Deadly Assets (29 page)

Badde shrugged, then drank half of his champagne. He looked at the tray of food, and proceeded to eat two pieces of the tuna sushi—selecting them over the sashimi only because the pieces were on rice—he wasn't sure about simply eating slices of raw fish.

And then, feeling adventurous after swallowing the sushi without incident, he tried one of the half-shell raw oysters.

“You sure you want to do that?” Jan Harper said, right before he slurped it from the shell—and began gagging.

She gestured toward his champagne stem.

“Oh, for Christ's sake, Rapp. Just wash it down.”

He did, emptying the stem. Then he burped.

“Nice,” Jan said, shaking her head, disgusted.

As Badde reached for the champagne bottle, his Go To Hell cell phone began ringing again. He refilled his stem, then looked at the caller ID. It again read gibberish:
#01-0K0-30X-V34-X%K.

He looked at it a long moment, considered ignoring it, began to answer it, then finally decided to let the call go to voice mail. Almost the moment after it did, the phone began ringing again, and again the ID came up as gibberish.

“Damn it,” he said, then quickly left the cabana.

He walked about ten yards over to where a pair of tall palms leaned against each other, flipped open the phone, and barked into it, “What?”

“Councilman Badde,” an adult male said, his tone calm, with no indication he had taken any offense over how his calls had finally been answered. “We have a mutual friend, one who has asked that I get in touch with you.”

Well, that's how this guy got my private number. But who?

“Who is this friend?” Badde said.

“I believe you will be able to figure that out in due time.”

What kind of accent does this guy have?
Badde thought.

Badde was quiet a moment, then said, “What is this about?”

“A matter of mutual concern. We are in the process of recovering some valuables that belong to us.”

“What kind of valuables?”

“Perhaps you have seen the news today about the robbery in the casino.”

Robbery? What robbery? All I've seen is Lenny's craziness.

“I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I see,” the male voice said.

There was a long silence.

“You know my name,” Badde then said. “What's yours?”

“That is immaterial right now. You are aware, I trust, of your friend Reverend Cross's rally today?”

I wouldn't say he's exactly my friend these days.

But where are you going with this?

“Yeah,” Badde said, “I know of it.”

“And that he had a musician perform?”

“I do not know the details of who was at the rally.”

“Well, I do. And the musician who performed during it is a young African-American named Tyrone Hooks. He goes by the stage name King Two-One-Five.”

“Okay, so this rapper, why is he relevant . . . ?”

“You do not know Hooks?”

“Never heard of him.”

“I will have to take you at your word on that.”

Well, you just do that,
Badde thought,
fuck you very much . . .

“What the hell do you want?” Badde snapped.

“It's what
and
who. As I said, we intend to recover the stolen valuables. But in order to do that, we first need to find Tyrone Hooks.”

“Okay. And?”

“And the last time that Hooks was seen, he was in the company of Cross.”

“What, assuming it were possible, is it that you want me to do?”

“It is very important that I find Hooks immediately. I need you—our mutual friend needs you—to find Cross and then find Hooks.”

There was a long pause, then Badde said, “Fine. How do I get in touch with you when I do?”

“I will call back in thirty minutes. Every thirty minutes.”

“Fine. Okay,” Badde said, as he looked at Jan exiting the cabana while holding her cell phone.

As she approached him, he saw that she was looking at it, then apparently letting the call go to voice mail. After a moment she went to listen to the recording and raised her eyebrows as it played.

A moment later Badde almost spilled his champagne when he heard Jan gasp audibly as she held her phone to her ear.

She broke the connection and leaned in toward Badde.

“That was Raychell Meadow. She's the fifth reporter who's been calling, asking for a comment—one from you, but she would settle for me speaking for you—about the apparent shooting of Josiah Cross after he called Matt Payne Public Enemy Number One.”

Badde, his eyes wide, did not immediately respond. Instead he drained his stem, then burped.

After a moment's thought, he shrugged, and then said, “Between you and me, Skinny Lenny is not shot, but him being out of the picture would not be a bad thing—”

Badde felt his Go To Hell flip phone vibrate, and saw that the caller ID read
PHILA MAYOR'S OFFICE.

Probably that Stein guy. He, and Carlucci, can kiss my big black ass.

He pushed the key, sending the call to voice mail.

“What do you want to tell Raychell and the others?” Jan Harper said.

“What I want to say and what I am limited to saying are two completely different things. You're the lawyer. Why don't you earn your keep and come up with a clever quote that says nothing?”

Jan narrowed her eyes at him as she sipped her champagne.

Just as he slid the Go To Hell phone back into his pocket, the smartphone with his general number began to vibrate. Without looking to see who was calling, he immediately pushed the key that sent the caller into voice mail; a moment later, a short vibration signaled that the caller had left a message.

Curiosity caused him to glance at the screen. It read
WILLIE LANE,
1
VOICE MAIL MESSAGE.

He pushed the key to play the message, then put the phone to his head.

He heard City Council President William Lane's gravelly voice: “Rappe, it's Willie. I need you to call me
yesterday
. It's an extremely important matter. You should have my numbers, but just in case, these are my office and cellular . . .”

Oh shit!
Badde thought as the numbers were repeated.

“Yesterday”?

Willie sounds pissed.

Then the phone rang again.

He checked its screen.

Willie again? He must really be pissed . . .

—

H. Rapp Badde Jr., using the hand he had not punched the palm tree with, pushed the white canvas flap aside and entered the Jolly Mon Cabana. Janelle was gone, and Santos was on his cell phone.

Santos glanced up at Badde, then said into the phone, “I'll get back to you.”

He ended the call, stood, and walked over to Illana. He leaned in close, putting his right cheek next to hers.

“Illana,” he said softly, “put those in the safe in my office for now.”

She nodded, and quietly replied, “Yes, sir, Mr. Santos.”

With the folders against her ample chest, tightly beneath her crossed arms, she made a thin smile at Badde, and then turned and walked out of the cabana.

What the hell just happened?
Badde thought, his stomach suddenly in a knot.

“We seem to have problems,” Santos said.

[ FOUR ]

McPherson Park

Kensington, Philadelphia

Saturday, December 15, 9:35
P.M.

After exiting the Delaware Expressway just past all the blinking bright lights of the two enormous gambling casinos, Piper Ann Harrison glanced at the clock in the dash of her five-year-old silver Toyota Prius and then sighed heavily.

I really don't have time for this,
Piper Ann thought.

The twenty-one-year-old college student, pale-skinned, her jet-black shoulder-length hair highlighted with streaks of purple, wore a silver stud in her right nostril. She had three other piercings in each ear, though these were now vacant.

At five-foot-five and one-ninety, she embraced what she called her “healthy earthy look,” though she still occasionally complained about being at least thirty pounds overweight.

I should have just stayed home and finished packing,
she thought, then glanced in the rearview mirror. The two big cardboard boxes of sandwiches and hot chocolate were visible on the backseat.

But I just couldn't let all that go to waste. And it's definitely needed . . .

Each of the boxes contained a stainless steel thermos full of hot chocolate, twenty insulated foam cups, and twenty ham and twenty Swiss cheese sandwiches. Each sandwich was on whole wheat bread with low-fat mayonnaise and individually wrapped in cellophane with a business card included. There was an additional stack of about forty cards wrapped in a rubber band in the box.

The cards all read:

Piper Ann had decided that, before traveling on a mission trip to the Republic of Cuba with her professors in the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College, she would dedicate part of what she called Winter Break—she shunned the idea of Christmas—to helping the city's local homeless population, many of whom were known to have severe drug addictions.

Working on a double major, in Spanish Studies and Social Work, Piper Ann had discussed her idea with one of her professors. He in turn had put her in touch with the free clinic, which was about a dozen miles from her small, expensive (fewer than 2,000 students and an annual tuition of about fifty grand) private women's liberal arts school in suburban Philly.

When she contacted Pathways Prevention, one of the staffers—a former addict by the name of Jimmy “Bones” Packer, an extremely skinny thirty-two-year-old who looked fifty—suggested she adopt McPherson Square, and offered to give her a tour at her convenience.

—

“Needle Park ain't as bad as some folks think,” Bones had told her as he gestured toward it on a cloudy gray Wednesday in early December. “It's gotten better than it was years ago. But it still ain't pretty. Fact is, probably won't ever be. There's always gonna be addicts because people always gonna have problems they want to forget. And of course the drugs just make them feel better. We're trying to help one person to cope, one day at a time, and hopefully get help. Like I got help.”

As they walked, Piper Ann saw that McPherson Square covered an entire city block. Sidewalks lined all four sides. It was studded with mature trees, and the pathways cutting across it created a giant
X
with two concentric rings. In the center of the
X
, wide steps led up to a branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

As they approached the library, two girls around age ten were sitting on the steps and playing a frenzied game of Go Fish.

When Piper Ann looked at the back of the cards, she did a double take.

“Is that what I think it is printed on those cards?” Piper Ann quietly asked Bones.

He looked down at the cards, saw the familiar design, then pointed across the park. A white panel van was parked on the sidewalk. On its doors it had the same image the cards did—the logotype of the blue-and-gold Philadelphia Police shield.

“The cops have been giving them out,” Bones said. “That van's from the Twenty-fourth Police District. They keep a pretty steady presence here, both walking and biking the beat, and the druggies, no surprise, keep clear of them. Those playing cards are an interesting idea. We thought about having the clinic make some up. Be better having the clinic info. Kids looking at photos of murder victims probably ain't the most ideal.”

“No kidding.”

Bones shrugged. “But since their mothers are here watching, I'm betting the lady in the library gave the deck to one of the mothers. These people don't have nothing. Absolutely nothing. And a free deck of cards is exactly that—a free deck of cards. Cheap entertainment.”

Piper Ann saw that there was a small playground nearby, and smiled at the sight of two young mothers watching six little children running from one piece of equipment to another.

“And there's one thing you gotta watch for,” Bones said, and nodded in the direction of the playground.

“What?” she said, and then saw a rough-looking white male, tall and walking with a stoop, approaching the playground. “Is that guy going to do something?”

One of the mothers, a Latina of medium build, saw the man, went over to a park bench by the playground, and picked up what looked like a large glass jar. She carried it toward the man.

“What's with the jar?”

“The deal is,” Bones said, “since you can contract HIV and hepatitis from reusing a dirty needle, the free clinic gets funds to distribute sterile ones. We give out plenty, but there's still room for guys like Jumper there.”

“That's his name?”

“It's what he goes by. You're gonna come to know, over time, many of the park's regulars. Some of them are not much older than you. He's one. And you'll learn it's common for many to hide behind street names—there's Jumper, and over there are Ace and Wildman”—he pointed to them—“and then there's others who go by regular names—that's quote Amy and Bud unquote on the bench there—but that's not their real names. Because they're really embarrassed to be out here, they use an alias.”

Piper Ann looked at the couple. “Amy” appeared to be asleep.

And it's the middle of the day,
she thought.

“So Jumper there,” Bones went on, “he works the system. He's a dealer. Those young mothers? They bring rubber gloves and a jar to collect the used needles from the park so their kids don't get stuck by them. Some mothers will just toss the jar of dirty needles in the trash can. But Jumper will buy them.”