Deadly Assets

by W. E. B Griffin

  As he shuffled across the small room, he checked his phone. The screen was packed with a long list of voice and text messages. He scrolled through it quickly and saw the usual that he’d expect to see.

  Then one caught his eye. It was from Kerry Rapier: “The blue shirt sitting on O’Hara’s mother got a gut feeling and knocked on her front door. She didn’t answer. He went to the back door. It was unlocked. He cleared the house. Said it looked like she had just cleaned it. But she was gone. And her car.”

  Jesus!

  Then more knocking.

  “I’m coming!”

  Payne flipped the dead bolts and opened the door.

  He greeted Harris: “Not dead yet, pal.”

  —

  “McCrory said he was going to see Pookie,” Harris explained once he was inside the apartment, “then tried to reach you. But when he could not get you, he called me.”

  “Sorry for the trouble. I just crashed. And hard.”

  “No trouble. I got a little sleep, too. You want to catch up with McCrory? He said the house is on Clementine, down the street from where Dante Holmes got whacked. Said to just let him know when you want to meet.”

  “Yeah. But hold on.”

  Payne scrolled through his messages.

  “Nothing new here on Cross or Hooks. You hear anything?”

  “Not a damn thing.”

  “Something needs to break,” Payne said. “Let me grab a hat. You want to tell McCrory we’re en route?”

  “Sure.”

  —

  As Payne was locking his apartment door, his phone vibrated.

  Mickey. About time . . .

  Payne thumbed the glass screen and the complete text of O’Hara’s message came up: “Got it. Thanks. Sadly, that death doesn’t bring back Tim and Emily. Remember me telling you about the EB-5 visas? There’s more to that story. But, first, tomorrow I’m running O’Brien’s next story—about the Cartel del Nuevo Acuña laundering its dirty money into gold. Erring on the side of caution, I’ll be out of pocket for a few days after this story breaks. Be safe, Matty.”

  Gold? My God! Payne thought, then shook his head, recalling the conversation about the visas:

  “Matty, you know that high-rise on Arch that you blew a gasket over?”

  “The one the Poster Boy for Billionaires got the hundred million in tax breaks for? What about it?”

  “You ever hear about EB-5 visas?”

  “Yeah. And I remember hearing on a Philly News Now broadcast that Rapp Badde’s PEGI is using them for some of the funding of that new sports complex.”

  “Well, ol’ Willie Lane greased the skids for Fuller’s company to get EB-5 funding to build his project.”

  “Why not Badde?”

  “Two reasons. One, Center City isn’t suffering economically like the hard-hit areas and thus does not meet standards under the Philadelphia Economic Gentrification Initiative.”

  “And two?”

  “Two, Lane is council president and can yank Badde’s chairmanship of HUD at any time—actually, officially ‘reassign’ his duties where he believes they best could be utilized—say, on the Parking Meter Coin Collecting Committee . . .”

  Payne chuckled.

  “. . . and thus Badde doesn’t want to rock the boat.”

  “But,” Matt said, “as damn disgusting as that ‘fund a visa, get a fast green card’ program is, it’s legal.”

  “The problem is where the money is coming from. That’s a different story—a big one, according to O’Brien.”

  Payne then remembered how O’Hara had replied when he asked how O’Hara squared working for Francis Fuller—to wit, by quoting Sun Tzu’s “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

  —

  Now, Payne thought, the lesson learned here is: Don’t piss off an Irishman.

  O’Hara is not afraid of Five-Eff.

  Or the cartels.

  —

  Tony Harris was behind the wheel of the unmarked Crown Victoria waiting at the curb. He had his cell phone to his ear.

  Payne pulled open the front passenger door.

  “Okay, Dick, we will see you in a few,” Harris said as Payne settled in the seat.

  Harris broke off the call and placed the phone in the dashboard mount.

  “I’m starved, Matt. You hungry?”

  “What the hell?” He pointed at Harris’s phone. “Wasn’t that just McCrory? What did he say about him—us—meeting Pookie?”

  “There’s no rush.”

  “Why?”

  “Pookie’s instead gone to meet his maker.”

  Payne slowly shook his head.

  Harris went on: “Got whacked about a half hour ago. Dick’s at the scene waiting for the M.E. to arrive. Happened right down the street from where Dante got whacked.”

  Payne stared out the windshield.

  “Shit,” he said, then sighed.

  After a long moment, Payne then looked at Harris, raised his eyebrows, and said, “It’s a bit out of the way, but I could really go for a Dalessandro’s cheesesteak. I’ll even let you buy.”

  Harris smirked, and dropped the gear selector into drive.

  “You’re the best, Marshal Earp.”

  XI

  [ ONE ]

  Clementine and F Streets

  Kensington, Philadelphia

  Sunday, December 16, 2:35 P.M.

  Matt Payne shoved the last bite of his cheesesteak sandwich into his mouth as Tony Harris turned onto Clementine, wound his way around various vehicles belonging to the news media, and then parked the Crown Victoria with two right tires up on the sidewalk.

  “Try not to rub your greasy fingers all over,” Harris said, taking a drink of his coffee as he handed Payne a small stack of paper napkins, then put the gearshift in park. “You’ve already ruined one set of clothes this weekend. And you’ll want to look your best for the media when you give them the silent treatment.”

  “What would I do without you, Detective Harris?”

  As Payne wiped his hands, he looked out the windshield.

  Just beyond the nose of the Police Interceptor was the perimeter of yellow police tape that was keeping the reporters and onlookers at a distance. Inside it, Dick McCrory and Hal Kennedy were standing at the foot of a row house’s cracked concrete steps.

  Payne chuckled.

  “What?” Harris said.

  “Even in plainclothes, those two look like cops.”

  Payne then pointed at the small group of five black teenagers, four males and a female, milling on the corner down at the other end of Clementine, near the intersection of E Street.

  “And that crowd of knuckleheads doesn’t seem happy to see The Man on their turf,” Payne added. “Again.”

  The crowd, standing in front of Dante Holmes’s grandmother’s row house, were within feet of the faded bloodstain on the sidewalk that crudely marked where the nineteen-year-old had been gunned down thirty-nine hours earlier.

  There was an irregular pattern of some twenty holes in the front of the house where the Crime Scene Unit techs had dug out bullets. And, in the house next door, a square of cardboard replaced the windowpane that had been shattered by the stray round that had struck and killed the young girl watching TV beside her brother.

  —

  As Payne and Harris walked up to the yellow tape in front of the row house, the group of five teenagers watched, their young faces cold and hard beyond their years.

  Then suddenly the tallest male, a burly teenager wearing a heavy black North Face goose down parka, began moving in an aggressive manner toward them.

  McCrory saw it and started taking steps to cut off the tall, burly teenager.

  A news cameraman saw it, too, and turned his lens toward the action.

 
“Do not come any closer,” McCrory said, using his command voice while holding out his left palm.

  Once in front of the teenaged male, McCrory stood with his hands on his hips, his right hand close to his holstered pistol. Payne and Harris were just behind him.

  The teenager stopped, then jabbed in Payne’s direction with his right index finger as he practically spat, “Fuck the police! I know who you are!”

  Payne’s eyebrows rose.

  “Look,” he said evenly, “the last thing I want to do is hurt you. But with that attitude, that damn sure doesn’t mean it’s not on the list.”

  Payne flashed a big smile, said in a louder voice, “And you have a nice day, too,” then turned and continued toward the row house.

  “You wanna know what we think of the police?” the teenaged male went on loudly, glancing over his shoulder at his buddies, who were nodding their encouragement—the girl making it obvious with her cell phone that she was making a video recording—then looking back at Payne. “We say you’re the enemy! You’re the biggest gang out here.” He then grinned. “And you know what? You’re afraid of us. So fuck you!”

  He’s high, McCrory thought. Punk reeks of pot.

  McCrory, crossing his arms, made a stern face as he cocked his head to one side.

  “So, you about finished?” he said. “If not, I could probably see if you’ve got outstanding warrants or something else you might want to clear up. Pot’s still illegal, you know.”

  The teenager puffed his chest.

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  After a long moment, the teenager then marched triumphantly back to his buddies. They greeted him with high fives and fist bumps.

  McCrory turned and caught up to Payne and Harris and Kennedy.

  “That bastard is all noise,” McCrory said. “And stoned.”

  “Let him back-talk all he wants,” Payne said. “He’s just baiting, hoping he can push buttons and get me to respond. Then he can boast to his buddies that he was the one who pissed off the police and took down that Wyatt Earp Public Enemy Number One guy.”

  Payne glanced back at the group.

  He smiled broadly, and, his right hand high over his head, waved, as he said: “Dick, a wise man named Anthony once cautioned me to be very wary of wrestling with a pig . . .”

  “Because you can get very dirty,” Harris finished. “And the pig likes it.”

  McCrory grunted.

  “Hey, Killer Cop!” the tall teenager yelled, then leaned forward and with both hands gave Payne the bird.

  “That’s just his way of saying the police are Number One,” Payne said, ignoring the teenager.

  “But, for christsake, this is not a police problem,” McCrory said. “It’s a society problem. We’re just sent in to clean up the messes. How the hell is it the fault of cops that there’re no jobs for these delinquents? That they can’t fucking read or write?”

  “You’re right, Dick,” Payne said.

  “It’s like Jamal the Junkie. He got booted from Mansion. And that fine eighth-grade education of his? You can bet he stopped learning anything around maybe fourth, fifth grade. The schools—ones like those with teachers who get caught changing test answers—just kept bumping him to the next level. Until it all caught up with him in high school. Then he went to the streets.” He nodded toward the row house. “And Pookie here. Another fine example. He’s—what?—murder victim number 370.”

  “It’s all way above our pay grade,” Payne said. “They should be protesting at City Hall, blaming the crooked city council members they elected over the last forty years.”

  Payne looked at McCrory. He put his hand on McCrory’s shoulder.

  “Dick, you really think we have it bad being cops? Let me tell you, it could be worse.”

  McCrory was quiet a moment. Then he grunted again.

  “Okay, I’ll bite. How could it be worse, Sarge?”

  “Could be Santa at an Eagles game.”

  “Not that one,” Harris said.

  Kennedy was shaking his head.

  “What are you guys talking about?” McCrory said.

  “You never heard that heartwarming Philly tale?” Payne said. “From back in, maybe, 1968? It’s legend.”

  McCrory pointed to his New England Patriots knit cap. “I ain’t from around here, you know.”

  Payne went on: “Made national news after the football game was televised. Anyway, it was halftime and the Eagles were losing—”

  “Of course they were,” McCrory said, smirking. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “And the weather was miserable, bitter cold and snowing. And of course everyone’s been sucking down the brandy and whatever else rotgut they’d snuck into the stadium. So, out comes Santa Claus—actually, the drunk who was supposed to do it was a no-show, so some poor schmuck actually volunteered at the last moment—and the minute he walks out onto the sidelines, waving to the crowd and doing his Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas! schtick—Wham!—he gets pelted by a snowball. Then the others in the stands, all in Eagles gear, join in. Wham! Wham! Wham! And Santa has to haul ass off the field.”

  “That’s terrible,” McCrory said, but he was grinning.

  “Became one of those things that shored up Philly’s tough reputation with the rest of the country,” Harris said.

  “Nice,” Kennedy said. “Real point of pride right there.”

  “You know our motto,” Payne added, “Philly, Kicking Ass Since 1776.”

  Payne saw that the group of teenagers had walked down the street.

  “Notice they don’t leave their sidewalk,” Payne said, as he grandly waved again at them. “Tough guy’s not so tough—he’s a dead guy if he doesn’t stay on his corner and out of someone else’s turf.”

  A woman who looked to be in her late thirties stood at the police tape. Over her gray sweatshirt she wore a white T-shirt silkscreened with a photograph of a smiling, very young black male in a coat and bow tie and the words DANTE HOLMES, AT PEACE AT LAST.

  She said, just loud enough for Payne and the others inside the yellow tape to hear, “I have to apologize for him. Rayvorris, he don’t speak for all of us.”

  —

  While watching the body bag that contained Antwan “Pookie” Parker get loaded in the back doors of the white panel van with medical examiner’s office markings, Payne’s phone vibrated and a text from Chuck Whaley read: “Got one! Can you talk?”

  Payne glanced at Harris, hit the CALL key, and said, “Looks like Whaley has finally found his ass with both hands—or, at least, a doer’s ass.”

  —

  “That’s right,” Whaley reported, “it was a Transit Police officer, one Thelonious Clarke, who brought in Ruben Mora.

  “The guy was unconscious and had no ID. Just a cell phone, which was dead, and a wad of cash and receipts in a pocket. The gas pump printout read Richard Moss on the credit card, and there was a Marion High School detention note with Dan Moss’s name. Theo—that’s what Thelonious goes by—he had seen the SEPTA alert about Moss getting nabbed for jumping the turnstile, then about Moss’s buddy getting killed, and got ahold of me.”

  Whaley caught his breath, then went on: “When I told Mora that he was going to get charged for the murder, he rolled over on this Reggie Mabry character. He didn’t seem to care about Mabry, something about bad blood between them—hard to understand with him rattling off in Spanish—and when I asked for a description and where he lived, it matched exactly what the Moss kid had said the shooter looked like. Undercover car wasn’t in there looking for him two hours and he popped up.”

  “Good job, Chuck. I now need you to come help us work this murder scene. Looks like it’s going to be another long night.”

  [ TWO ]

  Seventeenth and Chancellor

  Center City, Philadelphia

 
Monday, December 17, 8:05 A.M.

  As Matt Payne went out the front door of Little Pete’s while sipping a to-go cup of coffee, he suddenly felt a bit nostalgic realizing how many times, after a long night of drinking, he had walked the few blocks from his apartment at Rittenhouse Square to the diner.

  And, thanks to Five-Eff tearing down the building for something shiny and new, Pete’s is going away.

  He glanced across the street at the Warwick Hotel.

  I hope that place never disappears.

  Payne snugged his cap down against the blowing snow. He turned and walked toward South Broad.

  His mind flashed to the previous week, when he and Amanda had seen Melody Gardot perform in the Warwick’s jazz bar. And thinking of Gardot made his mind flash to when he was driving Amanda in his 911 to drop her off at work at Temple Hospital and he had just vented about the crumbling of the city.

  —

  “This place is collapsing both physically and, even worse, morally,” Payne said as Amanda had reached up to change the radio station.

  “It is sad,” she said as she tapped the radio’s memory button labeled 1, setting the tuner to the 88.5 frequency, the University of Pennsylvania’s WXPN.

  A sultry voice singing “La Vie en Rose” softly flowed from the Porsche’s high-fidelity speakers.

  “Ah,” Amanda said, her tone brighter. “Our hometown girl Melody Gardot. She’s an example of what makes this city great. I love her cover of this far better than Edith Piaf’s original.”

  She turned up the volume and sang along, “‘Quand il me prend dans ses bras / Il me parle tout bas, / Je vois la vie en rose.’”

  Matt glanced at her and smiled warmly.

  “Very nice,” he said.

  After the song ended, she turned down the volume.

  She looked at Matt and said: “‘When he takes me in his arms / And speaks softly to me, / I see life in rosy hues.’”

  Matt, braking as the traffic light cycled to yellow, then red, smiled and nodded, then said, “Gardot’s version is beautiful, but I actually like Satchmo’s take on it better than Piaf’s.”

  “That’s because you can understand Louis Armstrong singing the English lyrics,” Amanda said, her tone playful.