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.
Hell, Delgado suddenly thought, we could just pull up in the van, negotiate some bullshit price for some bullshit construction job, and those idiots would just jump in the van.
Then we could ransom them back to their illegal families. If they have any money.
Need to give that some more thought…
Delgado looked at Quintanilla and said, “Everything good here?”
Quintanilla nodded.
“How’s Jes?s?”
“Sleeping again. Those pills Angel gave him make him very sleepy.”
Or Jim?nez is just being his usual lazy nineteen-year-old self, Delgado thought.
“Where’s Eduardo?”
Quintanilla looked at his wristwatch and said, “Should be back at the house by now, getting the cutting crews going.”
Delgado considered that. It was important to keep the lawn-mowing schedules, if only for the cover the business provided for their other activities. Should anyone ever question them, they’d simply mumble that they were humble yard boys.
Then he reached into his wallet. He removed a driver’s license and handed it to Quintanilla.
Quintanilla looked at it. He recognized it as Delgado’s counterfeit license from Texas, the one with Delgado’s picture but the name Edgar Cisneros.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” he said.
Delgado nodded toward the mall.
“Go in there to the Western Union counter. There should be a two-thousand-dollar wire transfer waiting for Edgar Cisneros.”
“But this has your picture on it. Why don’t you do it?”
“Because I want you to do it!” El Gato snapped. “That’s why.”
He did not want to tell Quintanilla that he thought there was a slight chance someone could be looking for him in there, waiting for him to show up at the Western Union counter.
And the reason he did not want to tell him was that he didn’t really know why the thought had come to him.
Delgado had had time to think on the plane, and he didn’t want to admit it, but he’d realized that coming so close to getting caught in Dallas had both shaken him up and made him at least a little paranoid.
Which really pissed him off.
All because that idiot Ramos made a stupid mistake.
And now I’m upset to the point I might make a mistake.
So that is why I want you to go in, Omar.
But I’m just not going to tell you that…
“But,” Quintanilla protested, “do you think they’ll let me get the money with this ID’s photo?”
Delgado was about to snap again, then looked at Quintanilla’s dull gaze-Nobody home… why bother?-and decided against it.
He said slowly, “How would you know to come and get the money if you weren’t who you said you were? That is what you tell the teller. Bueno? ”
Quintanilla shrugged, showing absolutely no confidence.
Delgado then added, “And if that does not work”-he pulled a wad of folded bills from his pocket and peeled off one note-“then slip this to the teller under the license.”
Delgado gave him a hundred-dollar bill.
“Nobody says no to Ben Franklin, especially in Philadelphia,” Delgado said with a smile.
Quintanilla took it, then turned, and sauntered toward the front door of the Mall of Mexico.
In the twenty minutes that Quintanilla was in the mall, Delgado sat in the SUV, watching the patrons come and go. Occasionally, he would glance at the picture on the front page of the newspaper, which was on the front passenger seat.
The more he looked at it, the more he thought about the bitch’s comment. And the more he thought about that, the more he really wanted to fulfill her wish.
Teach her a lesson to say things she knows nothing about.
And why not?
A doctor makes a lot of money… somebody would pay to get her back.
And pay good.
Or we could just have some fun with her.
He looked at the picture of Dr. Amanda Law.
Yeah, why not…?
Delgado then saw Quintanilla come out of the Mall of Mexico carrying a letter-size envelope. As he sauntered across the parking lot, a ten-year-old battered Chevrolet Venture minivan pulled into the parking space two spots away. An elderly Hispanic woman, so squat that she barely could see over the dash, eased the dirty black vehicle to a stop. She was alone.
As Delgado looked at the van, he remembered that they had had to tigertail their minivan. It had been the
