The Vigilantes

by W. E. B. Griffin

It didn’t work. LeRoi kept walking.

  “Michael,” Curtis said as he turned the minivan onto Hancock and drove up on the cracked sidewalk, “tell your uncle he’s got a package.”

  Michael yelled, “You gots a package, LeRoi!”

  LeRoi slowed and warily looked over his shoulder.

  Curtis motioned again with the envelope, stopping the minivan at the alleyway and putting it in park. He rolled down his window and with a raised voice said, “This is my last try to find you. You don’t sign for it, the check gets sent back today!”

  At the mention of money, the expression on LeRoi’s face changed.

  As LeRoi Cheatham started back toward the alley, Curtis felt for his Glock under his shirt, then opened the driver’s door. He walked around to Michael’s door and opened it.

  “What up?” Michael said.

  Curtis took a ten-dollar bill from his wad of cash and showed it to Michael as he watched LeRoi coming closer.

  “You know what a lookout is?” Curtis asked.

  “For cops?” Michael said. He nodded. “Yeah. LeRoi pay me to say if I see one.”

  “Right,” Curtis said, folding the ten-spot and handing it to the kid. “Go stand around the corner and let me know if any cop comes this way. I will come tell you when we’re finished here.”

  Michael nodded once, took the money, and ran back to Jefferson Street.

  Will Curtis turned in time to see LeRoi Cheatham come around the front of the minivan.

  “What this shit about a check?” LeRoi said, looking at him hard.

  Those are some seriously bloodshot eyes, Curtis thought.

  Wonder what he’s on?

  “You’re LeRoi Cheatham, right?”

  “Damn right.” He nodded his head once.

  So that’s where Michael got that nod from.

  “Need to see some government ID. . . .”

  “Shit, man,” he said, staring at Curtis with a look of disgust. Then he turned and spat behind him into the alley. He turned back and, as he began digging in the front pocket of his pants, said, “Just gimme my damn check.”

  Curtis remembered what he had thought when Shauna Mays realized there was no money in the envelope. This time, as Curtis pulled the Glock from his waistband and aimed it at LeRoi’s chest, he said it.

  “Sure. Here’s your reality check.”

  Then he squeezed the trigger. Twice.

  LeRoi fell backward into the alleyway.

  Not thirty seconds after that, Michael Floyd came running back and called out, “Cop!”

  After putting the warm pistol back under his shirt, Curtis walked to intercept him. He tore open the envelope and pulled out LeRoi’s Wanted sheet.

  Michael looked around.

  “Who got shot?” he asked. “Where LeRoi?”

  “In the alley,” Curtis said. “But don’t go in there.”

  Curtis put the Wanted sheet on the van window, then took his FedEx ballpoint pen and wrote “Lex Talionis, Third & Arch, Old City, $10,000 reward” on the back. He handed the sheet to Michael.

  “Give this to your mother. And do what the cops say. Cops are good. They will get you back home. Okay?”

  Michael Floyd, looking confused, took the sheet and stared at the mug shot of his Uncle LeRoi. After a moment, he pointed to the Last Known Address.

  “My house,” he said.

  “Right, Michael. That’s from when LeRoi lived there. That sheet says he did very bad things. And when you’re bad, you have to be punished.” Curtis paused to let that sink in.

  “That what Mama said.” He was still looking at the sheet. “That why LeRoi live here.”

  “You be good, Michael.”

  Michael Floyd looked up at Will Curtis, then finally shrugged and nodded once.

  As Will Curtis drove two blocks north, he heard sirens coming from the vicinity of where LeRoi Cheatham lay dead.

  His pulse racing, he quickly stopped the minivan and got out. He peeled off the magnet-backed FedEx signs from both front doors, then hid them under the floor mat in the rear cargo area. Back in the car, he pulled on his denim jacket to cover his FedEx uniform shirt, buttoning it up as he drove.

  He turned left on Cecil Moore Avenue and, still hearing sirens, had another idea. After two blocks, he turned down Second Avenue and followed it five blocks to where Second fed into the new Schmidt’s Brewery entertainment complex.

  As calmly as possible, Curtis pulled the minivan into the line of other cars waiting at a red traffic light to enter a parking garage.

  The traffic light turned green. But the brake lights of the vehicles in line stayed lit as their drivers waited for a police car—an unmarked gray Ford sedan with its emergency lights flashing from behind the top of the windshield—to come flying past, its horn honking a warning.

  Five minutes later, Will Curtis had parked the minivan in an open slot between a pair of full-size SUVs and begun walking toward the complex’s multiscreen movie theater.

  [FOUR]

  S. Sixtieth and Catharine Streets, Philadelphia Sunday, November 1, 5:01 P.M.

  A frustrated H. Rapp Badde, Jr., at the wheel of the black Range Rover registered to his Urban Venture Fund, squealed its tires as he pulled a fast U-turn on Sixtieth and parked at the curb in front of the rented row house that served as his West Philly campaign headquarters.

  It took for damn ever to get here—and I really don’t want to be here.

  City Councilman Badde tried to keep at least two levels of separation from those who worked in his various campaign offices. The separation afforded him a godlike persona, so that when he finally went to the offices and met with his worker bees, he was looked upon as the all-powerful one coming down from the holy temple that was Philadelphia City Hall.

  More important, though, the levels of separation gave the ass-covering politician a buffer for when something invariably went sour. Badde had plausible deniability that he had knowledge of any lower-level act, which could easily and credibly be blamed on “a well-meaning but unfortunately overzealous campaign volunteer.”

  Ever wary, he knew that coming to the campaign headquarters effectively removed that buffer and that he had to be careful. The last thing he wanted to do was face the media’s questions of “What did you know, and when did you know it?”

  Yet when Roger Wynne called—“You need to get here as soon as possible to see what’s happened and deal with this Kareem situation before it blows up in our faces”—he was really left with no option.

  He couldn’t get across town fast enough.

  But just getting out of the Hops Haus Tower had turned into one helluva challenge.

  First, he’d had to try convincing Janelle Harper that she hadn’t heard anyone screaming over his cell phone about somebody getting killed, and that he wasn’t rushing off to see his wife or another woman.

  He’d been completely unsuccessful in persuading her on either count.

  Then, to reach his Range Rover, he’d had to wait an eternity for one of the three elevators to ride down to the multilevel parking garage in the belly of the building. Then he had to drive the luxury SUV around and around, circling seemingly forever to reach street level. And then he’d had to wait for the metal overhead security door to slowly clank-clank-clank up and out of the way.

  The sign affixed to the door told drivers to wait until the door was completely raised before exiting. But Badde, after some smug self-congratulating, had used the maddeningly long wait to hit the lever that caused the air suspension to lower the vehicle’s height. And as soon as the SUV barely had cleared the rubber gasket on the door’s bottom lip, he floored the accelerator pedal.

  Only then to have to hit the brakes for a variety of other delays.

  Driving from the far eastern side of Philly—the Delaware River was only blocks from the Hops Haus complex—to far West Philly was only a matter of five or so miles. But it was a Sunday. And that meant that Sunday drivers were out—and in no particular hurry. It also meant that there
were Sunday pedestrians, among them tourists to the City of Brotherly Love who apparently were unclear on the concept of using crosswalks at the appropriate times.

  Badde had felt compelled to help educate them all and freely laid on the Range Rover’s very loud “by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen” British horn.

  The horn did not help after he picked up the Vine Street Expressway and immediately hit stop-and-go traffic due to road construction. But crawling along had given him time to think before speaking privately with Roger Wynne.

  As far as Badde was concerned, the “Kareem Abdul-Qaadir/Kenny Jones situation” had kicked into damn high gear very early that morning when Kenny had called his Go To Hell phone and tried extorting him for thirty grand.

  Then it became even more dire when Kenny had called just after noon-time, screaming that Reggie had been killed.

  After Jan Harper had heard that, Rapp had gone out on the condo’s balcony with his Go To Hell phone and slid the door shut.

  He’d said, “Okay, Kenny. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Reggie’s dead!” he’d repeated.

  “You made that perfectly clear the first time. How?”

  “Jack called and said that the police came by the house. He had to go down to wherever they take killed people—”

  “The Medical Examiner’s Office,” Badde had provided.

  “—yeah, that was it. He had to go down, say if it was Reggie or not. It was. And Jack said he’d been beat up really bad. And choked to death.”

  “I’m sorry, Kenny,” Badde said, trying to sound like he meant it.

  “And now they gonna come after me, man!”

  “Listen to me, Kenny—”

  “Rapp, they gonna do the same to me!”

  “Kenny—”

  “I need that money bad, man! And now it’s thirty-five.”

  Thirty-five thousand dollars? Badde had thought. Damn!

  “I thought you said it was thirty large!”

  “It was. Now they added more interest. And a penalty for having to deal with Reggie.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Uh, in West Philly.”

  “How soon do you need the money?”

  “Like yesterday?”

  Badde had taken a long time to consider all that, then he’d said, “Listen to me carefully, Kenny. I’ll start working on the money. You stay there out of sight.”

  And that’s when Badde had tried to call Roger Wynne. He planned to tell Wynne to make sure Kenny stayed in the row house basement. But he’d been routed to Wynne’s voice mail, and instead left a terse message: “Call me immediately. Extremely important.”

  And then Badde had called an old acquaintance, saying he knew the whereabouts of a fugitive who could easily be grabbed and asking if maybe the acquaintance had a friend who might be interested in making ten grand for turning in the bastard.

  The Vine traffic finally cleared at the Schuylkill Expressway, which Badde followed to Walnut Street. He took Walnut through the heart of the University of Pennsylvania campus—honking when delayed by strolling students—and all the way out to South Sixtieth. There he turned down Sixtieth and followed it the fourteen blocks to where it intersected with Catharine Street.

  His West Philly campaign headquarters was on the northeast corner of the intersection, directly facing the funeral home across the street.

  The row houses in this neighborhood were fairly large—four- and five-bedroom, with three levels totaling up to three thousand square feet. They were set far back from the wide two-way street and tree-lined sidewalk, each with a concrete walk that had two tiers of steps leading up to a wooden front porch. The homes were fairly nicely maintained, their yards mostly kept trimmed.

  When Badde shut off the engine and looked to the campaign house, he saw that Roger Wynne was already coming down the first tier of steps of the long walkway. Nailed to the porch railing behind him was a campaign poster: MOVING PHILLY FORWARD—VOTE RAPP BADDE FOR CITY COUNCIL.

  Wynne—a short, pudgy, mostly bald thirty-year-old who wore blue jeans, a tan cardigan sweater over a black T-shirt, and tan open-toe sandals with black socks—had a look of concern as he puffed heavily on the pipe he held in his left fist.

  Badde thought that he could easily see Wynne teaching a political science course at the University of Pennsylvania—which Wynne had done until tiring of the struggle for tenure and going to work for Rapp Badde as a “political advisor” while continuing to teach part-time at U of P. Badde was not nearly as impressed with Wynne as Wynne was with himself, but felt that he served some purpose in helping Rapp get legitimate votes—and keeping any questionable ones quiet.

  Wynne pulled the pipe from his teeth as he offered Badde his hand.

  “Good to see you, Rapp,” he said. “Sorry to make you come all the way out here.”

  Badde shook the hand and said, “Miserable damn day to be out driving. But you said it was important.”

  Wynne nodded as he took two heavy puffs of his pipe. “It’ll be better if I show you.”

  Badde followed him down the sidewalk to the side of the house along Catharine Street. There was a weathered wooden door with another Badde campaign poster on it. Badde knew that this was the separate entrance to the basement; another was inside the house, under the stairwell that led to the upper floor.

  Wynne unlocked the door, went inside, and flipped on a light switch. Badde followed—and immediately saw what Wynne wanted him to see firsthand.

  The basement, which Kenny had set up as his combination bedroom and office, was completely trashed. The mattress was overturned. The old wooden desk was up on its side. And all three of the rusty and battered metal four-drawer filing cabinets had been ransacked. Some of the drawers still contained papers and folders, but most were empty.

  “When the hell did this happen?” Badde asked.

  Wynne puffed on his pipe once, then exhaled smoke as he said, “Sometime in the last twenty-four hours. It was okay after lunch yesterday when I was down here.”

  “You don’t know exactly when? This had to have made one helluva racket.”

  “I told you on the phone that I didn’t get back here until after I got your voice mail. That’s why there was the delay.”

  He looked at Badde and saw anger.

  Roger Wynne took two hard puffs on his pipe.

  Then he got mad, too.

  “What the hell, Rapp? Last night was Halloween, and there was a great party at U of P. I live here. I’m not a prisoner. Nor am I a goddamn warden, watching that moron Kareem. I never liked the idea of him being here when you first forced him on me. But you said it was an important political favor and that he’d be fine in the basement. And I reluctantly agreed. Which, of course, I obviously now regret.”

  Roger Wynne then made a sweeping gesture at the destroyed room. “How the hell was I supposed to know this was going to happen?”

  Badde glanced at him, then looked back at the destruction and sighed audibly.

  “Okay, Roger, besides the obvious, what’s the damage?” He pointed at the filing cabinets. “What was in them?”

  “Mostly Kareem’s logs, the lists of all the voters he collected. And he also had many of their absentee-voter cards or forms. I was dumbfounded how he could collect so many. He wouldn’t tell me. He just showed them to me and said it was because he was a hard worker and you were going to reward him for that.”

  Badde raised his eyebrows at the word “reward.”

  I do have a reward in mind for you, Kenny.

  Just not the one you’re probably expecting.

  Wynne continued: “So, I, uh, came down here one day while he was out ‘canvassing’ for the so-called Forgotten Voters Initiative. I had a little look around and found all the records. In addition to going door to door, he’d gone to retirement homes and signed up voters en masse. Then he’d moved on to nursing homes.”

  Badde already knew this, of course, but replied, “Really? Well, you have to give him c
redit for thinking outside of the box.”

  Badde walked over and pulled an official-looking governmental form from one of the metal file drawers. The letterhead had the familiar crest of the City of Philadelphia and: CITY COMMISSIONERS

  COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS

  ROOM 142, CITY HALL

  PHILADELPHIA, PA 19107

  215-686-3469 215-686-3943

  The first line of the sheet read: “Absentee Ballot Application & Requirements.”

  He read farther down and saw the requirements for “Alternative Ballots”: If you are a registered voter who is disabled or age sixty-five or older AND who is assigned to an inaccessible polling place, you are qualified to vote using an Alternative Ballot.

  Badde looked up at Wynne and said, “And I do give the bastard credit. He found groups of voters who probably really had been forgotten by the system. Well . . . some, anyway.”

  Wynne shrugged and went on: “Then, some weeks back, Harvey Wilson across the street—”

  Badde shook his head at first, but then he recognized the name: “The mortician?”

  Wynne nodded. “He came banging on the front door. Said he’d caught Kenny in his office at the funeral home.”

  “What the hell was he stealing? Drugs? Do they even have drugs?”

  Wynne shook his head. “No drugs. And Wilson said he wasn’t really stealing anything, per se. At least nothing of real value to Wilson, as they were just records. But Wilson didn’t like the idea of Kenny just making himself at home in his office, and told me to keep him the hell away.”

  “So, what was Kenny doing?”

  “He got caught going through their files.”

  “Why?”

  “He was methodically copying all the names and addresses of Wilson’s recent clients.”

  “Identity theft of the dead?”

  Wynne nodded. “Not that any of them were about to complain. If he could apply for the absentee-voter cards before the city got notice that these people were dead—and you know how muddled and long that kind of bureaucratic process can be—then he’d have even more quiet voters.”

  Badde grinned. “Smart. Never would’ve expected that from the dimwit.”