Let me tell you something: I’m getting witnesses, I’m getting information. I know about your two Westchester County boys, Tim and Dave. I know where they live, I know what they do. I know how they like their sex, and I know where and when they get their action.”
“And why are you collecting all this information?” DiRaimo asked. He didn’t like the sound of an amateur sleuth working his case. Good way for people to get hurt.
“Don’t you worry. I’m not going to kill anyone or do anything like that. But y’all will know the next time these boys take their pants down. I’ll get you pictures, I’ll get you tape recordings, I’ll get the ho’s who work them. You want proof they lying? I’ll get you all the proof you want. These boys been to the Bronx, they been in that neighborhood, they been with the working girls there, and they like it rough. I already got a couple of girls who’ll swear on a stack of Bibles that these guys been beating on them.”
“Why don’t you let me talk to these women?” DiRaimo asked.
“Nah-ah. Wait. In fact, tomorrow morning I will bring you all the evidence. If they stick to their routine, I know exactly where they gonna be tonight, and I’ll be waiting.”
“But if they’re killers—”
“Don’t you worry about me, Mister Man. I been taking care of myself for plenty long time. And you know what? I don’t even care. I’m on a mission from God. I been waiting almost twenty years to pay Him back for what I done to my baby girl. Now I finally get to square that up…Do me some good in this world.”
Back at the precinct, DiRaimo sat quietly at his desk. He was weighing up what Yolanda had told him about getting tapes and photos and testimony from a flock of prostitutes. He wondered if all of it stacked high could amount to a murder charge. He didn’t see how it could.
“What you thinking about, partner?” Hamilton asked him.
“Oh, I just talked with that Yolanda Morales lady. You know, from the Antonia Flores case.”
“And what? Did she confess?”
“Nope. She says she’s going out tonight to get some evidence on Tim McElhone and David Franklin. Pictures, recordings, testimony…”
“You told her about them?”
“Of course not. She’s been snooping on her own.”
“That’s dangerous,” Hamilton said.
“Yeah.”
Hours later that night—too late—Yolanda Morales found out that while she had been hunting the two young men, they, in turn, had been stalking her. And they had a guide. As she opened her apartment door, a badge was put before her eyes. She took a stutter-step back to get the badge in focus—the badge and the gun that was aimed at her. She went quietly out to the unmarked car. Behind them was a Porsche, black.
When they got to deserted Farragut Street, Yolanda was praying for strength for the test to come. Detective Hamilton ordered her out of the car.
“You see these two nice gentlemen here?” he asked. He pointed to Tim and David getting out of the Porsche.
“You’ve been very naughty. You’ve been harassing these men, and it is time for you to learn a lesson. These men are going to teach it to you.”
Hamilton stepped back and let the two do their worst. There were parts that Detective Hamilton did not have the stomach to watch. He sat in his car until the men got tired of their frenzy. Then he got out with a throwaway handgun. He raised it and aimed at Yolanda.
“Let me,” David Franklin said. He reached out for the weapon.
“But you paid me to—”
“I want to.”
Hamilton handed over the gun, and Franklin pressed the barrel up to Yolanda’s forehead.
“What you got to say now, bitch?” There was blood dripping from his chin. Her blood.
“My name,” she rasped out. “My name is Yolanda Rivera Morales.” She almost laughed at what she had thought of to say after all this time, as her life was ebbing out, pooling inside of her.
“I’m going to kill you,” Franklin said. He tried to put some special emphasis into the words, but there is no emphasis to be put on those words. He pressed the gun to her head with more force.
“Listen, Mister Man. You do what you gotta do. I done my duty, and I’m ready to meet the Lord.”
She pressed back against the gun.
Franklin pulled the trigger and put a hole in her head. She flopped onto the sidewalk, and he put another two bullets into her chest as though she needed them. Then he stepped back and turned to Hamilton. He was breathing hard.
“If we pay the same amount next week,” he asked, “can we get this same service?”
Hamilton widened his eyes, then shook his head. “You guys want to do this again, you find another way. I’m a cop. I can’t do this every week.”
“Every month?”
Hamilton shrugged. He took the gun back from the young lawyer.
“Maybe,” he said.
