XI

[ONE] Philadelphia International Airport Thursday, September 10, 9:01 A.M. Eastern Standard Time Juan Paulo Delgado pulled out of the parking lot at the Avis Rent A Car facility, the tires of his Chevy Tahoe squealing, speeding off so fast that he almost snapped off the white barrier arm at the security booth.

Delgado was pissed off. The causes were many, and growing, the most recent being the attitude of the Avis assistant night manager. They had had a long-running arrangement in which Delgado could park in the employee parking lot for as long as he wanted, in exchange for which Delgado saw that the guy got an occasional FedEx envelope of heroin, sometimes cut and mixed and packaged as Queso Azul, sometimes pure, uncut smack. The guy sold it to supplement-very damn nicely-the income he got from the Avis gig, which he said he kept only because he needed the health benefits for his daughter’s sickle-cell anemia.

But now, like the others, that’s not good enough anymore.

No. The bastard wants more.

Just like that fucking Skipper Olde was always squeezing me.

And that pendejo who worked with him and cooked Skipper’s meth.

They both got their payback…

Delgado was also still pissed, of course, at Ramos Manuel Chac?n and his incredibly stupid mistake.

Make that mistakes.

First, not paying the bill.

Then sending that text from jail.

Who knows what he had to promise the other inmate so he could use that phone?

Delgado knew that all kinds of contraband existed in Texas jails. Almost anything could be had for a price paid to the right guard. And that included cell phones.

It was well known that in the state slam in Huntsville, Texas, the Mexican Mafia handled their outside business dealings using cell phones. The gangbangers called in hits on rival gang members, for example. Once, they’d even phoned a judge at his home, threatened him, then named his daughter and said they knew where she went to high school.

That, of course, had triggered a clean sweep of the cells. Contraband was always confiscated at these things, but then the bribes to the guards would begin again. And then there’d come another sweep. And on and on.

It’s only a matter of time before that phone he used gets picked up.

And then who knows how long till they track down the phones that were called from it.

If Miguel and Jorge are smart, they’ll get new phones.

Me, too. I’ve had this one a week now.

And Ramos can rot in jail.

I’d be careful not to drop the soap, if I were you, mi amigo. And keep your back to the wall…

Then there’d been that newspaper photograph and story this morning.

That one really pissed him off.

Stupid doctor bitch.

After they had fled the Dallas house, Delgado got the hell out of Dodge as fast as he could. He’d had Miguel Guilar and Jorge Ernesto Aguilar drive him the twenty-five miles out to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport so that he could catch the first direct flight to Philadelphia. Dallas Love Field didn’t have anything departing for Philly till hours later, and those flights made stops en route. His American Airlines Boeing 727 had left DFW at four thirty Texas Standard Time.

When the American Airlines plane had landed in Philly at eight thirty Eastern Standard Time, he’d turned on his phone.

The phone had pinged three times, announcing three new text messages. One was from Guilar. He’d written that he and Jorge Ernesto Aguilar had driven the Suburban back past the stash house-and reported that the place was crawling with cops. And ambulances.

Delgado had replied that the sooner he and El Cheque got on the road headed for Philly with the guns and money and drugs, the better. Especially if they were going to finish with the ransom calls; that window of financial opportunity was quickly closing now that the people had been found in the house. It would slam shut very soon.

They could establish another stash house in Dallas, or maybe even Fort Worth, or both, sometime soon.

Delgado, still on the plane, had next sent a text message to Omar Quintanilla: meet me @ mall de mejico in 30 mins it?s payday Then, as he was walking from the concourse to get his bag, he passed a newsstand with three neat tall stacks of the Thursday edition of The Philadelphia Bulletin.

Actual paper newspapers, he thought.

No computer required.

As best as he could recall, Juan Paulo Delgado had never bought an actual newspaper. And he’d had no intention of doing so.

But then he noticed the big color photograph, on the newspaper’s front page, of an attractive blond woman in a white medical lab coat. She stood behind a bank of microphones at what looked like a hospital.

The headline above the photograph read: DOCTOR CONFIRMS BURN VICTIM SHOT TO DEATH IN ICU BED.

He picked up a copy and unfolded it.

Then he read the caption:

Dr. Amanda Law, MD, FACS, FCCM, spoke late Wednesday at a news conference and confirmed that a patient had been shot to death in the Temple University Hospital’s Burn Unit ICU around 11 A.M. She confirmed the identity of the murder victim, first reported in Wednesday’s editions of The Bulletin, as that of twenty-seven-year-old J. Warren Olde, Jr., of Philadelphia. His murder was one of four in Philadelphia on Wednesday. “The cowards who carried out these killings are despicable,” Dr. Law said at the end of what became an emotionally charged statement. “Shooting a helpless patient as he lay unconscious in his hospital bed is a vile act. And then there were those helpless bystanders shot in the Reading Terminal Market. I would personally like to stare these evil people in the eye and see that they suffer real justice.” Police said the investigations continue in both shootings. See full story on page A3 and online at www.phillybulletin.com. (Photograph by Phan Hoang / Bulletin Photographer) “So you would, Dr. Law?” Delgado said aloud, bitterly. “Well, I’d like to meet a lovely girl like you, too.”

He looked at the stand that held the stack of newspapers. The sign on it said the paper cost seventy-five cents.

No wonder I don’t buy papers!

He dug in his pocket, and found three quarters among his change. He left them on the stack of papers, then went to Baggage Claim for his duffle. And then he caught the Avis shuttle bus to the lot.

When Delgado turned off South Sixth Street into the parking lot of the Mall of Mexico, he saw Omar Quintanilla sitting on the sidewalk.

Slender and wiry, the twenty-two-year-old Quintanilla stood five-eight and weighed 110 pounds. He had dull, vacuous eyes and kept his dark hair cut close to the scalp. Baggy jeans hung loosely on his thin frame, as did a white droopy sleeveless T-shirt.

Quintanilla saw Delgado’s SUV pull into the lot and stood slowly, then more or less sauntered across the parking lot. He did so slightly bent over, making it look as if it annoyed him to expend the effort.

Delgado watched, and shook his head.

That’s not the same guy I played football with in high school.

Around the drugs, he’s a really different guy…

Delgado found a parking spot in the shade of a small tree. The spot not only provided him relief from the morning sun, it gave him a view of the front door and the sidewalk along Sixth Street.

Quintanilla walked up to the driver’s door. Delgado already had the window down.

“Hola,” Quintanilla said absently, reaching in with his right hand to bump fists with Delgado.

“Everything’s gone to shit in Dallas,” Delgado said.

“S?,” Quintanilla said, nodding. “I heard from Miguel. That’s some bad shit.”

Delgado nodded. He scanned the parking lot. There was nothing unusual. Just a steady stream of cars and trucks coming and going. A white Ford pickup was stopped at the sidewalk along Sixth. Three Hispanic male day laborers were at its driver’s window and negotiating some business.