toothpaste back in the tube.’ It’s a done deal, and you can’t go back.”
“You mean fait accompli,” Wynne said. “An accomplished fact.”
“That’s it,” Badde said.
Wynne noticed that Badde was wholly unembarrassed by the correction.
“Anyway,” Wynne said, “if someone pulls those forms down at City Hall, or wherever the hell they’re warehoused, they’re going to see a lot of the same signatures at the same mailing addresses.”
They exchanged a long glance.
“And then,” Wynne went on, “it’s not fait accompli, because if there’s voter fraud, the courts get involved. And then…”
Badde nodded slowly at the implication.
He said: “And you think Kenny, Kareem, whatever the fuck you want to call him, has the forms?”
“As your political advisor, I think it’s important that we proceed as if he does. Him, or someone more dangerous…”
City Councilman H. Rapp Badde, Jr., inhaled deeply, then let it out slowly.
Then a cell phone rang in his pants pocket, and Badde quickly grabbed his Go To Hell phone. But when he looked at the screen, there was nothing.
And the ringing was still coming from his pants pocket.
Other damned phone.
About time it’s not the Go To Hell phone.
He exchanged phones, then looked at the caller ID.
What does Jan want?
“Whut up, honey?” he said into the phone.
“Damn it, Rapp, I thought I told you not to do things with PEGI without my knowledge,” she said with absolutely no pleasantries.
Uh-oh. Bad tone.
She’s way beyond pissed.
Now all I have to do is figure out which thing I’ve done without telling her.
That list could be endless.
“I’m sorry, honey. But-”
“Don’t goddamn ‘honey’ me, Rapp. What’s this about an expediter?”
“‘An expediter’?” Rapp repeated.
“Yeah, the one who just got us in a whole helluva lot of hot water.”
“What expediter?”
“Apparently, someone’s saying he’s the new expeditor at HUD and PEGI. One I didn’t hire, and I thought you put me in charge of this.”
“I did. I mean, I didn’t. I didn’t hire anyone, is what I mean. And I did put you in change, honey.”
“Knock off the ‘honey’ crap, Rapp. I know where you are, who you’re with.”
“I’m out at the West Philly row house,” Badde said somewhat piously. “Want to talk with Wynne?”
Smiling smugly, he exchanged glances with Roger Wynne.
Jan said: “Don’t change the subject, Rapp. We got problems here.”
H. Rapp Badde, Jr., then looked at the empty filing cabinets and thought, Honey, if you only knew…
VIII
[ONE]
Jefferson and Mascher Streets, Philadelphia Sunday, November 1, 5:12 P.M.
Speeding down Girard Avenue, just past the Schmidt’s Brewery development and just before the Hops Haus complex, Sergeant Matt Payne pulled a hard left onto Howard Street, putting the unmarked gray Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor into a tire-squealing four-wheel drift.
Moments earlier, Jason Washington had reported that not only were there three dead at the Northern Liberties scene, but a call had come in saying that a blue shirt at the scene reported another shooting had just taken place a block away.
Matt had floored the accelerator pedal.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw in the rearview mirror that the maneuver had thrown Corporal Kerry Rapier against the right rear door.
“Hey, Marshal,” Rapier said, his tone casual, “think you might want to take it a little easier on the car?”
Detective Tony Harris chuckled.
“This thing’s a tank, Kerry,” Payne replied calmly as he steered in the direction of the skid to correct it. Then, squared up, he stepped harder on the gas pedal and the engine roared. “Heavy Dee-troit metal. Big iron block V-8. And you couldn’t throw a turn like that back there without the rear-wheel drive. It’s not as nimble as my Porsche, but then I wouldn’t attempt a PIT with my 911. These cars are built to take it.”
Rapier knew that Pursuit Intervention Technique was basically tactical ramming. In a PIT, the reinforced nose of the Police Interceptor smacked the tail of the car being pursued so that its driver suddenly lost control, turning sideways or spinning out before skidding to a stop.
“Not built to take the way you handle cars,” Rapier replied. “I heard you got that nice sports car all shot up.”
Harris chuckled again. “He’s got you, Matt. By the way, what’s up with your 911? That happened months ago.”
“Still mired in the purgatory known as insurance adjuster arbitration,” Payne said. “I hate insurance companies. The bastards don’t want to write me a check for what it’s worth to replace. I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back. So, while I was killing time stuck at the desk going over the pop-and-drops, I found out a half-dozen unmarkeds were about to go back to the feds-they were on loan to Dignitary Protection from the Department of Homeland Security-and I managed to get this one’s transfer paperwork ‘misplaced’ for the foreseeable future.”
Harris grinned. “Smooth move. It’ll take the feds forever to figure out one’s missing.”
“Yeah, and my conscience is clear. Thanks to budget cuts, we don’t have near enough cars, and we’re at least putting this one to good use. The paperwork showed the other five are just getting parked, either warehoused or ‘tasked to a possible high-value target.’”
“Translation being,” Harris said, “left sitting empty with the wigwags flashing outside the U.S. Mint or Fed Reserve here to give the impression that one of the alphabet agencies under DHS is on the ball.”
“Exactly.”
Kerry Rapier went on: “Did you guys know these are about to become dinosaurs? Ford’s not going to make the Crown Vic anymore. And no Crown Vic means no Crown Vic Police Interceptors. They’re going to be replaced with a hopped-up Ford Taurus.”
“What? A scrawny V-6 front-wheel-drive like our Impala squad cars!” Payne said, making a mock gasp. “Horrors! You, Corporal Rapier, have ruined my joyous thoughts of being forever able to abuse police pursuit vehicles. I may as well put in my transfer to the Bike Squad.”
Payne saw in the mirror that Rapier was smiling out his window.
And then he saw that Rapier wasn’t wearing his seat belt.
When they’d first gotten in the car at the Roundhouse, both Payne and Harris had climbed into the front seats. It wasn’t lost on Rapier, as he automatically went to latch his seat belt, that Matt and Tony had sat on their seat belts. The belts had already been buckled across the seats.
“Hey, guys, didn’t your mothers teach you to always put on your seat belts?”
Payne was putting down the unmarked squad car’s two sun visors so that they would be visible at the top of the windshield from the outside. On the driver’s visor was a white sticker with red block lettering that spelled POLICE. Strapped to the passenger visor was a light bar with red-and-blue strobes. The twelve-volt DC power cord for the emergency lights was snaked over the stalk that held the rearview mirror to the windshield and ran down to
