Page 5 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

“I don’t see her,” he said briefly to Galen, who grimaced.

“Well, fixers aren’t usually on the company website,” he said acidly, and John stuck out his tongue.

“Seewho?” Jackson prodded, both amused and frustrated. It was fun to see the usually unflappable Galen be cheerfully “flapped” by his significant other, but he was also curious to get to the bottom of this case.

John and Galen exchanged glances, and John was the one who spoke.

“We got the kid a hamburger and a shake,” he said after a moment. “And we told him we could get him a place to sleep and a line on a shelter, which was sort of a lie because I’d already texted Mrs. Bobby’s Mom. I mean Isabelle.” He grimaced. Bobby was one of his models, and the kid had made a lot of sacrifices to get his mom out of the tiny town that had been strangling them both. While she initially hadhatedthat her son was in porn,she’d softened when she’d met his friends and they’d all been, well, kind. Sweet young men. And so many of them had beensodeferential to her as a mother. She still probably disapproved of the porn, but she’d taken the job offer as a receptionist and had become a surrogate mother to the kids. And she’d also helped John and Galen with their effort to help place the young people who most assuredly didnotbelong in sex work, and to find them a shelter, a home, or a system that would keep them safe until they got their feet under them.

“And she, being made of awesome, took him in,” Jackson filled in. “And you stole my gaming buddy for the night, and yes, I forgive you too.” Jackson made a circling motion with his hands and then stood and placed the laptop on the end table so he could finish helping with the table.

John waved him down. “C’mon,” he said with a laugh, bringing a basket of freshly heated bread to set in the middle. “Give me some credit. Galen, who cooks at our house? And don’t say DoorDash.”

Galen snickered, almost like a kid. “Well, since you’ve limited my options, youdoprepare a mighty tasty chicken and rice.”

“Thank you,” John said. “I’m also hell on a grill, and I have my nana’s steak marinade, so there.” He sighed and went back to the kitchen. “Anyway, once we got the kid in the car, we started talking to him to make him feel like he wasn’t being kidnapped—I always give them street coordinates and bus coordinates, because if they flee, I want them to feel like they can get back to their old spot.”

“You would be surprised how many kids don’t even know where theyare,” Galen muttered, sounding bitter. “It’s like a bus dropped them off and boom! They were suddenly expected to feed themselves. Anyway, John is doing the schtick—‘This street is 24th and K, and we’re going to stay in midtown. There’ssome apartment buildings on 30th and L. Can you remember that?’ and the kid goes, ‘My mom lives on Watt and Whitney, so thanks. I didn’t know this part of town until I ran away.’”

Jackson swallowed. “From his mom?”

“That’s what we asked,” Galen said, “mostly to clarify, and then the kid says, ‘No, from the lady who came by to fix me.’”

Jackson shook his head like he’d been shocked. “Say that again?”

John and Galen met eyes, and Galen nodded. John spoke next. “He said, ‘The lady who came by to fix me.’ And Galen and I were, well,veryconfused to say the least. At that moment we drove by….” He held out his hands in a “gimme-gimme” gesture.

And Jackson got it. “Moms for Clean Living,” he said in surprise. “Home of the Stepford Dragons.”

John nodded grimly. “The very same. And Cowboy—”

“The kid?” Jackson asked, smiling slightly.

“Swore up and down it was his real name,” Galen said, his voice ringing with fondness. “Anyway, Cowboy said, ‘She had on one of those jackets.’”

Jackson nodded slowly. “And now we’re here, looking up the Stepford Dragons. I get it. Did the kid say anything else?”

Galen shook his head and then sighed. “Well, yes. He was taken in and put in a room with four other boys, one of whom still had makeup on. He said they were… well, sad. He and another boy broke out, climbed out the window and down the trellis, and, well, that’s part of the story. But the end of the story is that Cowboy ended up at a shelter—one of the church ones that made a big deal out of homosexuality, and about a week later….” John shuddered.

“Turned his first trick,” Jackson guessed sadly.

“Sometimes I’m so angry,” John said, sounding tired. “I feel like we’ve been fighting this battle my entire life, and then I realize how many people we’ve lost or almost lost to it and….”He shook his head again and gave a weak-tea version of his usual manic grin. “I’m sorry. I’m… you’d think with my job history I’d be jaded now. That I would have learned that sex was a commodity in my teens and gotten over it. But I remember suchjoyin the discovery, you know? Such excitement learning ‘What does this button do?’ And the kids that walk through our doors? Some of them discover suchpowerwhen they discover themselves. To see that destroyed so horribly by the people who are supposed to protect kids. It’s… it’s infuriating.”

“I can’t argue,” Jackson agreed, thinking about the way his nightmares chased him down. He and Ellery saw a lot of innocence squandered or destroyed in their jobs. Even the guilty—and not everybody who crossed their threshold was going to be innocent—were often caught by surprise. The eighteen-year-old who went to a party and got busted for party drugs suddenly realizing that he might be kissing goodbye a promising future, not to mention five years of his life. The young mother who did a favor for her boyfriend and got caught up in a trafficking sting. The bodybuilder who threw a hard punch in self-defense and is suddenly wanted for manslaughter. Or the person collecting welfare who got a job and didn’t return their next check because it was the only reason they could make rent.

The week before, they’d taken on the case of a fifteen-year-old who had defended his mother from her abusive boyfriend and was being tried as an adult for assault. Jackson and Henry had spent a week listening to report after report of how the boyfriend had been about to kill both the mother and the boy and the police hadn’t been able to keep him away. Ellery had brought the boy in for arraignment, face full of bruises and a cast on his arm, and begged a judge not to send him to adult jail while he awaited trial.

Ellery had won, and the boy and his mother were in protective custody—and he was well on his way to getting thecase dismissed. But the fact that the small family had been put in this position had been tough on the entire office.

John was right. It sure did feel as though joy was being systematically vacuumed out of their lives sometimes.

A fourteen-year-old kid named Cowboy had needed to run away to defend his right to exist.

“What did you need us to do?” he found himself asking, and at that moment, Jackson heard the garage door open.

“Go greet Ellery,” John said gently. “Let’s have some of this delicious soup and bread. There’s more to tell.”

A Defensive Agenda

---