Deadly Assets (5 page)

“And what is that?”

“He's time and again put his life on the line to save people in this city,” Carlucci said.

Finley stared for a long moment at Carlucci, then looked at Stein.

“Ed? What do you say?”

Stein looked between Finley and Carlucci.

“I agree the media sensationalizes the O.K. Corral thing. If, however, you mean about Matt? You won't be thrilled, James, but I say I like him. And that's not because I used to work for his father's firm.” He paused, then in a lighter tone added, “Or because it would appear that we frequent the same clothier . . .”

Finley snorted.

Stein shrugged. “I'm with the mayor. I think Matt's a great cop doing a great job that most people do not understand and would never do once they learned what it takes to protect our society from the barbarians. He does not go to work looking to shoot someone. He's a deadly asset, and without such deadly assets, crime soars.”

I suddenly like you even more, Stein,
Carlucci thought.

“Well, that is putting a happy face on it,” Finley said sharply. “Because that's damn sure what happens. Over and over. He's been in—what?—three shootings that resulted in deaths in just as many months? And that's just recently.”

“And every one has been found to be righteous. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it,” Carlucci said, his tone smug. After a moment, he added, “What I'd like to do is find out who the hell's the source in the department that's leaking the names of cops.”

“What do you mean?” Finley said.

Carlucci looked at Coughlin.

“In an Officer-Involved Shooting,” Coughlin offered, “we don't release the officer's name until after the incident has been thoroughly investigated, and only release it then if the officer is found to have erred.”

“Why not before?”

“Because,” Carlucci picked up, “if the officer is cleared and then his name gets released, he'll get dragged through the mud that is the news media, and then could become targeted—simply for doing his job correctly. A shooting that is determined to be righteous is exactly that.”

Carlucci exchanged glances with Coughlin, then looked quickly at the television. “Now what the hell are they doing?”

All eyes turned to see a small group of African-American men marching into view behind the reporter interviewing Payne. They were wearing black cape-like flowing garments over white shirts, some with clerical collars. They carried four-by-six-foot homemade signs atop what looked like wooden broomsticks.

The first, with rows of photographs of dead men, read
PASTORS FOR PEACE NOW!
The one behind it had
NO MORE MURDERS!
and the numbers 360 and 361 crossed out and 362 written next to them. The last one read
STOP KILLADELPHIA!
All had across the bottom:
WORD OF BROTHERLY LOVE MINISTRY
.

“Well,” Finley said, “I didn't want to mention the good Reverend Josiah Cross, but I wondered when he and his flock would get involved. That last sign would indicate to me that they're the ones fanning the flames on the Internet.”

Another sign then appeared right behind Payne. It had an enlarged photograph of Payne that had run widely in the media a few months earlier. It showed him lit by camera flash in a darkened parking lot. He was wearing a dinner jacket and holding his Colt Officer's Model .45 ACP pistol—and standing over an armed robber he had just shot. Above that image were the words
PUBLIC ENEMY #
1.

“That,”
Carlucci said angrily, almost spitting out the words, “is what I mean by targeting a police officer cleared of any wrongdoing whatsoever.”

“Not to mention another PR fire for me to put out,” Finley said sarcastically, and then in a more excited tone added, “You don't think Payne will shoot them?”

Finley then sighed.

“What the hell else could happen today?”

[ FOUR ]

Lucky Stars Casino & Entertainment

North Beach Street, Philadelphia

Saturday, December 15, 12:55
P.M.

You ain't going to be smiling in a minute,
Tyrone Hooks thought as he returned the doorman's automatic greeting with a curt nod and entered the casino through a revolving door.
And smile all you want, but I know you really checking me out. On those cameras, too.

Overhead, closed-circuit surveillance cameras were clearly visible, as well as the countless black bubbles in the high ceiling tiles that concealed additional recording devices. They were all completely capable, Hooks had heard when he'd joined a group taking the casino's free introductory tour, of capturing every move of anyone in the casino.

But the last thing the rail-thin five-foot-ten twenty-five-year-old was worried about was being recorded. If anything, the security cameras would show him nowhere near the crime when it went down.

He paused a moment to stomp the snow from his new high-top gray leather athletic shoes, then he slipped off his heavy winter coat and hung it over his right arm, taking care so that the wad of twenties and hundreds didn't fall out of the coat's inside pocket. Underneath he had on a black short-sleeved T-shirt covered by a baggy orange and blue Philadelphia 76ers jersey.

He made a grand gesture of checking the time on his wristwatch. The new eighteen-karat yellow-gold Rolex President hung loosely, and he had to rotate it in order to see its hands showing it was five minutes before one. The watch was heavy and enormous, and against his skinny black wrist looked even larger, almost counterfeit. But it was genuine. A month earlier, Hooks had paid for it in part with his winnings from the blackjack tables.

The cash for the vast majority of the total price—$8,999 before tax, to be exact—had come, however, from the street. His crews pushed plastic baggies of crack, smack, and pot on street corners in the shadows near the Market-Frankford Line El, particularly along a sad stretch of the ironically named Hope Street, no more than a mile from the casino.

Hooks thought the Rolex's high cost had been worth every penny, because when he flashed the watch—and the cash and told everyone at the tables that he was an upcoming rap music artist, “King 215”—no one tried kicking the rapper to the curb of the Lucky Stars parking lot.

They ain't throwing my ghetto ass out,
he thought as he walked toward the main floor
. That'd
be bad for business when I rap about it.

Lucky Stars was the newer of two casinos on the Delaware River—in the section of Philly known as Fishtown, which was enjoying a surge of gentrification—and, according to tax payments made to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, already had surpassed the other as the most profitable. (Harrisburg collected about $1.5 billion a year from casinos across the Keystone State, then redistributed it, a portion of which returned to the City of Philadelphia.)

Lucky Stars' brand-new five-story complex, with restaurants and bars and large performance theaters, featured a hundred gaming tables and twenty-five times as many slot machines. The cavernous high-ceiling area that Tyrone now approached held rows of slots as far as the eye could see, their lights flashing and bells clanging as people pulled—and pulled and pulled—on the one-armed bandits. The area reeked of stale cocktails and cigarette smoke—twenty-five percent of a gaming floor, by state law, had to be set aside for tobacco users—and of the floral-scented carpet-cleaning chemical that failed to mask the sharp smells.

While the casino had helpful signage—it indicated, for example, that gaming tables and restaurants and more could be found on upper floors, reached via multiple elevators and escalators—Tyrone Hooks had cased the place enough times to find his way around with his eyes closed. He knew that on the right side of the first floor was one bank of cashier cages. And that beyond those cages was the entrance to the miniature mall of a dozen luxury retail stores hawking to lucky winners—and anyone who hadn't lost all their money, including next month's rent—everything from expensive electronics to designer clothing to jewelry.

Tyrone also knew that while the cashier cages were well-protected, he had learned that the retail stores appeared anything but.

As he turned and headed for the mall, he surveyed the rows and rows of slots. They looked to be not quite half full, making it a slow Saturday afternoon. For his purposes, he figured a busier crowd would have been better—more people caused more confusion and chaos.

After passing the cashier cages, he approached, then entered, the retail mall. It was an open-air design, brightly lit with white marble flooring and columns and undulating walls of clear, thick glass panels that separated the individual stores. Averaging about twenty by thirty feet, each retail space was compact in size but had the appearance of being bigger because of all the clear walls.

Tyrone Hooks saw that the first store to the left, Medusa's Secret Closet, had well-formed female mannequins in its front windows, ones made of glass, wearing undergarments that were mere ribbons of material. He caught himself staring at the display before realizing he'd walked past his destination, the first store on the right, Winner's Precious Jewels.

He quickly turned back toward the store, then entered. There were only two customers—husband and wife, he guessed—and they were looking at the glass display cases on the left side of the store. Behind the case was the manager, a chubby, balding, middle-aged man in a shiny black two-piece suit. When he saw Hooks, he excused himself to the couple, then turned away and moved quickly toward the entrance.

“Good to see you again, sir,” the manager greeted Hooks, then gestured toward the gold Rolex that he'd sold him. “That certainly is a beautiful timepiece. Excellent choice. You're still enjoying it, I trust.”

“Uh-huh,” Tyrone Hooks said, briefly making eye contact.

“Splendid! And what can I show you today?”

“Just looking.”

“Well, you're in luck. We recently replenished our holiday inventory. It's even larger than before, so we have more than the usual number of interesting pieces that would complement your President nicely.”

“Comp— What?”

“Complement. Look nice together . . .”

Hooks thought,
Yeah, I'm going to get plenty here to look good.

“. . . We could create, for example, a very nice heavy gold chain with a customized ‘King 215' hanging from it.”

Hooks smiled that the manager remembered his artist name, which Hooks had based in part on Philadelphia's telephone area code, and nodded.

“Maybe. If I get lucky again. Just looking right now.”

The manager made a thin smile. “Lucky indeed. Well, we'd be more than happy to accommodate you. Just let us know if there's anything that interests you.”

Who's “us” and “we”? You the only one here.

Tyrone nodded again, then stepped past the smiling salesman, slowly scanning the merchandise on display in the brightly lit glass cases. He stopped for a closer look at a display on the far right.

These weren't here last time. They changed out stuff.

But what he said is no lie! They got way more necklaces and rings than last time! Look at all them diamonds!

The two other customers on the opposite side of the room left the store as he started toward them.

Tyrone saw that the display cases in the middle held the flashy but inexpensive merchandise—the man-made cubic zirconia that sparkled like diamonds, for example, that the manager had first shown him the day he bought the Rolex, before learning that Tyrone had real cash burning a hole in his pocket.

Then he reached the far left cases.

And more watches!

Shit! A whole line of Presidents!

He looked for a long moment, then walked back toward the entrance, glanced over his shoulder at the salesman, and said, “Later.”

“Good luck at the tables! I'll be here until five, or after that if you wish.”

Tyrone Hooks nodded as he left.

After entering the casino floor, and nearly knocking over a short, old white-haired woman who was waddling into the mall, he glanced at his watch. He then looked back at the jewelry store and pulled out his cell phone. He thumbed a text message—“1 dude rocks right clocks left skip junk in middle”—and hit
SEND
.

He went to one of the cashier cages and pulled the wad of cash from his pocket. In it was a plastic Lucky Stars Rewards debit card, and he gave it and ten twenty-dollar bills to the cashier. She added the two hundred dollars to his card's account, then handed back the card.

He then went to the escalators that led to the second level of the casino. As he rode up, he looked out the wall of windows and saw, through a heavy snowfall, the enormous outline of a cargo ship making its way against the current of the Delaware, headed toward the Philadelphia Port Authority docks. On its deck, intermodal containers were stacked twenty high, looking like so many multicolored toy boxes. His cousin who worked at the docks had heard that a lot of meth and coke got smuggled in them, and Tyrone wondered what-all else could be inside. Then he scanned to the left and saw a large swarm of teenagers—at least fifty—moving quickly through the slush of the casino's huge parking lot.

Right on time,
he thought as he looked at his cell phone screen. The cracked Liberty Bell icon labeled
ROCKIN215,
which was the social network name he'd created on the
Philly News Now
website, showed that there were seventy new instant messages under “lucky stars hookup,” and more by the second.

He sent the text message “rock it” then looked back across the casino floor and, after a minute, picked out one, two, then three and four black males, all more or less dressed alike in black jeans, high-top boots, and heavy coats. They moved at a quick pace—coming from different directions and converging on the entrance to the miniature mall.