W.E.B Griffin - The Traffickers

Back upstairs, he’d stood watching from the doorway to the kitchen, taking an occasional pull from a liter bottle of agave liquor he held by his hip.

As Rosario continued sobbing, he’d finally gone back into the kitchen and poured two fingers of the tequila into a plastic cup. He’d then added twice as much orange juice to that and taken the drink into the parlor. With some effort, they got the girl to drink it.

After a short while, the alcohol had the desired effect. Rosario became somewhat calmer. She still trembled at times, but at least she no longer wailed.

Rosario now sat on the back-room parlor couch as Paco and Salma Esteban came back into the room. She had her knees pressed to her breasts and both arms wrapped tightly around the outside of her knees. She slowly rocked to and fro as she tried to hold back the sobs that seemed to rise from deep down inside.

“Rosario,” Salma Esteban began softly, “you do not have to do this thing now. You have been through very much.”

She shook her head vigorously.

“No,” she said. “It must be done.”

She sobbed.

“And I must go to church,” she added, “to confession.”

Paco and Salma Esteban exchanged glances.

Paco Esteban said, “Who’s the girl?”

His wife glared at him for asking such a question at such a delicate time.

He shrugged, in effect saying, What did I say?

Rosario buried her face in her knees and breasts. Then she looked up and between them.

She wailed, “I killed my cousin!”

Paco and Salma Esteban again exchanged glances, this time ones of deep shock.

[TWO] The Roundhouse Eighth and Race Streets, Philadelphia Wednesday, September 9, 8:15 A.M.

Lieutenant Jason Washington was in his glass-walled office in the Homicide Unit. Minutes earlier, he had decided to deal with the matter of Detective Bari at a later time, if not date, and felt a twinge of guilt for having more or less brushed off Denny Coughlin’s question by saying the “administrative problem” had been taken care of.

Now he turned to reviewing the notes Tony Harris had taken so far in the Philly Inn job. He noticed the sound of voices growing louder in the outer office.

Washington looked up and saw Sergeant Matthew M. Payne being welcomed by a small crowd of detectives. They shook Payne’s hand and patted him on the back as he slowly but certainly moved through them and toward Washington’s office.

Washington heard Payne say, “I’d better check in with the boss.” A moment later, Payne rapped a knuckle on the edge of the doorway.

“Matthew,” Jason Washington said warmly. “I had heard a rumor that you were on your way back to the Roundhouse.”

“How are you, Jason?”

They shook hands.

“Very well, Matthew. Thank you for asking.”

“Mind if I ask where you came across this rumor? I was really afraid that the rumor circulating was the one that painted me as having turned in my gun and badge and gone off to take art classes in the south of France.”

Washington chuckled. He motioned with his hand, waving Payne into one of the two metal-framed chairs across from his desk.

“Oh, no,” Washington said, smiling. “That rumor-and it had you in Gay Paree, emphasis on the Gay-died a slow death weeks ago. This new one I got from far up the chain of command.”

Payne figured that one out-From my call to Hollaran-right when Washington confirmed it.

“I just enjoyed a visit to Commissioner Coughlin’s office,” Washington said.

Payne nodded but didn’t say anything, waiting for him to continue.

“The commissioner had brought me and my boss and his boss in,” Washington went on, “to discuss the situation of the Philly Inn.”

Payne nodded. “I was just out there at the scene.”

“So I understand.” He pointed at the notes on his desk. “I’ve been speaking with Tony.”

Payne nodded again. “Does that mean Tony’s got the job? And not Bari?”

Washington considered his reply for a long moment, then said, “It’s now Tony’s. The answer to the other part of your query is-how do I put this?-that it’s on the back burner for now.”

“As long as Tony’s got it, I don’t care about the how or why. I want in on this, too, Jason. It’s important to me.”

Washington’s eyebrows went up.

“Matthew, it would never cross my mind that you had anything other than a strictly professional interest in this case.” He paused. “Would it?”

“My interest is to find out-professionally-what the hell happened out there. And why.”

Washington did not immediately reply. He looked at the notes on his desk. “Tony tells me you have a history with”-he glanced at the notes to refresh his memory-“with this Warren Olde and Rebecca Benjamin.”

“And with Chad Nesbitt,” Payne said, then went on and gave Washington all the background he’d given Tony Harris.

“Matthew, you didn’t hear this from me.”

“Yessir,” Payne said, but it was more of a question.

“Denny Coughlin is of course going to welcome you back with open arms-”

“Great! I didn’t want this to be difficult.”

Washington gave him a hard look. “Kindly allow me to complete my thoughts, Matthew.”

“Sorry.”

“Thank you. And what the commissioner has in mind-and, again, you did not hear it from me-is that you’re welcome back to your desk.” He nodded to the outer office of Homicide. “You’ll work out of here.”

“I’m tied to a desk? What is that about, Jason?”

“He’s concerned for you, Matthew. We all are. You went through a lot.”

“Which was why I took the thirty days. Now I’m back. I’m well. And I want to work.”

Both Lieutenant Jason Washington and Sergeant Matt Payne knew there never was any real chance that Payne would be denied his job if and when he said that he wanted it.

After all, it was a fact that the shooting had been declared a good one; thus, the department could not use that against him. And it was a fact that the psychiatrist, Dr. Aaron Stein, had said that Payne had suffered only from emotional exhaustion-“The treatment is rest,” Stein said, “and don’t push yourself so hard again”-which sure as hell was not cause for suspension or termination.

Finally, while it had been the Number Two man in the police department hierarchy, Denny Coughlin, who’d strongly suggested to Payne that he take off the deserved time, it also was a fact that it had been exactly that-a suggestion.

And now Uncle Denny is probably going to throw Dr. Stein’s “Don’t push yourself so hard again” line in my face.

Which translates to running in low gear while driving a goddamn desk.

Had anyone hinted at denying Sergeant Payne his job, Payne knew that technically he could have created one helluva stink. Starting with the Fraternal Order of Police getting its lawyers to file grievances against the department to reinstate Sergeant Payne, and on up to a team of big-gun litigators from the prestigious firm of Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo amp; Lester dragging the City of Philadelphia to the Supreme Court of the United States of America for whatever unlawful action they could muster.

But that was technically. Realistically, of course, no one wanted it to come to blows. And it wouldn’t, because that would not have served either side’s best interests.

“I don’t agree with the order, Matthew, but the commissioner has his reasons. And he’s the boss. I’ll make it as best I can for you. You know that.”

Payne nodded thoughtfully.

And Jason will.

But it’ll still be a personal purgatory.

Payne then said, “Thank you, Jason.”

“You should go upstairs and make your manners. The sooner you start to meet whatever threshold the commissioner has in mind, the sooner everything will be back the way you want it.”