The door, its hinges squeaking, opened not quite halfway.
Nesbitt saw standing there a five-foot-two Hispanic male. He was heavyset, with an enormously wide, flat nose. He looked to be maybe thirty.
“Come, come!” the man anxiously told Nesbitt, waving him in.
Nesbitt did. The man looked nervously up and down the sidewalk before closing and locking the door.
Chad Nesbitt looked around the brightly lit, newly renovated laundromat. It was obvious to him that this was Skipper Olde’s work, that this was one of the locations they had acquired in the package deal. There were lines of brand-new commercial-quality washers and dryers in the walls, and positioned neatly against the back of the room at a long tan linoleum counter were waist-high thick-wire baskets on heavy-duty casters.
The man walked up to him and held out his hand.
“Se?or Nesbitt, mucho gusto. I am Paco Esteban.”
“Paco,” Nesbitt said shaking his hand, “you want to tell me now what the hell’s going on here?”
“Here?”
Nesbitt looked around the room. “Okay. Start with that. Why are we here?”
El Nariz looked him in the eyes, then nodded.
“S?. I have agreement with Meester Skeeper,” he began, “to use his machines for my laundry service…”
“… And as the evil man was leaving, he shot holes,” Paco Esteban said, as he finished his five-minute explanation. “And so everyone, all of my crew, they run for their lives. I come back here to clean up the place. I could not leave it the way it was.”
“This evil man shot holes?” Nesbitt repeated.
“S?. Come. I show you.”
El Nariz led Nesbitt to the rear room. He pointed to the arch that was the bullet-riddled masonry wall.
“My God!” Nesbitt exclaimed.
“S?.”
“Why did he do that? I mean, to scare you?”
El Nariz nodded. “S?. Muy scary.”
“And you have a head in your freezer?”
“S?.”
Chad Nesbitt could not believe what he was seeing and hearing.
The gunfire was bad enough-gunfire in a business he partly owned.
But the barbarism?
Jesus!
That’s the kind of thing you hear about those animals committing in faraway backward countries!
He pulled out his cellular phone and hit the speed-dial number of Matt Payne. The phone beeped in his ear, and when he looked at the screen, he saw:
NO SERVICE
Then he saw that the signal bars were low.
“Shit!”
Nesbitt typed out a text message to Matt and sent it:
“Paco,” Chad Nesbitt said anxiously, “you must not tell anyone about this! Understand? Not until I figure out what to do.”
He nodded, and said, “S?. Muchas gracias.”
[THREE] Temple Burn Unit Temple University Hospital North Broad and West Tioga Streets, Philadelphia Wednesday, September 9, 10:43 A.M.
Police Officer Stephanie Kowenski came pounding down the third-floor corridor, her hands on either side of her ample hips. One held her police radio and the other her Glock pistol, both in their respective holsters, in an attempt to keep them from banging against her as she ran.
She turned the corner. Just as she glimpsed what looked like a scuffle at the southeast end of the corridor, she ran smack into a gurney that was being pushed up the corridor. When she hit it, both she and the gurney went flying.
The Hispanic orderly who had been pushing the gurney got knocked on his ass.
After a second, Police Officer Stephanie Kowenski regained her footing. Ignoring the gurney, and not saying a word to the Hispanic orderly, she rushed toward the two men scuffling. She recognized now that one was Joseph Olde.
The orderly righted the gurney, then calmly continued pushing it up the corridor. He got to the corner and made the turn.
About the time that Police Officer Stephanie Kowenski reached the end of the corridor and the altercation, the other uniform and a young male civilian had managed to pull apart Olde and the other older man, who were on the ground. The young male civilian now stood between them as they started to regain their composure and get up.
“That, Benjamin,” Joseph Olde said indignantly as he attempted to straighten his necktie, “was completely uncalled-”
From far down the corridor, there suddenly came the sound of a rapid series of shots. At least ten of them.
“What the hell?” Payne said as he automatically pulled out his black Officer’s Model Colt.45.
“You can’t use that in here!” Dr. Law said.
Payne looked at her incredulously. “What would you have me use, Doc, a fucking tongue depressor?”
“Drop the gun!” Police Officer Stephanie Kowenski ordered as she reached for her Glock. She did not yet have it drawn from her holster.
Payne blurted, “Three-six-nine!” using the old Philadelphia Police Radio code for police officer. He pulled back his shirt to show his badge on his belt.
Police Officer Stephanie Kowenski, finally with her weapon out, looked at the male blue shirt, who nodded. He already had his gun drawn. And he had his left hand on the police radio microphone on his shoulder, his head cocked toward it, calling for backup-“Assist officer! Shots fired! Temple Burn Unit. Third floor. Broad and Tioga.” Then he repeated it.
“You four!” Payne ordered, herding Dr. Law, the Benjamins, and Jason Olde toward the swing doors. “In there and get down. Bolt the doors if you can!”
He pointed to the blue shirts. “You two cover this door! No one gets in after the Benjamin girl or anyone else!”
Then Payne ran up the corridor, stopped at the corner, and carefully checked down that corridor. All he saw was the empty gurney. It was standing by the stairwell exit door.
He turned the corner and ran in a crouch, holding his pistol up and ready. His elbows were bent, the gun close to his chest.
He was halfway down the corridor when the left swinging door to Skipper Olde’s ICU flew open. Out ran the Hispanic male orderly in the blue scrubs. He had a black semiautomatic in his hand.
Did he pop Skipper? Shit! “Police!” Payne yelled. “Drop the goddamn gun!”
The orderly did not slow. And he damn sure did not drop the gun. In a flash, he ran right to the steel door of the stairwell, leaning his shoulder into it as his hip smacked the horizontal bar that unlatched its lock.
The door flew open. And the Hispanic male went through the doorway. “Shit!” Payne said.
He took off after him.
The steel door was starting to swing closed when Payne reached it. Payne kicked it open, his right foot slamming the horizontal bar. He stopped and checked to see if it was clear to continue, then heard the fast footfalls echoing down the concrete stairwell. He could see the man’s left hand sliding down the inside handrail as he went.
Payne looked down the stairwell to see if there would be an opportunity to get a clear shot. There wasn’t.
“Shit, shit, shit!” he muttered as he started down the steps, taking two at time.
As he passed the steel door to the second floor, he saw that he was gaining a little on the man, whose hand was sliding on the handrail only half a floor below him.
Payne tried to take three steps at time and damn near rolled his ankle. It twisted, a flare of fire burning deep in his muscle. He went back to taking only two steps at a time.
He heard the metallic bang of the horizontal bar getting hit on the first floor’s steel door.
“Police!” he yelled again. “Stop!”
Maybe he doesn’t understand English? “Police” is-what?-something like “polic?a”?
But what the hell is “stop” in Spanish?