[ONE] 2408 N. Mutter Street, Philadelphia Sunday, November 1, 4:08 P.M. Driving up North Mutter Street, a narrow one-way lane that ran through Kensington, Will Curtis thought that this godforsaken section of Philadelphia looked not only like time had forgotten it, but also like it had suffered curses worse than all the biblical plagues combined.
Lice, disease, death of firstborn, hail and fire… hell, it's all here and more.
Finding the row house at 2408 had been no problem whatsoever.
It's the only damn house standing in the entire 2400 block!
Curtis bumped the tires of the rented white Ford Freestar over the curb. He stopped the minivan opposite the house where a set of marble steps was all that remained of one row house, and threw the gearshift into park.
He was still sweating profusely despite having had the windows down to let the chilly November air flow inside. He dropped his head back against the top of the seat and let out a long sigh.
Never thought I'd get here.
He was only a little more than three miles from the Mays row house on Wilder Street. But after leaving the Mays house, he had barely made it six blocks down Dickinson Street before his stomach had twisted into a nasty knot.
Curtis wasn't sure if the cause of his distress was the chemotherapy treatments for his prostate cancer or his confrontation with Kendrik Mays. Or both.
While the physical exertion of tracking down the bastard in that basement had worn him out, the mental aspects had taken a genuine toll on him, too. He'd been deeply disturbed by the filthy living conditions and by seeing that poor teenage girl being held captive in the basement and sexually abused.
Which of course had made him think of Wendy, and her being bound and attacked by that pervert John "JC" Nguyen.
Who now will never harm another.
He and Mays and all the others are in that corner of hell reserved for such miserable scum.
What had not bothered Will Curtis-either mentally or physically-was the actual killing of Kendrik. He'd found that shooting vile perverts troubled him less and less each time. Especially when he saw that eliminating them forever freed others-such as the young girl and Shauna Mays-from their awful abuse.
Whatever the cause of Curtis's distress, it was the effect that he was more concerned about right now.
And if he didn't do something fast, it was going to get ugly.
Speeding down Dickinson, he desperately looked for someplace that was open on a Sunday morning and would have a toilet he could use.
But in this residential stretch of Dickinson, there was no gas station, no fast-food restaurant.
Nothing!
He'd just about decided that he would have to take a chance and knock on the door of a random house when he saw something a block up on the right: a big red church.
Thank God!
Literally…
The church-he couldn't readily tell which denomination it was-had no parking lot, and there were no spaces along the curb available, so he nosed the minivan up on a basketball court at the rear of the building.
And then he awkwardly bolted for the church door with signage reading BANQUET ROOM. He passed a few parishioners, but no one appeared to give him a second thought.
He found two restrooms in the corner just inside that door.
Thank God, he thought again.
As he was leaving thirty minutes later, he saw a small crucifix and a collection jar by the door he'd come in. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his wad of cash, then put a twenty-dollar bill in the jar and crossed himself.
Once back in the minivan, he started to sweat heavily, then felt faint.
What the hell is going on?
He turned the van to head back up Passyunk Avenue and made it as far as the Geno's Cheesesteaks before feeling like he really was going to pass out. He found an open parking spot at the edge of a park across the street, and quickly pulled into it and shut off the engine.
He took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of cheesesteaks from Geno's. Then he exhaled slowly and decided he should close his eyes for a second.
He awoke four hours later.
Groggy and weak, it had taken him some time to get his bearings-where he was and how the hell he'd wound up parked near Geno's. But then it had all come back to him. As had, very curiously, he thought, his appetite.
Has to be the damned chemo.
They said it causes some really weird things to happen.
Shakily, he got out of the minivan and made his way across the street. At Geno's, he ordered his and Wendy's favorite-a provolone cheesesteak with extra grilled onions, a side of freedom fries, and a Coca-Cola with the crunchy pellet-size ice. Will Curtis, having slurped the last of the drink, now chewed on the tiny ice pellets as he looked at the run-down row house on Mutter. Clearly there once had been wall-to-wall row houses all along the block. But now only one house was still standing. Some ramshackle fencing-a mix of chain link and four-foot-high rotted wooden pickets spray-painted with gang graffiti-surrounded a few of the abandoned lots. The fenced lots held nothing more than weeds and trash, everything from piles of old car tires to a couple of discarded water heaters.
Curtis thought that the lone row house, two stories plus a basement that couldn't total fifteen hundred square feet altogether, looked like it could fall at any moment. Especially without the added support of the row houses that once had been on either side. The red brick of its front-tagged with gang graffiti-had a spiderweb of gaping cracks that ran from the sidewalk all the way up to its sagging roof.
The rusty white front door was visible through the upper half of an aluminum storm door, where the window glass was missing. The storm door was partly open and hung crookedly. To its left, the downstairs window barely held a battered air conditioner that looked as if it had been targeted for theft more than once.
Curtis thought it was odd, particularly in a neighborhood as rough as Kensington, that there were no burglar bars mounted over the windows and doors of the structure. Then he decided that the occupants likely could not afford the iron bars, and even if they could pay for them, there was probably nothing of real value inside to protect against theft.
Why bother?
There was a short flight of three marble steps from the narrow sidewalk up to the front door. The steps had been painted red long ago, and now the paint was faded and chipped. Someone had drawn on the steps with white chalk-and very recently, as there were two broken stalks of chalk lying next to the drawings.
The drawings clearly had been made by a child. They showed three stick people: a tall one, a medium-size one, and a small one that was maybe toddler size. The child had drawn the sky with a couple clouds and a disproportionately enormous sun. The sun's rays-a heavy series of chalk lines-were shining down on the three stick people.
Despite this squalor, the poor kid seems to have some sort of "sunny" optimism.
Or maybe it's a quiet despair, and the kid wishes those rays would shine on his family.
Well, if the chalk "family" is any indication, the good news is that someone's in that house.
He took the top FedEx envelope from the stack on the dashboard and glanced at the name on its bill of lading: LEROI CHEATHAM.
Wonder if one of those larger stick figures is supposed to be LeRoi?
If it is LeRoi, the kid'll soon have one fewer stick figure to draw.
And maybe the other large stick figure can go collect a ten-grand reward.
Curtis remembered that Cheatham, a big eighteen-year-old with droopy eyes and a goatee, hadn't even completed middle school. The Wanted sheet inside the envelope stated that he was a fugitive from Megan's Law, having failed four months earlier to register as a convicted sex offender after enjoying an early release courtesy of the prison parole board. Unsurprisingly, it also stated that Cheatham had failed to maintain contact with his Pennsylvania State Parole Agent, an offense for which there was an additional warrant.
LeRoi had the habit of snorting bumps of crystal meth, then entertaining himself during the adrenaline rush that followed by raping the first female he could snatch off the street and drag into an alley or park.
He'd stupidly dragged his last known victim, the one who'd helped finally put him behind bars, back to his bedroom in the stand-alone row house on Mutter Street. The police found him there hours later, passed out and naked on the floor, after the fifteen-year-old victim had escaped and led them back to the address that was impossible to miss.
Curtis thought he detected movement in the house. He looked back, first to the artwork on the steps, then to the doors. The rusty white front door was swinging inward.
A very skinny black boy about five feet tall stepped into the opening. He looked to be ten, maybe twelve, and was drinking from a yellow plastic cup that covered most of his narrow face. He wore oversize khaki pants with the cuffs rolled up, a faded and stained navy sweatshirt, and dirty white sneakers.
His dark almond eyes darted in the direction of the white FedEx minivan parked across the street, but he didn't seem concerned about it. He then pushed on the storm door and stepped outside.
Could he be the medium-size stick person?
Which would mean there's maybe an adult and an infant inside?
The cup still to his face, the young boy pushed the storm door shut, then sat down on the top step. Curtis saw that he'd situated himself so that his back was mostly to the FedEx minivan but he could still see it out of the corner of his eye. Then he put down the cup, picked up a piece of the broken chalk, and went back to working on his art project.
Curtis slipped the Glock.45-caliber pistol under his waistband behind his belt buckle, then stepped out of the minivan, carrying the envelope addressed to LeRoi Cheatham.
When he was halfway across the street, Curtis called out, "This is the Cheatham home, right, young man?"
The kid did not look up, but just shook his head. He kept drawing, his eye darting a couple times to follow the approaching deliveryman.
"That's nice art," Curtis said as he stopped at the steps. "Who are the people?"
The kid didn't reply.
Curtis pointed to the smallest figure. "Is the little one your baby brother?"
The kid shook his head as he scratched out another cloud.
"Your sister?" Curtis pursued.
He shook his head again. He tapped the stick figure with the chalk, then proudly declared, "It be me, muthafucka!"
What? Curtis thought.
He found himself somewhat shocked, first by the out-of-the-blue expletive from the young boy's mouth, and then by the disconnect between what he saw in the drawing and what the boy said it was supposed to be.
Weird. The kid has no sense of scale.
But wait… a twelve-year-old drawing stick figures?
He must really be backward.
Maybe some mental defect from his mother smoking crack when she was pregnant. Or from bad diet. Or just being dropped when he was a baby.
Maybe he's got that-what's it called?-Tourette's syndrome.
Then again, he probably hears people swearing all the time, and no one tells him not to do it himself.
The kid went back to drawing clouds.
"Nice clouds," Curtis said. "What's your name?"
"Michael," the boy said. Then he nodded once, as if making a point.
Michael? Well, at least something's normal around here. But I bet it's probably spelled weird, like Leroy is "LeRoi."
"Michael what?"
"Michael Floyd," he said, and again nodded once.
"Nice to meet you, Michael Floyd."
The kid suddenly pointed to the medium-size stick figure. "That be Mama," he said.
"Very nice. Who is the other one? Your father?"
The kid shook his head and said, "That my uncle."
"Does he live here?"
Michael shook his head again.
"What's your uncle's name?"
"Uncle LeRoi," he said, punctuating that with a nod.
Ding-ding! We have a winner! Will Curtis thought as he glanced at the door of the house. And if he's in the "family" drawing…
He said: "LeRoi Cheatham? Is he home?"
"Don't live here no more. Told you that, muthafucka."
"Is your mother home?"
He shook his head.
"You're home alone?"
He nodded.
"Look, Michael, I have this very important envelope for your uncle." Curtis held it out toward the boy, who turned to look at it. "See? Says right here, 'to LeRoi Cheatham.' Do you know where I can find him so he can have his mail?"
The boy nodded. "He at Demetri's."
"Can you tell me where that is"-Curtis motioned with the envelope-"so I can give him this?"
"It that way," Michael said, pointing with the chalk to the south.
"What's the address?"
He shrugged.
"Is it close? Can you show me?"
He shook his head, then said, "Don't walk there no more."
"Why not?"
"Gangstas. Muthafuckas hit me. Kick me."
He gets beat up?
"Nobody will bother you with me around, Michael."
The boy shook his head vigorously.
Well, he must've really gotten his ass kicked.
No surprise. Law of the jungle is to prey on the weak.
"Michael, listen to me. This envelope is very important. I'm sure your uncle would really want to have it."
Curtis pointed to the minivan.
"You want to ride in my new delivery vehicle? You show me where he lives, we'll give him the envelope, then I'll bring you back here."
The boy jerked his head to look across the street. His eyes grew wide. Then he turned back to Curtis and nodded enthusiastically.
"Yeah, muthafucka! I ride to LeRoi! I tired of drawing." [TWO] Executive Command Center The Roundhouse Eighth and Race Streets, Philadelphia Sunday, November 1, 4:29 P.M. "Okay," Matt Payne said, rubbing his eyes, "let's bring up the last one, Kendrik Mays. Not that it's likely we'll find anything new on him yet. But in the spirit of leaving no stone under the stone unturned…"
Matt felt a brief vibration in his front pants pocket, and he reached in and pulled out his cell phone.
He looked at the screen. It read: "(2) TEXT MESSAGES FROM AMANDA LAW."
"Oh, shit!" he said aloud. Then he thought, Two? I never felt the damn phone vibrate before.
As he started thumbing the phone to read the texts, he saw the signal-strength icon.
Not even one goddamn nanobit or -byte or whatever of signal!
He looked at Kerry Rapier and said, "Is it just me, or is the cell service in here worthless?"
"Just you, Marshal," Rapier said with a straight face.
Harris snorted, then said, "My signal reception's lousy, too, Matt."
Payne eyed Rapier, who smiled back.
"Seriously," Rapier then added, "it's ironic that we have some four million bucks' worth of high-tech commo equipment in here but, except for over there by the window, we can't get decent cell service." He paused, then added: "If it's any consolation-as in, misery loves company-I heard the top guy at AT amp;T couldn't get a signal in his Hops Haus Tower penthouse. So he personally ordered that a cellular antenna be added on the roof of the building-and he still couldn't get a reliable connection!"
Payne shook his head.
"Gotta love technology," he said, his eyes falling to his phone's screen. The text message, which had a time stamp of 2:45 P.M., read: