John “JC” Nguyen was a cocky twenty-five-year-old-half Caucasian, half Asian, small-boned, five-two, and maybe one-ten soaking wet-who didn’t walk but strutted. His thick black hair was combed straight back and hung to his collar. He wore baggy blue jeans that barely clung to his hips, a long-sleeved white T-shirt, and, over the T-shirt, a Philadelphia Eagles football jersey.
The green jersey had a big white number 7 on the back and, in white block lettering across the shoulder blades, the name VICK.
Small surprise that the punk worships an overpaid jock who likes making dogs fight to the death.
But what the hell kind of justice is it that Michael Vick sat almost two years in the slam for that crime while this miserable shit abused my baby and never spent a single fucking night behind bars?
By the time he reentered the court system for the assault on Wendy Curtis, JC had had a long list of priors- more than a dozen arrests over as many years, mostly for either possession of, or possession with intent to distribute, pot and speed and other controlled substances. His first bust had been when he’d just turned fourteen, and it earned him the street name “JC,” for John Cannabis, a nod to the homegrown marijuana he first sold to his South Philly High schoolmates.
Curtis had learned, primarily from the prosecutors in the Repeat Offenders Unit of the district attorney’s office, that in all but Nguyen’s very first cases, he had been represented by Gartner.
Curtis also had been told that that did not necessarily mean Gartner was a good lawyer. In fact, one assistant district attorney assigned to prosecute Nguyen’s case said that the opposite was true.
“The one thing commonly said of Daniel O. Gartner, Esquire,” the prosecutor told Curtis, quietly but bitterly, “is that he’s the worst fucking lawyer in all the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
He’d then added, “If there existed a book titled The Dictionary of Dirt-bags, and in it was a definition of a lawyer who not only graduated at the bottom of his class but was as dirty as his clients, Gartner’s ugly mug would be beside it.” He’d exhaled audibly and added, “He’s always working the system.”
He explained that Gartner almost never really won a case for a client. Practically all them were negotiated with some sort of plea bargain to get the charges reduced, working the system so that the sentence left the scum with a very short term in the slam. Thus, it wasn’t unusual for Gartner to watch a less-than-ecstatic client in handcuffs and a faded orange jumpsuit being hauled out of court to go back behind bars.
Sometimes-thanks to the already overloaded justice system, its dockets packed, its prisons full-he managed to get only a slap-on-the-wrist sentence of probation.
And, on very rare occasions, Gartner got a case tossed out on a technicality.
Curtis had learned that the hard way in Wendy’s case, with Nguyen. Gartner got the guilty bastard off scot- free. All it had taken was for him to find a breach in how the evidence had been handled.
The animal didn’t even get probation. Nothing.
In the DA’s office, after giving the bad news to Will and Linda Curtis, then deeply apologizing for the administrative mistake, the prosecutor sighed and said, “It’s the reality of what we deal with every day. The system is broken. But like a broken watch that gets the time right twice a day, we eventually do get ’em. Meanwhile, guys like Gartner take advantage of the weaknesses to get their clients to walk.”
Will Curtis saw Gartner motion for JC to come inside. JC nodded in reply, then pulled a small nylon bag from under the weblike netting on the rear end of the motorcycle’s black seat.
Strutting like a rooster, he carried the bag to the open metal door, went through it, and closed the door behind him.
Will Curtis checked for traffic again and started across the street.
[THREE]
Loft Number 2180 Hops Haus Tower 1100 N. Lee Street, Philadelphia Saturday, October 31, 11:05 P.M.
“Maybe I’m wrong about you being a cop,” Dr. Amanda Law playfully whispered to Homicide Sergeant Matthew M. Payne, Philadelphia Police Department Badge Number 471, “because I’m beginning to think that you do your best work undercover.”
He saw that her face was flushed and glowing as she smiled and pulled her shoulder-length blond hair into a ponytail, then threw back the soft cotton cover in question.
She leaned over and kissed him wetly and loudly on his heaving chest. Then she stepped out of bed and, after taking a moment to catch her breath, said, “Be right back, Romeo.”
Twenty-seven-year-old Matt Payne-who was six feet tall, one-seventy-five with a chiseled face, dark intelligent eyes, and thick dark hair he kept trimmed short-marveled at the magnificent milk-white orbs that formed the toned derriere of Amanda Law as she padded stark naked across the hardwood flooring, then disappeared into the bathroom.
There then came from behind the door a soft thumping and whine, followed by the sound of two clicks, one of a light switch and another of the door latch softly shutting.
The whine had been from Luna, the two-year-old pup Amanda had rescued from the animal shelter five months earlier. And the thumping had been the dog’s wagging tail hitting the plastic floor liner of the wire kennel crate that served as the dog’s den in the massive tiled bathroom.
Luna-Matt joked that it was short for “Lunatic” due to the dog’s occasional hyperness and regular talkativeness-was either a labradoodle or a genuine purebred Portuguese water dog. The two breeds could be spitting images, and had similar traits: a friendly disposition and a serious protective loud bark. It was Amanda’s opinion that Luna, at forty pounds, with a dense, tightly curled, nonshedding black coat, was more poodle than lab.
Payne smiled as he thought, What the hell? Is it possible to lose count?
He glanced at the bedside table. There, beside two beer bottles and a glass of white wine, was his cell phone. He looked at the clock on its screen.
It’s only eleven? And we got back here at maybe nine.
Payne, his heart pounding, put his head back on the pillow.
So, that means she… that is, we…
Damn! Three times in two hours…
As his chest continued to rise and fall with heavy breaths, he decided that if he was about to go into full cardiac arrest right damn here and right damn now, the luxury apartment of a medical doctor wasn’t necessarily a bad place for that to happen. Particularly considering that over the course of the last two hours, said medical doctor had been party to the cause of his current condition.
I’m not about to die, but when I do, I damn sure want to go wrapped in the arms of that wonderful blond goddess.
Thank God she’s gotten back so much of her old self.
And, thank God again, she seems only to have suffered a little of the anxiety that her shrink predicted-and none of the post-trauma stress he’d said would come.
He certainly underestimated her strong character and her ability to move forward and keep working.
And she loves her work.
Amanda Law, MD, FACS, FCCM, was chief physician at Temple University Hospital’s Burn Center.
Matt was then jarred by the painful memory of Amanda’s abduction from in front of the hospital a month before-and how close she’d come to being killed by a psychopath. And that made him think about what she’d just said about him being a cop, and that in turn made him think about her condominium and why he was really glad she had a place that he knew was safer than any place in the screwed-up city.
After what she went through, having The Fortress doesn’t hurt.
If only for her peace of mind.
Hell, mine, too.
Nearly nine months earlier, Amanda Law had bought Loft Number 2180, a luxury one-bedroom, one-and-a- half-bath condominium on the top floor of the year-old Hops Haus Tower in the Northern Liberties section of Philly. The penthouse property had met her long list of requirements, starting with a good price.
“A really reasonable one, considering all the amenities,” she’d said.
