What the hell? I didn’t agree to this.
It was instinctual. I couldn’t have a single person identify a hooker from a goddamn virgin without a gut feeling, and now I had to tell twelve guys how to do just that?
Fuck. My. Life.
With a cactus.
There was no gentle way to handle this.
“Hi.” The word left me shakily and uncertainly. “So, I guess it might seem obvious, but really pay attention to the way couples interact with each other. If they aren’t a genuine couple, they’ll either have an air of awkwardness about them or they’ll be overly touchy-feely. If you’re looking for someone before she finds a client, keep a special eye out on single women who don’t talk to anyone or seem to have any friends around them. The bar is a good place to start and monitor that. It’s a good spot to keep an eye on other people and pick out potential clients. It’s also a perfect meeting place because you can always find your client there.”
I glanced over at Adrian.
He nodded. “Right. Focus on the bar and anyone who doesn’t have interactions with friends or anyone around them. Perrie will be with me at the Roma Hotel. Because of this, we’ll probably make the first arrest, then we’ll make our way around to everyone else. Chief is pissed, so be extra vigilant and let’s get a good result tonight. Let’s go.”
***
“Are you all right?” Adrian looked over the car at me. “You haven’t said a word since we left the station.”
I sighed, leaning my head right back on the seat. “This feels…wrong, that’s all.”
“Because you’re effectively giving me a direct line to your friends?”
“They’re not my friends,” I said, looking out of the window despite his numerous glances my way. “They’re people I understand.”
“I get that.”
“No, you don’t. I don’t think you get it at all.”
“Then help me to.” He shrugged a shoulder.
“Why? Do you expect me to believe that you’ll suddenly understand and turn this car around? Because you know as well as I do that you won’t.”
“This is my job.”
“And you’re stopping people from doing theirs.”
“Then I’ll correct myself: This is my legal job.”
Whatever. “If you stopped for a second to think about the fact that probably fifty percent of the women you arrest aren’t doing it because they want to, then you might view what you’re doing a little differently.”
“All due respect, Perrie, it doesn’t matter to the law if they want to do it or not. They are. They’re making the decision to work illegally against the county laws. It’s not like prostitution isn’t legal in other counties in Nevada.”
“That might be so, but there isn’t the work there compared to here. If you have a child or a family to support, you’re gonna go where the work is.”
“I suggest trying Walmart or somewhere like that.”
I snapped my head around to look at him. “Not everyone in this industry has a choice. If you think they’re all selling themselves for fun on a Saturday night, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“Then tell me more.” His knuckles whitened as he gripped the steering wheel. “Explain to me why they’re doing it.”
“So you can arrest them anyway?”
“No, because maybe there’s another problem in the city we’re not aware of. Are there trafficking rings working under this guise that we don’t know about? Are they secretly porn stars recruiting unwitting men? Is there a problem we can solve? Get to the bottom of it?” He shot me a glance once again. “Are they like you and is there anything we can do, any charities or safe places we can send them instead?”
“Gee,” I said dryly, “You almost sound as though you’ll let them go if they cry like I did. Which would be ridiculous, because I know you have a quota of whores to collect like little trophies, so don’t pretend like you actually care about it.”
His jaw twitched, and the skin over his knuckles went completely right. “Don’t assume I don’t care. I asked for this job, not because I’m a spiteful asshole who wants to deny people the opportunity to support their families, but because I want to help them.”
“Throwing people in jail doesn’t help them. It costs them the money you won’t let them earn.”
“This conversation is going nowhere. You can believe what you want to believe, but us arguing like a pair of teenagers isn’t going to help us do what we’re here to do.”
“I don’t want to be here. I only am because you blackmailed me.”
“That wasn’t blackmail.”
“For an officer of the law, you have a skewed idea of what that is. You told me I had two choices: work with you or be arrested by you. That’s blackmail.”
“You seem real certain you know the ins and outs of that law.”
“I’m a Fox,” I said dryly. “I’ve probably seen more blackmail than you have, and I haven’t spoken to my family in seven years.”