The Vigilantes boh-10

by W. E. B Griffin

  Fucking showing off, Curtis thought.

  Like he owns the street.

  And wants to own one of them…

  As the motorcycle came closer to where Will Curtis peered out from behind the filthy Ford van, the rider backed off the gas and the front tire returned to the pavement. The headlight beam flashed Curtis in the eyes, momentarily blinding him.

  He instinctively dropped back behind the van and went into a crouch. He heard the motorcycle approaching quickly, followed by the sound of skidding tires. The motorcycle’s engine revved twice, then went silent.

  The only sound Will Curtis now heard was in the distance, up the street. The school girls were giggling and talking-both nervously and excitedly-as they slowly walked on up Nineteenth.

  And-boom!-the sights and sounds of the high schoolers triggered a memory.

  This time, though, the flashback wasn’t an unpleasant one.

  Wendy had attended Hallahan. And Will remembered the last day of her senior year. She had come home with her blue-and-white athletic jacket dripping wet because, as was traditional at the girls’ school, she and the rest of the senior class had jumped into the Logan Circle fountain, which was just blocks south of the school in front of the Four Seasons Hotel.

  And then the Catholic school memory-boom!-filled his mind with scenes of attending Saint Vincent’s Catholic Church with Wendy and Linda.

  In addition to worshipping there, near their West Mount Airy home, Will had volunteered his time. Mostly it had been in the capacity of scout-master with a Boy Scout troop that the church sponsored. Never mind that he’d had no sons in the program. He liked what the Scouts did-he’d been one as a kid, working his way up to just two merit badges shy of the top rank of Eagle Scout-and, bending rules a bit, he liked taking his daughter on camping trips and other outings with the boys. He’d treated her like the others. He taught them how to handle knives and how to shoot pistols and. 22-caliber rifles (though, to his disappointment, she never kept any interest in guns).

  In Scouts he’d also, of course, taught Wendy how to tie her knots.

  And that-boom!-did cause an unpleasant flashback.

  Damn it!

  An ugly one, a vivid one, because he knew that the morning after Saint Paddy’s, after that evil date-rape drug had worn off, Wendy had awakened to find herself naked and spread-eagled-bound with nylon stockings knotted around all four of the bedposts.

  As Will Curtis’s eyes readjusted to the darkness and he could make out his surroundings again, the flashback faded.

  He looked across the street and saw that the motorcycle rider had nosed the machine to a stop in front of the cracked frosted plate-glass window with LAW OFFICE OF DANIEL O. GARTNER, ESQ.

  The window still pulsed with colored lights from the television.

  The bike was indeed an aggressive-looking racing machine. It had bright neon green plastic body panels and a neon green fuel tank, a sleek, swept-back windscreen, and bold decalcomania that damn near screamed in black lettering: KAWASAKI NINJA.

  The rider dramatically swung his right leg over the seat as he dismounted. He then began loosening the chin strap of his matching neon green helmet, a full-face model with its silver-mirrored visor pushed up.

  Then, suddenly, the battered metal door of the office opened.

  The motorcyclist turned to look toward it.

  Will Curtis thought, All that engine roaring and rubber burning got someone’s attention.

  And then he saw a familiar face in the doorway.

  Curtis had amused himself the first time he’d seen the criminal defense lawyer’s name listed on court papers as: COUNSELOR, DEFENSE-GARTNER, DANIEL O. He’d begun by calling him “Danny O.” Then he’d switched that around.

  Well, hello, O Danny Boy.

  You sleazy sonofabitch…

  Curtis thought of Gartner, with a beak of a nose and squinty dark eyes, as a pale-faced prick. He was medium-size and in his early to mid fifties. He tried to appear much younger by dying the gray of his thinning hair, though the dye job, full of blotches, was badly done. He wore tight faded black jeans, a gray T-shirt stenciled with black arty lettering that read PEACE LOVE JUSTICE, and tan suede shoes that were open at the heel.

  As his squinty eyes darted back and forth, Curtis recalled his first impression of Gartner: that he not only looked like a weasel, but projected a greasy sleaziness.

  Gartner then said something to the motorcyclist as he was rocking his helmet side to side to slide it from his head. When he’d finally gotten it off and turned to lock it to the rear of the bike, Curtis saw yet another familiar face, a smug one.

  Well, I will be goddamned! All the waiting really has paid off.

  I’m going to get a twofer!

  Jay-Cee, you miserable shit. You won’t be smug long, not for what you did to Wendy…

  John “JC” Nguyen was a cocky twenty-five-year-old-half Caucasian, half Asian, small-boned, five-two, and maybe one-ten soaking wet-who didn’t walk but strutted. His thick black hair was combed straight back and hung to his collar. He wore baggy blue jeans that barely clung to his hips, a long-sleeved white T-shirt, and, over the T-shirt, a Philadelphia Eagles football jersey.

  The green jersey had a big white number 7 on the back and, in white block lettering across the shoulder blades, the name VICK.

  Small surprise that the punk worships an overpaid jock who likes making dogs fight to the death.

  But what the hell kind of justice is it that Michael Vick sat almost two years in the slam for that crime while this miserable shit abused my baby and never spent a single fucking night behind bars?

  By the time he reentered the court system for the assault on Wendy Curtis, JC had had a long list of priors-more than a dozen arrests over as many years, mostly for either possession of, or possession with intent to distribute, pot and speed and other controlled substances. His first bust had been when he’d just turned fourteen, and it earned him the street name “JC,” for John Cannabis, a nod to the homegrown marijuana he first sold to his South Philly High schoolmates.

  Curtis had learned, primarily from the prosecutors in the Repeat Offenders Unit of the district attorney’s office, that in all but Nguyen’s very first cases, he had been represented by Gartner.

  Curtis also had been told that that did not necessarily mean Gartner was a good lawyer. In fact, one assistant district attorney assigned to prosecute Nguyen’s case said that the opposite was true.

  “The one thing commonly said of Daniel O. Gartner, Esquire,” the prosecutor told Curtis, quietly but bitterly, “is that he’s the worst fucking lawyer in all the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

  He’d then added, “If there existed a book titled The Dictionary of Dirt-bags, and in it was a definition of a lawyer who not only graduated at the bottom of his class but was as dirty as his clients, Gartner’s ugly mug would be beside it.” He’d exhaled audibly and added, “He’s always working the system.”

  He explained that Gartner almost never really won a case for a client. Practically all them were negotiated with some sort of plea bargain to get the charges reduced, working the system so that the sentence left the scum with a very short term in the slam. Thus, it wasn’t unusual for Gartner to watch a less-than-ecstatic client in handcuffs and a faded orange jumpsuit being hauled out of court to go back behind bars.

  Sometimes-thanks to the already overloaded justice system, its dockets packed, its prisons full-he managed to get only a slap-on-the-wrist sentence of probation.

  And, on very rare occasions, Gartner got a case tossed out on a technicality.

  Curtis had learned that the hard way in Wendy’s case, with Nguyen. Gartner got the guilty bastard off scot-free. All it had taken was for him to find a breach in how the evidence had been handled.

  The animal didn’t even get probation. Nothing.

  In the DA’s office, after giving the bad news to Will and Linda Curtis, then deeply apologizing for the administrative mistake, the prosecutor sighe
d and said, “It’s the reality of what we deal with every day. The system is broken. But like a broken watch that gets the time right twice a day, we eventually do get ’em. Meanwhile, guys like Gartner take advantage of the weaknesses to get their clients to walk.”

  Will Curtis saw Gartner motion for JC to come inside. JC nodded in reply, then pulled a small nylon bag from under the weblike netting on the rear end of the motorcycle’s black seat.

  Strutting like a rooster, he carried the bag to the open metal door, went through it, and closed the door behind him.

  Will Curtis checked for traffic again and started across the street.

  [THREE]

  Loft Number 2180 Hops Haus Tower 1100 N. Lee Street, Philadelphia Saturday, October 31, 11:05 P.M.

  “Maybe I’m wrong about you being a cop,” Dr. Amanda Law playfully whispered to Homicide Sergeant Matthew M. Payne, Philadelphia Police Department Badge Number 471, “because I’m beginning to think that you do your best work undercover.”

  He saw that her face was flushed and glowing as she smiled and pulled her shoulder-length blond hair into a ponytail, then threw back the soft cotton cover in question.

  She leaned over and kissed him wetly and loudly on his heaving chest. Then she stepped out of bed and, after taking a moment to catch her breath, said, “Be right back, Romeo.”

  Twenty-seven-year-old Matt Payne-who was six feet tall, one-seventy-five with a chiseled face, dark intelligent eyes, and thick dark hair he kept trimmed short-marveled at the magnificent milk-white orbs that formed the toned derriere of Amanda Law as she padded stark naked across the hardwood flooring, then disappeared into the bathroom.

  There then came from behind the door a soft thumping and whine, followed by the sound of two clicks, one of a light switch and another of the door latch softly shutting.

  The whine had been from Luna, the two-year-old pup Amanda had rescued from the animal shelter five months earlier. And the thumping had been the dog’s wagging tail hitting the plastic floor liner of the wire kennel crate that served as the dog’s den in the massive tiled bathroom.

  Luna-Matt joked that it was short for “Lunatic” due to the dog’s occasional hyperness and regular talkativeness-was either a labradoodle or a genuine purebred Portuguese water dog. The two breeds could be spitting images, and had similar traits: a friendly disposition and a serious protective loud bark. It was Amanda’s opinion that Luna, at forty pounds, with a dense, tightly curled, nonshedding black coat, was more poodle than lab.

  Payne smiled as he thought, What the hell? Is it possible to lose count?

  He glanced at the bedside table. There, beside two beer bottles and a glass of white wine, was his cell phone. He looked at the clock on its screen.

  It’s only eleven? And we got back here at maybe nine.

  Payne, his heart pounding, put his head back on the pillow.

  So, that means she… that is, we…

  Damn! Three times in two hours…

  As his chest continued to rise and fall with heavy breaths, he decided that if he was about to go into full cardiac arrest right damn here and right damn now, the luxury apartment of a medical doctor wasn’t necessarily a bad place for that to happen. Particularly considering that over the course of the last two hours, said medical doctor had been party to the cause of his current condition.

  I’m not about to die, but when I do, I damn sure want to go wrapped in the arms of that wonderful blond goddess.

  Thank God she’s gotten back so much of her old self.

  And, thank God again, she seems only to have suffered a little of the anxiety that her shrink predicted-and none of the post-trauma stress he’d said would come.

  He certainly underestimated her strong character and her ability to move forward and keep working.

  And she loves her work.

  Amanda Law, MD, FACS, FCCM, was chief physician at Temple University Hospital’s Burn Center.

  Matt was then jarred by the painful memory of Amanda’s abduction from in front of the hospital a month before-and how close she’d come to being killed by a psychopath. And that made him think about what she’d just said about him being a cop, and that in turn made him think about her condominium and why he was really glad she had a place that he knew was safer than any place in the screwed-up city.

  After what she went through, having The Fortress doesn’t hurt.

  If only for her peace of mind.

  Hell, mine, too.

  Nearly nine months earlier, Amanda Law had bought Loft Number 2180, a luxury one-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath condominium on the top floor of the year-old Hops Haus Tower in the Northern Liberties section of Philly. The penthouse property had met her long list of requirements, starting with a good price.

  “A really reasonable one, considering all the amenities,” she’d said.

  But, she confided in Matt, what had really sold her on the place were the incredible panoramic views.

  Even from his pillow, Payne could stare out at the lights twinkling on nearby Interstate 95 and the Delaware River and, past the far riverbank, the lights of Camden, New Jersey, and, spreading out even farther east, of the Garden State itself.

  She’d said she also liked the retro industrial design of the high-rise, which reflected the feel of the Hops Haus Brewery, the renovated four-story, hundred-year-old building adjacent to the foot of the tower. The wall surfaces were alternately exposed red brick and stained concrete, and the flooring was a rustic dark hardwood planking. The high ceilings had exposed fire sprinkler pipes, and the metal ductwork for the air-conditioning hung from straps out in the open. The floor-to-ceiling windows were of the same design as those of the original Bavarian brewhouse downstairs.

  But what Payne liked best about the residential tower-and why he privately called it The Fortress-was that, while it was meant to appear old, the place had the absolute latest in state-of-the-art security. That included, of course, being wired with high-end closed-circuit TV cameras with overlapping fields of view so that no corner went unrecorded, as well as a multifactor authentication system for anyone who wished to access the property.

  And all of it was monitored by round-the-clock private security personnel. The security chief was Andy Hardwick, a mid-forties, bald, and barrelchested sergeant from Central Detectives who’d conveniently retired from the Philadelphia Police Department right before the development was completed. He’d known Payne’s biological father and uncle, had known Matt since he’d been in diapers, and was more than happy to show him all the building’s bells and whistles and bad-guy booby traps.

  Hardwick had promised Payne there’d be a close but discreet protective eye kept on the primary resident of Loft Number 2180, as well as heightened surveillance, mostly via CCTV cameras, but also by occasional security personnel “performing routine safety-device inspections,” of the twenty-first floor.

  This place is probably tighter than a Graterford RHU, Payne thought, and then he had a mental image of the hellish super-secure Restricted Housing Units-effectively individual prisons for the worst offenders serving time in solitary confinement-at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution thirty miles west of Philly.

  All of the Hops Haus Tower’s common-area and exterior doors were on computer-controlled locks. Every resident was issued an electronic fob, smaller than a cough drop and designed to fit conveniently on a key ring, each of which had a unique electronic signature that could be turned on-and, perhaps more important, turned off-at one of the security computers. Most residents also had electronic scans of their thumbprints saved to the security computers.

  For entry, residents could unlock the common-area and exterior doors-including those on each floor of the parking garage that led to the elevators-only through a two-step authentication process: First, they used the electronic fob, and second, they submitted to a biometric thumbprint reader or manually entered a unique code on a keypad. The doors guarding each elevator bank within the building were fitted with the same certific
ation devices.

  Finally, as a last electronic barrier, there was a fob receiver panel inside each elevator, on the wall of buttons. You had to swipe the fob in order for any of the buttons to become live and light up when pushed.

  Each fob was coded to be floor-specific, which meant two things. It was noted if the resident associated with the thumbprint or keypad code at the elevator bank door got off at a floor other than the one linked to the fob, and the anomaly was flagged and archived and available in the event anything unfortunate happened.

  And only residents of the penthouse floor had fobs that allowed access to that level. The fobs of every other resident could go only as high as the twentieth floor. Which was another reason Payne thought that Amanda’s top-floor unit was highly secure.

  Then he had an unkind thought.

  Of course, no matter how high the professional standards, including Andy Hardwick’s, the weak link in the most secure of facilities, whether it’s a luxury residence or a super-max prison, is the human factor-the gatekeepers, whoever the hell is manning the desks and machinery.

  One crooked guard on the take and the whole fucking system may as well be a bucket of rusty bolts and blown locks.

  Especially with security-and certain concierge-personnel having access to that master key to every unit, the one that that effeminate manager had said “was necessary, you know, just in case of emergency, like your washing machine’s water line ruptures while you’re gone or your bathtub overflows and starts flooding your neighbors.”

  Yeah, right. And for what he didn’t say: “Or there’s the stench of rotted flesh coming from behind your locked door.”

  Still, for what it is, and where it is, this place is as good as it gets.

  His pulse starting to calm, Payne sat up and heaved one last deep breath. He reached back over to the bedside table and picked up one of the beers, a half-empty bottle of Hops Haus India Pale Ale. After he and Amanda had eaten dinner in the pub on the first floor of the building, he’d bought a case of the IPA-the pub had its own microbrewery-and that case of twenty-four bottles was now down to twenty.