Page 5 - Hunter - The Vigil

Flesh Trade Pt 1

by Mike Lee

The old, brick warehouse hadn’t had a name in more than 40 years. Set on a narrow
side street off Lombard, it might have once kept canned goods or auto parts, back in the
years after World War II. Vince Gabreski couldn’t remember for sure anymore. Back when
he was a kid, ducking truant offi cers and stealing from the corner stores in this part of
Kensington, the place had been a favorite haunt for vagrants and heroin addicts. It had
caught fi re at least once, in the 1970s, but the damage had never been quite enough to

condemn the building outright.
Some buildings, like people, were just too damned stubborn to know when to quit,
In the fl at, green-and-black hues of the night-vision goggles, the layers of graffi ti
Vince mused.
and faded smoke stains disappeared, and the old building looked much like it had in
its heyday. The long, rectangular structure stretched for half a city block, with tall,
arched windows running the length of the second story and roll-top freight doors facing
the street. Vince noted the heaps of trash lining the front of the warehouse and the
layers of plywood covering the window frames and doorways along the fi rst fl oor — except
for one freight door in the dead center of the building, just outside the reach of the
few working streetlights on the other side of the road.
Vince lowered the military surplus goggles and rubbed the corners of his eyes. He shifted
his broad bulk in the van’s cracked vinyl driver’s seat and checked his watch.
“Ten-thirty,” he muttered, his deep voice gravelly with fatigue. “They’re late.”
“Late, my black ass,” Darnell Waters growled, folding his lean, tattooed arms across
his Kevlar vest and glaring out at the rainy night from the van’s passenger seat. “This
is bullshit, man. I’m telling you, somebody in IA was yanking your chain. No one could
s
be moving illegals through Kensington without us hearing about it.”
Detective Waters had a cold, hard voice that made most people nervous when he spoke.
With dark, deep-set eyes and a pointed chin edged with a thin, black goatee, he could
look like the Devil himself when he wanted to. It was damned useful in the interrogation
room, or when shaking down a two-bit pimp for protection money, but it didn’t leave much
of an impression on Vince. Gabreski was huge, one of the biggest men on the force, pushing
six-fi ve and almost 300 pounds. He had a lantern-jawed face and a sleepy look to his pale
blue eyes that made him look more like a Mafi a thug than a Philadelphia police lieutenant.
Vince had been a leg-breaker during his teenage years, but found there wasn’t much money
in it. Back in the old days, if you didn’t have much education and wanted to make some

serious money, you put on a badge and a gun.
A squelch of static burst from the police scanner mounted under the dashboard. Gabreski
listened to the dispatch call — an armed robbery outside a club up in Harrowgate — then
turned down the volume until the sound was just a vague murmur. He rubbed his scarred
chin thoughtfully, replaying the pho one call in his mind for the hundredth time:
I’ve bee en following the exploits of you and your team for some time, Lieutenant
Gabreski. There’s something happening down in Kensington that I’d like you to look into.
Something you and your men might be uniquely qualifi ed to handle.