Abaddon's Locusts

by Don Travis

  I’d met Bishop Justin Gregory socially a few times but could not claim to really know the man. He showed up in Albuquerque from somewhere in Georgia about five years ago and founded the Temple of Our Lord on High, which was actually on Lomas, although it was appropriately located in the Northeast Heights. The church was originally a black congregation, but I’d heard that Anglos and Hispanics had begun to attend. I knew nothing of ecclesiastical affairs but wondered how the pastor of a single church could be a bishop, but it was all right by me if no one else objected. At around 190, he was a bit rotund, but his white-streaked coiffure gave him a dignified, grandfatherly air even though he couldn’t have been more than fifty.

  William Haldemain could have been his brother’s doppelgänger so far as size and way of carrying themselves were concerned. Ross probably stood my height—six feet—and closer examination showed William to be an inch shorter. The most striking thing about the two men was their hair. Ross’s was brown with silver at his temples, drawn back in what my father once called a duck’s tail. William’s black locks were similarly adorned with silver and styled in an identical manner. The two men looked to be wearing perpetual crowns.

  The fourth man in the room, Lt. Chester Bolton—better known as either Lieutenant or Bolt, depending upon your status—headed the Homicide Department at APD, under which the Special Victims Unit fell. Barrel-chested and no-nonsense, he was a police officer of some twenty-five years’ service. He’d taught a class or two at the academy when I went through it, and I was convinced he had it out for me—possibly because I was gay—until the day I graduated. Then he told me how proud of me he was.

  “And what brings you to us?” Ross said after everyone settled down.

  Gene and I had argued earlier over how to answer that question. I wanted to remain vague and simply nose around to learn what we could. My ex-partner said Bolton was too smart for that. He wanted to lay it all out on the table.

  Gene answered the question. “A few days ago, BJ contacted me regarding a young man by the name of Jasper Penrod who’d gone missing from his Farmington home. He goes by Jazz. Since there was some evidence the missing man came to Albuquerque, his half brother went to BJ for assistance because he and his brother once helped BJ on a case up in the Bisti area. By reviewing Jazz’s laptop, we’ve determined he contacted someone through nm.lonelyguys.com and started an online relationship. Jazz is gay, by the way. Shortly after they started communicating by Skype, Jazz disappeared. No one’s heard from him since. We think he’s been snagged by human traffickers, specifically sex traffickers.

  “How old is the child?” Betsy asked.

  “He’s not a child. He’s a half-Navajo man twenty-one-years of age.”

  “Impossible,” she said. “Victims are usually female and between the ages of thirteen to fifteen. He doesn’t fit the pattern.”

  “Not the usual pattern,” I said. “But I read his emails, and Jazz was definitely being lured into the scene by a fellow who called himself Juan. This Juan took his time and was quite skillful in his approach. As soon as he saw Jazz’s photo, he knew he had gold on the other end of his internet.”

  I slid the close-up photo Jazz provided Juan across the table. William Haldemain snatched it up.

  “There must be some mistake. This kid can’t be that old. Eighteen at the most.” He slid the photo to his brother.

  “Mother Nature was kind to Jazz,” I said. “Good genes, I expect.” I slid over another photograph. “And this is the photo the pimp sent Jazz, claiming it was of himself. Notice the white streak in his hair. We believe that’s the brand of this particular ‘family.’”

  After that photo followed the first around the table, Betsy was less assertive in her denial the situation fit the usual picture. Gene laid it all out for the five individuals. He told them of contact with both Gaspard and Juan, of picking up the two “branded” kids, and the abortive raid on the west-side motel… everything. The fact that Juan also had a white spot on his crown immediately painted him as a victim in Betsy’s eyes. I wasn’t so sure.

  “You think that’s a brand?” Ross ran a hand over his graying temples. “Hell, then I guess I’m a vic too.”

  “And me,” William joined in, mimicking his brother’s hand brushing.

  The bishop merely pointed at this gray-speckled head. “Me too.”

  The lieutenant laughed. “What I have left up there probably qualifies me, as well.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Gene said. “We’ve come across the name ‘Silver Wings’ as one of the pimps.” He reconsidered. “Or maybe one of the johns.”

  “Any description?” Lieutenant Bolton asked.

  “Sorry, nothing more than that name.”

  Once they asked all their questions, each member of the board pledged assistance. Betsy agreed to put out the alarm to her sources immediately. They’d spare no effort in trying to find Jazz. Once that was out of the way, I spoke up.

  “I know this missing man. He’s very independent, very self-sufficient. He was openly gay but not promiscuous. Bristled at the thought of prostituting himself. I’m having trouble understanding why he doesn’t simply walk out of the situation. Go home. Call me. Flag down a police officer. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It doesn’t make sense to you or me,” Betsy said, “but it does make a crazy kind of sense to the victims. And if you’ve described this Jazz accurately, you may have answered your own question.”

  “How so?”

  “He was a proud young man, clearly attractive, making it on his own. But something must have been lacking in his life if he went on the internet looking for companionship. I suspect he was seeking something deeper, more meaningful. He gets roped into coming to meet this Juan character. Juan gives him what he wants and establishes a relationship.

  “Then Juan introduces something new. A drug of some kind. Probably crack cocaine. It’s powerful and very quickly addictive. Juan claims it will make things infinitely better between them. And it does, temporarily. Then the victim finds he needs the drug more than he needs the relationship. Juan suggests he can earn his way by taking care of a few friends. The first thing Jazz knows, his lover is pimping him out to people who can pay. Not street contacts. More like Jazz is now a high-priced escort.

  “One day Jazz might wake up to what’s happening to him and decide to get out of it. But what does he do? They’ve kept him broke. He needs his fix regularly. But worse, he’s ashamed of what he’s become. The thought his family and friends will learn what he did is a powerful psychological benefit to his pimps. They probably locked him up at first, but I doubt that’s necessary now.”

  I left the meeting with a cold shiver running down my back. What if my friend couldn’t face the consequences? What then?

  Chapter 14

  AFTER LUNCH Henry took off on his Harley, on the lookout for street kids with white spots in their hair. I did not try to discourage him. After all, our search for Jazz was blown by the abortive meeting at Flying Star last Friday. I just hoped he didn’t get busted by a cop thinking he was trying to buy some underage kid’s services.

  I spent my time calling other law jurisdictions—such as the Rio Rancho Police Department and the Sandoval County Sheriff’s Office—to put out the word we were on the hunt for a victim named Jazz Penrod. I even called Sergeant Dix Lee at the Farmington PD. We’d worked together on the Bisti murder case in which Henry and his brother were involved. She knew Jazz.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t that handsome hunk from down Albuquerque way gracing the other end of this line,” she said as she answered her page.

  “How’s my favorite cop?” I came back at her.

  “Don’t give me that. Your favorite cop has short hair and never wore a skirt. You calling about Jazz? Hope you found him.”

  “No, but think we found his trail.”

  “Does it lead right back up here?”

  “Wish it did,” I said.

  “Maybe it does. We found his Jeep Wrangler th
e other day. Or at least the Navajo Tribal Police found it parked at tribal headquarters in Window Rock.”

  “In Arizona?”

  “Yep. They called Lonzo Joe when they saw a BOLO he put out on the vehicle. You remember Lonzo?”

  Lonzo was a Navajo detective with the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office who interfaced with Farmington PD a lot since he worked out of the shared lab on their premises.

  “Sure do. How’s he doing?”

  “Right as a rain dance. Anyway, he processed the Jeep. Nothing. Whoever drove it last wiped it clean. Even the places they sometimes forget, like the rearview mirror. Lonzo stirred up everybody on both sides of the reservation border, but nobody’s found hide nor hair of Jazz.”

  “That’s because he’s not there. He’s down here, and so was his vehicle.”

  “Then what’s it doing back up in our neck of the woods? Misdirection, maybe.”

  “Exactly. It’s probably been there for a while. The pimps want us to think he’s still in the Four Corners area.”

  “Pimps?”

  I walked her through the entire situation. When I finished, she was silent for a moment. I could mentally see her sitting there twisting a long strand of blonde hair between two fingers. A sign she was thinking.

  “BJ, can you hold on? I think Lonzo’s in the building. I want you to talk to him.”

  I twiddled my thumbs for five minutes before she and the San Juan County detective picked up receivers simultaneously.

  “Hey, man,” I said at the sound of his voice. “You ever get that dog-fighting ring rolled up?”

  “Yeah, including a couple of family members of the sheriff’s. Made me real popular, I can tell you.”

  Dix broke in. “BJ, the reason I wanted to catch Lonzo is because of this sex trafficking thing.”

  “Yeah, it’s a problem over on the rez,” Lonzo said. “There’s so much poverty and alcohol the pimps think they can steal our kids and nobody’ll care. Well, I care. We care. But Jazz doesn’t fit the profile. He’s—”

  “Yeah, I know. He’s older than usual, and he’s male, not female.”

  “Oh, they take boys too. But you’re right, it’s mostly girls. And they occasionally take men and women, but generally to indenture them for labor, not for the sex trade. Although sometimes they find themselves exploited that way after they’re sold to someone. An added benefit for the buyer.”

  “You’ve both seen Jazz and know what a package of raw sex he is. I’ll fax you a copy of our file so far, but there’s no question in my mind he’s been sold to someone in the sex trade. Question is, is it someone local or someone somewhere else, possibly out of the country.”

  “They move them sometimes,” Lonzo said. “But not so much out of the country nowadays. But then, I gotta admit, Jazz is special. What does the FBI say?”

  “Haven’t called them in yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “My ex APD partner is lending me a hand, but if something doesn’t break soon, we’ll call on them. Anything you can do at that end?” I asked.

  “Maybe. Do you have any idea what brand the particular family who took Jazz uses?”

  “A spot of white-dyed hair.”

  “I’ve seen it. And you’re right, that’s a brand for some bad dudes we labeled the White Streak family up here.”

  “Cartel guys?”

  “Probably. But maybe not the kind you think. We keep hearing whispers up here that it’s a Bulgarian criminal gang who hires local muscle for assistance.”

  “Do you know their circuit?”

  “Here in New Mexico, it’s from all parts of the state to Albuquerque, and from Albuquerque to Juárez. From Juárez to Santa Cruz. From there… wherever.”

  “So if they’re moving him, it’s probably through the El Paso-Juárez area?”

  “Most likely. BJ, there’s a guy on the rez I think is a local contractor for them. He fingers kids and isolates them so they can be taken.”

  “That’s not the way they got Jazz.”

  “I realize that. They used the internet to snare him. But I’m thinking this guy might know some of the stops on the circuit. Specific motels, truck stops, things like that. It might help get a line on some of their safe houses.”

  “It might. Why haven’t you already picked him up?”

  “In the first place, I don’t have jurisdiction over there. In the second, not enough evidence.”

  “Turn me loose on him. I don’t have the same constraints you cops do. Who is he, anyway?”

  “Fellow by the name of Nesposito. Julian Nesposito. He used to be a holy man. Performed healing rituals, but things went wrong in his life. He lost the Harmony Way. Son killed to a car wreck caused by alcohol. Wife gave up and died. Nesposito was one of the first miners on the rez but got so messed up he lost that job. They still call him Hard Hat up here.”

  “What makes you suspect him?”

  “No visible means of support, but he’s driving a new Dodge pickup. Spends his time roaming the back roads… visiting relatives, he claims. He got caught with one girl, younger’n usual, around eleven. Claimed he thought she was his cousin’s girl and was taking her home. I think the family knew better, but they were either bought off or too scared to rat on him.”

  “Should I come up?” I asked.

  “Not yet. Let me have a crack at him.”

  “Gotta be soon. If I’m right, our attempts to find Jazz have been blown. They might move him soon. If they haven’t already.”

  “Or worse,” Lonzo said, sending a chill down my back.

  GENE CALLED me on my cell around four thirty.

  “Get over here. Right away. My Other Home Motel.” I heard someone call his name before he closed the call. It sounded like Carson.

  Paul and Henry had been at the conference table in my office listening to a newscast on a portable TV about a pastor down in Florida named Terry Jones who announced on Twitter—whatever that was—he planned on a public burning of the Koran, kicking off riots all over the Muslim world. As soon as they heard I’d been summoned, they abandoned the TV and insisted on going with me. We piled into the car and pulled out of the parking lot, heading west on Central. All I could do was fend off their questions with “I don’t know.” But I was alarmed. There had been a strain in Gene’s voice that didn’t show up often.

  Police cars blocked us from approaching closer than a block from the motel. Gene had paved the way for me, and we were escorted on foot to the parking lot, where I spotted my old partner consulting with some other cops. One was Lieutenant Bolton. Bolton spotted us first.

  “BJ, what are you doing here?”

  “I called him,” Gene said.

  “Why? Oh, because of the Penrod kid?”

  Gene viewed my companions with a jaundiced eye. “I called you, not these two.”

  “Couldn’t leave them behind. What’s going on, Gene?”

  “A slaughter. That’s what it is. Three adults and I don’t know how many children. At least half a dozen.”

  “Oh God!” I heard Henry mutter. He started for the door to the office, but two policemen intercepted him.

  “We have to be patient, Henry. Gene will get us in as soon as he can.”

  “Wrong. I’ll get you in as soon as the crime scene boys give us the go-ahead.”

  “Any IDs?”

  “One of our guys recognized the motel manager, a man named Willie Slutter. No ID on any of the others as yet.”

  “Lieutenant,” Henry said. “I gotta get in there and see if one of them’s my brother.”

  “Dial it back, guy. I can’t even get in there until the forensics people are finished. Their lieutenant’s promised to clear a way for BJ and me to take a look as soon as he can, but he’s not going to stand for all of us tromping over the place.”

  “Let me go instead of BJ. I know my own brother.”

  “You ever seen a dozen bodies with their brains shot out laying all over the place? How do I know you won’t throw up all over t
he crime scene from what you see and what you smell? It’s the abattoir smell that gets to you the worst. No, I’ll take BJ when they give me the okay. He’s been through things like this before and can identify your brother—if it’s necessary.”

  I must have checked my watch a dozen times, but I still had no idea how much time passed before the unit admitted the medical examiner. He beckoned to us, and we walked inside right behind OMI personnel. The front lobby was not particularly clean but not disordered either. The sight just beyond the lobby brought me to an abrupt halt.

  Bodies cluttered the wide hallway clear to the far end. Hours had passed, but I could still discern cordite mixed with the heavy, clogging odor of blood and urine and feces. And the sickening smell of exposed brainpans. As the crime scene lieutenant directed our steps toward the far end, we passed small, crumpled figures. Others stretched out in the act of fleeing. A few sat against the walls, as if they had merely waited for death.

  The lieutenant, a man named Toledo, halted before entering the hallway. “There are seven children and three adults. This one we’ve identified as Willie Slutter, the motel manager. I suspect he was hit first. Then the other two adults.”

  He stepped into the hallway and paused. I recognized the man at his feet. It was the Dominican, Florio Gaspard. From the fright frozen on his features, he’d faced his executioner. The third man wasn’t a surprise. Juan Jose Flores-Gurule, who’d called himself Juan Gonzales when he contacted Jazz, had made it to the end of the hall but not through the doorway. He’d been shot, as had the other two men, through the torso, and then through the back of the head. The killer wanted to make sure they were dead.

  I shook my head involuntarily. The stench was about to overcome me. “No more adults?” I asked.

  Lieutenant Toledo shook his head. “Just kids. Some as old as seventeen or eighteen, but no adults.”

  “Could we see the older ones?” Gene asked. “The man we’re looking for looks like a kid.”

  With obvious reluctance over further tromping on his crime scene, Toledo showed us two more bodies. Neither was Jazz. But I recognized one. Clancy Truscott, the Oklahoma City runaway we’d snagged on the street and supposedly saved, had returned to the fold to die with the rest of his “family.”