The Traffickers

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.

After Payne had explained what Hollaran had said, Byrth had said, “What’s a Union League? Texas is a right-to-work state; not many unions.”

Payne had then clarified. He gave him the organization’s background, ending with, “It’s still a strong supporter of our military services, and it’s played host forever to world leaders, business chieftains, celebrities. Nothing like a union hall at all. It drips with Old World Philadelphia of 1862.”

“Another thirty years, it’d be as old as the Rangers,” Byrth said.

That caused Payne to look at him curiously. But he saw that Byrth wasn’t bragging. He was, instead, making a statement that showed his appreciation of the long history of both institutions.

Payne said, “It also solves the problem of your lodging. My family’s been members for generations. I’ll sponsor you so you can stay in The Inn at the League. The room will not only cost less than any lousy Marriott or Hilton you’ll find, it’ll be a helluva lot better.”

Byrth shrugged. “When in Rome…”

Payne then explained the background of the function they were about to attend. And the reasoning behind why the second-highest-ranking officer in the Philadelphia Police Department held it.

Payne pulled to the curb on Broad Street in front of the Union League property.

Byrth observed that the building, with its brick and brownstone fa?ade, was very well-preserved for being some 150 years old. Its design certainly stood out from the modern surroundings, all the tall shiny office buildings around it. At the front, two dramatic circular staircases led up to the main entrance on the second level. Bronze statues stood dramatically beside each of the staircases. And Old Glory, spectacularly lit by a bright floodlight, slowly flapped atop a twenty-foot-tall flagpole mounted to the fore of the flat roof.

Inside, Byrth found that Payne was right. The Union League did indeed drip with Old World Philadelphia.

The ambience oozed old school luxury-polished marble floors with exotic rugs, rich wood paneling, magnificent leather-upholstered furniture that you could actually smell. On the walls hung handsome works of art, from old warships sailing far out at sea to portraits of presidents of the United States of America. Along the walls were distinguished displays featuring bronze and marble busts and sculptures.

Byrth watched Payne as he walked up to a marble-topped oak desk, behind which sat a somewhat distinguished old man with a full head of silver hair.

Byrth saw that the geezer wore a dark pin-striped suit with a silver silk tie-and an incredible air of snootiness.

The geezer looked up from the appointment book he had been reviewing.

“Ah, good evening, Young Mr. Payne,” the geezer said with a nasal tone. “So good to see you again.”

The geezer’s eyes studied their small party.

Payne said, “Good evening, Baxter. We’re here for Commissioner Coughlin’s regular group.”

“That would be in the Grant Room. All the way down, on the right.”

“Thank you, Baxter. I do believe I remember where it is. And I have two guests tonight, one of whom is in town on business.” He gestured toward Byrth. “Mr. Byrth will require a room.”

The geezer said nothing. He stood.

“Mr. Payne, I’ll call down to the Inn and alert the deskman.”

The geezer surveyed Harris. Then he surveyed Byrth, his dull gaze lingering on The Hat in the crook of his arm.

Then he looked back at Payne.

Payne said, “Is there some problem?”

Oh, boy, Jim Byrth thought.

This is where I get us all thrown out to the curb of this snooty joint.

“If you will excuse me a moment,” the geezer said nasally.

He wordlessly disappeared into the cloakroom.

Payne looked between Harris and Byrth, his eyebrows raised to say, Wonder what the hell this is all about?

Moments later, the geezer reappeared with an old navy blazer. It had two gold buttons on the front and three on the right sleeve. But there were only two on the left sleeve.

“So sorry, Mr. Payne,” he said, but he didn’t sound at all sincere. “This is the only jacket we have available at this time.”

Then the man held it out to Payne as he repositioned a small framed sign that was on the desk.

Payne glanced down at it and shook his head.

“Sorry, Baxter,” he said as he took the jacket. “I’m really tired. I forgot.”

Byrth read the sign:

MEN’S DRESS CODE POLICY

(Strictly Enforced) The League requires a jacket be worn by men. Jeans, denim wear, athletic attire, T-shirts, shorts, baseball caps, sneakers, or tattered clothes are never permitted on the first or second floor of the League house.

“Again,” the geezer said with some emphasis. “Which of course is why we keep jackets for you, Mr. Payne.”

Payne slipped it on.

This damn thing feels two sizes too small.

I could walk the five blocks to my apartment, but then we’d really be late.

Tony Harris chuckled.

“House rules, sir,” the geezer said snootily.

Payne’s stomach growled again as he glanced down the hall. He could see the entrance to the Grant Room, and saw people still milling in the corridor.

He looked at his watch: one minute to nine.

“Oh, to hell with it. These things never start on time.” He looked between Byrth and Harris. “After what we just went through, we deserve some more liquid courage undisturbed. Maybe a bite to eat, too. Let’s go in the bar, then we can go down to the Grant. With luck we can sneak in and no one will even notice.”

“I’m with you, Marshal,” Byrth said. “But I’m afraid I have to tell you: No amount of booze will flush the mental image of that girl, or the anger at her murder.”

Payne nodded. “Doesn’t mean I can’t give it the old college try.”

Byrth and Harris followed Payne the twenty or so feet down the hall. They entered the bar through a doorway on the right.

The first person Sergeant Matthew M. Payne saw at the bar as he entered was First Deputy Police Commissioner Dennis V. Coughlin.

Coughlin had his head back so that he could drain the last drop of his double Bushmills Malt 21. He caught Payne-and The Hat-out of the corner of his eye.

After lowering his head and putting the glass on the bar, Coughlin turned toward them. He looked a little guilty, as if he’d be caught. But only a little guilty.

“Waste not, want not,” he then said with a twinkle in his Irish eyes. “Glad you gentlemen made it.”

“Commissioner Coughlin,” Payne said formally, “I’d like to introduce Sergeant Jim Byrth of the Texas Rangers. Jim, Commissioner Coughlin.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Byrth said, offering his hand.

“My pleasure, Jim,” Coughlin replied, meeting his firm grip. “Liz Justice speaks highly of you. That goes a long way in my book.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Payne waved for the bartender to come over.

“Uncle Denny,” Payne said, “do you want another double Bushmills 21?”

Byrth caught the “uncle” and looked to see how the commissioner of police was going to respond.

“No, thank you, Matty. I don’t need to start slurring in there.”

Byrth then decided that Payne and Coughlin had to be uncle and nephew.

“Jim,” Coughlin said, “I’m going to put you on the spot here.”

“Yes, sir?”

“I’m speaking tonight about what’s been going on recently, particularly today. I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but today’s murders weren’t our fair city’s first. But it might be a first for them to happen at almost the same time. I plan to go over that and the illegal drugs behind it. I’m hoping you might speak to the crowd about your perspective of it.”

Byrth nodded once. “Absolutely. It would be my honor.”

Payne passed out the bourbons to Byrth and Harris, then held up his glass. “To our health-and to our catching that bastard who killed that poor girl. And all the other bastards.”

The four of them touched glasses and drank to that. Denny Coughlin wound up chewing on an ice cube.

“What happened at the morgue?” Coughlin then said. “What’d you find out?”

Payne told him.

Coughlin shook his head slowly in disgust. Then he checked his watch and said, “These things never start on time. But we need to get the show going. Bring those drinks with you.”

Then First Deputy Police Commissioner Dennis V. Coughin marched out of the bar and through the doorway.

When Matt Payne, Jim Byrth, and Tony Harris entered the Grant Room, Commissioner Coughlin was already standing beside the dark wood lectern at the front of the room. He was talking to Captain Frank Hollaran, who stood in front of a flag of the United States of America. The flag was on a wooden staff that was held upright on the floor by a round golden stand.

All the tables were full except the one at the back of the room. Payne, Byrth, and Harris got to three of its five empty seats just as Hollaran stepped up to the lectern.

Exactly at the time that they sat down, Hollaran used his left hand to pull the microphone from the lectern.

He said, “Good evening, all. As most of you know, I’m Captain Frank Hollaran of the Philadelphia Police Department. Thank you for being here tonight. Now, if you’ll please stand and join me, we’ll get the formalities of tonight’s meeting out of the way.”

The room rose to its feet en masse. Everyone faced the American flag and placed their right hands over their hearts.

Hollaran, microphone to his lips, then surprised the hell out of Byrth by belting out in a rich baritone voice “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Everyone near Byrth, including Matt Payne and Tony Harris, sang along with gusto. But none in harmony. Nor in tune. And all seemed oblivious to that fact.

As they all sang, “… the land of the free and the home of the brave!” Byrth couldn’t help but glance and grin at Payne.

Matt must be tone-fucking-deaf.

Everyone took their seats.

Still, I liked that.

Byrth looked around at the people. They were as Payne had described in the car, upper-middle-class types who were clearly of comfortable means.

And it’s good to be among people who actually know all the words to our national anthem.

And are respectful of it.

Hand over heart. No talking during its singing. No yelling “play ball!” at its end.

A real class act.

Hollaran now said, “If you’ll please join me in welcoming First Deputy Police Commissioner Denny Coughlin…”

The room filled with polite applause as Hollaran handed the microphone to Coughlin.

“Hear, hear, Denny!” a dashing gentleman seated at a table closer to the lectern called out as he pounded the tablecloth with an open hand.

Byrth saw Payne make eye contact with the gentleman. He looked to be about fifty. He wore a crisp seersucker suit and red bow tie. He was enjoying a cigar the size of a small baseball bat. He nodded politely at Payne.

Payne saw that Byrth was watching and leaned over.

“D. H. Rendolok,” Payne whispered as he nodded in Rendolok’s direction. “Can usually be found at the bar lost in his thoughts and an enormous cloud of Honduran cigar smoke. His father-in-law was one of our finest police commissioners, under a previous mayor. His wife gave up a lucrative law practice to become one of the most respected judges in Eastern Pennsylvania, if not the entire Eastern Seaboard. D.H. won’t tell you himself, but he volunteers time as a consultant in building structure analysis in a highly classified homeland security project. Good people.”

Byrth nodded. He then looked at Coughlin.

The big Irishman smiled warmly. He held up his hand to get them to stop. “Thank you. That’s quite kind of you.”

The crowd became quiet.

Coughlin said: “As usual, I must begin by saying that this session is off the record. What’s said here in the Grant Room stays in the Grant Room.” He grinned. “My old pal Ulysses would want it that way.”

He got the expected chuckles.

“That said, I want to repeat Frank’s sincere thanks for all of you taking time to be here. It tells me that not only do we have fine citizens who care about our great city, we also have people who care about what their police department is doing.”

Byrth saw more than a few heads nodding. But he also heard behind him what sounded like a derisive grunt. And some mumbling.

He turned and saw two men right behind him, at the next table.

Byrth did not hear exactly what had been said. But the tone and body language-and knowing smirks-clearly suggested that it had been derogatory.

The two men were murmuring between themselves. They looked to be between thirty-five and forty-and terribly smug. One had what could be described as a three-day growth of beard. It was what in some circles passed for a fashion statement and in certain other circles qualified for insubordination. The other was skinny and frail, appearing almost sickly.

“Inbred” comes to mind, Byrth thought.

Or “professorial.”

Well, at least the bearded one looks like he could be a college teacher.

One tenured or someone still living on Daddy’s Money-same difference.

When the bearded one noticed Byrth looking at him, he made a face that was at once condescending and disdainful. Then the bearded one looked at Payne in his undersized loaner blazer and at Harris in his wrinkled well-worn blazer. He made a similar look of condescending disdain.

He’s clearly decided that we’re all interlopers.

I’m surprised he hasn’t called for security to have us booted out.

Byrth turned his attention back to Coughlin. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Payne had not missed any of that exchange.

Byrth looked at Payne, who shook his head just perceptibly in a gesture of mild disgust.

“It’s been another challenging day in our fair city,” Coughlin was saying. “You very likely have seen part of it on tonight’s newscasts. We had two deaths at the motel on Frankford that blew up around two o’clock this morning. We believe the explosion was caused by a lab manufacturing illegal drugs. Two other people were injured in the blast and taken to Temple University Hospital’s Burn Unit ICU. Then, later in the morning, there was a shooting at the Reading Terminal Market. It was a multiple murder, including that of innocent bystanders. Our detectives and investigators found evidence that that shooting was also drug-related. Then, just before noon, an assassin disguised as a hospital orderly snuck into the Burn Unit’s ICU and murdered one of the victims from the motel explosion. The assassin-”

He pulled the microphone away and cleared his throat.

“Excuse me.”

Hollaran brought him a glass of water from their table.

“Thank you, Frank. As I was saying, that assassin was pursued through the streets of Philly on foot by one of our Homicide sergeants. The assassin shot at the sergeant. Just before he unfortunately got away, the sergeant, we believe, wounded him. The shot was made to his leg in an effort to stop him, not cause fatal injury.”

My ass, Payne thought. I wanted that sonofabitch dead.

I was aiming for a chest shot, hoping it might turn into a head shot.

Breathing so hard, it knocked my aim off-that’s why I only winged the sonofabitch!

Byrth looked at him and smiled conspiratorially.

Payne thought, He just read my mind!

He grinned back.

“Finally,” Coughlin went on, “about the time of that foot chase, the Marine Unit of the Philly PD recovered from the Schuylkill River the body of a young Hispanic woman.”

One of the few females in the audience gasped audibly.

“Yes,” Coughlin said softly. “And I’m saddened to say that that story gets worse. Before this poor young woman was put in a black trash bag and weighted and tossed in the river, she had been beheaded.”

“My God!” the woman now said loudly and forcefully.

“And within the last hour, we have additional information that gives us reason to believe beyond any doubt that we know who her killer is. We are applying our full resources in apprehending him. As well as the others.”

There was a wave of appreciative murmuring though the audience.

Then Byrth heard the bearded one’s voice say in a stage whisper: “These Keystone Kops couldn’t catch a cold barefoot in a December snowstorm.”

His inbred pal chuckled.

“And with that information,” Coughlin went on at the front of the Grant Room, “we now have a common thread between all these crimes I’ve mentioned: illicit drugs.”

Another audible wave went through the audience.

Coughin nodded. “Now, tonight I’m going to depart from the usual focus on Philly. I’ve given you just now an idea of what problems our city faces today. And I mean today.” He looked to the table in the back of the room with Payne, Harris, and Byrth. He gestured. “I am privileged to introduce some of our finest members of law enforcement who are with us tonight. The first is a guest, Sergeant James Byrth of the Texas Rangers.”

Byrth half-stood, waved once, then glanced at the two men behind him as he backed down. The audience applauded politely.

Their body language is saying, “Oh, so you’re cops. That’s how the riffraff gets in the Union League.”

Coughlin went on: “Just like those Texas Rangers of fame and legend who have proceeded him, Sergeant Byrth is on the trail of the fellow who we now believe killed this girl and, last week, two others in Texas. Beside him is Homicide Detective Anthony Harris”-a somewhat shy Harris half-stood and gestured to the crowd, then sat down-“who this morning was among the first on the scene of the motel explosion. Tony has had a very long day.”

There was another smattering of polite applause.

“And finally, Sergeant Matthew Payne, also of our Homicide Unit. Many of you, I’m sure, are familiar with the Payne name, if not with Matthew personally. Sergeant Payne is a legacy member of this fine society, his great-grandfather having been among the founders of the Union League.”

Payne smiled nicely at the bearded one and his inbred pal. The manner in which he held his glass in his palm, with his right hand’s middle finger and thumb extended, was not lost on them.

“Sergeant Byrth, would you please come forward?”