## JAMES PATTERSON

they were nothing like the demons he'd heard about in church. Noel had never forgotten the way those kids looked. The way they'd turned into old men and old women. They were like zom- bies trapped in children's bodies. And now, in America, Noel's been given a chance to help other kids.

That's what the police have told him, at least.

Noel is a sanitation worker. Still strong at fifty, and lucky enough to have found his way to Palm Beach, he gets in to work before anyone else and keeps his white compactor truck clean, almost glistening. His pickup route runs hot and cold with the seasons. But even in the summer, with much less to do, he's on the job early, braced for a six-hour shift that would break a lesser man's back. In the winter, the job gets even harder. The Estate Section gets especially busy. Some of the parties have hundreds of guests. They leave behind mountains of refuse. That garbage gets picked up daily, or twice a day when requested. It's carried by workers who slip, silently, under the porte cocheres. Then it gets whisked twenty miles away to a landfill that the garbage- men call Mount Trashmore.

Noel's stretch of the Estate Section runs from the Everglades Club to the southernmost tip of the island. It encompasses Ban- yan Road, Jungle Road, El Bravo Way, and El Brillo Way. His per- formance record is spotless. As far as the Palm Beach PD is concerned, he's the perfect man for the job.

Chief Reiter's authorized a "trash pull"- ―a legal way to collect discarded evidence. In this case, evidence culled from Jeffrey Epstein's garbage. But when the police call him, Noel St. Pierre simply assumes that another refugee boat has run aground on

the beach. A sad thing
time to time. His home
despots who line their p
Many of the refugee:
Most of them speak
"Eske ou ka ede nou,
"Can you help us, pl
The cops always nee
help out before. But thi
impatient.
"This time is differ
special. You don't have
keep things to yourself,
When he hears what
"I'll do it," he says im

The address he's been g
morning, St. Pierre move
kitchen window at the
women, one of them qui
The fourth silhouette
The police have give
unsavory, but so is the
detectives want from hi
numbers, along with to
wear. Anything that cou
special truck on the El E
aside in small trash bags
end of every shift.

28

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{"people":["james patterson","jeffrey epstein","noel st. pierre","chief reiter"]}