the paperwork that turns over possession of the prison to PEGI and the Volks Haus Initiative. We need those funds before the next step there. We’ve already cut checks for the first empty properties in Northern Liberties-bulldozers began some demolition last week-and then we’ll be cutting checks for those holdouts. Maybe the bulldozers will convince them it’s time to take the money and move on, and we won’t have to evict.”
“And tell me again: What’s the next step at Volks Haus?”
“Same as it was for the Diamond project.” She handed him the thin sheaf of papers.
He glanced at the cover sheet. It had the expected familiar letterhead:
Commonwealth Law Center 1611 Walnut Street, Suite 840 Philadelphia, PA 19103
The law center office, he knew, was two floors below his accountant’s office.
Below that was printed in large lettering: TITLE 26 EMINENT DOMAIN
Just Compensation and Measure of Damages
“Eminent domain has two stages,” Jan said. “The first is to prove that it’s legal to take property and, meeting that, the second is to determine a fair price for the property.”
He nodded, then turned to page two of the document, a table of contents, and began reading:
26 Pa. C.S.A. # 701 Just compensation; other damages
26 Pa. C.S.A. # 702 Measure of damages
26 Pa. C.S.A. # 703 Fair market value
He felt his eyes start to glaze over, then scanned the rest, stopping at the last one:
26 Pa. C.S.A. # 716 Attempted avoidance of monetary just compensation
He tossed the papers back onto the table.
“Jesus, I’m glad I hired you to deal with this bullshit.” He smiled at her, and when she smiled back, he added: “Hope we don’t have any trouble with that last one. I mean, what’s a fair price for abandoned buildings?”
“Condemned buildings,” she corrected him. “The Supreme Court fixed that for us with the Kelo vs. City of New London decision. There won’t be any Fifth Amendment problems with the properties.”
Badde then motioned at a long cardboard tube on the table.
“Has the Russian seen the architect’s drawings?”
“Yuri had his assistant personally messenger them over from the Diamond Development office in Center City.”
She grinned slyly, then added, “You know, I think that messenger boy of his is really his concubine.”
“His what?”
“His young lover, his concubine.”
Rapp stared at her with an incredulous look. “You shitting me? What’s a billionaire Russian businessman doing with something like that? I mean, I’ve seen him with some incredibly hot women.”
She shrugged. “Female intuition.”
“Maybe. Just don’t say anything to him. He has a mean goddamn temper.”
“Guess that’s how you get to be a billionaire,” Jan said as she pulled the large sheets of architectural drawings from the cardboard tube.
Badde got up from the chair and walked around the marble-topped table. As he stood behind Jan, looking over her shoulder at the architect’s renderings for Volks Haus, his hands slipped down to her waist. He rested his chin on her shoulder as he squeezed her hips.
“Pay attention,” she said.
“I am paying attention,” he said as he buried his nose in her neck and inhaled her lightly scented perfume. “Attention to you. I’ll pay even better attention with this fancy outfit of yours off…”
She giggled, then let her head drop back toward his. Just as she said, “I surrender,” Badde’s Go To Hell cell phone started ringing.
“Dammit!” Badde said, grabbing it and quickly checking the caller ID. It read UNKNOWN CALLER. “Dammit!”
He stepped back from Jan and started walking toward the sliding glass door to the balcony. “Yes?” he said into the phone.
The caller was yelling so loudly that Badde had to hold the phone away from his ear.
Jan could almost clearly hear what the caller was telling Badde: “Reggie’s dead! They’re coming after me!”
VI
[ONE]
5550 Ridgewood Street, Philadelphia Sunday, November 1, 12:45 P.M.
Javier Iglesia parked his silver Dodge Avenger across the street from the Bazelon row house.
He counted at least a dozen teenagers and slightly older thuggish types milling about on the sidewalk-a handful of whom he’d seen earlier-and almost that many teens, mostly girls, sitting on the wooden porch and steps. Sasha Bazelon sat in the same rocker she’d been in when he’d wheeled away her grandmother three hours earlier.
At first glance, he mused, someone could easily think that a crowd of troublemakers had swooped in to take advantage of a poor teenage girl right after the death of her only kin.
But Javier now knew they weren’t troublemakers, at least not all of them, because he was very well acquainted with at least one person on the porch-his baby sister, nineteen-year-old Yvette-and was familiar with a handful of the others, including Keesha Cook, who was sitting between Sasha and Yvette.
They’re here supporting Sasha, is what they’re doing.
And not trying to take advantage of her during this dreadful time.
Even these punks, who are looking at me suspiciously.
Javier got out of the car and made eye contact with Yvette. As he started walking across the street, she popped up out of her chair and went quickly down the steps toward him.
He was surprised. What the hell is up with her?
But knowing his baby sister as well as he did, nothing she did should ever have come as a surprise to Javier Iglesia.
What the very petite Yvette Iglesia lacked in physical height-she stood four-feet-ten-she more than made up for with a bubbly, oversize personality. She spoke almost nonstop, mostly in rapid-fire bursts, gesturing wildly with her hands to make her points. She had straight black shoulder-length hair framing a pretty face that clearly showed her Puerto Rican heritage. Her dark eyes were full of life. And her small mouth was impressive not only for its dazzling smile, but also for the raw expletives that came out of it when she was angry, ones that Javier said “would embarrass a Port of Philly longshoreman.”
“Don’t forget,” Yvette often said with a smile, almost as a provocation, “that dynamite comes in small packages.”
Three hours earlier, just as Javier had backed up the van carrying Principal Bazelon’s body to the Medical Examiner’s Office, his cell phone had pinged, alerting him to a new text message.
When he had looked at the phone’s screen, the message surprised him: YVETTE HEY, BIG BRO… SO SAD ABOUT PRINCIPAL BAZELON MUST BE VERY UPSETTING FOR YOU TO HAVE PICKED HER UP YOU’RE IN MY THOUGHTS amp; PRAYERS LOVE YOU!
His first thought: What a sweetheart.
Then: How the hell did she find out so fast?
After processing the body of Mrs. Joelle Bazelon into the system that was the Medical Examiner’s Office- putting the body bag in one of the stainless-steel refrigerator compartments, then entering the report and photographs taken at the scene into the computer filing system-Javier had called his sister.
“Hey, I got your text. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, her usual bubbly tone gone. “It’s.. . it’s all just so awful…”
“Yeah. She was a terrific lady. How’d you find out so fast? And that it was me? I mean, I’d barely left the
