They are OBVIOUS, and much too real, an easy target for
nearly everyone. And the human animal never misses easy prey.'
Sylviana heard the words---stark and depressing enough---but what gave
them their power were the images her own memory provided. She saw it
all: the rooster-like pimps grabbing gaudily dressed women by the hair,
and without remorse throwing them into the back seats of still gaudier
cars, for later punishment, which no doubt included beating and rape.
And if her head happened to strike the roof, starting a rivulet of
blood.....
And she remembered the murder she had so nearly witnessed: saw the chalk
outline that the homicide detectives had drawn on the sidewalk as the
paramedics arrived to wheel her into a waiting ambulance, her death a
foregone conclusion, the eyes still terrified though the life even now
fled from them. A face once young and fair: a sixteen-year-old runaway
from nameless suburbs, driven from her home perhaps by an abusive
parent, drawn to the city like a moth to flame. And brought to the same
end. While the jagged man the police had cuffed and were dragging away,
screamed in bursts of occasional coherence, 'All women are
whores!'
And she remembered too, even as he said, the thoughts that she had
always used to dismiss such women, and the hopeless tragedy of their
lives.
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