believe what was happening to me. What was even harder to believe was the fact that Leon had turned his back on me. But in all fairness to him, I had to ask myself how I would have reacted if he had been the one who’d been arrested for prostitution. I didn’t have to think about it too long or too hard. Leon was my husband, and despite his flaws, I loved him. If he had been arrested in any city in the world and called me for help, I would have done everything in my power to help him. Whether I’d have stayed with him after the fact was another story. But the bottom line was, I would never have done to Leon what he did to me. I was still sitting on the side of the cot when morning arrived, still wondering how Leon could have turned his back on me.
With the exception of the guards, I wasn’t too clear on who did what. I still didn’t know exactly what Debra Retner’s job was. I had not seen her since she had met with me the morning before. About an hour later, when she did return, escorted by two armed guards, I was glad to see her.
“What happens now?” I asked, stumbling out of my cell. I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until I bumped into her, almost causing us both to fall to the hard floor. Both of the guards drew their weapons and gave me their most threatening looks. My immediate response was to raise my hands high above my head. Debra held up her hand and spoke to the guards in Spanish. I was too muddled to try and interpret, but the guards put their weapons away and fell in behind Debra and me as we made our way down the grim hall.
“I’ve got to get out of this place,” I whimpered, clutching Debra’s arm. “You’ve got to get me out of here. If I have to go to jail, can’t they deport me and send me to a jail in America? Don’t foreign countries do that anymore?”
“Some do,” Debra said in a hopeful whisper.
“I’m going crazy. You’ve got to help me get out of here,” I insisted, wringing my limp hands. Not only had the harsh shower reduced my hair to a frazzle, it had also made my skin so dry and ashy that rashes had already formed on various parts of my body.
“I can’t promise you that, but I can promise that I will do everything in my power to make your experience as painless as possible,” Debra said, giving me an affectionate pat on the back.
CHAPTER 6
The two guards stayed right on our heels all the way into what I assumed was a courtroom, where Debra led me to a table with two chairs. There were a few other people in the courtroom, including the man from the bar who had wooed me into bed then set me up. Jose. That son of a bitch! He occupied a front-row seat in the spectators’ area.
Jose glanced at me, his evil eyes rolling up to my matted, nappy hair. Without my make-up and my wig, I looked nothing like the woman he’d first met. Had I looked like the frump that I looked like now when Jose first saw me, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed me. His lips curled up at the ends in what looked like a weak smile. Or a triumphant smile, I should say. I recalled how one of the officers had told me that the men who worked with the authorities to help identify prostitutes got paid for their roles. I felt really let down and unattractive thinking that I’d been approached because of a possible price tag on my head, not because of my beauty.
A scowling bull of a man in a black robe, his face and hands almost as black as his robe, sat down hard on a bench facing us. Sweat was already sliding down his face, and his jaw was twitching. He looked like he wanted to put the whole world behind bars. And this was the man who was going to decide my fate.
A prim-looking stenographer slid into a seat near the judge. Without a word, Debra approached the bench. The judge gave her an impatient look before he leaned forward. He casually rolled up his sleeves and folded his arms as Debra spoke to him in a voice too low for me to hear. Whatever she was saying only seemed to irritate the judge. He shook his head, unfolded his arms, and started waving both, also speaking in a voice too low for me to hear. When his lips stopped flapping, he jerked his head up and looked at me like I’d just organized a coup against his country. With a grunt, he dismissed Debra with a sharp wave of his hand, as if she had turned into a bothersome fly. With her head bowed submissively, Debra returned to my side.
“What were you saying to that judge?” I asked, concerned because the judge was still giving me dirty looks.
“It doesn’t matter,” Debra told me, both of her cheeks and brows twitching. “It did no good, anyway,” she added, her voice cracking.
“And why is Jose here?” I wanted to know.
“Oh. Well, if you plead not guilty, he will be asked to make a statement, refute your version of the events.”
I glared at Jose so hard, hoping to see some remorse or compassion. All he gave me was a look that was so smug, it looked like it had been painted on his face.
About a minute later, two men in dark suits approached the bench and spoke to the judge in Spanish.
“What are they saying?” I asked Debra in a whisper. Not only were they speaking too fast for me to understand, too many other things were crowding my mind. “Who are they?”
“The one on the left is trying to talk the judge into simply deporting you. He’s trying to talk His Honor into letting you off with just a warning, no fine, no more jail time,” Debra told me, talking with her hand half covering her mouth. “Like I just tried to do.”
“Is he like a public defender?” I asked.
“He works for the court. His position here is to try and alleviate a situation such as yours, make a recommendation in your favor. Ironically, he gets paid the same whether he wins or loses. This is just a job to him, so don’t think that he really cares about what happens to people like you.”
People like you? Debra’s words almost seared a huge spot in my brain. This is what I had been reduced to. “What about you?” I asked in a steely voice. “Do you care about what happens to…people like me?”
Debra smiled. “I do.” A painful expression eased onto her face, and she spoke in a soft but hollow voice. “My daughter, Justine, is serving a life sentence in Malaysia. She and her boyfriend tried to smuggle heroin out of the country. She’s nineteen. She has been in jail for only a year. She’s my only child….” Debra’s voice trailed off, and she just stared at me for a few seconds, with eyes that refused to blink. Then she nodded. “Yes, I do care about you.”
I bowed my head. “I am sorry about your daughter.” I decided to shift the direction of our conversation. The two suits were still talking to the judge, and I still couldn’t interpret the conversation. The way the man speaking on my behalf was waving his arms and raising his voice, it didn’t sound too good for me.
“Debra, a ten-thousand-dollar fine or three months in jail for…uh…what I did sounds pretty severe for somebody who’s never been arrested,” I said hopefully. “I’m a tourist, ignorant of the laws here. Doesn’t that mean something to these people?”
“You will find little or no mercy here. These people are not known for their compassion,” Debra informed me.
“I didn’t hurt anybody. I didn’t steal anything. My punishment does not fit my crime,” I said, talking in a slow, mechanical way.
Debra slowly shook her head and dabbed at her eyes and nose before she spoke. There was an extremely sad look on her face, and I was sure that it was because she was still thinking about what had happened to her daughter in Malaysia.
“Last year the fine was only five thousand or one month in jail. Two years before that, there was no fine or jail time for first-time offenders. Just probation. That kind of leniency only made the situation worse.” Debra let out a loud sigh. “I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like a few years from now.”
I looked back to the two men talking to the judge. “Who is that other man?”
There was a frightened look on Debra’s face, which she tried to hide, but as soon as I saw it, I became even more concerned about my fate. “The other man is a prosecutor. He feels that since all of the other women who were arrested the same