"Yes!" they both said.
"Gotcha, you animal." Vicki eyed a perfect shot of the driver's window, but it was small and dark.
"Can you make it bigger?"
"Watch and be amazed." Vicki moved the mouse to the toolbar and clicked away. Ten clicks later, her large Gateway monitor had a pixelated photo of the driver, dim but visible.
"All right, girl!"
"Thank you, thank you." Vicki scrutinized her handiwork. The photo was dim and too grainy to be perfect, but the features of the driver were clearly visible, and he was young and white.
"Ha!" Reheema snorted. "Ice, ice, baby."
"How does a white boy take over the trade on Cater, street level?"
"He doesn't show his face, that's how. He's the man who talks to the man. He has his boys do his dirty work." Reheema set down her salad.
The driver looked about twenty-five, his face young and unlined, with large, light eyes, maybe blue or hazel. His hair was shaved into a fade of a light hair, its color impossible to ascertain in this light. Next to him in the seat sat a shadow. Vicki couldn't make out the features of his accomplice.
"Now what do we do?"
"First thing, we get the photo to the cops. Philly, ATF, FBI, the whole alphabet."
"Show our hand?"
"No, not if we don't have to. I still need my job. And I have another lead I want to follow up." Vicki paused. "If I e-mail this, they'll know where it came from."
"Then what?"
"We do it the old-fashioned way." Vicki checked her watch. Three o'clock. Then she remembered. "They're having a meeting today at five with all the brass, about Morty's investigation."
"Goody."
"Just so they get started," Vicki said, and they both smiled. She hit Print. "Maybe this actual photo of the murderer will help?"
"Least we can do." Reheema laughed. "So what's the old-fashioned way? Drop it off and run like hell?"
"Bingo." But Vicki was thinking about that meeting, and what would happen when Dan came home.
THIRTY-TWO
It was cold and dark by the time Vicki and Reheema had finished their mail run, delivering enlargements of the white van driver to receptionists at the U.S. Attorney's Office, the FBI, ATF, Philly Homicide, and the four major news stations. They completed the task in disguise, having Reheema drop off where Vicki would be recognized and vice versa. Vicki had considered taking the next step in the Former Master Plan, but she was exhausted and wanted to find out from Dan how the big meeting had gone. And the shooting had taken a toll on Reheema, who seemed exhausted and had reverted to being remote. After a side trip for some groceries for each of them, they pulled up in front of Vicki's house.
"You sure you don't want to come in?" Vicki asked. "I'm feeling very domestic. I could make you a quick dinner."
"How would you explain me to your boyfriend?"
"Oh, right. I forgot." Vicki wasn't used to coming home to anything but bills.
"I'm wiped out, anyway. I'm gonna go home and make myself a nice chef salad."
"Didn't you have that for lunch?"
"If it comes in a glass, it ain't a salad."
Vicki had noticed Reheema shopping with a sharp eye on prices at the Acme. "Can I ask what you're doing for money?"
"Using the same green as you."
"You can't have much, after being in the FDC so long." Vicki was choosing her words carefully, especially because she was responsible for putting Reheema there. "And you have to pay bills, get the utilities on. You need infrastructure, right?"
"I'm okay for a while. After we're done, I'm gonna get a job."
"Not at Bennye's."
"God, no."
"Can I lend you some money?"
"No, I'm fine." Reheema stiffened, and Vicki regretted it instantly.
"Okay, just let me know. See you tomorrow morning, later, like nine, after Dan goes to work?"
"Fine."
"I'll let you know anything I find out."
"Good." Reheema faced front, nodding.
"Bye." Vicki got out of the Sunbird, retrieved her groceries from the backseat, and closed the door with a final slam, feeling oddly as if she had lost something.
A friend.
Or her innocence.
Vicki opened her front door on to a grinning Dan Malloy, standing on her front step in the frigid night, dripping calico cat, the animal's black-and-orange legs draped over his arm. "Well!"
"Zoe, we're home!"
Vicki laughed. "Come in, it's cold. How'd you get her here?"
"Cab. She loved it. She has caviar tastes." Dan stepped inside, then leaned over the cat and kissed Vicki, his mouth an intriguing mix of cold and warm. She kissed him back, then again, and then another time, before they parted.
"Wow." Vicki closed the front door.
"I agree."
"I could get used to this."
"You'll have to, until I get new furniture." Dan looked her over with a smile. "You know, as good as you look right now, you'd look better in bed."
"Thank you." Vicki had showered, which made her feel almost human again in fresh jeans, a pink cashmere sweater, and no sunglasses. "Come into the kitchen and see your surprise."
"I'm getting a surprise?"
"Of course." Only because I'm so smooth.
"Look around, Zoe." Dan set down his briefcase and cat, and followed Vicki into the dining room. "Does the surprise involve you naked?"
"No."
"In a nurse's outfit?'
"No."
"A nun's habit?"
"That's so wrong, Malloy." Vicki reached the kitchen, and in the middle of the floor sat a pink plastic litter box, filled with gourmet litter and its own little scoop, resting casually against the side of the tray. "Romantic, huh?"
"Terrific! Thank you!" Dan grinned, pulling her to him and holding her close, and she could feel the cold air clinging to the scratchy wool of his topcoat. "I didn't know they sold litter boxes at Neiman Marcus."
Oops. "Uh, no, they don't. I didn't get the litter box there. I got it from the Acme, where I got groceries for dinner."
"Oh, nice." Dan released her to slide out of his topcoat and put it on the back of the kitchen chair. "What am I making?"
"Hey, I'm making it. We're having filet mignon, with onions and baked potatoes. It'll be ready in a minute. I'm Martha
Stewart, preincarceration."
"Funny, I don't smell anything."
D'oh! Vicki crossed to the oven and turned it on. "Okay, so we won't be eating in a minute."
Dan smiled. "Doesn't matter. What'd you get at Neiman Marcus?"
Eek. "Nothing. So what happened at the big meeting? Did you go?"
"Yes." Dan's expression changed, suddenly troubled. "Did you see the news, Vick? The shooting at Toys ‘R' Us? Seven people killed, three of them kids, and they say a fourth might not make it. It's disgusting."
"Horrible."
"They should hang that guy. And one was Jamal Browning, shot dead."
No, really? "I heard that on TV. Jackson's boyfriend. Incredible."
"Don't worry, they're gonna get the guy. They already ID'ed him."
"How?"
"You're not gonna believe this. At the end of the business day, somebody sent us a photo of the shooter." Dan reached excitedly inside his jacket pocket and pulled out the photo she'd taken. "Look."
Vicki looked at the photo as if she'd never seen it before, which wasn't easy. "Somebody sent this to us?" And was she wearing Exxon sunglasses or Chanel?
"Dropped it off at the office. FBI, ATF, everybody got a copy, like manna from heaven. The FBI thinks somebody from the neighborhood took it and they're too afraid of retaliation to come forward."
The FBI are geniuses. "Probably."
"I'd be afraid, too. What kind of man guns down kids in a Toys ‘R' Us? They coulda hit Browning anywhere, if that's who they were after. It's true scum who does something like that."
Vicki nodded.
"Anyway, it's damn lucky they took the photo, though. The cops had no flash on the shooter. The Toys ‘R' Us surveillance cameras were pointing at the wrong side of the truck, and the eyewitnesses were so freaked out, their descriptions were all over the place. Philly police couldn't even get a composite they had faith in. Then this came in."