Quicksand Page 20

  Kevin gazed numbly at him from the one eye he could still open.

  “Ms. Zucco, thank you for joining us at last,” he said.

  She feigned regret. “Held up in court,” she said.

  “Of course,” answered Burton.

  “A court at the Racquet Club, maybe,” Laurie whispered to Nora.

  “At this point, we just need Kevin to give his opinion on some things…” Burton was saying.

  “His opinion?” Catherine Zucco interrupted. “You are clearly interfering in his medical treatment by insisting on this meeting. He needs pain medication.”

  Wansbrough responded in measured tones. “He is getting everything he needs. We have some quick questions and we’ll be on our way.” He did not wait for her assent, but directed himself to Kevin. “Who did this, Kevin? Who were your attackers? Dewayne’s crew?”

  Kevin’s speech was soft and labored. “I don’t know. When they spoke to each other, I couldn’t understand them at all.”

  Nora leaned forward, surprised.

  “Los Zetas?” Burton was asking. “Were they speaking Spanish?”

  Kevin shook his head with effort. “They’d kill me before they gave me to you.”

  Both Laurie and Ben were nodding confirmation of that. Laurie murmured, “He can expose their supply lines now to cut a deal. He’s like a ticking bomb for their organization.”

  Wansbrough said, “So you were just taken off the street? You didn’t even see the face of the person who grabbed the great Kevin Baker?” The skepticism in his tone was thick.

  He answered hoarsely. “We had just gotten to the parking lot. They jumped me and Big G from behind. They put some kind of bags or hoods over our heads. Shot the brother and left him there.”

  “And then what?”

  “Drove for a while, I think back into West Philly. Took me into a house, man, I don’t know where. They never took the hood off. And they just…”

  His voice trailed off.

  Catherine Zucco interjected. “That’s enough now—You have to let him rest.”

  But Kevin continued, looking at the ceiling. “They just kept hurting me, man. Real bad. Didn’t ask me about shit. Next thing I know I was on the sidewalk in Center City.” He fell silent, and his right eyelid fluttered shut.

  His lawyer spoke again. “With what is this young man going to be charged?”

  Wansbrough and Burton both stared at her. Calmly, Wansbrough cleared his throat before rattling off the list. “Premeditated murder, discharging a firearm at federal officers, attempted murder of a federal officer, interstate trafficking in controlled substances, operating an organized crime ring…”

  Kevin opened his good eye, registering a frown. “What federal officer? What are you talking about??”

  Wansbrough raised his arm from within its sling. “Me.”

  “That’s preposterous,” Catherine Zucco interjected.

  “Your car, Kevin. Your Escalade. Drive-by shooting three days ago right in front of your house.”

  Kevin searched for words, then said, almost whispering, “My Escalade was stolen. Last week.”

  John Wansbrough glared at him. “Before or after you used it in a drive-by shooting that took out Shane Dillard, a.k.a. Benzo, of the Junior Black Mafia?”

  Kevin tried to shake his head. “I didn’t have nothin’ to do with that!”

  “That’s not the word on the street,” John countered. “Word is, you killed Benzo. And that’s why Dewayne Fulton killed your sister.”

  Kevin grimaced. “I didn’t kill Benzo. And I didn’t drive the car. It was already missing by then.”

  “So why would Dewayne kill Kylie?”

  “I don’t know!” Kevin murmured. “But when I find him—”

  “That’s enough, Kevin,” Catherine Zucco warned.

  John cut him off. “There’s already been another killing. Right in JBM territory, just like Kylie’s was right in the middle of yours. What can you tell us about it?”

  “I can’t tell you what I don’t know, man.”

  “Well who does know, Kevin?” Burton interjected.

  Kevin swallowed as he tried to form a response. “I. Don’t. Know.”

  John Wansbrough rose and took a measured stroll around the room. He stopped at the foot of the hospital bed.

  “Have you ever been to Unity Masjid?”

  “You don’t have to answer, Kevin,” said his attorney.

  “What?” Kevin asked softly.

  “A Kingsessing mosque. Ever been there?”

  Kevin seemed to be trying to process this sudden shift in the questioning. “No.”

  “Ever heard of it?”

  “No.”

  “Your brother Rashid was spotted there—”

  He groaned softly. “I got nothin’ to do with Rashid.”

  Burton and Wansbrough exchanged glances.

  “Kevin,” Catherine said, “You are to say nothing else.”

  His good eye fell shut again as Catherine Zucco glared at them. “You are going to need to issue a formal set of charges so I can request evidence disclosure. This is all backward. And you better see to it that my client gets the proper care.” And with that, she exited the room and headed for the nurse’s stand.

  As soon as the team had gathered in the hall, Burton said, “That can’t be a coincidence. Rashid and that mosque. Something’s up.”

  Nora nodded, glancing down the hall to where Catherine Zucco was still conferring with the duty nurse. Nora ignored the vibration of her phone as she said, “Yes, Laurie and I just saw Rashid at Unity Masjid. It didn’t seem out of the ordinary until now.”

  But John was shaking his head, “If I could find any link to Rashid and the A&As, maybe. But none of the kids we’re bringing in even knows him. It’s like he just materialized out of nowhere. There’s nothing to indicate he has any role at all. And clearly there’s some serious issue with Kevin.”

  “I think we should ask him to come in,” Burton said.

  John replied, “Bring him in. In the meantime, Nora, you had better call your friends at PD and make sure they located Kevin’s fallen bodyguard.”

  * * *

  She reached for her phone to call Mike Cook and then realized she’d forgotten about the incoming call she’d received. To her surprise, it had been from Basheera Johnson.

  She would not allow Nora to come to her home, but suggested a Lebanese café on Walnut Street called Manakeesh. Nora and Laurie Cruz left the rest of Nora’s team awaiting the arrival of Rashid Baker. When the two women entered the café, they found Basheera sitting in subdued silence at one of the small tables. She looked frightened, and her hands shook slightly as she spoke.

  “Thank you for calling me back,” Nora began. “I know this must be—”

  “Please, sister,” Basheera interrupted. “You really don’t know anything of what I’m feeling about all this, so please don’t say you know or don’t know anything.”

  Nora swallowed and glanced at Laurie. “Okay, can you tell us, then? We’re here to listen.”

  Basheera took a deep breath. “I … look, the Arab ladies might be able to live with themselves, but I can’t. I saw that girl. I saw what happened. That girl … she could have been me.”

  Nora leaned forward. “Do you mean Hafsa?” she asked quietly.

  Basheera shook her head, her eyes brimming. “Hafsa … Hafsa was my friend.”

  Nora said, “I know. I’m very sorry.”

  Basheera looked away. “She was only trying to help that little girl … that’s how she was. Good, and strong—she could stand up for people who needed it. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—be quiet when something was clearly wrong.” She looked around the café uncomfortably. “Maybe…” Nora fastened her eyes on her, trying to assess her unspoken signals. “Maybe we could take a walk?”

  Nora hesitated, eager for Basheera to just finish a few sentences. But she rose and followed the woman out onto the street; Laurie kept a few paces behind as Nora spoke. �
��What little girl are you talking about? Hafsa’s brother seemed to think the two of you wanted to talk to the imam that day.”

  Basheera nodded. “We knew what was happening, right here in the neighborhood under our very noses. We knew they had asked him for protection, and we decided we had to at least talk to him about it, protest his decision.”

  “I’m lost, Basheera,” said Nora. “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “There are things that are happening in Kingsessing … well, they are not…”

  Nora supplied, “Islamic?”

  Basheera nodded. “Not Islamic. Not correct…” her voice trailed off as she searched for words. When she spoke again, she sounded deeply angry. “There’s people moving in that expect community protection when they—they aren’t Muslims at all. That’s what Hafsa and I were going to talk to the imam about. To tell him what we had found out—he needed to know so he could warn the community and keep us safe—because these people just aren’t Muslims.”

  “In what way?” Nora pressed.

  Basheera went on, as though not really hearing Nora. “… I think it must be because of the wars there, because of the poverty, they just don’t have … ethics.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Nora.

  “But then again,” she seemed to answer herself, without paying attention to Nora’s question, “there were some nice ladies from there comin’ to the mosque, not two years ago—nicest ladies you ever saw … Good Muslim ladies, loved Allah, loved their neighbors…”

  Nora couldn’t keep from reaching out to grasp Basheera’s arm. “Please.”

  Basheera slowed her pace, then looked at Nora and said, almost in a whisper. “The Somalis.”

  Nora looked at her. “Explain.”

  “Look, I’ll tell you what you want to know, about that day, about Hafsa … They were speaking in Arabic, so I didn’t understand them, but I could tell Hafsa was trying to help before…” Her voice trailed off, then she gathered herself again, “You need to know I’m part of a neighborhood, a community, see? People are talkin’ … about this new gang—people are scared, maybe more scared than they normally would be, because the other crews have always been local, see? Local crews know there’s consequences. You can’t just cut out somebody’s eyes…” Basheera noticed Nora’s frown. “Yeah, people saw that body. News travels in my neighborhood.”

  She paused and cast darting gazes about her. She seemed to visibly relax when a cluster of college kids with backpacks swept past them, making their way into Manakeesh. A plump woman in a tightly cinched trench coat and leopard-print leggings pushed a stroller past them going the opposite direction, and Basheera remained silent until the woman was several yards off.

  Nora’s heart began to race. “Please, Basheera, time is so short. You have to be direct with me.”

  “They began moving here maybe a month ago. Some were coming over from New Jersey, I heard, but some came straight, running from Somalia, coming into the port on the container ships. They have … There are…” Basheera twisted her hands together, her knuckles white.

  Laurie Cruz noticed the increased tension and gave Nora a look. Nora shook her head slightly, waiting, desperate for some useful information.

  Basheera swallowed; her face had gone quite gray. She began to walk again, taking quick, nervous steps. “Girls. They got young girls from Somalia, and they make them do terrible things. Sexual things,” she added in a hoarse whisper.

  “A prostitution ring?”

  “No, no,” Basheera said. “These girls ain’t whores. They’re so young. They don’t wanna do these things, but they’re drugged, forced. They’re slaves. I heard … I heard that the gang wants to get more into drugs, that they’re lookin’ for a way to get in on the business, buy their way in usin’ what they know about bringin’ over girls … We had only heard the talk, but that day, the day they took Hafsa, there was a girl…”

  Suddenly Laurie was shouting—“Down, get down!”

  Nora saw him, first as a blur, and then as a swift reality, bearing down on them. She was just reaching for her Glock when his gun went off, a rapid popping sound; Laurie crashed into Basheera, slamming her onto the grass, as Nora was hurtled backward by the force of two bullets against her Kevlar vest. A bullet struck the huge plate-glass window of the café behind them, and the place erupted in screams as the window rained glass onto the tile and polished wooden tables within.

  As quickly as he’d appeared, he vanished into the row of parallel-parked cars; it was all over in an instant.

  “Basheera!” Nora cried.

  Basheera lay limp on the ground, her scarf spread out against the thin stretch of grass. Laurie tore at the abaya, revealing a spreading stain across the woman’s chest. Nora looked wildly around for the shooter. She saw a flash of navy-blue hoodie darting around the corner of a tidy twin. “Get an ambulance and backup,” she cried, springing up from her crouching position and tearing headlong across the street.

  She heard Laurie shouting into her phone, “We’ve got a shooter, navy hoodie, black ski mask, on foot…”

  Nora pounded across the lawn, and saw the gate to the backyard still swinging on its hinges. He had scaled the chain-link fence at the far end of the yard. The matrix of twisted wires still shuddered from his touch. He had already dashed deeper into the alley by the time Nora shoved her gun into the holster at her back and began scaling the fence. The pain of the bruised rib made her cry out as she ascended, but the shooter was still in sight when she dropped into the alley.

  Sirens and squealing tires signaled that backup was far quicker than she’d expected. If I can just get him out onto the street, was all she could think of, get him out of this alley. She pulled out her gun again and sprinted down the alley.

  He disappeared around the bend; from the sound of the sirens, she calculated they would be racing out onto the street just as the squad cars were passing. She gritted her teeth and mustered up a final burst of speed just as she was rounding the corner.

  The roundhouse kick thundered into her abdomen and she almost flipped completely from the impact of it, thudding onto the ground. The shooter leapt on top of her, shoving the gun deep into the soft flesh between her jawbone and neck. His accent was thick, his voice menacing. “Bulletproof vest, eh, cop? It won’t help you now, will it?” he hissed. As she peered back at the ski mask, a cold panic gripped her as she realized there was only scarred flesh where one of his eyes should have been.

  He pulled the trigger, and was rewarded with the unsatisfying click of an empty magazine.

  He let out a frustrated moan as the air reverberated with screaming sirens. Bint al-wiskha! he shouted, enraged, and then pulled back his fist and slammed it against Nora’s jaw. The last thing she heard before falling into blackness was the skittering of gravel as the shooter raced away.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 8

  There was a rap on the door, and Nora struggled to sit upright. “Come in.”

  The door opened slightly, and Ben Calder stuck his head in. “Am I allowed in?”

  Nora smiled. “I think ‘come in’ has a general sense. I didn’t say, ‘come in unless you’re Ben.’”

  “Okay.” He came all the way in, exposing an armful of …

  “Mint?!”

  His green eyes danced. “I figured they might not have the real thing here at the venerable Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.”

  Nora laughed. “Ben, I’m impressed.”

  “You should be. I almost bought basil. The checkout lady at Whole Foods helped me out.”

  “What are you, some kind of city boy?”

  He drew up a chair and sat down next to her bed. “Guilty.” He looked for a long while at her face. “I’m really sorry about all this.”

  “Do I look that bad?” she asked.

  “Let’s just say I’m less inclined to ask you out today.”

  “That’s too bad. In my weakened condition I might have said ‘yes’ this time.”

&nbs
p; “Why, Nora Khalil—are you flirting with me?”

  She bit her lip, trying to suppress a smile. “Something about the near-death situation, maybe. I’ll get a hold of myself shortly.”

  He grinned at her. “Please don’t.” He placed an elbow on the bed’s side rail, leaning closer. “Wansbrough told me you wouldn’t let him call your family.”

  “God, no. My dad would lose his mind if he saw me this way. I called him, told him I had to go out of town for a few days. Then I called my brother and told him to keep Baba busy.” She tapped her phone where it lay charging on the roller table next to the fat Styrofoam cup of water with the bendy straw. “If my dad calls I can answer and let him know I’m good. But Ahmad actually thinks you and I are … together, so I know he’ll make a convincing case.”

  “Does he, now?” asked Ben, looking intrigued.

  Nora nodded.

  “And why would he think a thing like that?”

  She was silent, eyes drifting to the television screen. She finally said, “I—don’t get a lot of phone calls. You got noticed.”

  Ben seemed to want to say something, but he changed course. “Nora, talk to me. Let me get to know you. I came here; I brought mint. What more can I do?”

  She sniffed the air thoughtfully. “It does smell good.”

  “Your … hair is down, and it’s really…” he stretched his hand to pull a long strand away from her face.

  Nora struggled to breathe normally.

  “So relax a little and … tell me something.”

  “Like what, Ben?” she whispered.

  “Tell me you like me.”

  When her breath came, it was uneven and hot. She opened her mouth as if to speak, and then closed her lips. “Ask me something else,” she said softly.

  He didn’t drop her gaze, but he shook his head slightly. “Okay…” his voice trailed off, and he tried to find a neutral topic. “Tell me about running.”

  Nora blinked, trying to focus, feeling like her heartbeats were audible in the cramped hospital room. “Running?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay, well, I … starting when I was about twelve, I used to get bullied at school.”

  Ben leaned in, listening.