refew xrees and beat generation oddballs west to california. the mother road's glory days are behind her now. in albuquerque where the old highway becomes central avenue, the city's decidedly down-scaled drug and prostitution trade flourishes. >> used to be a motel here. >> cops call this section of central avenue the war zone, and the women who work its shadows prostitutes. but ever since her early days in uniformed patrol, ida lopez has called them her girls. >> i got to know a lot of them, you know. okay, we could chase them out, but for me there was always a story to them. >> ida says the story she heard back then were heartbreaking tales of abuse and neglect that almost always had drugs at their core. >> these are hurting women. i mean, you'll see some out here that they need that fix.