The Last Witness (Badge of Honor 11)

Okay, on to what’s next on the to-do list: arranging for what happens with this boat and my new toy.

As Matt was pouring more coffee not two minutes later, his cell phone rang.

When he saw the caller ID, he wasn’t surprised.

He muted the music from the overhead speakers and answered the phone: “And how are things this morning in the Wild West?”

“Bigger in Texas and better than everywhere else,” Jim Byrth answered. “I was going to say something about how impressed I was that you were getting such an early start, but it just occurred to me that your time zone is an hour ahead.”

“I’ve been up for two hours.”

“Okay. Then that makes us even. I can’t speak for you, but first thing I did this morning was map out that Cusick girl’s address. It’s a shithole row house, almost identical to that condemned one we found El Gato holed up in—”

With Amanda tied up . . . but being a decent guy he’s not going to pick off that scab.

“—which is not far away, the only apparent difference being this place on Hazzard is actually habitable.”

“Depends on how you define ‘habitable.’ There’s easily sixty, seventy flophouses like that in Kensington alone. They’re moving up from Fishtown and NoLibs, pretty much following the outpatient drug clinics. ‘The Bottom’—Frankford, in the Fifteenth District—is getting hammered. Twenty-fourth District is overrun. Just hundreds of them.”

“No shit? Tell me what a flophouse is in Philadelphia. I know what one is in Texas—an old hotel packed with vagrants.”

“Sort of the same thing here. If someone running a flophouse could find a hotel in Philly to turn it into one, they’d probably fill, too. They are cash cows.”

“How so? Vagrants tend to be broke.”

“Simple. There’s a serious shortage of places for the really poor to live. The so-called luckier ones can get in with the Philadelphia Housing Authority. But there’s easily fifty thousand people on the PHA waitlist. And you’d better be a married couple—or at least a single mom or grandmother—without so much as a parking ticket if you expect to be anywhere near the front of the line. For those who can’t and are in Al-Anon and Nar-Anon, the city’s Office of Addiction Services throws money at some licensed drug recovery houses. But those are few, and overflowing, too, leaving independent flophouses to fill the void.”

“These flophouses actually offer Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings?”

“They pretend to—so they can draw the addicts in with their welfare checks. The worst ones are basically no more than old row houses with a bunch of makeshift bunks—just nasty mattresses on frames of two-by-fours. They’re supposed to get boardinghouse permits from L&I—the city’s Licenses and Inspections Department—but most thumb their nose at that. They don’t want to be on L&I’s radar because they’re shady operators to start with. So at four, five hundred bucks a month, it’s a place to crash for those fig

hting a futile battle . . . and to eventually crash and burn.”

“What about hookers?”

“Oh yeah. Ones who, if they’re not trying to kick their habit then they’re probably hiding from their pimps. Or all of the above. Hate to say it, but that’s what this Cusick girl is looking like. Not the first, and not the last.”

Byrth grunted. “Lots of pretty girls out there making poor choices.”

After a long moment, Payne said, in a lighter tone of voice, “Well, the silver lining to pretty girls making poor choices is you’ve got a chance at a date. I suggest you not be too picky.”

“Great,” Byrth said, drawing out the word, his tone sharply sarcastic. “Girls are being boiled down in drums of acid and you’re a damn comedian.” He paused, then exhaled audibly. “But, you know, you’re right. All we can do is hunt down the bad guys, and try to find some humor somewhere.” He paused again, then added, “Tell you what, Marshal . . .”

“What?”

“I think I’m going to make you my sexual adviser.”

“Wait. Your what? That’s BS—”

“No, really. You can be my sexual adviser—as in, when I want your fucking advice, I’ll ask for it.”

Payne laughed out loud. “Deal.”

“Anyway, how long are you going to be in the Keys?”

“Unfortunately, we’re headed back to Philadelphia today. In a few hours. One of the main reasons I was up early was to work on the missing person case that I mentioned to you last night. Maggie McCain is her name.”

“Why unfortunately?”