In other words: Mind your own goddamn business.
And so the chairman of each committee more or less had free rein. He or she completely controlled the committee’s dealings with commerce in and out of City Hall, the letting of contracts, the hiring of vendors, and so on. It actually proved to be an efficient model in the sense that it avoided the frustrating back-and-forth process of committee decision-making. Instead, the chairman made a decision and-voila!-it was done without further debate.
To the City of Philadelphia Housing and Urban Development Committee, the president of the city council appointed City Councilman (At Large) H. Rapp Badde, Jr., as its chairman.
HUD chairman Badde, upon returning from an urban-renewal conference in Bermuda, conceived the Philadelphia Economic Gentrification Initiative. He then funded the special program with a modest fifty thousand dollars from HUD’s “exploratory” budget line-all of it federal monies-and immediately entered into an open-term vendor contract (thereby avoiding a lengthy low-bidder selection process) with Commonwealth Law Center LLP of Philadelphia.
The law firm, its practice heavily vested in real estate law, would assist Chairman Badde and his committee- in effect, only Badde and his executive assistant-in the exploratory steps for two major gentrification projects: Volks Haus and Diamond Development.
The latter created what was termed “a multipurpose professional entertainment venue.” It would be an indoor coliseum with a retractable roof and convertible flooring. It could house sixty thousand fans of everything from sports (football, basketball, hockey, soccer, motocross racing, et cetera) to music concerts. It was planned to be built just west of Interstate 95 in the upper end of Northern Liberties. Thus, it would displace thousands of residents in order to demolish a vast chunk of city.
The former, Volks Haus, was to serve as one solution for the relocation of those residents. The “People’s House” would be low-income housing constructed on ten square blocks a few miles to the west, in the Fairmount area, reclaiming what Chairman Badde called “a damned unsightly black hole of money-losing federal government property”-otherwise known as the Eastern State Penitentiary, which happened to be a United States Natural Historic Landmark smack dab in the middle of a struggling residential neighborhood.
The exploratory process was completed within twenty-four hours-although on paper the period was listed as three months-and two minority-owned construction firms were awarded contracts conditioned on federal dollars fully funding PEGI and the completion of the eminent-domain process.
Janelle Harper looked over the upper rim of her Gucci eyeglasses at Rapp Badde.
She said, “Those additional fed monies, I was told, after I finally got my calls returned from Commonwealth-”
Badde interrupted. “Why can’t you just say her name?” He paused and shrugged, and with a weak smile said, “Wanda’s not that bad.”
“Why? I’ll tell you why: Because your wife treats me like your little girlfriend-actually, sometimes more like your little ‘ho’-and not like your goddamned executive assistant.” She pulled at the spandex at her hips, adjusting it, then added, “I’m damned tired of it. She’s not the only one with a law degree from Beasley.”
Temple University, and its Beasley School of Law, was a couple miles west of the condo tower, on North Broad.
Jan met Rapp’s eyes and said, “She needs to be your ex-wife.”
Badde suddenly sat up, almost spilling his coffee.
“Are you kidding?” he said, his voice almost squeaking. “Do you know what the hell that would cost me? I mean, not only in money. I’d lose political capital, too!”
“So? You don’t want to do right by me? Make me an honest woman?”
“Yes! I mean, no!”
Jan put her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “Well, which is it?”
He sighed. “It’s not that simple, honey.”
“Don’t goddamn ‘honey’ me, Rapp.”
“It’s just better this way. If I sued for divorce, a lot of things would change.” He knew how much Jan liked living in the luxury high-rise, especially for free. “This condo would go away, for one.”
She considered that a long moment.
“What if she sues you for divorce?”
“For what?”
“For infidelity. Everyone saw that photograph of us in Bermuda.”
With more than a little confidence, if not arrogance, he shot back: “Pennsylvania courts don’t give a shit about cheating. And my wife knows it. How do you think I got away with that photo being run?”
He saw Jan eye him more carefully.
Suspiciously.
Like that was painful proof that she ain’t the first regular piece I’ve had on the side.
Or maybe not the last…
“I know because I asked,” Rapp went on, more evenly. “My lawyer told me.”
“Even if the photos are in flagrante delicto?”
“In what?”
“In the act, Rapp. Screwing.”
“Oh. Yeah. Even that. I asked.”
Now, why the hell did she ask that?
Would she go that low-send Wanda photos of us fucking-thinking she could become Mrs. Mayor instead?
“But she could sue for other reasons. Could even say you beat her, if she got mad enough to go after you.”
He didn’t say anything.
Jan quoted, “‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’”
Badde sighed and said, “She won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“She’s got the Badde name, got all that money, and everything that comes with it. Why change?”
“What if she blows the whistle on PEGI?”
“Oh, now, that won’t happen. She likes the money too much. Once you been broke, you don’t ever want to go back. If all the padded payments from PEGI go, so do all those billable hours the Commonwealth Law Center gets from handling the business that will come from Volks Haus and Diamond Development. And she can kiss goodbye those big steady retainer checks Kwame Construction has paid from the start.”
Jan looked at him a long moment and shook her head.
“Rapp, I’m telling you that wives get revenge for a lot of reasons. And they’re not thinking about money when they do it.”
“I’m telling you, she won’t,” he said smugly. “Look, we’re kind of like the U.S. and Russia were with that Mutual Asset Deduction.”
“The what?”
“You know, with missiles aimed at each other. To knock each other out. One fires, both sides are toast.”
After a moment Jan figured it out, and corrected him: “Mutually Assured Destruction.”
He looked at her and shrugged. “Same difference. If she tells on me, I tell on her, and away goes all her money and her license to practice law or anything else. It’d be suicide.”
Their met eyes again.
Badde thought: And if you haven’t realized it yet, honey, you and I are now in the same boat.
You know that kickbacks are funneled through Commonwealth, which also happens to be a nice contributor to my campaign for mayor.
And you’re helping funnel them.
After a moment, she nodded. After a moment, she nodded.
“Okay. I guess you’re right, Rapp. I sure hope so.”
She pointed at a thin sheaf of papers stapled at the top left corner.
“The fed funds for PEGI, at least the low-income-housing matching dollars, were due here last week. As was
