The Whore of Babylon, a Memoir - By Katrina Prado Page 0,20

mini skirt that is so short I can actually see part of her bottom, like two adjacent obscene smiles. She stamps out a cigarette and then turns facing the street. Her face is grotesquely painted and the only thing on her torso is a black bustier laced in red. She looks barely old enough to be out of elementary school. Not Robyn. Standing back from the edge of the sidewalk, she scans drivers of cars as they go by. She looks briefly in my direction and then away. She looks to be about Robyn’s age. I nudge the car towards the curb and pop it into park, leaning over the passenger’s side I quickly roll down the window.

“Excuse me,” I say.

The girl’s face turns in my direction and it is then I see her eyes. They are filled with the darkness of a blunt void. She is chewing gum and saunters over towards the car.

“Lookin’ for a party?” she asks, plastering a fake smile onto her lips.

“I’m looking for a girl named Robyn,” I say.

“You can call me Robyn,” she says, advancing closer now.

Her perfume invades the car and I am peppered by tiers of a sweet, synthetic musk.

Her smile deepens as she props an elbow on the opened window, leaning over in an exaggerated motion, allowing me a full view of her small, juvenile breasts. Cheap red polish is chipping off her short fingernails.

“Ten dollars for a party,” she says.

“No,” I say shaking my head.

“I’m looking for my daughter. Her name is Robyn.” I thrust out the photo of my daughter towards her.

Silence glimmers between us as the realization of what I am after creeps into her brain.

She backs away, and stiffens; the smile falls from her face.

“Get lost, lady,” she spits out. Her voice is suddenly hot with contempt. Her eyes dart left and then right. She continues backing away from my car.

“She ran away,” I bark, as this young, pathetic thing ebbs from my grasp.

“Get away from me,” she says.

“How old are you?” I shout.

It is then I see fear in her face. She waves me off.

“Get the hell outta here!” she yells, beginning to walk quickly away.

“Wait!” I yell.

I jerk open the car door, clambering out of the car. My heart pounds in my chest. Does this girl know something? Does she know Robyn? Did fate bring me to the one, single person in the entire city who knows where my daughter might be?

“Wait!” I shriek out again excitedly.

I am surprised by the frigid air in this city. Nothing at all like the stifling bog of heat in Pittsburg. I tear to the front of the car, still idling, watching the girl as she runs from my view, ducking into an alleyway thick with refuse. Before I even reach the sidewalk, she has escaped into the shadowy yaw of a doorway that leads to who knows where. I fight the web of panic that spreads over me.

I stand there a moment, frozen. To my right, another homeless soul approaches. He is about ten yards away. But even from this distance it seems I can already smell the sour stench of urine and vomit that precedes him. He is rambling to an invisible partner and I am suddenly afraid for my safety. When he sees me, his pace quickens. A bell of alarm rings in my ears. I whip around, heading back for the car door.

Across the street I spy a well dressed man who appears to be heading for an aqua-colored BMW so shiny and new it looks like it came from a showroom. I catch the license plate: BLU BOY. Our eyes meet and then he looks at the homeless man making a beeline towards me. Instead of his car, he chooses to walk in my direction and I am suddenly, unaccountably flooded with relief.

When the homeless man sees the man in the suit heading towards him, he makes an about face and begins heading the opposite way. As the well dressed stranger comes closer to me, I am struck by his appearance. He is dark complected and the word ‘swarthy’ registers in my mind. His suit is shiny, a grey sharkskin hue, double breasted that seems a little too dressy for this neck of the woods.

“Perdida?” he asks in a thick Spanish accent.

A slender, sinful black mustache curls as he gives me a cruel looking smile. I look backward in the direction of the retreating homeless man trying to conjure that old saying my