The Vigilantes

by W. E. B. Griffin

  Javier pulled out his wallet and from it extracted a business card. He held it out to Officer Pope.

  “Here’s my card, Geoff. It’s got my cell phone number on it. I live eight blocks away, the other side of Warrington, over where the middle school is.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “And if there is anything I can do to help get this girl to talk, as a citizen, as a concerned neighbor, whatever, you let me know.”

  “I’m not sure I should share anything—”

  “Who the hell am I going to tell anything?”

  Pope held up his hands chest high, palms out. “Hold up, Javier. I’m just—”

  “Look, Geoff. My baby sister is her age, and I know when she’s holding something back. And I’m telling you, that poor girl is holding something back.”

  “You don’t think she did it, do you? What’d be her motive?”

  “Maybe she gets the house?”

  “That banshee cry of hers is deep. It’s not contrived.”

  “Whatever it is, she’s lying.”

  Pope shrugged.

  Javier said, “I mean, I don’t think it’s a malicious lie, I don’t. But there’s something not being said.”

  “There always is, Javier. Welcome to police work.”

  V

  [ONE]

  2620 Wilder Street, Philadelphia Sunday, November 1, 9:02 A.M.

  Will Curtis drove the rented white Ford Freestar minivan up onto the cracked South Philly sidewalk, braking to a stop in front of the tiny, run-down, two-story row house.

  He studied it and thought, Hope this sonofabitch is in there.

  I can’t believe that last sonofabitch’s address was so old the house was completely gone, burned to the damn ground.

  Don’t want two dead ends to start my day.

  Curtis wore his Federal Express uniform, complete with the grease-smeared FedEx cap. The driver and front passenger doors of the minivan each had a three-foot-square polymer sign displaying the red-and-blue FedEx logotype and the words HOME DELIVERY. He knew his makeshift package delivery van wouldn’t pass muster with anyone back at the distribution warehouse, but so far it had looked like the real deal to everyone else.

  Curtis got out from behind the steering wheel and glanced around the neighborhood.

  It wasn’t that early in the morning, but the street was quiet. There were only the sounds of dogs yapping down the block and, not too far off in the distance, the horn blare from a SEPTA light-rail train.

  He saw a skinny, mangy gray cat across the street. It was eating Halloween candies that had been dropped and squashed on the sidewalk.

  Probably stolen from some poor kid.

  But who’d go door to door for candy in this dump of a place?

  For drugs, sure. Which is why it’s quiet now.

  Damn lowlifes up all night chasing ass and doing dope.

  But catching them now all good and sleepy will be some sort of justice.

  He reached back inside the door of the minivan. There was a stack of He reached back inside the door of the minivan. There was a stack of six thin white paperboard envelopes on the dashboard, and he pulled the top one off the stack. Each of the envelopes bore the distinctive FedEx logotype, as well as a clear plastic pouch holding a bill of lading.

  Stepping carefully, Curtis carried the envelope toward the front door of the row house. Parts of the crumbling sidewalk were broken down to bare dirt, and there were knee-high dead weeds in the cracks.

  The house itself, built of masonry blocks with a front façade of red brick, was also in really bad shape. There were several holes in the wall where bricks were completely missing. The house hadn’t been painted in far too many years, leaving bare wood that had rotted in places. Racks of rusty burglar bars covered the solid metal front door and the four doublewindows—two upstairs and two at street level—and the first-floor windows were fitted with poorly cut pieces of weather-warped plywood.

  To the right of the concrete steps, on the sidewalk and up against the foot of the house, Curtis saw five or six black trash bags. They were packed full, piled high, one on the bottom with a big torn hole. They looked to have been there for some time, easily days if not weeks.

  Curtis went up the flight of four concrete steps leading to the battered front door. He saw out of the corner of his eye what at first he thought were two black cats. They’d been along the wall behind the trash bags. Then they’d bolted away, running behind some weeds in front of the small wood-framed window of the basement.

  Those aren’t cats. They’re goddamn rats!

  He now noticed that the basement window was open, pulled inward from the top. The rats had disappeared into it.

  Curtis shook his head in disgust.

  As he reached the bar-covered metal door, a breeze blew past, bringing with it a vile stench. He gagged.

  He looked at the garbage bags.

  Jesus! Whatever it is has to be in there.

  It’s worse than raw chicken—or maybe dead rats—that’s gone bad.

  He looked to the window where the rodents had run inside.

  Or . . . could it be coming from the basement?

  What a shithole!

  He pulled back his sleeve, testing the air. The breeze had stopped and the stench had subsided.

  For now.

  I need to see who’s home, then get the hell out of here. . . .

  There was no doorbell—just a crude little hole where it had once been mounted—so he balled his fist, reached between the bars, and pounded on the metal door.

  As he waited for some kind of life to wake up inside—other than the vile vermin—he glanced at the FedEx envelope in his hand.

  Its bill of lading had a return field that read: United States Department of the Treasury

  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

  Washington, D.C. 20500

  Will grinned. He knew that was the address of the White House, and had listed it as an inside joke. He had no idea where the hell the U.S. Treasury had its main office—and didn’t give a damn, because he knew the “recipient” wouldn’t know, either.

  The field for “Recipient” read: Kendrik Mays

  2620 Wilder Street

  Philadelphia, PA 19147

  Also on the bill of lading was a bold black X in the box beside the line that stated: GOVERNMENT-ISSUED ID & PERSONAL SIGNATURE OF RECIPIENT REQUIRED FOR DELIVERY.

  After knocking again and waiting another few minutes, he’d yet to hear anything moving inside the house.

  Dammit! Not even another rat.

  Another dead end.

  Move this one to the bottom of the stack with the other dead end.

  Maybe try again later. At least there’s a house at this address.

  Just as he turned to go down the steps to the minivan, he saw movement in the left downstairs window, where he noticed a knothole in the warped wood.

  So you use that as a peephole, eh?

  Nervously, he readjusted the .45-caliber Glock that he had stuck under the waistband of his pants, right behind the buckle of his heavy leather belt.

  This morning’s work wasn’t wasted after all. . . .

  Curtis turned back to the door.

  At five o’clock that morning, Will Curtis had awakened and gone downstairs to the kitchen to make his coffee, just as he’d done every day for as long as he could remember, easily twenty years.

  All the while careful not to wake up his wife.

  Not even a week after Wendy had been attacked, Linda had moved into her old bedroom. It was on the back side of the row house’s first floor. It had not exactly been left as a shrine after Wendy had moved out and gotten her first apartment—if only because Wendy had needed a lot of the furniture and other items to kick-start her new independence—but it still had a lot of her personal items from growing up, things like the many trophies she had won playing soccer in junior and senior high school. And the walls were practically covered solid with framed and pushpinned photographs of Wendy a
nd her countless gal pals, from birthday parties to summer trips at the Jersey shore, all from various points of her teen years.

  A lot of memories for Linda to recall as she lay there. And, ever more the recluse, she spent more and more time in Wendy’s old bed. (They’d told Wendy that a new life required a new bed, and among the apartment-warming gifts they’d given her had been a queen-size bed—the one she’d been attacked on.)

  I don’t know who’s going to take care of Linda when I’m gone, but I do know she won’t want for anything.

  Especially with the house being paid off and the fat payout from my life insurance policy coming.

  Which is damn convenient, because she’s barely holding on to her teller job.

  And I’m feeling worse every day.

  As the coffee brewed, Will Curtis went down into the basement.

  Shortly after moving into the house, he’d begun converting the basement into a recreation room. It had a pair of soft, deep sofas that faced a monster flat-screen plasma TV. In the corner was a freestanding bar he’d built himself. And just about every nook and cranny was filled with Philadelphia Eagles memorabilia—he’d started the collection in his youth and later had help from Wendy, who’d grown into a genuine fan, too.

  And, in the corner of the rec room, his desk held a desktop computer.

  Every morning, by the time he’d finished checking his e-mail, the pot of coffee would have finished brewing. He’d then go up and pour a big cup to bring back down and drink while catching up on e-mails and then reading phillybulletin.com, the online edition of the Philadelphia Bulletin. Up until a couple years ago, he would go out to the front stoop and pick up the paper version that he’d subscribed to forever. But, as it had never arrived until at least six in the morning—and, on rainy days, arrived wet—he’d let the subscription lapse after getting in the habit of reading the news online.

  And not just news.

  Lately, he’d started following a new website, the name of which he really liked: CrimeFreePhilly.com. It had news articles, but also a lot of information about crime and criminals. And so, in the last month, it had become an indispensable tool for Curtis.

  Now, a cup of freshly brewed coffee in his left hand, he used his right hand to click onto CrimeFreePhilly.

  The morning’s lead headline was: THREE DEAD IN OLD CITY

  POLICE HUNT GUNMAN IN “POP-AND-DROP” MURDERS

  Three dead? had been Curtis’s first thought as he sipped from his coffee cup.

  Then: Pop-and-drop? That’s an interesting way to put it.

  He noticed that Michael J. O’Hara had written the news article. Curtis had seen the byline in the Bulletin for a long time, and he liked the articles the O’Hara guy wrote. But he hadn’t seen O’Hara’s name in some time, and he’d wondered if something had happened to the reporter. But now, here was his name appearing on this new website.

  Curtis read O’Hara’s news story. It was short, only six brief paragraphs stating the basic information that three men had been left dead in Old City at Lex Talionis. It didn’t list the victims’ names or how they’d been killed.

  And it mentioned absolutely nothing about the pop-and-drops at the police stations.

  Curtis saw that the article referenced both the reward offered by Lex Talionis and the speech made by Francis Fuller. Both references were underlined, meaning they were links to other pages with more information. When Curtis clicked on Francis Fuller, the page with the pop-and-drop article was replaced with a much longer piece on Fuller’s speech on the “evildoers,” written by someone named Dick Collier. He skimmed it, then went back and read it in its entirety.

  Then he went back and clicked on the underlined Lex Talionis, and the link took him to the page at LexTalionis.com announcing the ten-thousand-dollar-reward program for information leading to the arrest and conviction of an evildoer. He knew about the program, but he read the page anyway to see if there was anything new.

  There wasn’t, and Curtis again clicked back to O’Hara’s article on “Three Dead in Old City.”

  Where the hell did the third body come from?

  A coincidence? Oh, sure. Someone just happened to have one lying around, and dropped it off on Halloween!

  Is some asshole copying me?

  Except they’re not dumping bad guys at the police stations. Not that I know of, anyway. There haven’t been any stories about those, mine or anyone else’s.

  In deep thought, he drained his coffee cup. Then he slammed the cup on the desk.

  Some asshole has to be copying me!

  What does that mean?

  Well, for starters, it means more dead perverts.

  Not that I have a problem with that.

  But there’s gonna be cops on every corner looking for me and whoever else is dumping bodies.

  And that means, if I’m going to enforce the law of talion in whatever time I have left, I’m going to need to do something different.

  [TWO]

  Will Curtis had his balled fist inside the iron burglar bars and was again banging on the filthy metal door.

  “FedEx delivery!”

  Now he could hear footsteps inside. They were moving toward the door.

  Then came the sound of a chain rattling against the back side of the door, then a deadbolt unlocking, then the doorknob turning.

  The door cracked open, just barely.

  Judging by the sliver of a gaunt face that Curtis saw through the crack, it was a woman old enough to be Kendrik Mays’s mother. She stared at him with only her left eye, and she looked absolutely awful.

  Well, what the hell did you expect to find here? Miss America?

  Curtis held up the envelope so she could see the bill of lading.

  “Got an express delivery for a Kendrik Mays.”

  The lone visible eyeball darted between Curtis and the envelope.

  “Ain’t today Sunday?” she asked.

  “Look, I don’t like working weekends any more than the next guy.”

  She nodded as she considered his answer.

  After a moment, the woman said with a shaky voice, “He down at his cousin’s. Don’t know when he come back. You leave it with me.”

  She pulled the door open wider to where the chain became taut and stuck out a badly bruised hand, fingers clawing for the envelope.

  Now Curtis could see more of the woman. The entire right side of her face, including all around the right eye, was deeply bruised. She stood, her feet bare, at maybe five-two. She was clearly malnourished, and couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds. Torn and dirty black jeans and a ratty T-shirt hung on her.

  Curtis, trying to get over his initial shock, pulled back the envelope.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but it’s gotta be signed for by the person it’s addressed to.”

  She squinted her sunken eyes and looked harder at the envelope. “Who it from?”

  Will Curtis turned over the envelope, pretending to read from the bill of lading. “Says the U.S. Treasury in Washington.”

  “Treasury? You sure you got the right address?”

  He read it off the envelope, then said, “Kendrik Mays, right?”

  She said, “Think that may be a check?”

  In a tone he hoped showed he was uninterested, he replied: “Yeah, that’d be my guess. Pension check, IRS refund, maybe some of that stimulus money the government’s been giving away. That’d be a good reason they want it delivered to the right person.”

  Will Curtis looked her in the eyes and could see she was considering her options.

  She said, “I sign for it. Kendrik my boy. I see he gets it.”

  Curtis shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am. I’m just a delivery guy. And I got to follow rules. I guess I’ll come back—”

  She slammed the door shut in his face.

  What the hell? he thought.

  Then he could hear the chain clanking against the inside. The door swung all the way open.

  “Hurry up,” she said shakily. “Maybe he
got money, he don’t beat me no more. Maybe he move out for good.”

  Curtis looked around the inside of the house. It was a shambles. The only furniture was a threadbare sofa with torn cushions and two white plastic patio chairs.

  “You know that’s not right. No one should beat you.”

  She said, “I knows. I do. But he don’t mean to. It’s drugs. They make him mean. Different, you know?”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t know. I can’t begin to understand it. Where is he?”

  She pointed to the floor, indicating the basement, and started to cry. “He was such a sweet little boy. The street turned him bad . . .”

  “That, I know.”

  “What?”

  He held up the envelope, then grabbed the tab at the top, peeling it open. He reached in and pulled out a sheet. It was a Wanted poster from the listing of Megan’s Law fugitives at CrimeFreePhilly.com, one he’d downloaded and printed in his basement.

  Next to a color mug shot of an angry-looking young black man with a full beard and dreadlocks was: Name (First, Middle, LAST): Kendrik LeShawn MAYS

  Description: Black Male, 5'9", 200 lbs.

  Date of Birth: 10/19/1988

  Last Known Address: 2620 Wilder Street

  City, State, ZIP: Philadelphia, PA 19147

  Convicted of: 3123 Involuntary deviant

  sexual intercourse & rape

  of an unconscious or

  unaware person

  Phila Police Dept Case No.: 2008-18-063914

  Kendrik LeShawn Mays’s mother raised her eyebrows. But she did not appear at all surprised. Nor at all concerned that Will Curtis had her son’s Wanted sheet.

  She sighed.

  “Yeah,” she said, “that him. Guess he lied. Said he took care of that.”

  She looked at Curtis. “No check, huh?”

  More like a reality check, Curtis thought.

  He shook his head.

  “No check.”

  Will Curtis went down the unstable wooden steps into the basement. His left hand slid along the wooden handrail, and his right hand, holding the .45-caliber pistol, followed the wall of mostly busted Sheetrock.