Power and Empire

Eddie Feng accepted Sugar’s friend request almost instantly, which was not surprising, since he’d chosen to pay for the services of little Blanca Limón. Detective Armstrong, burly man that he was, was a genius at writing under the guise of a preteen girl.

Bored, he typed. What RU up 2?

Feng’s words marched across the screen. Do I know you?

Megan sez U R kool.

I guess Megan knows, Feng said. Where’s she at now?

Armstrong typed, Texas stupid. He finished it with a squinty emoticon with its tongue sticking out.

Feng came back almost instantly. RU in Texas 2?

Armstrong/Sugar sent a blue thumbs-up.

Cool, Feng said.

Armstrong cast the net. Wanta trade pics? C if you like what U C? I’m bored shitless.

You shouldn’t curse, Feng said.

Sorry, Daddy, Detective Armstrong typed, setting the hook.

Feng was silent for two solid minutes. No words, no flashing dots to show he was typing.

Finally, I guess appeared in the dialogue box.

I’ll text them 2 U, Armstrong/Sugar said.

just attach pics to message.

Nape, Armstrong replied, purposely misspelling a few words, FB alredy warned me bout that. My mom could find out.

That’s ok, Feng typed.

Callahan held her breath while the dots pulsed in the dialogue box. He was still making up his mind.

Then his cell number appeared.

Sitting at the desk beside Armstrong, Joe Rice entered the cellular number in his computer. He put an index finger to his head and pulled an imaginary trigger at Eddie Feng’s stupidity.

Feng’s dialogue box pulsed again. Then: What’s your contact info?

Armstrong typed the number to one of the office burner smartphones — so called not because it was a prepaid, but because the disgusting photos that came across the devices rendered them unsuitable for anything but burning in a very hot fire once they’d been utilized as evidence for the prosecution. As soon as he entered the number, Armstrong typed POS—parent over shoulder — and logged out.

Joe Rice looked up from his computer and raised both fists high in the air. “He shoots, he scores, the crowd goes wild.”

“Talk to me, Joe,” Callahan said.

“Eddie Feng’s phone is pinging a tower off Harry Hines Boulevard near the LBJ Expressway. Google Maps shows two strip clubs in that quadrant. One of them is closed until six, but a place called Chicas Peligrosas opens at noon. It’s not far from here.”

Callahan stood again and grabbed her jacket, glaring across the squad room. “Why aren’t y’all already in your cars?”

Less than ten minutes after Special Agent Kelsey Callahan slapped the flat of her hand on the top of her desk, fourteen members of the North Texas Crimes Against Children Task Force followed her out the hangar door en route to Chicas Peligrosas. Considering the story Blanca Limón told her about Eddie Feng and his friends, Callahan thought she might just arrest everyone in the place. Even if they weren’t involved with Feng, odds are they’d be sitting around watching a bunch of kids take their clothes off. It would do them good to cool their heels in Dallas County lockup until a judge cut them loose. They might beat the rap, but they wouldn’t be able to beat the ride.

11

Less than six miles from the Dallas Area CAC Task Force hangar, Jack Ryan, Jr., slouched at his wobbly table and tried to figure out how he could unsee the sad scene unfolding amid the pulsing lights and throbbing music on the raised stage less than ten feet away. He ordered a second bottle of Corona from a sullen Hispanic waitress. Unlike the girls on the stage, who wore nothing but tiny G-strings and sweaty layers of body glitter, the waitress got to wear a tube top. Unfortunately, it was so small it wouldn’t have covered a roll of breath mints, let alone her full figure. Not that any strip club was an upstanding establishment, but there were strip clubs and there were strip clubs. These girls looked awfully young and it made Jack feel dirty to be within a hundred feet of them. He did his best impersonation of a happy-go-lucky frat boy, but a sticky film of unknown residue on the table’s surface made him wish he’d worn long sleeves. The slightly sour smell of the place melded with the pulsing bass note from the speakers behind the stage like some kind of enhanced interrogation measure, making it difficult to think.