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“Here?”

Nesbitt looked around the room. “Okay. Start with that. Why are we here?”

El Nariz looked him in the eyes, then nodded.

“Si. I have agre

ement with Meester Skeeper,” he began, “to use his machines for my laundry service…”

“… And as the evil man was leaving, he shot holes,” Paco Esteban said, as he finished his five-minute explanation. “And so everyone, all of my crew, they run for their lives. I come back here to clean up the place. I could not leave it the way it was.”

“This evil man shot holes?” Nesbitt repeated.

“Si. Come. I show you.”

El Nariz led Nesbitt to the rear room. He pointed to the arch that was the bullet-riddled masonry wall.

“My God!” Nesbitt exclaimed.

“Si.”

“Why did he do that? I mean, to scare you?”

El Nariz nodded. “ Muy scary.”

“And you have a head in your freezer?”

“Si.”

Chad Nesbitt could not believe what he was seeing and hearing.

The gunfire was bad enough-gunfire in a business he partly owned.

But the barbarism?

Jesus!

That’s the kind of thing you hear about those animals committing in faraway backward countries!

He pulled out his cellular phone and hit the speed-dial number of Matt Payne. The phone beeped in his ear, and when he looked at the screen, he saw: NO SERVICE

Then he saw that the signal bars were low.

“Shit!”

Nesbitt typed out a text message to Matt and sent it: CALL ME WHEN YOU GET THIS… MORE TROUBLE

“Paco,” Chad Nesbitt said anxiously, “you must not tell anyone about this! Understand? Not until I figure out what to do.”

He nodded, and said, “S?. Muchas gracias.”

THREE

Temple Burn Unit Temple University Hospital North Broad and West Tioga Streets, Philadelphia Wednesday, September 9, 10:43 A.M.

Police Officer Stephanie Kowenski came pounding down the third-floor corridor, her hands on either side of her ample hips. One held her police radio and the other her Glock pistol, both in their respective holsters, in an attempt to keep them from banging against her as she ran.

She turned the corner. Just as she glimpsed what looked like a scuffle at the southeast end of the corridor, she ran smack into a gurney that was being pushed up the corridor. When she hit it, both she and the gurney went flying.