Quicksand (12 page)

Ben shrugged, giving her a half smile. “I might call anyway.”

*   *   *

Tress It Up's
small, grubby storefront belied the bright, warm atmosphere within. Plastered to the wide glass windows were large, faded posters of black women with masses of tiny braids; the posters served to effectively hide the store within, and as the agents entered, they understood why. The seven customers inside were in various states of undress, and all had either fat rollers or huge aluminum foils jutting out of their heads. Three stylists commanded bright pink barber's chairs, and the row of four hair dryers was at full occupancy.

Dead silence followed the bell-tinkling that announced their entrance.

A large-chested woman came forward, still holding a spray bottle. “Can I help you?” Three huge hairclips sprouted from the edges of her black apron, and her makeup struck Nora as alarming for eleven in the morning. Her short, spiky hair had lavender tips.

“We're looking for Cheryl,” John said.

“You being who?” the woman demanded.

Wordlessly, they pulled out their identification and showed it to her. She scrutinized their badges, then asked, “Is there a problem?”

“Are you Cheryl?”

She nodded.

“Can we talk privately?”

Cheryl pursed her lips, then said, “Gimme a second.” She walked back to the wide-eyed woman in her barber's chair and rapidly rolled two more fat pink rollers into her thin hair. After securing them with clips, she sprayed a foul-smelling substance liberally over the woman's entire head and ordered her to wait. She lifted the dryer from the head of another woman, instructed her to go to the rinsing station, and seated her other customer in the newly vacated seat.

At last she looked at the agents, not bothering to disguise her annoyance. “Follow me.”

She led them into a back office, where they asked her full name, and she gave it as Cheryl Thomas.

“What is this all about, now?” she demanded.

Nora said, “We're simply looking for some information about a recent murder in the neighborhood. When we questioned one of your clients, Mrs. Chambers, she suggested that we find out what you know about the gang activity in this area.”

Cheryl thought for a moment. “Elfreda Chambers? That's a good woman, right there.” She paused, studying them. “If it's Miz Chambers who sent you…” her voice trailed off, wavering.

“She did, and she spoke very highly of you,” John said. Nora suppressed a smile.

Cheryl Thomas seemed to sit slightly higher in her chair. “Well, this last murder was right in her backyard now, wasn't it?”

“Have you heard anything about gang activity?” John asked.

“Oh, now you're coming around to ask us about ‘gang activity'? These bangers are killing us up in here. What, was the lady white, is that why there's this sudden concern?” She gave Nora a once-over, but didn't seem able to classify her. “Where you from, honey, Mexico?”

“Philly,” Nora said acidly.

John said, a little self-righteously, “The lady was not white. We've had a lot of trouble with both the A&As and the Junior Black Mafia these days. This is the third killing in a short amount of time—she might not be connected to either gang, but the location of the body suggests it was a message for the Junior Black Mafia.”

“Killings I don't know about. But I did hear that the A&As are trying hard to get some of the JBM business, which is why they've been messin' around in JBM territory, shootin' things up. Since the A&As started distributing Mexican drugs, they got serious masters now. After serious money.”

“How do you know about links to the cartels?” John asked.

Cheryl shrugged. “It's what people say. The A&As started working with the Mexicans, so the Junior Black Mafia started pimpin'. Tryin' to keep up.”

“Wait, what?” Nora demanded. “What are you saying?”

Cheryl leaned back in her chair. “Boy, you all don't know nothin', do you? The A&As are getting more drugs, cheaper, from Mexico. That's why they got the cars now, why they got bank. The Junior Black Mafia don't have the same connections. And Reality ended up in prison last time he tried to hook up that way—”

“Reality? Dewayne Fulton?”

“Yeah. So he's gang-pimpin' now. One girl who come in here, her daughter just…” Cheryl shook her head. “She just gone. Little girl, too. Just fifteen. And see, now they got the Facebook, got the Internet, they can set everything up online. No street-walkin'. Orderin' the girls online so they just show up at the door. One girl can go to seven, eight guys a night, sometimes more. And they never see none of that money. Reality—Dewayne—he takes it all. Girls get some meth, some heroin, maybe. Maybe they get some nice clothes to wear, a nice bag, that's it.”

“Where do all the girls come from?” Nora asked.

Cheryl spread her arms wide. “Right here in paradise, girl.”

John nodded. “It's not the first time I heard of gang-pimping. Just the first time I heard of it here in Philly.”

Cheryl worked her jaw. “And now you heard about it, you gonna be stoppin' it. Right?”

“That's my job, Ms. Thomas.”

Cheryl looked nonplussed.

“And—I'm a father. So what do you think?”

Her features relaxed slightly. “Alright, father. That's good enough for me.” She tilted her head, letting a smile creep across her features. “You a
married
father, too?”

Wansbrough tried to suppress a laugh. “Twenty-five years.”

“Alright, just askin', now,” she said, laughing, as she patted her spiky hair.

“Tell your client whose daughter is missing to come to us,” Nora said, handing her a card.

Cheryl rose and crossed to a bulletin board near her desk. She pulled pushpins out of the cork and handed Nora a missing persons flyer. It showed a picture of a young African American girl with a shy smile. Tameka Cooper, aged fifteen. The information had been written by hand and run off on yellow copy paper. “Her mama already gone to the police three times…”

Nora took the flyer, then tapped the card she'd given her. “My direct line,” she said, meeting Cheryl's eyes. “Have the mother call me.”

Cheryl blinked her outrageously long lashes, then asked. “Y'all gonna answer if I call you and say the JBM figured out I talked to you. Right? Because, for the record, this salon ain't one of those set up by girls in the crew, a drug money salon. I built this business from the ground up. It's all I got.”

John nodded somberly. “Ms. Thomas, your safety is a priority for us.”

“But not, like, the
top
priority…”

“The top priority. You just call if you need anything.” He handed her his card as well. She tucked both cards into her apron as she headed back to check on her client under the dryer. John and Nora thanked her and headed out onto the street.

Nora plunged her hands deep in her jacket pockets. “Well, that's a twist. I've seen a lot of female gang members in the last six months, and it was clear that some were exchanging sex for drugs, but getting pimped on the Net? Who would put up with that?”

John looked at her. “I don't want to keep telling you you don't understand anything about being poor, but it's pretty clear to me that you still don't really get it.”

Nora winced, regretting her words. She was silent for a moment as they walked, then said, “If Lisa Halston was a madam and not just a hooker, it's possible she was helping with the gang-pimping operation.”

“Making the contents of that computer all the more critical.” John looked around at the grim span of ramshackle homes and weedy, littered lots, then took a jagged breath.

Nora tilted her head. “You okay? John?”

“What's that statistic I'm always quoting at you?” he asked distractedly.

“The one about eighty percent of the murders in Philly being gang-related? And how if little white kids were scared to walk to school the way little black kids are scared to walk to school, there wouldn't be a gang problem?”

“I came up out of a neighborhood just like this one, Nora. My mother…” his voice trailed off. “If it weren't for my grandma, I would have been gangbangin' myself.”

“Crazy grandma?”

He smiled. “
I
made her crazy. She wasn't always crazy. Growing up, she saved us from the streets by taking us out of my mama's house. Making sure we had food every day, making sure we went to school and came back home again.”

Nora nodded, watching a boy of no more than six straggling along on the opposite sidewalk, unattended. He seemed to feel her gaze, and he looked up. Their eyes locked, and then he continued his silent walk. She said at last, “And so the latest victim…”

“Could have been one of Dewayne's girls,” John finished.

Nora twisted this around in her mind. “I guess anything's possible.”

“Maybe those calluses are from praying for forgiveness,” John said.

Nora looked at him askance. “Maybe. Do you think Cheryl's right about the A&As being more successful with the cartels?”

John shook his head. “Dewayne wasn't hurting. He's gotten from Colombia via New York City. He's not unconnected. And we know he's been distributing as far away as Camden and the Main Line. The prostitution thing is probably just an additional source of income.” They kept walking for a few more paces, before he said, “The smart ones now are going to be figuring out how to produce their own product. Keep supply-side costs down—and eliminate some of the danger of dealing with the cartels. The cartels make our gangbangers look like choirboys.”

Nora asked, “What if the cartels had a part in these killings?”

John was nodding. “It's exactly what I was just thinking. It would explain the really graphic side. It's not just your ordinary revenge for a drive-by—not the typical MO.”

The rest of the neighborhood was not receptive to their questions about the Junior Black Mafia, the A&As, or the recent murder. They knocked on door after door, receiving a standard answer.
Didn't hear anything. Didn't see anything. Gangs? I don't know anything about the gangs.
Those who answered their doors were almost exclusively African American, though a few looked and sounded to be West African.

They stood for a long time near the crime scene, studying the houses and walking the small path where the truck or van must surely have stopped to discharge the body. Nora stared at the dark, listing structures. Almost all the windows had heavy bars installed across the glass. A few were missing their windows altogether, while not a few had boards across them.

“I feel like I've memorized this scene, John. The layout, the houses, which is closest, which would have had the best view. But it's not helping. I wish people would talk to us.” She turned slowly around, looking up at the homes, scrutinizing every brick and each bit of trim.

John shrugged. “These kids are from here. Talking gets punished. People are terrorized. What I wouldn't give for a bigger budget. Stop kids from going into gangs—just bar the door and not even move outta the way—the same way we shut down whole airports to keep guys from flying off to Yemen to join up.”

It was after three when they finally gave up and headed back to the field office, which seemed even more frantic with activity than when they had left that morning.

As they entered their cubicle, John's desk phone began trilling, adding to the cacophony of sound on the eighth floor. John picked it up, spoke briefly, and replaced the receiver. “Jane Doe has been moved to the psych ward at Thomas Jefferson. Still not speaking, but the doctors there have placed her age at sixteen.”

Nora considered this. “I'll try to get in to see her later.” She checked the time on her phone. “Speaking of seeing people, don't you have somewhere you have to be, John?”

Wansbrough looked at his watch. “
Shit
.” It was going to be a struggle to get home, get changed, and make his dinner reservations on time.

He stood to go, patting his pockets for cell phone and keys, as Burton and Calder walked in. They had arrested two more marginal members, this time of the A&As. Burton was sporting a black eye and a cut across his jawline.

“You guys okay?” Wansbrough asked.

“Yeah,” said Ben Calder. “Cake.”

“What happened?” asked Nora.

Burton answered, “Running tackle out the back of the Kingsessing Community Center. We hit the concrete stairs, and I got an elbow in the face.”

“But you got the bad guys…”

“Just kids, Nora,” Ben said, sounding tired. “X-Box and Rico. A lot of tattoos, very little info. X-Box thinks Kevin Baker has left town, though. That's the one thing we got so far.”

“Going where?”

Both agents shook their heads. “The kid couldn't say,” Burton answered. “Seems he's genuinely too far down the totem pole to know. But we'll see how he feels after a night in lockup.”

“Alright,” Wansbrough said. He quickly briefed them on the information from the hairdresser, then made to leave. “Burton, I'm gonna need that report on the local imams and Bureau policy for approaching them for questioning. We need to do everything right and get our information fast and efficiently. Calder, you and Nora need to go downstairs and see what Monty Watt has come up with.”

Calder tried to keep from grinning.

Wansbrough caught his look. “Are you grinning, Agent Calder? You like morgues, young man?”

“I do,” he answered, as Nora shook her head in exasperation. “Very much, sir.”

“Excellent. You get to type up the report, then.”

*   *   *

“See?” she said,
after both Wansbrough and Burton had stepped out. She waited for Ben to tuck his phone into his pocket. “See what you get yourself into?”