Rough Justice

'You need somethin', Bobby?'

'From you? Only if you got a four-wheel drive. Like a Jeep.'

'Hey, no problem.' Penny looked past the clutter in his cramped apartment to a piece of plywood with keys hanging on it, like a valet parking board. Actually, it was a valet parking board. Penny brought it home from work, telling his manager it got stolen. Well, it did. Penny needed the board to keep track of the cars he was rebuilding in his new business. He'd boost the car, strip it, and sell the skeleton. Then he'd buy the skeleton back at auction, rebuild the car, and sell it with the title. Having good title jacked up the sale price. Made it nice and legal. 'I got a coupla Jeeps. A real nice one'll be ready tomorrow. My inventory's a little low because of the snow—'

'I need a Jeep now. In stock.'

Penny's bloodshot eyes scanned the keys on the board. 'I got a nice new Grand Cherokee, just rebuilt. Title and all. I'd give you a great price, Bobby. Next to nothin'.'

Bogosian snorted. 'I don't want to buy a fuckin' car, you dick. You need it for the job.'

'A job?' Penny couldn't believe his ears. 'You got a job for me? What kinda—'

'Will you shut the fuck up?'

Penny told himself to shut the fuck up. Reminded himself if he don't have a good thing to say, don't say nothing. 'Yeh,' Penny said, and hoped it sounded like nothing.

'It's in Grays Ferry. The Twenty-fifth Street Bridge. You know where that is, jizzbag?'

'Yeh,' Penny said. Fuckin' A! If he could do some jobs for Bogosian, he could make himself some real dough. Bogosian was the man! Bogosian was the bomb! Bogosian was money! Penny couldn't help jumping out of his chair and wiggling his ass like a little faggot. 'When I gotta go?' he asked as his skinny butt swayed.

'Now,' Bogosian said. 'Right now.'

'You got it.' Penny boogied over to the bedroom for his gun. 'I'm all ears, Bobby.'

19

Bennie Rosato stepped off the elevator into a nightmare. There had been killings again, at a law firm she owned. Security guards were dead, one Bennie had known well, an older man named Pete Santis. Pete lived alone like Bennie and they used to trade dog stories. Both owned the only two golden retrievers in the world who were allowed to jump on people. 'Allowed, hell,' Pete used to say. 'We're talkin' encouraged.'

Bennie couldn't believe Pete was dead, but it was his body she'd just seen loaded into the medical examiner's van in a black zipper bag. It was his blood she'd seen in the elevator cab downstairs. Pete died defending what Bennie owned, maybe protecting her people. She felt heartsick, stunned. The elevator doors slid closed, stranding Bennie in the middle of the hallway, where the news got even worse.

Nobody appeared to care. The hallway at Rosato & Associates was empty except for a single uniformed cop who stood at the entrance to one of the glass conference rooms. No yellow tape had been strung up. No forensic photographers snapped photos of the crime scene. No police techs hustled through the halls vacuuming fibers or sampling dirt from the rug. Bennie had made a career prosecuting police misconduct cases and knew police procedure almost as second nature. None of it was being followed here.

Bennie had learned about the guards' murders from TV. No one from the department had called her and no detective came by for a statement. As soon as she heard, she'd thrown a Gore-Tex jacket over her jeans and workshirt and run the short distance to the office, only to find it quiet as a law library.

Two men had been murdered, two associates had vanished, Marta Richter was gone— and nobody was investigating. Bennie resisted leaping to the conclusion that it was payback. What was going on? She walked over to the uniformed cop, who had bright reddish hair and a coarse rust-colored mustache, and introduced herself.

'I know who you are,' the cop said. He wore his cap low on his forehead, his arms were linked behind his back, and he stared pointedly past Bennie, like a Beefeater in blue.

'A fan, huh?'

'Not hardly.'

Bennie stopped short of giving the cop the finger. 'Should I take it personally that nobody's investigating these murders? Two security guards down, my God. I would think Homicide would be all over this. Half the guards in the city are former cops.'

'Don't have nothin' to do with you, Ms. Rosato,' the uniform said. 'It's snowin' out there, if you haven't noticed. Most of us couldn't report in. The ones that got in can't get around the city. It's a blizzard. We're doing the best we can.'

'What about the detectives? The day shift would have stayed in, wouldn't they?'

'Only one is left at Two Squad. It'll be his case. Every homicide tonight will be his case. He'll be here as soon as he can make it in the snow.'

'Who is it? Which detective?'

'Don't know. That's confidential anyway. As you know.'

'Why isn't he here? The Roundhouse is only half an hour away, even in the blizzard.'

The cop looked at Bennie for the first time, with a slack expression that barely masked his hostility. 'The detective isn't at headquarters. He's stuck on a double in West Philly. He'll get here when he gets here.'

'So nobody can get to the scene? Not even a crime tech? A photographer? The department gonna just sit on its hands?'

'No,' the cop said, 'we already have an APB out on the shooter. I called it in, okay? That good enough for you?'

'You got the shooter?' Bennie asked, heartened. 'So soon? How? You have an