Blossom

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THE SUN dropped on the far side of the Hudson River like it knew what was coming.

I turned off the West Side Highway at Thirtieth Street, cruising east toward Tenth Avenue. Glanced at the photograph taped to my dashboard. Marilyn, her name was. Fourteen years old, her father said. Chubby, round-faced little girl, smiling at the camera, standing next to a Bon Jovi poster in her pink ruffled bedroom.

Marilyn ran away from home. Ran herself straight to Hell. I didn't know what she was before she caught the bus that dropped her into Port Authority, but I knew what she was now.

Raw meat on the streets. A pimp's prey as soon as her feet hit the sidewalk.

She'd be out here somewhere, chasing money.

Me too.

Marilyn wouldn't be working the commuters heading home through the Lincoln Tunnel. The hard-core tunnel bunnies would take her the way a Cuisinart took vegetables. A girl that young should be working indoors, but she hadn't turned up. Only one place left.

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