“Okay,” Guilar said, then walked with Delgado to the large sliding door on the other side of the van.

Guilar and Delgado were standing in front of the sliding door when Aguilar walked up to them, holding the TEC-9 that had been in the Expedition’s console with his Beretta.

No surprise that he would like that gun.

He likes looks.

Delgado said to him, “El Cheque, you take the females into the house.”

“S?,” he replied. “One minute.”

He trotted to the back door of the house and opened it. The lights from inside backlit him. Then he trotted back to the van.

“Okay,” El Cheque said.

Delgado, keeping his Beretta along his right thigh, opened the sliding door with his left hand.

“Women and children first!” Delgado said in Spanish, his tone upbeat. “Come, come! Follow El Cheque. He will show you to the house.”

Delgado looked at the woman sitting at the end of the second-row bench seat nearest the door. She was at least forty, overweight, and wholly unattractive. Slowly, hesitantly, she slid to the edge of the seat and stepped to the ground. She pulled a dirt-smudged silver backpack out from under the seat.

That is all of her possessions, Delgado thought.

Amazing.

Then El Cheque gestured toward the open back door of the house.

The woman did not move. She looked in the van to the dark-haired girl of about eight who’d been sitting beside her. The woman waited until the girl exited the van and collected her small vinyl overnight bag. The girl walked to the woman and took her hand. And they stood there.

The angry man Delgado had seen in the rearview mirror was the last one on that bench seat. He started sliding across the seat toward the door.

“Alto! ” Delgado said forcefully, holding up his left hand palm outward.

The man stopped. He made an angry face.

“That is my family,” he said, gesturing toward the woman and child.

You poor bastard, Delgado thought, glancing at the woman.

Love is blind.

“Women and children first,” Delgado said again. He looked to the next row back, which held four teenage girls. “Come, ladies. You’re next.”

As they stepped off, Delgado caught El Cheque out of the corner of his eye. El Cheque was watching with growing interest as the teenage girls exited.

Taking your pick, are you?

Your pick of one?

Or of which one first?

Three of the four were about fifteen and somewhat attractive. The third was maybe eighteen and, Delgado thought, not exactly unattractive. But she was a bit pudgy, and had badly bleached streaks in her hair. There were tattoos on her arms. They were not gang symbols, as far as he could tell.

Delgado looked back inside the van. He decided he wouldn’t have trouble with the other male. He looked to be about seventeen, and sat on the last bench, up against the window. He naturally would be the last off. Sitting next to him was a very attractive girl wearing a pink lace blouse. She looked a little younger than the boy, maybe sixteen. By their body language, they appeared to be more than just seatmates.

He motioned for Aguilar to come over.

“When you get them in there, collect all their phones and whatever address books or papers they have. Strip them of everything, especially any weapons or anything that could be used as a weapon. If they’re difficult, use that TEC-9 if necessary. Then let me know when it’s done.”

Delgado waited until Aguilar had herded all the women into the house before he let the two males in the van even move.

They had of course protested. But Delgado quelled that by raising his pistol. He said in Spanish, “I can use this now, or you can do as I say-and find out if I let you live later. Right now, I don’t need either of you or this van.”

Then Delgado said, “What you’re going to do to stay alive is step out of the van one at a time.” He pointed the pistol at the teenage boy in back. “You first.”

The boy slowly worked his way from the back of the van to the open sliding door.

“Okay,” Delgado said, “now step out and lean against the van’s hood, hands on your neck.”

Delgado had had some experience with this series of motions. However, he’d been the one taking orders from the police.

Delgado then pulled one of the zip ties from his pocket. He looked at Miguel Guilar and said, “Get my back.”

Guilar nodded, and aimed the shotgun at the van, the muzzle pointing between the boy on the hood and the man inside.

Delgado then decocked his Beretta and put it in his waistband. He stepped over to the teenager and with his right hand grabbed the boy’s right wrist. He brought it down to the small of the boy’s back and held it there. Then he started to do the same with the left. But when he grabbed the teenager’s left wrist, the kid spun on him, striking Delgado in the cheekbone with his elbow.

“Motherfucker!” Delgado yelled in pain, and wrestled the teenager to the ground.

Guilar stepped in closer, swinging the muzzle of the shotgun toward the two, trying to get an aim that didn’t include Delgado.

Then he saw the man in the van start to move. Guilar quickly pointed the shotgun at him, and the man cowered back in his seat.

Guilar looked back down at Delgado.

He saw that Delgado now had the teenager on his belly, a knee on the back of his neck that forced his face into the grass. Delgado’s other knee pinned the teenager’s right arm against his back. With some effort, he got the boy’s wrists crossed. He pulled out the other zip tie from his pocket and looped it around the wrists. He threaded the tag end of the tie into the box end and pulled tight. The kid screamed as the plastic banding cut into his flesh.

Delgado stood-and kicked the kid in the face.

The teenager’s nose began bleeding profusely.

“Pendejo!” Delgado said, gently touching his injured cheek. He spat on the boy’s back. “Try that again and you’re dead!”

Delgado then turned to the man in the van. His eyes were wide, and he had his hands up, palms out, in surrender.

Delgado went to the mirror on the door of the van and tried to inspect his injury. In the dim light, he could not see anything obvious. But it hurt like hell.

He looked at the teenager, who was trying to sit up.

“I’m not through with you,” Delgado said.

The teenager glared back defiantly.

El Cheque then stuck his head out the back door of the house.

“Done!” he called to Delgado.

After the older male had been zip-tied without incident, Delgado looked at Guilar.

“Okay,” he said, “now put the van in the garage, then get some chain and locks off the lawn trailers and bring them inside.”

When Delgado approached the back door of the house, he held the two zip-tied males by the back of their shirt collars. He pushed them through the open doorway and into the kitchen.

The women and children were sitting in mismatched chairs, some old broken ones made of wood, but the majority white molded plastic.

The girl in the pink lace shirt saw the teenage boy’s bloodied face and began screaming. She ran to the boy.

She looked back at El Gato, her eyes wide with fear.

“Why did you do this?” she wailed.

“He is a very lucky boy,” Delgado said in Spanish. “He could be dead right now.”

Guilar came in with the chains and locks that normally were used to secure the lawn mowers and other tools to the trailers.

“Okay,” Delgado said in English, looking between Guilar and El Cheque, “you know what to do next.” He nodded at the teenage boy and the girl in the pink lace shirt. “I’ll handle these two.”

[THREE] 140 South Broad Street, Philadelphia Wednesday, September 9, 8:58 P.M.

It was only a little more than a mile from the Medical Examiner’s Office on University Avenue to South Broad Street. Payne got on Chestnut Street, and planned on taking it the whole way, passing within a couple blocks of his place on Rittenhouse Square.