chair on the other side of my desk.

I met Marlene about seven years ago, at her father’s funeral. Uncle Leo and Josh Taylor played in a weekly poker game for ten or fifteen years, and their friendship preceded the game by another decade or so. When Josh died, Uncle Leo was on a cruise ship off the coast of Brazil, but he managed to get back in time for me to pick him up at the airport and drive directly to the memorial service.

Josh Taylor owned Taylor Contracting, and his only child, Marlene, doted on her father and his work. By the time she was sixteen, it was obvious to everyone who knew her that she would one day take over the company. She never went to college, but she was a voracious reader, devouring everything from daily newspapers to historical fiction to biographies to the Sunday comics. In short, she defined the term self-educated. She also did a pretty good job of defining the word beautiful.

Not long after her father’s death, Marlene contacted me to ask if I’d look into some minor vandalism at one of the company’s job sites. That led to my doing other work for her over the years, mostly minor stuff, like the reason for her visit this morning. Actually, we could have just spoken over the phone, but I think Marlene enjoyed having any excuse to wear something a little dressier than jeans and work boots. Today’s ensemble consisted of a dark green jacket with matching short skirt and high heels. Under the jacket she wore a light green silk blouse with a long collar. The blouse was open at the neck to reveal the thin gold chain she usually wore. The whole outfit worked well with her ebony skin.

Crossing her legs and smoothing her skirt, Marlene smiled across the desk at me and said, “So, JB, what’ve you got?”

She’d given me three names the week before, part-timers she was thinking of hiring on a permanent basis, and asked me to check them out.

“The first two, DeAngelo and Simmons, look good,” I told her, “but Kerns is another matter.”

“How so?” she asked.

“For starters,” I said, “his name isn’t Walter Kerns. It’s Gerard Pinckney. And he’s not from Philadelphia. The last address I was able to confirm for him was in Minneapolis.”

I looked up at Marlene.

“There’s something else, too. There aren’t any outstanding warrants on this guy, but he’s been arrested at least three times in the past four years, twice for failure to pay child support and once for beating his ex-wife. He served six months on that one.”

Marlene nodded her head slowly for a minute, then said, “Okay, DeAngelo and Simmons are in, but Kerns is out. You know I’m willing to give people second chances, JB, but not wife-beaters.”

“No argument here, Marlene,” I said. I paused a minute, then added, “You want some company when you tell Kerns he’s persona non gratis?”

She smiled and said, “You think I’m not up to it?”

“You know better,” I said, “but this guy’s bad, Marlene, and he’s especially bad with women.”

“I’m tough, JB, but I’m not stupid. Kerns is with one of my crews in Oakland today, working on that new garage near the Cathedral of Learning. I’m having lunch with my new boyfriend. He’ll go with me when I give Mr. Kerns his pink slip.”

“New boyfriend?” I asked, with raised eyebrows. “And are we serious about this gentleman?”

“Maybe. Reggie and I have been seeing each other for a couple of months now. You’ve probably heard of him. Reggie Sandoval.”

“Reggie Sandoval,” I said. “Wait a minute! You’re dating the Steelers new linebacker?”

Marlene grinned and said, “Guilty as charged.”

Then she shifted her position a little and recrossed her legs and batted her eyes at me and said, “So, you think lil ole me will be all right today?”

I smiled. Marlene and I have always had a mildly flirtatious relationship. We like each other, but neither of us has ever tried to take it any further than that. It’s almost as though, because her dad and my uncle had been like brothers, she and I think of each other as siblings or cousins or something. Weird, I know, but there it is.

“I think you’ll be just fine, Ms. Taylor,” I said, “with or without the help of a two-hundred-and-forty-pound All-Pro.”

We chatted a little while longer, talking about her dad and Uncle Leo and friendship and poker, and I told her about Laura, and about how I was trying to get a kid out of a gang. Then she gave me a check and a kiss on the cheek, and I walked her down to her car. After she drove away, I walked back home in the bright sunlight, thinking that the rear-view spy sunglasses, with their UV protection, would have come in handy. Turns out, though, that the rear-view part wouldn’t have been any help, since the black van that T-Man and four other gang-bangers were getting out of was directly in front of me as I got to my driveway.

Chapter 38

T-Man and the boys must have gotten up early, calling each other to coordinate their outfits, getting every little thing right. You know how it is. Unbuttoning my blazer as I approached them, I noted that the uniform of the day was heavy on denim. Everyone was wearing jeans, although all of theirs were noticeably baggier than mine. Just a difference in personal taste, is all. They all wore black t-shirts, too, and black tennis shoes, but the dress code appeared to be considerably less rigid when it came to outerwear. T-Man was resplendent in an Oakland Raiders windbreaker, while two of the other Links had on hooded sweatshirts, one brown, the other dark gray. The remaining member of the group was my old friend Rodney. He was wearing a leather jacket, like the ones kids on sports teams wear. Rodney’s didn’t have any little football or basketball on it, though. I looked carefully for a

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