Eeek. “Did they get the make of car?”
“I think so, but no plate either.” Dan slipped the charts into his briefcase, then straightened up with a smile. “No more work for today.”
The FBI was looking for Reheema and her, cross-dressing.
“Do you know how nice it is to come home to you?” Dan reached for Vicki and pulled her into his arms, kissing her softly. “You made me very happy today, on what could have been the worst day of my life.”
Aw. “Really?”
“Yes, I’m basically homeless, but you made me feel at home. I love you for that. And I cannot stop thinking about last night, which was epic.” Dan looked over at the clock on the oven. “I figure we have half an hour before dinner. That’s enough for a nap.”
“But I’m not tired.” And I have to go rent another car.
“What a coincidence.” Dan kissed her softly. “Can I interest you?”
“You already have,” Vicki answered, kissing him back, and she let him take her hand and lead them both out of the kitchen. She would force herself to have great sex with him, so he wouldn’t be suspicious, and her orgasms would only lend realism to her ruse.
But she took one last look backward, filled with lust.
For his briefcase.
PART FOUR
Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.
— WILLIAM PENN
Everybody, if you in the drug business, your object is to reach the top and do business with the connect. Nobody who’s in the business stay at the bottom; not unless you’s a fool. If you do something, you do it your fullest. So your object was to be like the Monopoly game. You start at Go and you want to go around and pass the board. So, that’s what your object would be. To reach the top.
— JAMAL MORRIS,
United States v. Williams, United States District Court,
Eastern District of Pennsylvania,
Criminal Docket No. 02–172, February 20, 2004,
Notes of Testimony at 429
THIRTY-THREE
First thing the next morning, Vicki and Reheema picked out another new-to-you car, a nondescript beige Intrepid, vintage 2000, automatic transmission, 78,000 miles, which rented for a hundred a week. They parked the Sunbird in a garage, at thirty bucks a day, because they couldn’t take the risk of turning it in, even though Vicki was worrying about her skyrocketing stakeout costs.
They parked the Intrepid down the street from the diner closest to their new favorite car dealership and settled into a table for breakfast. Only a few tradesmen were in the restaurant, which had wood-paneled walls, harsh fluorescent lights, and red Formica tables that were permanently greasy. They chose the restaurant for the TV, not the decor or the food, and they weren’t wrong. The big-screen Panasonic was mounted on a plywood stand high in the corner, and the scrambled eggs arrived in a blue plastic basket.
Vicki sipped her coffee as Reheema read Bill Toner’s police record. On TV, Live at 10 was running a special feature on the Toys “R” Us shooting, and the newspaper headlines this morning had been all about the bloodbath. The city had reacted emotionally, and Vicki knew the pain would only intensify as funerals for the children began. Morty’s murder paled in newsworthiness and official attention.
Reheema looked up. Her eyes were bright and alert, her hair hidden by a new Eagles hat, and she wore a plain gray sweatshirt under her pea coat. If it bothered her to know the name of the man who had almost shot her to death, it didn’t show. “You got these papers from your boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
Reheema frowned. “You told him what we’re doin’?”
Not exactly. “No, I went in his briefcase while he was asleep. I scanned the documents and printed them.”
“Damn, girl!” Reheema’s eyes lit up with admiration.
“Hey, I’m not proud of it.” Vicki couldn’t have taken the papers or Dan would have known. She’d also copied the HIDTA charts and record of Ray James, but she hadn’t told Reheema about him yet. She wasn’t sure when, how, or even if, she would. How do you tell someone that you may/may not have the name and address of her mother’s murderer?
Oblivious, Reheema was still smiling. “You stay outta the kitchen last night, you ho?”
Vicki winced. “Stop. I love the man.”
“Slow down, girl. He left his wife two days ago.”
“She left him.”
“All the more, and he’s not divorced yet.”
“That’s only the legal part.”
“You’re a lawyer.”
“I hear you. Enough.” Vicki checked the TV, where the T-Mobile commercial was over and a BREAKING NEWS banner was coming on. She edged forward in her seat. “Heads up. It’s the press conference.”
“Ooh, wow.”
Vicki watched as the TV screen showed Strauss behind a podium, with the American flag on his right, standing next to a phalanx of suits that ended in Dan. Her heart leaped up. “That’s Dan, on the end!”
Reheema turned to the TV. “He’s white?”
Vicki laughed. “He’s strawberry blond. Hot, huh?”
“He’s all right.” Reheema smiled.
Vicki looked again at the TV. Bale wasn’t onscreen. Odd.
Strauss was saying, “No one needs to remind anybody of the appalling scenes that took place yesterday at Toys ‘R’ Us. Men, women, and children were murdered, and the cowards who killed them must be stopped so we can live our lives, shop with our children, and enjoy the great opportunity this country offers us all.”
“What’s that man running for?” Reheema asked, pushing her eggs away, half eaten.
“To accomplish that, my office is pleased to announce an initiative entitled Project Clean Shopping, whereby the highest priority will be given to the prosecution of shootings, assaults, and other crimes that take place in the shopping areas, strip malls, or indoor malls of the city of Philadelphia.”
Vicki thought of Morty. Mr. Clean.
“You have already heard at the mayor’s press conference, earlier this morning, that the Philadelphia police will double the number of patrol officers to our city’s shopping areas and strip malls. Law enforcement will work together to protect the safety of our citizens and the economy of this thriving city. So please, go about your business. Mourn these victims, honor them by enjoying yourselves and by living your lives. Don’t permit a few thugs — or your fears — to keep you from shopping for your family and yourselves.”
“S’all about the money,” Reheema said, sipping her coffee.
“I’ll take questions in a minute, but I’d like to introduce you to Dan Malloy, one of the best prosecutors in my office, who will be heading up Project Clean Shopping. The press release we distributed today lists Dan as the contact point, so you now have his phone and e-mail. Please, folks, feel free to ask Dan all the hard questions. Leave the easy ones for me.”
Wow! “Wow!” Vicki couldn’t hide her surprise. Dan hadn’t mentioned it last night. She felt confused and proud, both at once.
“Dan the man,” Reheema said, smiling, and Vicki felt the proud part surge to the fore.
“Good for him. He deserves it.”
“Wonder if they know he does it in the kitchen.”
“Behave.” Vicki watched the rest of the press conference, in which Strauss answered softballs with a politician’s expertise. When it was over, she scooped up a forkful of eggs. “We’d better get going, we have our work cut out for us, playing catch-up. Dan says ATF assigned a special group to this case, because of the level of violence, and after yesterday, we have to be careful. Let’s just see what goes on and try to stay away from the guns, huh?”
“Including mine?”
Vicki set down her fork and eased back into the booth seat. “On you?”
“Yeah.”
“Where is it?” Vicki eyed Reheema’s pea coat. “I’m not wearing my X-ray specs.”
“My coat pocket.”
“You got bullets, too???
?
“They go inside the gun, Harvard. No fun without.”
Their eyes met over the leftovers. Vicki said, “Well, I won’t tell you you’re wrong, and you wouldn’t listen anyway.”
“True.”
“Where did you get it, by the way?”
“Around.”
“What’s that mean?”
“In the neighborhood.”
“Wait. When you wanted guns before, you bought them in a gun shop.”
“Went to jail in between. Learned a lot.” Reheema smiled, tight, and picked up her fork. “Finish your breakfast.”
But Vicki had lost her appetite. Guns. HIDTA. Bill Toner. Maybe they were in over their heads. For the first time, she felt afraid, and ironically, it was because they were armed now, too.
“By the way, can I take you up on your offer last night, about the money?”
Good. “How much do you need? I got some cash.”
“To get started, three hundred, if you can manage.”
“I think I have it on me. I took out extra for the new car.” Vicki reached for her wallet, counted out the bills, then stopped. “But I want collateral. The gun.”
“What?”
“Give me the gun and I’ll give you the money. I need collateral.”
Reheema cocked her head, her lovely eyes narrowing. “You just don’t want me to have a gun.”
“No, really?” Vicki made a duh face, but Reheema didn’t laugh.
“It won’t help either of us if you have it. You don’t know how to use it. You’re good with a computer, but a gun is something else.”
“You’re no better than I am.”
“Am, too.”
Vicki clucked. “Have you ever shot a gun?”
“Yeah.”
Oh. “At somebody?”
“Of course. How else you gonna hit ’em?”
Maybe National Honor Society only goes so far. “Still.”
“Fine.” Reheema shoved her hand into her pea coat and took out a gun as easily as car keys. It was a revolver with a silver barrel and a black handle, and she set it on the red table with a clunk.
“What are you doing?” Vicki snatched up the gun and put it on her lap before anybody saw it, not that there was anybody around to see. And even on her lap, the gun felt unsafe, as if it might spontaneously combust. Vicki had never been this close to a loaded weapon that wasn’t pointed at her.
“Now gimme the money.” Reheema stood up, hand outstretched, and Vicki handed her the cash. She folded it into a wad and stuffed it into her jeans pocket. “And don’t think I can’t take that gun from you, anytime I want it.”
“Be that way.” Vicki slid the gun into her purse, then stood up and tried to recover her dignity. It seemed oddly beside the point, now that she was carrying concealed.
Vicki and Reheema circled Lincoln Street a few times in the Intrepid, getting a bead on the new Cater Street operation since Browning’s death. There were unfamiliar lookouts at both ends of Cater, but the same steady stream of customers flocked to the hole. The smaller snowplows must have come, because Cater had been cleared, permitting car traffic and curbside crack takeaway to recommence, busy as Outback Steakhouse.
Vicki had given up trying to figure out why having a gun made her feel less safe, and they forgot their lovers’ quarrel and focused on the goings-on on Cater, once the Intrepid was parked behind their favorite snowbank.
“Same wine, different bottle,” Reheema said, and Vicki nodded. Bright light flooded the car’s crappy black interior, reflecting off the leftover snow. They actually needed the sunglasses, if not the dumb hats.
“Wonder if it’s a whole new crew.”
“Crew?” Reheema looked over the top of her sunglasses. “Where’d you learn that?”
“MTV.”
“Proud a you.” They both laughed, and Reheema asked, “So what’s the plan, we wait for the go-between?”
“Right. I still wanna go up the chain, especially now that we’re on to something. I think it’s Toner’s crew that hit Jackson’s house that night and killed her and Morty. Now we have to find the equivalent of Browning, but in Toner’s crew, then go on up to the connect.” Vicki started digging in her backpack for her camera. “I assume this organization works the same way.”
“Gotta sell the crack, then gotta get more, and somebody got to bring it to you.”
“Right.” Mechanical. “So we watch and wait. We are the stakeout professionals.”
“ ’Xactly, lil’ home.”
Two hours later, they had moved the Intrepid a few times because the lookouts in Toner’s crew were more watchful, spending no time smoking or talking to the customers, which made sense because they didn’t know them. It got Vicki thinking. “This is a tougher organization.”
“Why?”
“They’re not from the neighborhood. This is a business, to them.”
“It was a business to the others, too.”
“It seemed more like a party, in comparison. Not like these guys, and the go-between doesn’t come as often.” Vicki checked her watch. “Browning’s crew would’ve had Mr. Black Leather here once already.”
“Might mean they got more than one seller in the hole. Double the supply.” Reheema eyed the customers. “Weather’s better, volume increasing. They’re more competitive. Survival of the fittest.”
“I stopped counting customers, but I could start again.”
“Don’t bother, it’s a lot.”
“Sure is,” Vicki said, taking a picture.
Half an hour later, a black van barreled around the corner from the far end of Cater and stopped in front of the house, idling exhaust. “Look alive,” Reheema said.
“The company car.” Vicki snapped a photo as a man got out of the driver’s seat in a puffy Eagles jacket and black knit cap. “Finally, a Philly fan.”
“Got a passenger, too.”
Vicki took a picture even though she couldn’t see a thing through the windshield because of the glare. In the next minute, the man reached back inside the van and came out with a black Nike gym bag, then turned and hustled with the bag into the hole.
“Ain’t that nice? He works out.” Reheema put on her seat belt, but Vicki felt too tense to joke around and put on her belt, too. In the next minute, the man hustled back to the van with the Nike bag, jumped inside, and the van took off toward them. The women ducked in unison, and as soon as it was almost out of sight, the Intrepid took off.
With a nervous Vicki riding shotgun.
THIRTY-FOUR
“Look, in the front seat, the passenger seat.” Vicki worried, three blocks later, that they’d been spotted by the go-betweens in the black van.
“So what?” Reheema maneuvered the Intrepid behind a Toyota pickup but stayed on track. They were traveling down a numbered street, and in her panic, Vicki had lost her sense of direction.
“The passenger has a ball cap on, so you can see the brim every time he turns his head.”
“Okay, so?”
“He turns around a lot. I can see the brim every two minutes, practically. I think he’s watching us.”
“Calm down. It’s only been five minutes.”
Vicki tugged down her Phillies cap. “They know we’re following them.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Yes, they do! They could. These guys are smart.”
Reheema stopped at the traffic light, two cars behind the van. “So what do you wanna do?”
“Let ’em go.”
“Oh, come on!”
“It’s daylight and this is too risky. Better to be safe than sorry.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Take a left. Bail. Abort, abort, abort.”
“Oh, all right.” Reheema steered the Intrepid to the left and they turned onto the side street.
“We can pick them up after dark. We’ll come back.”
“Dumb.” Reheema pulled up to the curb and found a parking space behind a PECO truck. She cut the
ignition and looked over. “Why you so damn jumpy?”
“I don’t know.”
“You all right? You look white.” Reheema smiled. “Too white.”
“I’m fine,” Vicki said, queasy. “My stomach feels funny. Either it’s the plastic eggs or the thought that we’re gonna get killed.”
“You want some water? I know you put a bottle in that backpack.” Reheema reached back and got the backpack.
“No! Wait!” Vicki shouted, a moment too late. Reheema already had the backpack and was pulling out Ray James’s arrest record and mug shot.
“Yo, this guy’s from my neighborhood. This address is near me.”
“Yeah.” Vicki reached for the papers but Reheema was already reading the record.
“Why do you have this? Says here he’s done time for assault, with a knife.”
Vicki shuddered. For a minute she didn’t know what to say.
“Who is this guy?” Reheema held up the record, her eyes searching Vicki’s in a way that compelled the truth. “You holdin’ out on me? You get this record the same way you got Toner’s?”
“Uh, yes.” Vicki felt her heart pounding. She should have left the records at home, but she’d been afraid Dan would come across them. And now that Reheema knew about James, Vicki couldn’t lie to her.
“What aren’t you tellin’ me?” Reheema asked, her voice wounded, and then she came up to speed. She tore off her sunglasses, and her dark eyes hardened with a familiar distrust. “He has something to do with my mother.”
“Maybe, maybe not. They’re not sure.”
“Tell me!” Reheema said, but it came out like a command, dispelling the warmth between them.
“I will, but—”
“I have a right to know what happened to my mother.”
“You do—”
“She’s my mother. Tell me what you know!”
“Calm down and I will.”
“Fine.”
“Good. Thank you.” So Vicki began, thanking God she had gotten the gun from Reheema first. She told Reheema everything, taking her through the HIDTA records, too, and by the time she was finished, she could see that Reheema was calmer, more reasonable. “So as much as you would love to get him, he may not be the killer.”