ramos here… i borrow amigos fone… am in houston jail… u bail me out?… police want me 2 say i live on hatcher… y is that?
Juan Paulo Delgado’s eyes went to the envelope.
His stomach suddenly had a huge knot. He had to consciously squeeze his sphincter muscle-he thought he might have shit his pants.
Why? Because you didn’t pay the water bill, you fucking idiot!
And they obviously found it in your car, then bluffed you!
Right about then, El Cheque walked in, holding up his cell phone. He had a confused look.
“Ramos just sent me a text…”
Dammit!
Delgado bolted out of the chair and grabbed the black plastic bag.
“Throw everything important into the trucks!” he said.
“What? Why? And about them?” El Cheque said, gesturing in the general direction of the bedrooms.
Delgado nodded at the black plastic bag.
“This is all we need. We leave them. Let’s go.”
Holding the top of the black plastic bag, Delgado spun it to make a gooseneck, then secured it closed with another overhand knot. When he picked it up, he saw the envelope with FINAL NOTICE! “Fucking moron!”
From inside the black plastic bag, the pink phone with the heart of rhinestones began ringing.
[TWO] Society Hill, Philadelphia Thursday, September 10, 8:36 A.M.
Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV drove up South Third Street in his cobalt-blue BMW coupe. He’d just left his home at Number 9 Stockton Place in Society Hill and was headed for his office at the corporate headquarters of Nesfoods International. He wore expensively tailored slacks and blazer, a custom-made French-cuff dress shirt, and a fine silk necktie.
Nesbitt was talking on the telephone with his secretary, Catherine Taylor, going over his calendar of appointments and meetings for the day. She had just said, “You have a nine o’clock with Feaster Scott, the art director on the new international line of organic soups.” Then, as he approached Lombard Street, he heard the phone beep in his ear and he checked the screen.
It read: CALL WAITING-PACO ESTEBAN.
He said, “Let me call you right back, Cate. Or I’ll see you in a minute.”
Then he hit the button and took the incoming call.
“Hello?”
“Meester Nesbitt, this is Paco Esteban.”
I know that. But it would take more time explaining I have caller ID than it would to ignore the obvious.
“How are you, Paco? Better? Is everything okay?”
“Is bueno,” Paco Esteban said. Then, in a tone that revealed both his pride and his determination, he added, “I have found the evil man.”
“What!” Nesbitt said, the news causing him almost to drive off the street. “Hold on.”
He braked heavily, came almost to a stop, then, because there was no on-street parking, gently rolled up over the low curb and onto the sidewalk to get out of traffic.
He had stopped shy of Pine Street, right across from the Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial. The Polish-born soldier had bitterly battled the Russians-in the Kosciuszko Uprising-before coming to fight in the American Revolutionary War. As a colonel in the Continental Army, he became a hero-later rising to a one-star general-and then had become an American citizen.
Wonder what ole Thaddeus would think of this craziness that’s come to the country he fought so nobly for?
These new immigrants only seem to fight and kill among themselves…
“Okay, Paco,” Nesbitt said somewhat calmly. “Tell me all that again.”
“I know where El Gato is,” El Nariz said.
“This is the evil one?”
“S?. The evil one. El Gato. Means ‘The Cat.’ ”
“And you have seen him?”
“I have seen his evil house. Where he keeps the girls prisoner.”
Nesbitt glanced at the clock on the instrument cluster. It showed eight forty.
I’m going to be late. I’ve got that nine o’clock…
“And I have pictures,” Esteban added.
“Pictures? Of what?”
“Of the girls who El Gato forces to have sex for money.”
Nesbitt could not believe his ears.
This is getting worse by the moment.
How much of this is going to stick to me? “Where are you, Paco?”
“I am at my house. On Sears Street.”
“Over by the Mexican Market?”
“S?.”
That’s really not far from here, Nesbitt thought.
Nesbitt glanced at the clock again: eight forty-five.
He sighed, then reached for the pen and gasoline station receipt that were on the console near the hand brake.
“Give me your address,” he said, turning to the back of the receipt. “I’ll be right there.”
Ten minutes later, Nesbitt turned off South Eighth Street and pulled the shiny M3 to the curb across the street from 823 Sears Street. On the way, he’d just had time to call back Catherine and ask her to reschedule his nine o’clock with Feaster Scott and put anything else on hold.
He looked around.
Jesus, that wasn’t even a mile-but here it’s a world away from Society Hill.
He was well aware that the sports car and his clothing contrasted sharply with the neighborhood. He was more than a little worried about leaving the car unattended-at best it might get keyed, at worst it might disappear altogether.
He hit the master locking button on his car key, locking the doors with an audible click and arming the alarm with an electronic chirp.
He glanced up and down the street, and thought:
Thanks a lot, Skipper, ol’ pal.
What was it that Matt said? Right…
“No good deed goes unpunished.”
Nesbitt knocked on the painted metal front door of the row house. He heard footsteps on the other side of the door and, after a moment, the sounds of multiple locks being opened.
The door swung inward, and Paco Esteban greeted him with a warm smile.
Looking at the short, heavyset man with coarse coffee-colored skin, Chadwick Nesbitt would never have guessed they were the same age.
“Come in, please, Meester Nesbitt.”
Inside, Chad Nesbitt saw that there was a small gathering at the back of the house, four Hispanic women in what appeared to be a parlor. It was sparsely furnished, and the majority of the chairs looked as if they belonged outdoors. The women stopped talking to look toward him, then looked away and went back to their conversation.
“Come into the kitchen, please,” Esteban then said.
The kitchen was still a mess from the making of breakfast. Nesbitt could hear the coffeemaker burping steam as it finished brewing a fresh pot.
Esteban had two cheap coffee mugs in his hand. He did not ask if Nesbitt wanted any; he simply poured coffee in both, then handed one to him.
Nesbitt didn’t feel he could refuse.
“Milk? Sugar?” Esteban said.
“Black is fine. Thank you.” Then he said, “You said you had pictures?”
“S?. I thought that a smart man like you could get them to someone who could help.” He hesitated as their eyes met. “I am not comfortable speaking with authorities.”
Nesbitt nodded.
Esteban brought out his cell phone. He punched a few keys, then handed it to Nesbitt.
“Push this one here to go from one to another,” El Nariz said, indicating a particular key.
As Nesbitt keyed through the images, El Nariz gave him a running commentary as to how he’d gotten the pictures and who was in them. He got to one that had been taken inside the convenience store, the bottom of the frame cut off, showing, barely, the two young Hispanic girls sitting at the folding table and flipping through old magazines.
“Rosario said those two are from Mexico.”
“They don’t even look fourteen years old!” Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV said indignantly, almost spilling his coffee.
He felt shocked to his very core.
“Si.” El Nariz said softly. “Fourteen, Rosario says.”
Nesbitt clicked again. The next image was shot at a forty-five-degree angle, but the subject miraculously was completely within the frame.
“That is their guard, who watches over them. And, sometimes, forces them to have sex with him.”
Chadwick Nesbitt shook his head in disbelief.
He clicked some more, but the images either repeated what he’d already seen or captured display shelving of automotive motor oil cans and toilet paper. Then the first image came back on screen. He handed back the telephone to Esteban.
“And you say you have the address of this evil man’s house?”
“S?. Where El Gato keeps the girls. Hancock Street-2505 Hancock Street. I will never forget that address as long as I am alive.”
Nesbitt wrote “El Gato” and “2505 Hancock” on the back of the gasoline station receipt.
“And I have the number of the van they drive the girls around in,” Esteban said with more than a little pride.
Nesbitt looked him in the eyes, clearly impressed.
“Give it to me,” he said.
Esteban recited, “ ‘ GSY696.’ It is a Ford van. No windows. The color is tan. And very dirty.”
Nesbitt nodded as he wrote it down, trying to squeeze all the information on the small slip of paper.
Nesbitt looked at Esteban. “And is the… the girl’s…”
Esteban nodded. He crossed himself, then said, “May God take pity on me, Ana’s head is still in the freezer in the basement.”
Unbelievable!
A severed head in the freezer!
And fourteen-year-old girls forced into prostitution!
What the hell next?
I do not want to know.
But I know I can’t let this guy get near-what did he call him?-El Gato.
He pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed-dial key.
Okay, Matt. Now it’s a lot later.
Answer your goddamn telephone!
[THREE] Philadelphia Police Headquarters Eighth and Race Streets, Philadelphia Thursday, September 10, 8:16 A.M.
Sergeant Matt Payne and Sergeant Jim Byrth came into the Homicide Unit and saw Detective Tony Harris across the room at his desk, holding two telephones to his head. His left hand held a cell phone, his right shoulder held the receiver of his desk phone to the other ear, and he was taking notes with his right hand.
When Harris saw them approaching, he mouthed, Give me three minutes.
Payne nodded, then touched Byrth on the shoulder.
“Coffee?” Payne said.
“Sure,” Byrth said.
Payne led him to the observation room between two holding rooms that also served as the Homicide Unit’s commissary. Its windows were two-way mirrors for observing those being interviewed in either holding room. It had a Mr. Coffee brewer, as well as an open cardboard bakery box of somewhat fresh doughnuts and, surprising Payne, banana nut muffins. Next to them was an old glass beer mug that someone had obtained from Liberties in what could be termed “a midnight acquisition,” or simply “pilfered.” It had a sign taped to its side that read: REMEMBER TO FEED THE KITTY. Inside were coins and dollar bills.
As Payne poured coffee into two foam cups, Byrth stuck two bucks in the glass mug.
“Welcome to hurry up and wait,” Payne said as he glanced at Harris. “But he sounded really excited when he called.”
Payne sipped his coffee. Then he said, “There. He’s hanging up.”
They walked over to Harris’s desk and drew up two chairs.
“Good morning, Tony,” Byrth said.
“Good morning,” Harris said a lot more pleasantly than he looked. “That said, it may well turn out to be a great morning.”
He pushed a short stack of computer printouts toward Payne.
“Look at those,” Harris said.
Payne flipped through them quickly. They looked familiar-printouts of The Philadelphia Bulletin website pages-but nothing unusual.
“What am I looking for?” he said, then passed the pages to Byrth.
“I had an early breakfast with Stanley Dowbrowski.”
Payne shook his head. “Name doesn’t ring a bell. Should it?”
“Maybe not. He’s sixty-five; been retired from the department some fifteen years now. He lives around the corner from me, over on Brocklehurst Street, and we stay in touch. When I got home last night just shy of midnight, I found that he’d left me a message on my machine. It was too late to call him-he’s always been a morning guy-so I set the alarm for five. Then I called him at oh-dark-thirty. Turns out he’s not as early a riser as he used to be. I woke him-”
Payne chuckled.
Byrth grinned as he put the papers back on Harris’s desk.
“-but he wouldn’t admit it. He said he had something really interesting”-he nodded at the papers-“and said to drop by for coffee and he’d show it to me.”
Harris reached for the heavy china mug on his desk that had a representation of the Philadelphia Police Department logotype and gold lettering that read: DETECTIVE ANTHONY HARRIS-HOMICIDE DIVISION. He took a sip of his coffee.
“I really need to quit. I’ve been sucking this stuff down since five-thirty. Anyway, I swung by the store and grabbed a couple boxes of doughnuts and assorted muffins. Stanley’s in really bad health-on oxygen, thanks to a life of chain-smoking cigarettes-and doesn’t get out. So I figured he could use something fresh from the store.”
Payne gestured toward the commissary. “There’re some-”
“Yeah, that’s some of them. Stanley refused to keep all I brought to him. Said that the guys at the Roundhouse deserved them more.”
“So what did he show you?” Byrth said.
“It’s curious,” Harris said. “It may not mean anything. But-”
“ ‘Turn over the stone under the stone’ sayeth the Great Black Buddha,” Payne said, almost perfectly mimicking Jason Washington’s sonorous voice.
Harris knew Payne was not mocking Washington. But still his eyes darted across the room to Washington’s glass-walled office. It was empty.
Harris picked up the pages. “Stanley likes to add comments at the end of the newspaper articles.”
He flipped to the page that had the article on the shooting at the Temple University Hospital. He pointed to it.
Payne and Byrth looked and read: