‘When someone disappears and no one wants to talk, that’s different. They don’t usually disappear like Tracy.” : On Sunset, a Cabby Searches for Tracy With No Last Name

Most nights, Ignacio Aguas drives his taxi along Sunset Boulevard, looking for fares. And his steadiest customers, especially in the wee hours, are the prostitutes of all shapes, sizes and colors who ply their trade on the street.

Most of them make their living peering into cars and making “dates” with anyone willing to pay the price. But to Aguas, they are “nice girls” working hard to earn a living.

And so it was that he came to know people such as Appolonia, Baby, Princess, Tina and Sabrina, who hail him when they recognize his cab, looking to cruise or keep an appointment at one of the hotels that charge $20 for half an hour. He doesn’t have a clue about their real names and knows that asking is off limits.

He also came to know Tracy, who has vanished. So Aguas, known to the hookers as “Nacho,” is worried.

In fact, her disappearance has become something of a cause for Aguas--one person living on the fringes looking out for someone else in the same boat. He started doing a little low-level sleuthing, calling up the newspapers and quizzing everyone he encountered on the streets of Hollywood about what might have become of Tracy--a young, pretty, slender, light-complexioned African American woman who entered his cab, and his life, one night as a customer.

He did not know her last name, so going to the police seemed out of the question. He didn’t think that would do any good, anyway. He figured that Tracy would be well down on their priority list.

In the world of prostitution, almost anything can happen that causes a hooker to disappear. She may be sitting in a jail cell someplace if the cops have made a sweep. She may change territory for one reason or another. Her pimp may decide there is more fertile ground in San Francisco or San Diego. But Aguas said word usually gets around about where they can be found.

That has not been the case with Tracy. Aguas said no one is talking, not even hookers with the same pimp. And Tracy has been missing a long time, since March 26. He has the date written in his notebook, along with the notation that her friend Amber told him about it the next night.

“When someone disappears and no one wants to talk, that’s different,” said Aguas as he took a left on Sunset. “They don’t usually disappear like Tracy.”

To hear Aguas tell it, there is a definite pecking order on Sunset Boulevard. Driving from east to west, the prostitutes who work the corners around Normandie Avenue are thought of as the low end of the scale, the ones who may have a drug habit or don’t have the looks or the build to command a pricey fee. The ones who are addicted are called “strawberries” by the cops and they usually stay in one spot lest they get too far from their drug source.

Aguas drove through the intersection, pointing out the prostitutes--though none needed to be pointed out--standing in various poses on the sidewalk.

As he drove, Aguas talked of how he had become a part of this world, of how a white-haired, 51-year-old divorcee living in a cheap Downtown hotel had come to cruise Sunset Boulevard.

It had not been a direct route. The recession had left the onetime factory worker and warehouseman unemployed. There were a couple of short-lived odd jobs as a utility man at the Hollywood Bowl and Dodger Stadium, cleaning up after events and games.

He finally landed the taxi job a year ago, at first working a day shift. But that involved picking up too many old people at grocery stores and making a short drive to their homes, where he usually felt obliged to help carry bags inside. So he took the night shift last December and began cruising Sunset for fares. That, or getting in line at the fancy hotels near Beverly Hills.

He told stories of hookers who would get in his cab, bragging about how they had made a bundle from businessmen or movie people staying in the nearby hotels.

Aguas pulled the car over near the corner of Sweetzer Avenue and Sunset and pointed to a small parking lot at the base of a hill. There, he said, was where he had dropped off Tracy on that last evening between 3:30 and 4 a.m. The lot was where she had parked her rented car.

Lt. Tom Moselle of the Hollywood Division vice squad does not know anything about Tracy. Never heard of her. There was another Tracy who was beaten up by her pimp a couple of months back, but she did not match the description of Aguas’ friend.

But Moselle said it sounded like Aguas had most of his facts right, such as the price of a ticket for solicitation, knowing the spot where the city police jurisdiction stops and the sheriff’s begins, having the word tripping in his vocabulary--a term prostitutes use when they are being rounded up by the law. Clearly, Moselle said, Aguas is familiar with the late-night world of prostitution.

Moselle’s hunch, though, is that Tracy may have just left, for whatever reason.

“These girls move around a lot,” he said. “She could be working in Seattle.”

Aguas drove west on Sunset. He pointed to a sign that said “No Turns,” which he said was put there to discourage would-be johns from circling the block while negotiating a price. He said that the night before, a dozen hookers were seated on the curb at Havenhurst Drive and Sunset while police wrote out their tickets. Then he pointed to a corner at Olive Drive and Sunset, which he said was where Tracy did most of her business before she disappeared.

“I saw her when I began working nights,” he said. “She’d smile. She’d wave.”

He drove on, past a hooker dressed in a white miniskirt, white hose and white shoes who was making a date.

“She’s real pretty,” he said. “She makes lots of money.”

Later in the week, Aguas ran into Appolonia near the Hyatt Hotel. He said he asked again if she had heard from Tracy, but the answer was the same as it had been for months.

“She said they still don’t know nothing about Tracy,” Aguas said. “She told me Tracy’s relatives are here, trying to find out what happened to her.”