Mania Read Online Free PDF

photographs. He made a few adjustments to the camera’s settings, then snapped a picture, examining it for shadow on the LCD screen. Satisfied, he raised the camera back to his eye and took a few pictures of the neon sign and the front door.
    Some minutes later, an unmarked squad car slowed in front of the parlor before continuing down the street. Nick watched it slow again at the end of the block and come to a stop at the curb in front of a fire hydrant. The brake lights glowed bright red, seeming to streak the heavy air with their color, then went dark. All four doors swung open. Nick zoomed the camera in a few notches, then snapped several pictures of the street cops as they stepped from the car.
    An unmarked white van with wired windows followed half a minute behind the cops, pulling to a stop just in front of the car. The lead officer went over to the side window and said a few words to the driver of the van, then turned to face the other three uniformed policemen. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s get this done.” He let his eyes travel the length of the street. Nick was aware when the officer’s gaze paused on him, taking him in. The policeman gave Nick a nearly imperceptible nod, then, checking his watch, led his squad toward the parlor. “Me ’n Wilkins’ll do the honors upstairs. Horace, you stay out here in the street. Murphy, you take a run down the alley there and find the back of the building. Radio in when you’ve got the rear covered.”
    “You got it,” one of the cops said.
    The officer glanced at the sky. “Hoof it, why don’t you, Murph. It looks like it’s going to pour again in a few minutes here.”
    The cop disappeared down a narrow alley halfway down the block. Nick could hear the scrape of his footsteps echoing off its close walls, then the rattle of a metal gate in a chain-link fence.
    When his radio squawked a few moments later, the officer checked his gun, then led another of the cops through the scarred, peeling door to the second floor, leaving the fourth patrolman behind them on the sidewalk. Nick took a quick snapshot of the two policemen disappearing into the building.
    They were standing barely twenty feet apart on an otherwise empty street, and it didn’t surprise Nick when the remaining cop addressed him. “You with the paper?”
    “With the Telegraph ,” Nick replied.
    “You drew the short straw, huh?”
    Nick shrugged his shoulders.
    “It’s a pretty routine bust,” the cop offered. “We don’t expect any trouble.”
    “It’s not so often you close these places down.”
    The cop slid his hands beneath the edges of his utility belt and squared his shoulders. “No, not so often,” he conceded.
    “What makes this one worth the trouble?”
    The cop shook his head. “They say the girls are underage, I guess.”
    Nick nodded, remembering that Daly had told him the same thing on the phone. They say they’re trafficking in young girls from China . Laura Daly had spoken the words strangely, without much feeling—like this was something that might go down every day. Her lack of emotion had surprised Nick a little, and the words stuck with him.
    From upstairs, a single, truncated shriek rent the silence. The cop twisted to look up at the curtained windows. “That’ll be one of the girls,” he said. “Sounds like they probably caught her in mid-session.” He smirked at Nick. “Shouldn’t be long now.”
    Five minutes later, the flimsy door swung back open. Nick raised his camera to his eye. The first person into the street was an old Chinese woman dressed in a robe and slippers, her hands cuffed in front of her. She was followed closely by the lead officer. “Why don’t you get over here, Horace”—he said to the cop, yanking the door all the way open—“give me a hand with this.”
    As the cop joined him, the officer reached back into the building to lead the next person out—one of the prostitutes. Nick snapped a picture as she stepped into the street. She