The Eyewitness (8 page)

“So long as they're not on the streets, approaching men, then what they do is legal. But they have to work on their own. One girl in a flat seeing men is legal, but if it's two girls or more it's a brothel and that's illegal.”

“More nonsense,” said Dragan.

“It's even crazier than that,” said Solomon.

“They're allowed another girl in the flat, but she can only work as a maid answering phones, letting people in and out, changing the bed linen.”

“And the cops check that?”

“Nah. They used to, but these days they're way too stretched. They're more interested in putting the pimps away.”

“So pimping is illegal? At least you are doing something right. Pimps are the scum of the earth.”

“Oh, sure. Pimping always has been a crime. Carries a maximum sentence of seven years. Living off immoral earnings, they call it if it's a man. If it's a woman it's controlling prostitution for gain. But the girls themselves aren't breaking the law. Do you fancy a drink somewhere else?”

Dragan looked at him suspiciously.

“Like where?”

Solomon slid off his stool.

“Oh, I don't know,” he said innocently.

“I thought maybe you could show me one of those nightclubs you were talking about.” He ducked as Dragan tried to slap him again.

“You are a bad man for leading me astray like this,” he said. The policeman got off his stool, drained his bottle and slammed it down on the bar.

“What will I say to my wife?”

“She's a policeman's wife, she's used to you coming home late at night.”

“Coming home late from work is one thing. Coming home late smelling of cheap perfume after a night out with Jack Solomon is a different kettle of fish,” said Dragan.

“I'll explain,” said Solomon.

“She likes me.”

“She tolerates you,” said Dragan.

“The same as I do.” He pushed Solomon towards the door.

“Go on. If you're going to lead me astray, get on with it.”

Dragan drove north out of the city in his almost-new black VW Golf, his pride and joy.

“They make great cars, the Germans,” he said, winding down his window and blowing out smoke.

“VW, Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Rolls-Royce.”

“Don't start, Dragan,” said Solomon.

“You know I'm not going to rise to it.”

“But it must be galling, no? To have Germans running your most famous car company?”

“Dragan, the chances of me ever owning a Rolls-Royce are so remote that I couldn't give a monkey's who owns the company, be it Germans, French or Lithuanians.”

“A monkey's?” asked Dragan.

“It means I don't give a shit. Where are we going?”

“The Purple Pussycat. Wine, women and song.”

“But why's it all the way out here?”

“Because such places are illegal. If they were in the city, they would draw attention to themselves. Here they are out of sight, out of mind.”

Solomon took a long drag on his Marlboro as Dragan negotiated a series of stomach-churning hairpin bends with the engine at full revs. The policeman took it as a personal insult whenever he had to change down a gear, and while Solomon knew that his friend had never been involved in an accident, he still found sitting in the passenger seat stressful and had to stop himself stamping on a non-existent brake pedal. Whenever Dragan saw the involuntary movement, he drove all the faster.

“How do people know where to go?” asked Solomon.

“They know,” said Dragan, overtaking a truck belching black smoke from an exhaust held in place with knotted wire from the tailgate.

“Word gets round. The SFOR Americans have a list of approved places their people can visit.”

“They what?”

“Approved places. Places where they won't be busted.”

“But they're still illegal?” said Solomon.

“Sure. But I guess the Americans have different degrees of illegality.”

“That's like different degrees of pregnancy,” said Solomon.

“It doesn't work that way. Either you're pregnant or you're not. No half-way stage.”

Dragan swerved to avoid a tractor, then accelerated over a hump in the road. Solomon's stomach lurched and the policeman flashed him a grin.

“Not going too fast for you, am I?”

“I was wondering why you were so slow tonight,” replied Solomon.

Dragan roared with laughter. A car coming towards them swerved into their lane to overtake but the policeman made no move to avoid it. He just flashed his lights and accelerated. The car braked hard, pulled over and sounded its horn as the VW swept by.

“Bosnian drivers are the worst in the world,” said Dragan.

“I couldn't agree with you more.”

“Did you know that Bosnia is one of the only countries that has more cars than people?”

Solomon sighed.

“Yes, Dragan, you told me.” There were two reasons for this. The population of Bosnia had been almost halved during the war, and the country was used as a dumping ground for unwanted vehicles from all over Europe. Some academic had calculated that there were now two vehicles for every man, woman and child.

Dragan pointed to the left.

“There it is,” he said.

Solomon saw a two-storey house with an orange-tiled roof, no different from the rest that dotted the hillsides around Sarajevo. There was no sign, no neon lights, nothing to indicate that it was anything other than an ordinary house. As they turned off the main road and drove down a single-lane track, he saw a dozen or so vehicles parked, including two white UN four-wheel-drives.

Dragan parked in the road behind four saloons, all with SFOR plates.

“If it wasn't for the internationals, these places wouldn't survive,” he said.

“What's the difference between an approved place and one that isn't?” asked Solomon, as they walked towards the front door. He could hear the thudding bass of a rock track through the shuttered windows.

“Drugs. Underage girls. Violence.”

“Those would be negatives, right?”

“I love your English humour,” said the policeman.

“Some of the guys running these places are heavy-duty gangsters. They deal in drugs as well as girls. The SFOR people are warned about them, and if they get caught they're sent home. The approved places don't get busted at least, not until they're put off limits.”

“That's perilously close to corruption, isn't it?”

Dragan shrugged his massive shoulders.

“Most of the internationals are single men, or men away from their families for long periods,” he said.

“They've got needs, and they've got money. Prostitution is going to happen no matter what the law says. By confining it to safe places, there's less trouble all round.”

“And what about the places that aren't approved?”

Dragan pulled a face.

“That's where the real corruption is,” he said.

“They pay off whoever needs paying off. Big money. When there's a crackdown the gangsters are tipped off and they move most of the girls out before they're busted. They just set up somewhere else.”

They reached the front door and Dragan knocked. A small hatch snapped open at eye level. They were scrutinised by a thickset man with a single eyebrow, then the hatch snapped back into place and bolts were drawn back.

The door opened and the man waved them inside. A Rolling Stones song was playing: "Paint it Black'.

In the centre of the room a blonde girl in a black bikini was dancing around a silver pole on a podium. Half a dozen others were sitting on an L-shaped sofa in one corner of the room, wrapped in identical plum silk dressing-gowns and drinking beer.

“Salubrious,” said Solomon.

“What does that mean?” asked Dragan, pointing at an empty sofa and gesturing to a waiter at the far end of the bar.

“Salubrious? It means respectable. I was being sarcastic.”

“Ah,” said Dragan.

“This constant double-talking cost you an empire, didn't it?”

“Now you're trying to be sarcastic, right?” said Solomon.

Dragan winked and they sat down. The waiter came over and he ordered two local beers, then motioned at Solomon for a cigarette.

“So why is it called the Purple Pussycat?” asked Solomon.

“They change the name every time they're busted. It used to be the Red Rover. There's never a sign outside, so the name doesn't really matter. I don't think the decor has changed in the past five years.”

“So you've been here before?”

The policeman pointed a warning finger at Solomon.

“I was on a few raids,” he said.

“I don't want you telling anyone that I came here for pleasure.”

“Perish the thought, Dragan.”

The track ended and the blonde skipped off the podium. She went to sit with her co-workers, and her place at the pole was taken by a buxom redhead. The waiter brought their beers and Dragan settled back to leer at the dancer.

“The girls are all available, are they?” asked Solomon.

“For sex? Sure.”

“How does it work?”

“You ask the barman or a waiter. He gets the girl you want to come over. You can buy her a drink and chat to her, and if you want to go upstairs you tell the waiter.”

“How much does it cost?”

“Fifty konvertible marks for half an hour. A hundred for an hour.” Dragan grinned.

“Last time I checked.” When western forces had moved in to the fractured Yugoslavia, they had established a new currency, the konvertible mark, linked to the German Deutschemark. Even though the Euro had replaced the Deutschemark, the konvertible mark remained the local currency.

Dragan waved at the waiter, then pointed at two of the girls. He went over to them, and they jumped to their feet, then tottered on high heels to where Dragan and Solomon were sitting. Dragan told them to sit down. The taller of the two, a brunette with a wide smile and surprised eyes, sat down next to Solomon and put a hand on his thigh. She spoke to him in a language that sounded like Bosnian but he didn't recognise any of the words.

The other girl, a lanky blonde with breasts so large they could only have been implants, sat down next to Dragan and put an arm round his shoulders. He spoke to her for a few minutes, then leaned towards Solomon.

“Belarussians,” he said.“ All the girls who work here are from Belarus.”

“How many girls are there?”

“Twenty, she says. Another dozen arrive next week. From Belarus, too.”

“Is that normal?” asked Solomon.

“I'd have thought there'd be more than enough local girls who needed the money.”

“The foreigners are cheaper,” said Dragan.

“The Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus the daily wage there is a fraction of what it is here. Give these girls a couple of dollars a day and they think they're rich.”

The girl next to Solomon began to rub his groin suggestively.

“Can you tell her I'll buy her a drink but that I don't want to go with her?” said Solomon.

“Tell her that and she'll walk away,” said Dragan.

“They're not interested in customers who are here just to drink. We'll buy them drinks and say we're deciding which girl to take. Okay?”

“Fine,” said Solomon.

Dragan ordered for the girls. He spoke to the blonde for a few minutes, then tapped Solomon's leg. He disentangled himself from the brunette and leaned across the sofa so that the policeman could whisper in his ear.

“She says the guy here has a deal with Mafia guys in Belarus. He brings them in direct. I don't think it's worth even showing them your girl's picture. They won't have seen her, and we sure as hell don't want her asking her pimp.”

“All I'm trying to do is find her,” said Solomon.

“We can explain that I'm not a cop.”

“No, but I am. And, besides, these people are breaking the law. If this place gets busted, and the girls are sent back where they came from, they lose everything. And if the pimp gets busted he goes to jail, or he spends a hell of a lot of money buying his way out. They're not going to risk that by spilling their guts to a stranger.”

Two bright green drinks in small glasses arrived but the girls didn't touch them. The brunette's groin-rubbing became more insistent. Solomon smiled at her, took her hand and held it. Immediately the other found its way between his legs. She nuzzled his neck and he felt her lick his chin. She whispered in his ear.

“I'm sorry,” said Solomon.

“I only speak English.”

“I want you fuck me,” she whispered.

“You speak English?”

“I want you fuck me,” she repeated.

“That's all the English you know, right?”

“I want you fuck me.”

Despite himself, Solomon smiled. She nodded encouragingly. Solomon shook his head. Her expression hardened. She stood up, spoke to the other girl, then flounced off, tossing her long, dark brown hair like a racehorse ready for the off.

The remaining girl whispered in Dragan's ear and when he shook his head she went off to join the other girl.

“See?” he said.

“They're only interested in screwing.”

“Are all the places like this?”

“Some are, some aren't. Some are more relaxed and the girls will chat to you. Depends on the management. Here they just want them dancing or screwing,” Two large men in overalls spoke to a waiter, who crossed to speak to the two girls who'd been at Solomon and Dragan's table. They went to join the men and five minutes later the four were heading through a door at the back of the room.

“Do customers ever take the girls out?” asked Solomon.

“Back to their homes or hotels?”

“I doubt it,” said Dragan.

“By keeping them here the pimps have control. The girls never get the money, it's paid to the pimp and he pays the girl. Also, if their papers are not in order, the girls will be taking a risk in leaving the bar.” The policeman drained his bottle.

“What do you want to do?”

“There are other bars we can try?”

“If that's what you want.”

Solomon waved for the bill.

“Maybe a couple more.”

“Your wish is my command,” said Dragan, getting to his feet.

“Just so long as you keep buying the drinks.”

The fax machine kicked into life and a sheet of paper curled out. Solomon went to stand by it.

“That's not from New York, is it?” shouted Miller, from the corridor.