Delgado then thumbed: amp; U GO 2 TEMPLE LIKE WE TALKED… DO IT NOW A second later, the incoming reply vibrated Delgado’s phone:
Delgado put down the phone and turned to the computer monitor.
Going to the website for Southwest Airlines, he punched in PHL and DAL, checking for flights out of Philadelphia International Airport going into Dallas Love Field.
“Shit!” he said, seeing he’d missed the nine-thirty departure that morning.
He clicked on the next-most-direct routing, Southwest Flight 55, and booked it, paying for the ticket with a Visa credit card. The bill would go to a post office mail drop in a shopping strip center in East Dallas.
Then he picked up the cellular phone and sent another text to a different cellular phone number:
PLAN 2 PICK ME UP @ 730PM @ LOVE, SW#55
As he went to put down his phone, he saw a kid enter the coffee shop.
Delgado guessed that the short boy, who was black and overweight, could not be more than fifteen and was very likely closer to twelve. And that extra weight was probably baby fat. He had on very baggy blue jeans that were hanging loosely, a white T-shirt with a silk-screened image of a hip-hop singer, white sneakers, and a solid white ball cap with the bill turned sideways.
He looked awkward-and not exactly what Delgado would have considered a regular coffee drinker.
After entering the caf? slowly, the boy made a beeline for the register at the counter. He kept his head down as he went, looking mostly at his feet with an occasional glance around the room.
The short fat kid dug deep into his jeans pocket and produced a folded paper bill. He slapped the money on the counter. The bony male clerk then pulled two coffee cups from a tall stack upside down on the counter, and quickly but casually reached under the counter. It was near where he had put Delgado’s FedEx envelope. He came back up with the cups, but now one was inserted in the other. The clerk turned to the sink behind him, then filled the top cup with tap water and snapped a lid on it.
Delgado glanced at his own coffee sitting beside the computer monitor. The steam-hot double espresso had been given to him in only a single cup.
Delgado looked back to the counter as the clerk was handing the stacked cups to the kid. The boy took them, then, without waiting for change, turned and went out the door somewhat quicker than he’d entered.
Once outside the door, the boy pulled the top cup out and tossed it in the trash receptacle next to the outside seating, then took off down the sidewalk in a trot.
Delgado made eye contact with the clerk, who smiled knowingly back.
The phone vibrated in his hand, and he read the incoming reply: