him any more than they already had.

With the night's work done, Tyrone drove them to their apartment in his big Lincoln Navigator while dropping off the rest of his stable. He used the SUV while supervising his women; otherwise, he drove a baby-blue Mercedes, as befit his status as the city's leading pimp.

Things went on that way for another two weeks, until Francine called Tyrone one morning. "Hello, Tyrone," she greeted him apologetically. I just started my period today and I won't be able to work tonight. I didn't ask the other girls yet, but I'm sure they did too."

"Okay, Whore. I'll see you and the others in a couple of days. Don't take too fuckin' long."

Tyrone knew that sometimes one of his girls would claim to be in her period so she could goof off for a few days, and he kept track of the dates for all of them in his stable. He knew it was that time of the month for all three who shared the apartment, and they wouldn't be able to work. Once in a while, he got a special request from a john who wanted a woman who was in her menses, but he didn't happen to have one for that evening.

The three escapers knew they only had a few days to leave the city, and that they had to make the most of them. "Where are you going to go?" Francine asked the other two. She was worried about their lack of practicality, and was afraid of what would happen if Tyrone caught up with any of them. Not only would he brutally punish the woman he caught, he might somehow be able to trace the others through her.

"I'm going to go to my parents' farm, where they raise hay and straw," Carrie answered. "It's almost a hundred miles west of here, and Tyrone wouldn't have any way to know about the place."

Francine had her doubts about that. "Are you sure you'll be safe there? I don't trust the SOB one inch. He might know about the farm and, if he does, he'll be sure to go there looking for you."

"There's no way Tyrone can know anything about the farm. I've never told anybody but you two where I'm from. Let's keep in touch, though. We've all got our cell phones."

Theresa answered the same question. "I'm going to my parents' home too. It's way out in the suburbs, not too far from where Carrie will be staying. I'll be safe there and, yes, let's keep in touch."

Francine told them where she would be heading too. "I've arranged to get an apartment in a secure building in another city. Another state, even. I wish you guys would come with me, because I think we have a better chance of making our getaway if we stick together and go some place where we aren't known by anyone. Tyrone has his informants, especially those in the police force." She gave them the address, just in case either of her friends needed a place of refuge. She knew there was some risk in doing telling them because of the possibility of Tyrone catching up with one of them, but she felt protective enough of her friends to take the chance.

Each of the three women had her own car, and they had a three day head start in driving to where they hoped to be safe from their former pimp. They had that because Francine made a point of calling in for the next few days, using her cell phone, telling Tyrone that the bleeding was still going on. He grumpily acknowledged it, but, on the first day their menses could have been expected to have ended, there was no phone call. When he used the keys he had forced them to turn over to him, he found all their clothing and personal items gone from their apartment. The enraged Tyrone swore he would track them all down and make each of them an example of what happened to anyone who dared to cross him.

Francine had been right in her concerns; he had informants all over, including the registry office of the university, and the woman he knew there told him the addresses of record for all three of the truants. Because Francine's home was in that same city, he decided to go after her first. The plan was that he and three henchmen would go to her home, force her to return with them to his headquarters, and beat and cut her to within an inch of her life. After that, she would be forced to turn tricks in the back room of one of the skid row bars he owned until she was too old for anybody to even want to fuck her. After that, he wouldn't care what happened to her.

Unfortunately for Tyrone, Francine's mother, a widow, no longer lived in the small rented home that was the domicile of record, and the young family of Hmong immigrants who did live there were obviously not related to his quarry. He considered killing them to cover his tracks, but thought better of it. As long as he kept them paid off, the local cops and other authorities let him operate freely, but even they would have balked at such a gratuitously bloody episode. Instead, he terrified the immigrants into promising to forget his presence there by telling them how he would kill the whole family if any of them ever told even a single person of the day's events.

Being thwarted in his plan regarding the first of the escaping women infuriated Tyrone, and made him even more determined to catch the other two. He also believed he would be able to beat and torture information out of any of the three missing pigs he did locate, and this made him even more driven to lay his hands on Carrie or Theresa. The day after his failure in finding Francine, he and the same three thugs went to the farm owned by Carrie's parents.

They had been told all about her life in the city, especially how she supported herself while in college and the predicament that had resulted. They weren't happy about it, but she was their daughter and they would give her a place to hide from those who wanted to do her harm. They also didn't share her naïve confidence that she had made a clear escape from her vengeful pimp, so they struck a deal with Carrie. For the time being, she would stay in the large outbuilding they called the straw house because it was the place where they put the harvested straw to dry. The June weather was warm enough that she would have no problems and if, after a few months, her former pimp hadn't come after her, she could return to the main house if she wanted.

Carrie didn't like the idea of living in the straw house, but she didn't blame her parents for being cautious. They were looking out for themselves and for her. The idea was, if Tyrone did show up, she would have an opportunity to make a run for it in her car, which was left parked behind her temporary quarters, The escape route would be down the farm lane and onto the county road and, from there, to the main highway. Carrie was to make certain to always keep her cell phone available so she would be able to warn her fellow fugitives if Tyrone and his minions did show up.

Five days after Carrie arrived home, which was only two days after her menses stopped, the escape plan had to be put into effect. She was in the main house, heard a vehicle turn into the driveway and looked out the window. When she saw the familiar Navigator, she told her parents the bad news and bolted out the back door to the straw house. Most of the things she had brought from the city were still in a suitcase, which she threw into the car before driving away. She took the time only to call a warning to Theresa on her cell phone and to call Francine and tell her she was on her way.

The farm lane was concealed from the driveway by the straw house, and nobody would have been able to see her leave. Carrie did not feel she was deserting her parents, because they would be safer if she was not there, and would have an infinitely better chance of fooling Tyrone. He and his thugs were after her, and would have no reason to do anything to them if he could be convinced she had not returned to their home after finishing college. Although ruthless, he was not stupid to let himself in for trouble away from his home town and his flunkies on the police force and in the courts.

One of the vengeful pimp's henchmen that day was one of those police flunkies, off duty but in uniform. They decided tell her parents they were seeking to interview their errant daughter who had been an innocent witness to drug dealing. With that ruse, they gained entrance by showing his badge, and they were reasonably polite, as the police would have been expected to be, to the older couple who owned the property.

"Sir," the uniformed man addressed Carrie's father. "Your daughter is needed in the city as a witness. We quite strongly believe she saw a criminal selling drugs to children, and this is her last known address. Is she here, or have you seen her? We also believe the criminal knows about her and is looking for her too and, if he finds her before we can protect her, it's curtains."

"No, officer, we haven't. We know she graduated from college weeks ago but we weren't able to attend. We expected her to be here by now. Is she in trouble?"

"No, Sir, she's in no trouble at all, as long as we can find her before the drug dealer does. Do you mind if we look around?"

"Not at all, Officer. Even if our daughter was in trouble, we're always glad to help out the police."

He led them to what would have been Carrie's room, and they looked inside. The bed was neatly made, and the windows were closed, even though it was already a warm day. Tyrone, who thought he was passing himself off as a detective, looked in the closet and found few articles of clothing, and those he did find were old. When he looked, he found no underwear in the dresser drawers where such things would have been expected to be. No textbooks or recently printed books on art were in the room either. The one bathroom in the small house had two toothbrushes in a holder on the sink, and he concluded that his quarry had not taken refuge in the home of her parents.

Although seething with frustration, Tyrone and his minions stayed in character and thanked the occupants of the house for their assistance. The uniformed member of the group left his business card with the request that they call if they heard anything at all from their daughter. Her parents promised they would, and the ersatz lawmen left, hoping to do better at finding Theresa, but with their confidence waning.

It dropped to almost zero when they reached the suburban home of Theresa's parents, which was a single story house with an attached garage. There had been no outbuilding for her to camp out in, but that had not been necessary. She got the telephoned warning from Carrie in plenty of time to grab whatever belongings she wanted to take, pack them in her car and drive away from the long, wooden house toward where she knew Francine had a safer location. Her parents had all the time they needed to conceal any trace that their daughter might have been there and, when they were done, her bedroom looked just as unused as Carrie's had.

The discussion of Tyrone and his gang members with Theresa's parents was also similar to their conversation with those of Carrie, and produced the same results. The investigations of her room and the bathroom she would have been using were equally unproductive. No trace of the daughter of the house could be found and, for all they knew, she hadn't been there since Christmas, which her parents said was the last time they had seen her. They had also not been able to attend the graduation ceremony.

The frustrated hunters went back to their lair, but Tyrone Wolfe swore that he would not give up, ever. The three little pigs had made a fool of him, and he could not and would not allow that to pass, because of the damage it would do to his street credibility. If it ever became common knowledge, he might even be no longer considered the baddest pimp in town. Even worse, the many other prostitutes who stayed with him only out of fear might be encouraged to sneak away also. The word was sent out that there was a large financial reward and other benefits for any information that would lead to the capture of any of the three pigs who had defied their master.

Carrie and Theresa both made good their escapes, arriving at almost the same time at the brick building where Francine had an apartment. They had both called about their impending arrival, and she made them as welcome as she was able in the limited confines of the one-bedroom apartment. Their living quarters were actually slightly larger than their previous shared apartment, but still crowded. Carrie and Theresa made themselves at home as well as they could, while the three frightened women decided what to do next.

Francine was more worried than the others. She was quite sure they were safe in the brick building, barring some really unusual coincidence, but they would not be able to stay there in hiding forever. She believed she had a promising future, and her friends had their lives ahead of them too. Francine was quite unwilling to give up her career and make them give up theirs, after sweating out four years at the university, just to hide from some creepy thug.

There was another aspect facing her and them. Francine had squirreled away as much of her earnings as she could while in college, and her friends had saved their money too, but not even all three of them could possibly have put away enough to support themselves indefinitely. They would have to go out to look for work sooner or later, and the longer they waited, the harder it would be. The problem they had was thinking of a plan to get Tyrone Wolfe off their backs, and she quickly realized the only way to accomplish that would be to put him out of circulation for a long time.

Hiring a hit man or doing the job herself was out of the question. He had too many resources, too much protection and too many connections to even think seriously of that. He was a criminal, and a ruthless one, and had probably committed hundreds of crimes she didn't even know about, but he was pretty much immune from prosecution. The cops and probably the courts in his town were in his pocket, and the state wouldn't want to get involved in local matters.

That would leave the feds, or the FBI to take him down. They probably had a pile of information on him, but they could only bust him for a federal crime, and she didn't know for sure of any he had ever committed. Therefore, she reasoned, he would have to be induced to commit one, preferably away from his home town, so the FBI could do what they probably wanted to do anyhow. The more she thought about it, the more she came to realize what crime that would have to be, and where he would have to be made to commit it and whom the victims would have to be.

After making up her mind, Francine went to the local office of the FBI where she spoke to a man who introduced himself as Agent Donovan. She wore a pinstriped skirt and matching blazer, with a white blouse, because she wanted to give him the impression that she knew what she was doing, which she did. After listening to her explain the situation, he was more than a bit skeptical.