Deadly Assets (32 page)

Why can't a manufacturer design a good-looking small hybrid? They make plenty of other decent cars. You almost think it's done on purpose.

That's it! It's reverse snobbery! The owners like the fact that the crappy styling stands out in traffic.

“Lookit me! Goofy, sure, but getting great gas mileage!”

Wait. Why do I care?

I must be getting punchy . . .

But it really is ugly.

In the light of the red and blue strobes, it was clear that the car's windshield was completely shattered and caved inward.

And now coated in the blood of a murderer.

Payne pointed.

“There's Nasuti on the far side of the wrecker,” he said.

Harris pulled up on the sidewalk and stopped the car. They got out.

“Don't even think of locking the damn thing,” Payne said across the roof of the car.

Harris chuckled.

Detective Henry “Hank” Nasuti, whose grandparents had been born in Italy before moving to Philadelphia in the 1920s, was thirty-four, olive-skinned, black-haired, medium build. As he approached, Payne saw that Nasuti's dark eyes looked weary, and when he had spoken to him on the phone, the fatigue was evident in his voice.

Now Payne saw that Nasuti had a copy of the Wanted flyer that had been issued immediately after the murders. It had the images taken from the security cameras at Franklin Park and the description provided by the mother of the little girl who had been grabbed. He held it out to Payne.

“The miscreant's name is Jermaine Buress, black male, age twenty-six, just released after serving a year in Curran-Fromhold. And, I mean, not even a month ago.”

Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, the largest in the Philadelphia prison system, each year processed upward of thirty thousand inmates. It was named in honor of the Holmesburg Prison warden and deputy warden murdered in 1973, the only staff from the PPS who had been killed in the line of duty. The prison had been built two decades earlier on twenty-five acres along State Road—seven miles from McPherson Square, just up the Delaware Expressway.

Nasuti went on: “Buress decided he wanted to streak across Needle Park in his birthday suit and then play in traffic. A co-ed from Bryn Mawr, Piper Ann Harrison, who said she volunteers for the free clinic near here, was bringing boxes of sandwiches to give out. Buress bounced off her bumper and wound up in the windshield.”

“How'd you make the connection?” Harris said. “It's not like he was exactly carrying any ID on him.”

“When we were questioning one of the crackheads,” Nasuti said, “the guy was wearing a hoodie that was, like, three sizes too big. I asked where he got it and he said he found it on the ground. He showed me the spot up by the library. After he emptied his pockets, we found the crackhead had—along with a couple empty plastic capsules that look like they had held synthetic meth, maybe that alpha-PVP—Buress's ID and his EBT card.”

The Electronic Benfits Transfer card, which looked like a credit card, was issued by the federal government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, previously called food stamps.

Harris and Payne exchanged glances.

Payne then looked at the Prius sitting on the flatbed wrecker.

“That alpha-PVP,” he said, “would explain his choice of running clothes—or lack thereof—right before he lost his game of chicken with that glorified go-cart. His body was overheating.”

“We ran his ID,” Nasuti said. “Buress has got a long list of priors, most drug-related, but a few recent robberies and assaults, going back to when he was thirteen. One of the Twenty-fourth District guys—Manny Lopez, who had the Wanted flyer and called me after responding to the scene of this accident—said Buress had major anger issues. Was always flying off the handle. Which explains the assault raps, if not yesterday's random murders.”

“Well, then, congrats, Hank,” Payne said. “Another crazy off the streets. And you and Lucke get a couple cleared-case boxes to check off. Where is Lucke?”

Nasuti gestured to the other side of the white panel van.

“In the car. Doing paperwork. We were here for hours waiting for the techs from the medical examiner's office. Things are just now getting back to what passes for quote normal unquote after that Killadelphia Rally blew up. Anyway, we're going to finish up here, swing by the Roundhouse, then that should put us at around seven o'clock, and we can call the parents of Lauren Childs and Jimmy Sanchez, asking if we can stop by and speak to them briefly.”

The Sanchez family lived in South Philly. The Childses were from Bethlehem, up in northern Bucks County, and had checked into a hotel in Center City, whose skyline twinkled peacefully in the distance.

Payne nodded solemnly.

“That works,” he said. “No reason to wake them at this ungodly hour. But telling them in person that you found the doer is best. After that, you guys go home. You've earned your rest. And it's not like there won't be plenty of work waiting.”

“Thanks. Getting home early should be a nice surprise for Natalie. Although she might rather have the overtime than my presence.”

Payne grunted.

With overtime pay, from working the gruesome scenes all night, then showing up during the day to testify in court cases, top detectives could double—or more—their base salary of $75,000. Payne could count on one hand those he knew who racked up close to a hundred grand in overtime.

But there was no question in his mind that they more than earned it, particularly those like Nasuti working Last Out—the busy midnight-to-eight shift, which got half of Homicide's jobs.

There was also no question that, while the money was good, the difficult toll the hours took on a detective—and particularly his family—was one helluva price to pay.

Payne knew that Hank had returned from his honeymoon only a month earlier, and he smiled and said, “Give your bride my best regards.”

“Will do.”

[ FOUR ]

Over Runway 33

Northeast Philadelphia Airport

Sunday, December 16, 9:10
A.M.

“Thanks for finally taking my call, Lenny!” H. Rapp Badde Jr. barked into his Go To Hell cellular telephone and then continued without pause: “What the hell are you doing? I thought that we had an understanding! You were going to tell Carlucci's guy that you were backing off from attacking the cops! Right?”

Finally, he paused, looked across the aircraft at Janelle Harper, rolled his eyes when there was no reply, and added, “Well . . . ?”

—

As soon as his cell phone had showed that he had service, Badde had been constantly redialing the two numbers he had for Skinny Lenny as the Gulfstream came in on final to the general aviation field.

Right before landing, as the aircraft had descended beneath the thick layer of gray clouds, Badde had glanced out the window. They were flying along the Delaware River, and just upstream from the casinos the property where his $300 million multitower project was going to be built came into sight.

In his mind's eye, he could see the architect's rendering.

There was the first phase, which would be a twenty-story, two-hundred-room five-star hotel covering two acres on the riverbank, with high-end retail shops and restaurants on the ground level. And then there was phase two, which would project out into the river itself, reclaiming another acre of land. It would feature a $120 million tower with one hundred fifty luxury condominiums, and have a boardwalk and docks.

I just can't screw this up,
Badde thought.

Then, right before the beginning of the runway, he noticed that they were passing over the snow-covered Union League golf course.

And that's another thing. A small thing, compared to others, but another thing that's gonna go to hell if I don't play my cards carefully—my future Union League membership.

I don't think Mike Santos was happy that I said I had to get back to Philly to deal with some fires that were suddenly flaring up.

Real fires, it turns out.

What I do know is that Santos was pissed—he said he was, and that heads would roll in Washington—when he explained the problems he mentioned in that beach tent had to do with those EB-5 visas not getting approved yet.

I don't think that was my fault—HUD rubber-stamped them—but government types are always fast to shift blame, pointing their lazy fingers at someone—anyone—else.

Right now Lenny is my big problem.

What was that line that Willie Lane read to me?

“It's a crime to scheme to monitize one's official position.”

Why would he bring that up? Everyone on the council does it in some way.

Then again, not everyone gets caught.

Willie said that Carlucci demanded I get “Skinny Lenny to renounce that incredible notion that we allow illegal drug activity to flourish as a method of population control.”

I don't know who the hell told him Lenny's real name. And about Lenny doing jail time.

But I'm pretty damn sure he didn't swallow the line Jan gave me about putting him on CPOC “because his time in the penal system gave him a unique perspective for the committee.”

Willie said if Lenny doesn't take back what Carlucci called “outrageous nonsense and reprehensible,” then the president of the city council should say that he was immediately transferring me from my seat on the Committee for Public Safety, “which of course would have an immediate effect on any and all of his appointments in such capacity.”

I don't care one bit about being booted from Public Safety.

But if for some reason Willie does the same to me with HUD, then whoever takes over HUD can and will look into the details of the PEGI projects—and possibly cancel them.

And then if they make the connection that I am essentially the one behind Urban Ventures, Willie can get on his high horse and say that he warned me “it's a crime to monitize one's official position.”

Rapp Badde felt an icy chill shoot through him.

Maybe that's why he did that!

He knows!

And if that's the case, kissing any chance at
the mayor's office good-bye will be the least of my
worries. And—
Boom!
—forget the new project.

I'll be busy just up the river serving time in Curran-Fromhold.

—

“Well, Lenny? What the hell do you want to stop this nonsense?” Badde barked into the phone.

The aircraft's tires began rumbling as they touched down on the 33 of the shorter of PNE's two perpendicular strips. Despite the runway having been plowed, it still was slick from the snow, and the pilot used up almost every inch of the five thousand feet of asphalt before stopping and being able to turn onto the taxiway.

“You gonna calm down and listen?” Cross said. “Or just keep yelling that same thing over and over?”

You bastard,
Badde thought.

He said: “I'm waiting.”

“Okay, what I want is what you and your boy Willie's got.”

You mean you want blackmailing assholes like you?
Badde thought.

He said: “I thought you were all worried about stopping the killings in Philly.”

“That, too,” Lenny said, his tone sanctimonious.

After a long moment, Badde said: “Can you be more to the point?”

“I want a piece of the pie, Rapp.”

He can't know about the hotel project.

The ink on those contracts isn't even dry yet.

“You're already getting a nice piece of pie, Lenny. You're getting eighty grand a year on CPOC.”

“Yeah, and twenty of that finds its way back to someone's political action committee.”

Badde grunted.

“Okay,” he said, “then call it sixty. Sixty grand is better than no grand. Which, by the way, I know you're bluffing about walking away from.”

“Funny you bring that up, 'cause I'm in my last year on CPOC. That means it is about to be no grand. That's why I want in on something like you and Willie got going.”

“You keep saying me and Willie. There is no me and Willie. Get that straight in your head.”

“Maybe not, but you both got things going. I think it would look good to have Word of Brotherly Love Ministry listed as one of the investors.”

“But you don't have that kind of money to invest.”

“You're gonna take care of that for me. I let you use the name. You figure out how much that's worth.”

There was a long silence before Badde said, his tone even, “How much, Lenny?”

“You tell me, Rapp.”

“How much?”

Lenny was quiet a long moment, then he said, “What's a small slice of the new stadium pie?”

What? Even if I wanted, I can't let him in on the Diamond Development projects. Yuri will not go for it.

Unless it comes out of my share.

“I'll say it again, Lenny: how much?”

“I think something better than CPOC is good.”

“Sixty grand?”

“CPOC was four years of sixty. I'm thinking round it off to two hundred and fifty.”

“You want a quarter million?” Badde blurted.

He saw Janelle Harper raise her eyebrows.

“Yeah, but every year. I've got a mission to build.”

A quarter mil a year!
Badde thought.

You greedy bastard!

Badde rapidly went over his options—and just as rapidly kept coming back to the series of events he envisioned if Willie Lane followed Carlucci's lead and stripped him of his council committee seats.

Badde suddenly had a mental image of a fat brush dripping white paint being slapped across his name on all the Philadelphia Housing and Urban Development construction signs he had erected around the city.