W.E.B Griffin - The Traffickers

Then he barked in Spanish: “We have your loved one! Do as I say, and you will see her alive again!”

Delgado carefully explained that he wanted the two thousand dollars that was to be paid to the coyote. He said that it was to be sent to Edgar Cisneros at the Western Union, Mall of Mexico, Philadelphia.

Delgado had a fake Texas driver’s license with that name and his picture. He’d bought it for three hundred dollars. It had been made by the same counterfeiter who lived in a loft apartment near that expensive private school, Southern Methodist University. He sold to the sorority girls and other students there what the kids simply called “fakes.”

“If you do not do as I say, and especially if you contact the police,” Delgado said in an angry tone of voice, “your loved one will be dead this time tomorrow. When we get your money, she will be taken to Dallas and released.”

He put the recorder and the cell phone face-to-face and hit PLAY.

“Someone! Anyone! Help me! No…”

After a few seconds, he broke off the call.

Delgado looked at Miguel Guilar. Guilar smirked. He knew damn well that Delgado had no intention whatever of releasing the girls. They were all, or at least the more attractive ones, going to be moved to Philadelphia.

Miguel Guilar’s phone then buzzed once. He pulled it from the clip on his belt, then read the text message.

“Uh-oh!” Guilar said. “Look at this! And a Mexico City number.”

He held out the phone for Delgado to read it.

“What do you think that means?” Guilar said.

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.