The Vigilantes (Badge of Honor) - By W.E.B. Griffin Page 0,1
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Before their world went to hell, Will Curtis and his wife, Linda, were more or less comfortably middle class. Will had driven package-delivery trucks all his career, first for the U.S. Postal Service, the last eleven years for FedEx, and Linda was a teller at First National Bank. Their idea of an exciting weekend night usually meant taking a BYOB of cheap California red wine to the $9.99 all-you-can-eat pasta and salad at Luigi’s Little Italy, around the corner from their row house of twenty years on Mount Pleasant Avenue in Philly’s West Mount Airy section.
They had known little about what went on in the nightclubs of Philadelphia, and damn sure absolutely nothing about any illegal activities. That was, until the toxicology tests taken on Wendy Curtis at Hahnemann had come back and Will and his wife had gotten an immediate and in-depth education into what the doctors called club drugs—Rohypnol (known on the street as “roofies” or “Mind Erasers”), Ketamin (“K-Hole,” “Special K”), and GHB.
Wendy’s blood had tested positive for far more than a trace of GHB, which was shorthand for gamma hydroxybutyric, and called the “date-rape drug” and “easy lay,” among other street names. It was a powerful pharmaceutical widely prescribed as a sleep aid and a local anesthetic. The doctors told Will and Linda that when consumed with alcohol, GHB became even more powerful. It came in the form of a quick-dissolving pill, liquid, or powder, and was odorless and colorless, sometimes with a slightly salty taste. Commonly it was slipped into the drink of a young woman at some bar—though the illicit drug was no stranger among males in the homosexual community—or even at her apartment if she made the mistake of letting a date “come up for a drink, just one only.”
And just one was all it took.
Within fifteen minutes of entering the bloodstream, GHB could leave the victim completely powerless for up to four hours, during which time they had no conscious knowledge of what was happening to them. In most cases, for better or worse, it also left them afterward with no memory of what had been done to them.
Almost, the doctors explained, as if they’d had a very vague, very tragic dream.
Which, Will had tried to console himself and his wife, explained why Wendy would not talk about the attack.
She couldn’t remember.
Or maybe—probably?—didn’t want to. . . .
But that doctor’s exam sure as hell found the physical damage.
And that’s what really put her momma over the edge, screaming hysterically at the news of her baby girl hurt so badly.
Not even the damned priest could talk to her, calm her down. . . .
And then this scumbag lawyer turned it all the worse. Getting the case tossed on a technicality with the rape-kit evidence—a goddamn broken “chain of custody” in the property room.
The pervert was guilty as hell . . . then he just walked.
Sonofabitch!
Tonight made the third time in a week that Will Curtis had been parked in the 1800 block of Callowhill Street. Each time he’d been in a different car and in a different spot, but all with a clear view of LAW OFFICE OF DANIEL O. GARTNER, ESQ.
Callowhill was two blocks north of the Vine Street Expressway. To the south of Vine spread the great wealth of modern skyscrapers and well-preserved historic buildings that was the bustling Center City. Here, however, on this block of Callowhill, the majority of addresses were deserted. Signs in the dirty vacant windows of the decaying strips of storefronts—mostly three-story offices sharing a common brick façade—announced to the occasional passersby that they were for sale or lease.
Of the few that were occupied, not one was particularly noteworthy. Five addresses to the right of Gartner’s law office, almost up to North Nineteenth Street, stood a soul food restaurant and bar—Curtis thought of it as “that soulless restaurant,” complete with vagrants loitering nearby—and a couple addresses to his left were two other low-rent law offices, one of which had lettering on its window stating that the firm offered immigration-law services. And finally, across the street, next to a large grassy lot surrounded by chain-link fencing, was a struggling establishment named Tattoo U.
That, Curtis had thought with a morbid chuckle, was probably where Gartner’s clients went to acquire “I’m a Loser Gangbanger” body art after Gartner, their loser of a lawyer, had told them their turn-in date to report to jail.
Other than that, there was damn near nothing here.