CHAPTER FOURTEEN

         The ninety-minute drive down I-95 to Calle Ocho gave Katie and David time to plan for their interview with Sanchez.  Katie was wearing a pale blue sleeveless blouse and navy blue slacks. David was in chino shorts and a  green polo shirt.
         They pulled into the Versailles parking lot, and Katie marveled at the eccentric faux-baroque décor inside. As usual the place was packed, especially since this was Saturday when people came for breakfast and brunch and stayed for hours. When they entered, the host recognized David and said, “Ah, yes, Señor Greco, Madam Sanchez is already at her table.”
         She was dressed in a long flowered sheath, her hair in a Caribbean-patterned turban. Her make-up and nail polish picked up the pastel colors of her dress.  A caipirhiña was already on the table.
         David said, “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Madam Sanchez,” realizing he was showing a kind of ironic deference to a woman who ran a whorehouse. “This is my friend and associate Katie Cavuto.”
         Sanchez looked her up and down, extended her hand and said, “How good a friend are you to David?”
         Katie looked at David, smiled slightly and said, “We’ve worked very closely on a  number of investigations for my magazine, McClure’s.”
         Sanchez shrugged and smiled at David as if to suggest he was fortunate to have such a lovely friend.
         Surprisingly, Katie asked straight out, “Do you mind if I call you Ramona?”
         Sanchez raised her palms and assented.
         “Well, from what David has told me that you told him, it has always bothered you that Jeffrey Epstein has been trafficking underage girls with the men who come to his parties. Is that correct?.”
         “I assume David told you the reason,” said Sanchez, referring to her own past. “You know, prostitution may not be legal in Miami or Palm Beach but is tolerated for the reasons it’s always been tolerated, and it is simply not high on anyone’s political agenda to crack down on the good houses. Oh, now and then some mayor or councilman trying to get re-elected will say he’ll rid the city of whores, but it never happens.”
         “Even if those whores are underage?”
         Sanchez took a sip of her drink and frowned. “Even then.”
         “Then why are the Palm Beach police investigating Epstein for what he’s doing?”
         David said, “I assume because he’s bringing girls in from out of state. It’s against the federal Mann Act.”
         David was referring to a law, also called the White Slavery Act, passed in 1910 to prohibit the transportation of women and girls across state lines “for immoral purposes,”  an activity which at the time was said to be run by a secret conspiratorial group of foreigners, many kidnapping girls who came to the big cities to work in ice cream and candy stores. Though rarely used, it was the Mann Act that put rock singer Chuck Berry in prison for three years for transporting a fourteen-year-old girl across state lines.
         “It’s a good law,” said Sanchez. “Why bring in these out-of-state girls when we have such beautiful women here in Florida? You know, Cubans are very Catholic, and if they tolerate brothels to keep husbands in line and introduce their sons to sex, it’s okay. But to corrupt a little angel is un gran pecado!”
         The three of them ordered lunch. Sanchez said, “It’s Saturday, I’m going to have another caipiriñha. You join me?”
         Katie and David said they’d stick to beer for the time being.
         “So, Ramona, David’s told you that I’m looking into Epstein and how these infamous parties are arranged, who gets invited and how political and business powers are involved. And if he is using underage girls, that’s clearly something he should be nailed for.”
         “So you want me to introduce you to some of these girls to talk about what happened to them, correct? I will have to think about that. Mine was a business based on trust but it was also based on not asking a lot of questions about a girl’s background. I don’t even want to know their real names, so if the cops come prying I really can’t help them find a girl—unless, of course, she’s been hurt or murdered. If one of my girls came back from a job cut or bruised, I call the police right away and tell them to meet me at the hospital.”
         “Then you can’t direct us to any of these girls you say Epstein has  been trafficking and abusing?” asked David.                     Sanchez put down her drink, stared off into the dining room for a long pause, then said, “I will put you in touch with a girl from another house—not mine—who went from being corrupted by Jeremy and decided she could not return to her home, so she stayed and joined the profession.  She’s about nineteen or twenty now, very beautiful, very bitter girl.”
         “That would help a great deal,” said Katie. “Is she here in Miami?”
         Sanchez nodded. “Oh, yes. She’s sitting over at that table with those two men.”
         Katie and David furtively glanced over to the table and saw the two men—Latinos, one about thirty, the other maybe in his fifties—but only the girl’s back. She wore a shirt tied above her hips and Capri pants. Her hair was blond, settling on her shoulders.
         “You want to meet her?” asked Sanchez. “I’ll call her over.” Sanchez motioned to the waiter, spoke to him in Spanish and he went over to the table and said something to the girl, who turned around and saw Sanchez waving her fingers. The girl immediately got up and came over to Sanchez’s table.
         “Sit down, Susanna,” said Sanchez, “I want you to meet two friends of mine from New York.”
         The girl was indeed very beautiful, clearly not Cuban from her skin tone, with pale blue eyes and perfect teeth.
         “This Katie Cavuto, this is David Greco. They are investigating our friend Jeffrey Epstein, and I said you might want to speak with them.”
         The girl sized up the couple and said, with a slight southern accent, “They’re not Miami cops?”
         Sanchez shook her head and said, “No, Katie is a reporter for a magazine, and David is an ex-cop from NYPD. We were talking about how I want nothing to do with Jeffrey’s bringing in young girls to his parties.”
         The girl’s eyes narrowed and she lost her smile. 
         At that moment the younger man from the other table came over and said to David, “Excuse me, Señor, but Susanna is having lunch with us,” then grabbed the girl by her arm. She tried to wrench it free and said, “Don’t touch me. I’ll be back in a minute.”
         “No,” he said, “you come back right now. My friend wants to go back to his hotel with you now.”
         David stood up and said, “You didn’t hear her? The lady said she’d be back in a minute. “
         “And who are you, Señor? Her grandpapa? Come on, Susannah,” and grabbed her arm again. 
         David grabbed the man’s wrist, twisted it and released the girl’s arm, then cupped the man’s elbow and brought his  arm behind his back. Others in the room saw the commotion, as did the restaurant manager, who signaled two waiters, one bigger than the other, to go to the table and de-fuse the situation. Sanchez, who saw the older man at the table get up to leave, was very calm and said, “Señor Vargas, let the girl alone or maybe your friend over there will get very nervous, you know?”                 With the two waiters hovering over him, Vargas  stopped struggling and David released his hold.
         “I give you two minutes, Susannah,” he said. “Two minutes or you can go back to the house and pay me double what my friend over there was going to pay.”
         Susannah lifted her chin, told Sanchez everything was all right and said she’d be back at the table in two minutes.
         “I gotta go,” she said. “If you two want to talk, Madam Sanchez knows where to reach me. And thank you for handling Vargas. I hope he forgets this just happened.”
         David wanted to say, “And if he doesn’t I can handle him,” but instead said, “I won’t be in Miami long enough for him to see me again.”
         Susannah went back to the other table and left with the older man in a Lexus. Vargas pointed his finger and shook it at David , saying, “I see you again some time,” then flicked his finger up and puffed at the tip as if blowing off the end of a gun barrel. He put money on the table and left in a silver Mercedes convertible.
         “Vargas is an asshole,” said Sanchez, who was eating again. “He runs about five girls, including Susannah—small time pimp—but I doubt she’s going to stay with him.  The man’s a pig.”
         “So you think Susannah will see us?” asked Katie.
         “Si, she hates Jeffrey for what he did to her and would love to see him in jail with some Cuban gang members. By the way, her name is  not Susannah. I don’t really know what it is. I heard she came from Atlanta.”
         “Anyone else we might interview?” asked Katie.
         “You ask a lot for someone I don’t even know. You speak with Susannah. Maybe she knows some other girls who will talk to you. And now, if you excuse me, I will go for a nice swim and  watch Univision until dinner.”
         Again, David paid the check and handed it to Katie.
         “How was the food?”
           Katie swallowed and said, “I don’t even remember what I ate.”