The Traffickers (Badge of Honor 9)
Page 109
Delgado looked at the other cast bronze plaque. It had a replica of a Texas lawman. He wore a big Stetson hat, a gun belt with a Colt revolver, a Western-style shirt bearing a badge that was a five-pointed star within a circle, Western-style pants, and pointed-toe boots.
The sign read:
TEXAS HISTORICAL SOCIETY “The Lone Star State Presents…” ONE RANGER, ONE RIOT While developing settlements in what then was the Mexican province of Tejas, Stephen F. Austin called for men to “range” the frontier to protect its people. These “Rangers” in 1835 officially became the legendary policing force known as the Texas Rangers.
In 1896, Texas Ranger Captain William McDonald was sent here to Dallas to shut down a planned illegal heavyweight prize fight.
Dallas Mayor F. P. Holland met Captain McDonald as he disembarked his train at Union Station downtown.
Mayor Holland looked at Captain McDonald and in great shock said, “Where are the other Rangers?”
“There’s only one fight,” McDonald said. “Hell, ain’t I enough?”
McDonald’s legendary reply became known as “One Ranger, One Riot.”
The phrase embodies the toughness and determination of all those who have sworn the oath to uphold the laws as a Texas Ranger.
One creed of the Texas Rangers is also from Captain McDonald: “No man in the wrong can stand up against a fellow that’s in the right and keeps on a-comin’.” (Sculpture created by Waldine Tauch, and gifted by Mr. and Mrs. Earle Wyatt on the occasion of the dedication of Love Field’s new terminal, 1961.) More gringo bullshit.
And this should still be the “Mexican province of Tejas.”
Delgado’s phone vibrated, announcing a received text message.
He pulled out the phone and read its screen:
214-555-7636 TURNING INTO AIRPORT NOW
About damn time.
He looked at the clock on the phone’s display. It showed seven forty-five. The cellular service in Dallas had automatically set back the time on the phone; Texas Standard Time was an hour behind Eastern Standard Time.
That makes it eight forty-five in Philly.
While he had the phone out, he typed and sent a text to Omar Quintanilla: JESUS OK? FIXED?
A moment later, his phone vibrated.
Quintanilla had replied: 609-555-1904 SI… BUENO… NOW SLEEPING
Delgado snorted. Poor little El Gigante.
Another text then came from Quintanilla: 609-555-1904 ANGEL TOOK THE 9S
Delgado nodded.
He had told Quintanilla to settle Jim?nez’s bill with two of the TEC-9 pistols that they had stolen from the Fort Worth gun store last month. The store was on the south side of town, and they had carefully cased it over time.
He grinned at the memory of that morning.
El Gato, El Cheque, and Paco Gomez had taken the Chevy Suburban to a salvage yard on the western edge of Dallas, where they’d swapped the plates with ones they’d taken off a just-totaled pickup. They’d also helped themselves to a twenty-foot length of rusty heavy-duty chain from one of the tow trucks there.
At two the next morning, El Gato, El Cheque, and Gomez had driven the SUV to the gun store in South Fort Worth.
The store was in a deteriorating shopping strip two blocks east of Interstate 35, and its storefront was covered with large signs advertising the guns and accessories inside. It had surveillance cameras, and wrought-iron bars bolted over the windows and the aluminum-framed glass door.
El Gato and C
rew had a can of black spray paint, a length of chain, and a half-ton Suburban.