“Oh, I thought that you knew Reverend Josiah Cross’s given name was Leonard Muggs. His street name, up until he got sent to the slam for stealing a neighbor’s welfare checks, then beating him, was Skinny Lenny.”
He paused to let that sink in.
“I’m afraid that this is news to me, unsettling news,” Lane said, the surprise evident in his tone. “And he’s now chairman of CPOC?”
“If not for the extenuating circumstances we find ourselves in,” the mayor went on, “I certainly would not bring up that history. He has, after all, paid his debt to society and, at least on the surface, tried to find a better path in life as a man of the cloth. But, as I said, these are extenuating circumstances, and we need Badde to get Skinny Lenny to renounce that incredible notion-I cannot believe that I am actually repeating this outrageous nonsense-that we allow illegal drug activity to flourish as a method of population control. The very suggestion is reprehensible, wouldn’t you agree, Willie?”
“Of course.”
“I thought you would,” Carlucci said, somewhat piously. “And so, if Badde is unable to persuade Reverend Cross to do that, then Badde is to immediately remove Cross as a CPOC member. This could coincide-key word ‘could,’ I yield to James and Ed on what they believe is the best timing-with the announcement that I am making provision for four more seats on the CPOC board. We are creating a short list of citizens who would make strong additions.”
Carlucci looked at Stein, who, having been caught off-guard by Carlucci’s announcement, was rapidly handwriting notes on his ledger.
Stein looked up and raised his eyebrows.
“Didn’t Cross,” Willie Lane said, “actually proclaim at the rally that he was resigning his CPOC position? That leaves Badde with no leverage on him. Basically Cross is saying, ‘You can’t fire me-I’ve quit!’”
“That’s a bullshit bluff on Lenny’s part!” Carlucci snapped. “He doesn’t have a pot to piss in. I can guarantee that he is not walking away from eighty grand a year.”
There was a long silence, and then Carlucci, in a measured tone, went on: “Now, part two, should Councilman Badde, for whatever reason, not see the wisdom in the course of action you’ve suggested to him, then I believe that the president of the City Council should announce to Badde that he will immediately be transferred from his seat on the Committee for Public Safety, which of course would have immediate effect on any and all of his appointments in such capacity.”
Looking pleased with himself, Carlucci then laced his fingers and put his hands behind his head as he casually leaned back in his high-back leather chair. He looked between Finley and Stein.
“If that two-by-four whack between the jackass’s eyes doesn’t get his attention,” Carlucci said, “then we can threaten his other committee memberships, whatever they may be. And, Willie, when I say ‘we,’ I mean that you can say that I am forcing your hand on this, which would absolve you. How does that sound, Willie, for starters?”
There was a long, awkward silence.
He has to see this as a chance to undermine Badde’s future as a potential mayoral candidate, Carlucci thought.
I’m handing him a slam dunk.
“Any of that,” Lane then said, “certainly could be considered either a sacrificial or symbolic act.”
“I’m pleased that you see it that way, too.”
“I will reach out to Councilman Badde, Mr. Mayor,” Willie Lane finally said. “Do we know if Skin-if Reverend Cross was injured in that shooting at the rally?”
“Our best information right now is, no, he was not shot. But we are not certain. Nor do we know about that rapper singer’s condition. Which is why you contacting Badde is crucial,” Carlucci said, then leaned forward, his finger hovering over the desktop telephone. “Let me know soonest.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
Carlucci stabbed the SPEAKERPHONE button, breaking the connection.
[FOUR]
The Roundhouse
Eighth and Race Streets, Philadelphia
Saturday, December 15, 6:20 P.M.
Matt Payne, holding his hand up to shield his face, was slumped in the front passenger seat of Tony Harris’s Ford Crown Vic, the unmarked Police Interceptor coated in layers of gray grime. Payne tried not to make eye contact with any of the protesters on the sidewalk as Harris turned out of the parking lot. The black smoke from the fires in Strawberry Mansion was visible in the sky in the distance, and Payne believed that there was a very real possibility these protesters were angry enough to overturn the car-and worse.
Harris accelerated hard as he headed for North Broad Street, then Ridge Avenue, which would take them northwest to North Twenty-ninth Street. Payne sat back up in his seat, then began scrolling through messages on his smartphone.
The female dispatcher on the police radio was rapidly, but professionally, broadcasting updates on the unrest in Strawberry Mansion. There came a long pause, which she broke by automatically adding a filler safety message: “When exiting your cruiser, always turn off the engine and take the keys.”
Payne and Harris exchanged glances.
“Might want to keep that in mind, Detective. I understand there might be a criminal element where we’re headed,” Payne said drily, turning back to his phone.
Harris snorted. He then felt his cellular phone vibrating. When he checked the caller ID, it read NUMBER BLOCKED.
He reached over and opened the glove box, where the unmarked car’s radio was concealed, and turned down the volume as the dispatcher announced, “Safety is a full-time job. Don’t have a part-time attitude. The time is. .”
“Yeah?” Harris then answered the call, his tone annoyed.
Matt Payne, picking up on that, looked at him out of the corner of his eye.
“Hey, Sully,” Harris said. “What’s up?”
Now Payne turned his head to look at Harris. Harris shrugged his shoulders at him as he nodded.
“Tell him I want to talk to him,” Payne said.
Harris raised his index finger in a Hold one gesture.
“All right, Sully. Get back to me if you hear anything.” He paused, then added, “If I can. No promises.”
Harris met Payne’s eyes as he broke off the call.
“I said I wanted to talk to him,” Payne repeated. “What’d he want?”
“Sully says the rally shooting was not his guys in the crowd.”
“His guys? In the crowd? I thought he said he had nothing to do with the hypothetical whacking of Hooks and Company.”
“He still maintains that. These guys, he says, were doing recon work. He had two there. One was actually Lynda Webber, who used to work for him in Vice. After she got back from two tours in Iraq with army intel-she’s a captain in the reserves-Sully hired her away. Really razor-sharp mind. I actually saw her in the crowd on the video feed.”
Harris chuckled as he honked the horn to pass a slow-moving pickup.
“What?” Payne said.
“Shouldn’t tell you this, but what initially drew my eye to her was that there was a group of young white women in a clump, all with their politically correct looks of moral outrage, and furiously pumping those posters of the murder victims over their heads. One, projecting the angriest outrage and loudly leading that ‘Yo, Yo, Yo! Payne Must Go!’ chant, held a poster of Public Enemy Number One.”
Payne grunted. “So she was carrying mine.”
Harris chuckled again. “Guess Lynda felt that gave her a really solid cover.”
“Glad I could help in some small way.”
“So, Sully claims they were just there to keep an eye on Hooks, gather intel, follow him if necessary. The last thing he said would happen was for Hooks to be whacked like that. If that’s what happened.”
Payne looked at Harris and said, “Because it would not give them a chance to recover the stolen jewelry and, more important, it would not be the punishment that would make an example of why one does not rob their casino.”