The Traffickers

FOUR

Cup O’Joe’s Internet Cafe 4309 Main Street, Philadelphia Wednesday, September 9, 9:30 A.M.

When Juan Paulo Delgado looked through the windows of the coffeehouse, he saw that the morning rush of business types was gone. The small caf? had a well-worn painted concrete floor and held ten round wooden tables, each with a pair of wooden chairs. There was a stainless-steel lip wide enough to hold a cup-and not much more-that was four feet off the floor and ran the length of the front picture windows. The windows overlooked the chairs on the sidewalk and, a block farther, offered a glimpse of the Schuylkill River. A wide wooden bar, with a dozen wooden stools, ran the length of the right wall to the rear of the caf?. And there, at the back, were four cubicles, each containing a desktop computer and flat-screen monitor that the caf? rented to customers in fifteen-minute increments of Internet online time.

Juan Paulo Delgado strode in through the wood-framed glass front door. A tan backpack was loosely slung over his right shoulder by one of its two straps. He wore sandals, desert camouflage pants with the lower legs off, making them into shorts, and a black T-shirt. The frames of his dark sunglasses wrapped so close to his face that they completely hid his eyes. The tight-fitting T-shirt accentuated his defined muscles and looked to be brand new. On the back across the shoulders, it was emblazoned with bold white type that read GET SLOSHED AT SUDSIE’S, and under that was a cartoon drawing of foam spewing from an oversize beer mug and a clothes-washing machine.

Delgado quickly but carefully scanned the coffeehouse.

A smattering of students and stay-at-home moms, chatting while their babies snoozed in strollers parked nearby, sat sipping lattes and iced coffees. Some clicked away at their laptop computers, using the wireless connection to the Internet. A paunchy middle-aged man wearing dark blue slacks, work boots, and a baby blue shirt embroidered with PETE’S PEST EXTERMINATORS was getting up from the far right of the four rental computers. He grabbed his paper cup of coffee and stepped out the back door, which led to a parking lot.

Two black teenagers, one male and one female, were working behind the counter. The male, who was six feet tall and rail thin to the point of being bony, took orders and ran the cash register while the girl, slightly overweight with a very round face, prepared the drinks.

There was no one in line, and Delgado walked right up to the register. As he did, he slid off his backpack and put it on the counter.

“Hey, brother,” Delgado said to the young man.

He unzipped an outer pocket on the backpack and pulled out a white fiberboard document-mailer envelope. It had FEDEX LETTER printed on it. Its top flap was sealed and there was an obvious bulge, indicating that it contained something other than a flat stack of papers.

The bony black clerk said, “What up, Cat? What can we brew for you? Maybe some trouble?”

He smiled, showing a mouthful of bright white teeth.

Delgado looked at the girl and said, “Usual, please.”

She nodded, and the coffee machine almost immediately began making the high-pressure hissing of steam being released.

As she worked, Delgado slipped the Federal Express envelope to the clerk. He took it and casually placed it under the counter. He then came back up with a brown paper sack the size of a lunch bag. Imprinted on it was FIND YOUR WORLD AT CUP O’JOE’S INTERNET CAF?. The sacks were provided to customers who bought muffins and sandwiches for takeout.

This bag was packed full, its top stapled shut.

“Our specialty sandwich,” the clerk said with another smile, this one suggesting it was an inside joke. “With our compliments.”

Delgado did not return the smile. Without a word, he simply placed the brown sack in his backpack and again slung the backpack over his shoulder.

The pudgy girl delivered his double espresso. Delgado took it, put four single dollar bills on the counter and one in the tip jar, then turned and walked toward the back of the caf?. In the middle of the room, he came upon an attractive olive-skinned brunette. She sat alone at a round table with her laptop and a coffee in a stoneware mug. She glanced up and smiled, her eyes catching his.

Delgado looked at her, then slowed his steps, as if he was going to stop. After a moment, he smiled back at her and picked up his pace, continuing toward the back of the room.

She cocked her head as she watched him walk away. Then she shrugged and returned her attention to her laptop screen-blissfully unaware of how close she’d just come to having her life turned tragically upside down.

Delgado put the backpack on the floor beside the chair in front of the far left computer. It was the computer nearest the wall and had a courtesy panel dividing it from the other monitors, affording the most privacy. He turned the monitor so its flat screen was completely out of sight of anyone else. Then he turned his chair so that he had a clear view of the front door.

He pulled out his cellular telephone and placed it beside the computer keyboard. He put his sunglasses there, too.

Then he reached into a pocket of his cut-off camo shorts and pulled out a computer memory device that was half the size of a stick of gum. The USB flash drive held a single file that was a computer program. The program could create a mirror image of the contents of a computer-everything from applications to data files-to use on any other similar computer. It was akin to carrying one’s computer around in the palm of one’s hand.

Delgado had set up the program on his flash drive to mirror a laptop that he kept locked in a safe at his converted-warehouse loft.

He also had the flash drive tethered with a plastic zip tie to a high-intensity butane cigar lighter, of the type advertised as “NASA Space Age Technology Windproof to 100 MPH!” If necessary, he could torch the chip into a molten-and unreadable-mass in seconds.

He inserted the flash drive into one of the two USB slots on the side of the flat-screen monitor, then hit the CONTROL, ALT, and DELETE keys all at once. That briefly shut down the computer, and its screen went black. Then he held the CONTROL and Z keys simultaneously as the computer restarted so it would load the program from the flash drive.

After a moment, the LCD screen lit up. He was looking at the same desktop image and icons that were on the laptop locked away in his loft safe.

He clicked on the icon for the Firefox Internet browser. In his computer coding class in high school, he’d learned that Firefox was a very intuitive and clean interface, far better than the crappy ubiquitous Internet Explorer. All those gee-whiz self-congratulatory messages-“IE Just Denied an Unknown Program Unauthorized Access!” or “IE Just Successfully Sold You Yet Another Program You Don’t Need!”-along with the other annoying inflated features made the program more sizzle than steak.

More important for Delgado, Firefox also had a far more complex code for security. Between the flash drive and Firefox, he could encode and decode-then wipe absolutely clean-anything he did on the computer.

He typed PHILLYBULLETIN.COM and hit the RETURN key.

A second later, the screen was awash with articles and photos, updated on the quarter hour, of the day’s news.

The biggest and brightest image was that of a motel in glorious flames. It was surrounded by various emergency vehicles, their lights flashing. Delgado grinned. Then his eye caught the red text of a ticker across the top of the page, the words crawling from right to left: Breaking News… 2 Dead amp; 4 Injured in Shooting at Reading Terminal Market. Police Said to Release More Details Shortly…

Delgado nodded knowingly.

Don’t fuck with me, he thought, and these things won’t happen.

Assholes. They all think they can rip me off and get away with it…

His cellular phone vibrated for a second, indicating a received text message. He picked it up. The tiny LCD screen, beginning with the sender’s cellular phone number, read: 609-555-4901 ALL CREWS WORKING WHAT U WANT DONE 2 VAN??

Delgado picked up the phone. Using his thumbs on the tiny keypad, he punched out: TELL OMAR 2 FILL TANK, PARK IN KENSINGTON W/ ANY 2 OTHERS amp; LIGHT 3 TIGERTAILS

Delgado grinned at the mental image that came with “tigertails.” It had been a tigertail that had got him sent for his brief first and only visit to the Dallas County Jail in Texas.

He’d just turned eighteen years old and had started to move a lot more product on his own. He needed some help. In order to trust the help, he put the guys through some tests. And one of those tests was torching the cars of some of their East Dallas neighbors. The damn picky people were making louder and louder noises about traffic-both foot traffic and the lawn care trucks and trailers-in and out of Delgado’s house and property.

The term “tigertail” came from a gasoline company and its cartoon tiger mascot. One of the company’s giveaway promotions was a foot-long fake furry black-striped orange tail to tie to the gas tanks.

For a while, judging by all the tails flapping from gas caps, it seemed cars everywhere had “a tiger in their tank.”

Delgado had stolen that idea, but there were a couple of critical differences with his. He had taken a wire coat hanger, straightened it out, then wrapped it with a gas-soaked strip of bedsheeting, bending a hook in the wire’s end to secure the fabric. The sheet-covered wire was then stuck down a target vehicle’s gas tank. Then the “fuse” was set afire.

The neighbors’ cars became blackened hulks in minutes.

As a message sender, the tigertail had been an effective tool. Too much of one, in fact, because Delgado’s boys began torching enough vehicles that the Dallas Police Department had decided it necessary to put together a small task force. And the first night out, the cops caught one of Delgado’s boys-a fifteen-year-old who shit his pants the moment the cuffs were slapped on.

And he quickly fingered Delgado.

Delgado’s lawyer had been able to convince the prosecutor that discrediting the kid’s word would be effortless-“He shit his pants, for chrissake! He’d roll over on his own grandmother if it got him out of this. No one’s going to believe him!”-and that resulted in the charges against Delgado being dismissed.

Delgado never saw that kid again. That, of course, did not stop the unfortunate event that followed-the car belonging to the fifteen-year-old’s mother being tigertailed.

Delgado’s cellular phone vibrated again, and he read the screen: 609-555-4901 OK U GOT IT

Delgado then thumbed: amp; U GO 2 TEMPLE LIKE WE TALKED… DO IT NOW A second later, the incoming reply vibrated Delgado’s phone: 609-555-4901 SI… SI

Delgado put down the phone and turned to the computer monitor.

Going to the website for Southwest Airlines, he punched in PHL and DAL, checking for flights out of Philadelphia International Airport going into Dallas Love Field.

“Shit!” he said, seeing he’d missed the nine-thirty departure that morning.

He clicked on the next-most-direct routing, Southwest Flight 55, and booked it, paying for the ticket with a Visa credit card. The bill would go to a post office mail drop in a shopping strip center in East Dallas.

Then he picked up the cellular phone and sent another text to a different cellular phone number:

PLAN 2 PICK ME UP @ 730PM @ LOVE, SW#55

As he went to put down his phone, he saw a kid enter the coffee shop.

Delgado guessed that the short boy, who was black and overweight, could not be more than fifteen and was very likely closer to twelve. And that extra weight was probably baby fat. He had on very baggy blue jeans that were hanging loosely, a white T-shirt with a silk-screened image of a hip-hop singer, white sneakers, and a solid white ball cap with the bill turned sideways.

He looked awkward-and not exactly what Delgado would have considered a regular coffee drinker.

After entering the caf? slowly, the boy made a beeline for the register at the counter. He kept his head down as he went, looking mostly at his feet with an occasional glance around the room.

The short fat kid dug deep into his jeans pocket and produced a folded paper bill. He slapped the money on the counter. The bony male clerk then pulled two coffee cups from a tall stack upside down on the counter, and quickly but casually reached under the counter. It was near where he had put Delgado’s FedEx envelope. He came back up with the cups, but now one was inserted in the other. The clerk turned to the sink behind him, then filled the top cup with tap water and snapped a lid on it.

Delgado glanced at his own coffee sitting beside the computer monitor. The steam-hot double espresso had been given to him in only a single cup.

Delgado looked back to the counter as the clerk was handing the stacked cups to the kid. The boy took them, then, without waiting for change, turned and went out the door somewhat quicker than he’d entered.

Once outside the door, the boy pulled the top cup out and tossed it in the trash receptacle next to the outside seating, then took off down the sidewalk in a trot.

Delgado made eye contact with the clerk, who smiled knowingly back.

The phone vibrated in his hand, and he read the incoming reply: 214-555-7636 C U THEN…

Delgado thumbed back: GET SUBURBAN READY 4 TRIP SOUTH

His screen then read: 214-5-155-7636 ITS IN GARAGE N READY NOW

Delgado thumbed: BUENO… C U 2NITE

He put the phone back down, then looked back at the computer monitor.

A link under the photograph of the burning Philly Inn went to the article. He clicked on it and waded through screen ads for a King of Prussia Chevy automobile dealer, casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and a Center City brew pub.

MASSIVE EXPLOSION, FIRE ENGULFS MOTEL

At least two known dead and two injured after the Philly Inn blew up and burned early Thursday morning By Jim Striegelvich Bulletin Staff Writer Photographs by Jack Weinberg Bulletin Photographer Posted Online 09/09 at 8:45 a.m.

Philadelphia-A violent explosion at the Philly Inn on Frankford Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia blew out at least one motel room this morning just before two o?clock.

The cause of the blast, and subsequent fire, said a spokesman for the Philadelphia Police Department, has yet to be positively determined. Initial reports, however, suggest that an illegal ad hoc laboratory for the manufacture of crystal methamphetamine was involved.

The fire displaced more than 150 people who were staying at the motel, including a twenty-five-year-old who identified himself as Demetrius Xavier “X-J” Johnson.

“It?s gotta be meth, man,” said Johnson. “This place has stunk of cat piss for months! And ain?t nobody done nothing about it.”

The police spokesman said that two men, as yet to be identified, have been confirmed as dead in the motel room. Two others were injured and transported by ambulance to Temple Burn Center; no details on them or their condition have been made available at this time.

Check back for updates as they become available.

COMMENTS (3)

From Independent1inPhilly (9:01 a.m.):

Those druggie slimeballs. Can?t think of a better way for them to depart this world.

Recommend [6] Click Here to Report Abuse From WhatWouldBenFranklinDo (9:22 a.m.):

I?m with you, Indy1. Too bad they ruin so many lives first, however.

Recommend [4] Click Here to Report Abuse From Hung.Up.Badge.But.Not.Gun (9:50 a.m.):

Amen to both of you, Indy1 amp; WWBFD. I spent enough time walking the beat to see everything at least once. And nothing is as insidious as what these drugs do to families of every walk of life. I say, Shoot?em all and let the Good Lord sort?em out.

Recommend [4] Click Here to Report Abuse Delgado shook his head.

Fuck you people!

I’m not forcing anyone to buy and swallow anything they don’t want.

They want it bad.

Hell, even the kids.

And look at those ads-booze, gambling, hookers.

Everyone’s got a habit.

What the hell’s the difference with drugs?

He clicked on the part of the page to leave a comment, then pounded out the message on the keyboard and clicked the SEND button.

After a moment, his message appeared onscreen, last on the comment list:

From Death.Before.Dishonor (9:52 a.m.):

F**k you pendejos! Dudes sell drugs because people (are you paying attention?) because people want to buy them! Look at the ads on this page-booze, gambling (and where there?s gambling there?s hookers)… Something for everyone. What?s the difference with drugs? And you know what? Sometimes we even clean up the rats from the gutters-like those in this motel!

Recommend [0] Click Here to Report Abuse