“Did he really?” Coughlin said, his tone suggesting disapproval.
“It was a slip of the tongue for the mayor,” Washington said. “At least at first. After he realized he’d said, ‘Five-Eff,’ he added, ‘That Matt Payne is a bad influence. He’s used that enough that now I’ve picked it up. But I cannot blame him. Mostly because I agree with him. Five-Eff is. .’ And then he enthusiastically repeated the entire name.”
“And one of the reasons that I gave ol’ Francis that indelicate sobriquet,” Payne went on pointedly, “is because his companies-and thus Five-Eff himself-shamelessly suck at the taxpayer teats. What did he get for building that shiny new high-rise over on Arch Street? The city and state kicked in some fifty million bucks for the development, on top of another fifty mil in tax abatements. Not bad for a guy whose personal fortune is some two thousand million dollars.”
“The argument,” Coughlin put in, “is that the building and the companies established therein are going to bring more jobs to our fair city.”
“Yeah. But to only Center City,” Payne said. “Meantime, today, with Philly having more people in deep poverty than any other major U.S. city, the only skills the thugs have learned revolve around selling dope-and worse.”
“You allow Fuller no points for the funding of Lex Talionis?” Washington said.
“The last thing that Five-Eff is, Jason, is altruistic. That bad-guy bounty of twenty grand that he pays is a personal passion for him. What happened to his family was absolutely terrible. But, as we all well know, that is what’s happening every day to those trapped in Philly’s decaying neighborhoods.”
Washington was nodding.
He said: “And his wife and daughter, caught in the crossfire, became collateral damage of what essentially was just one day’s battle for turf. The next day comes another, and the next day. . It is indeed tragic.”
“Which is why,” Payne went on, his tone bitter, “someone needs to get around the incompetents and thieves on the city council-the ones who would have us all be mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed a steady diet of manure. We need to connect directly with those who desperately need help. It’s been more than a hundred years since that journalist-Lincoln Whatshisname. . Lincoln Steffens-wrote about graft in America’s big cities and said it was the worst here.”
“‘Philadelphia: Corrupt and Contented,’ he called it,” Washington said.
“Exactly, Jason. And nothing’s changed with that. A century later, look where we’ve come.”
Washington nodded again and thought, No surprise he’s taking this on personally. Matthew has always thought ahead of the conventional wisdom. The word wisdom being used loosely.
“Impressive,” Washington said.
“Don’t encourage him, Jason,” Denny Coughlin said. “Matty’s ego is enormous enough as it is.”
Payne looked at Coughlin. He saw that he was smiling.
Payne returned it, then said, “Thanks, Jason. But not really. More like just common sense. We’re looking at it as another part of the business of fighting crime-that is, hopefully stopping future criminal acts. We know that our typical murderer and victim is a black male, eighteen to thirty-four years of age, with at least one prior arrest. If, instead of putting the guys on probation and then just throwing them back into their old hoods-where possibly, if not probably, they fall back into their old ways-if we can help them find suitable housing and learn a marketable skill, they may not commit a second-or tenth-crime. And/or get killed.”
“Seems like a long shot,” Coughlin said, “but a worthy one.”
“Something has to change,” Payne said. “Granted, the odds of failure are high for the hardest cases, but some, especially the younger ones, you can reach. And then there’s Pretty Boy-”
“Pretty Boy?” Coughlin said.
“Detective Will Parkman-he got that handle from his fellow marines, who apparently have a warped sense of humor, as even he admits ‘pretty’ is the last word that comes to mind when you see him. I give Parkman a world of credit. He quietly sponsors an academic scholarship in criminal justice at La Salle, and has arranged for others to sponsor ones there, and he mentors as many students as he can.”
He looked between Coughlin and Washington.
“That,” Payne said, “is the winning of hearts and minds, and more than one at a time.”
Payne then glanced over at the television screen.
“Oh, good,” he said. “Looks like it’s showtime! Care to join me in watching all the rally festivities on the video feeds next door?”
VIII
[ONE]
North Twenty-ninth and West Arizona Streets
Strawberry Mansion, Philadelphia
Saturday, December 15, 5:40 P.M.
Reverend Josiah Cross, in his signature flowing black robe and white clerical collar, stepped onstage just as the rail-thin Tyrone “King 215” Hooks shouted out the last refrain of his “Beatin’ Down The Man.”
Using the profane language of the street, the rapper’s song preached that they had failed at overcoming the oppression by The Man through peaceful methods and encouraged not only responding in kind in the event that The Man used violence-but also preached instigating it.
The oppression by The Man, according to the hip-hop lyrics, occurred every day in the form of any police action, but particularly a shooting-thus justifying the title and refrain of the song:
“To our brothers the fuckin’ Five-Oh daily rains / Nothin’ but nines to our young brains / We got to get beatin’ beatin’ beatin’ / Get beatin’ down the man!”
The music-mostly a deep bass beat blaring from the pair of heavily amplified speakers on either side of the podium-was replaced by loud applause and cheering from the crowd that packed the streets. Cross estimated there to be at least a thousand people, maybe even a couple of thousand.
Most of those in the crowd appeared to be in their twenties and thirties, about a third of whom were white, with the majority a mix of those with darker complexions.
Directly in front of the stage, facing the crowd and standing shoulder to shoulder, stood a line of a couple dozen people who wore over their coats and sweatshirts the white T-shirts with STOP KILLADELPHIA! in bold lettering on the front and back, the STOP printed in bright red ink and the KILLADELPHIA! in black. A cameraman from a local TV news station, moving slowly in a crouch down the line, captured video of them with Hooks strutting onstage in the background above them.
Hooks, now holding his chromed-mesh microphone triumphantly over his head, took a grand bow as Cross, his robe flowing, swept across the stage toward him.
Cross carried his own microphone and put it close to his mouth as he waved his free arm over his head to draw the crowd’s attention.
He loudly announced, “Let’s give Philly’s favorite hometown artist another big round of applause for that very gifted performance.”
Cross, startling Hooks, then grabbed his outstretched hand and added, “Sisters and brothers, King Two-One-Five!”
Hooks recovered, and did a short celebratory dance that consisted of jumping up and down a few times, and bowed again.
Cross then proceeded to carefully tug him in the direction of the end of the stage. When Hooks felt the tug, but in the excitement of the moment did not initially move, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his rib cage. He looked at Cross, but could not tell if the elbow, hidden from view by Cross’s flowing black garment, had been thrown intentionally or not.
As Hooks hopped down from the stage, Cross quickly swept back across it to the podium and placed his microphone beside the dozen others already there that belonged to the news media. Draped above and behind him, tied across the red faux pagoda roof, there was a white banner emblazoned with the same red and black STOP KILLADELPHIA! as the T-shirts.