strong of a term. He was a recreational cocaine user that let the stuff get the better of him. His work was suffering and, when his yearly review came around, it was considered best that he pursue his career as counsel elsewhere.”
“Where did he go?”
“Hunt and Driscoll.” We tried to look blank. “It’s a very good firm.” She went on. “That’s how they met. Devon still had a few acquaintances here, and he and Cady went out to lunch with a mutual friend.”
“Who was that?”
She sighed and looked at the filing cabinets. Her eyes came back to mine. “I introduced them, but I didn’t tell them to start dating.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just feeling bad about the way that things turned out.”
I smiled, just to let her know that I didn’t consider her responsible. “I think everybody is.” I picked up my coffee from the desk and took a sip; I wasn’t drinking it because I was thirsty. “So, you knew him pretty well?”
She looked at me, Henry, and then back at me. “He was very kind to me in a period when I needed it.” Unconsciously, her hand went out and touched the bassinette. “I dated him a couple of times before Cady. Nothing serious.”
“What was he like?”
She bit her lip. “I think he wanted people to like him; he just didn’t know how to get them to. I think he was already chemically imbalanced, and once you added the cocaine…”
“Where did he get the stuff?”
Her eyes sharpened. “I really wouldn’t know.”
“Who would?” I was pushing, but it was part of the job.
She watched me for a moment and then sighed. “There was the guy I mentioned, Vince Osgood, Oz. There was a story on WCAU about him where he said he liked to go out with the boys and kick some butt. Word has it he was trying to get himself appointed by the new governor as assistant attorney general, but he’s still under suspension for being involved in the Roosevelt Boulevard thing.”
“Was anybody prosecuted in that case?”
“One of the guys in the other car.”
“Do you know any details, like their names, and whether they were convicted?”
“I’m really not sure.” I made a face. “You don’t believe me?”
I cleared my throat, trying to soften the tone of what I said next. “I find it odd that you were dating but that you don’t know any more.”
She stiffened a little in her chair. “Like I said, Oz and I weren’t dating; he was just helping me out.” Her hand was still on the bassinette.
I glanced up at the photo of her on horseback and then back to mother and daughter. There were parts here, but I wasn’t quite sure how to put them together yet. “Do you mind if I ask who your baby’s father is?”
Her eyes looked directly at mine. “Yes, I do.”
When we got downstairs, two cops were standing in the middle of the lobby. “Hello, Michael.”
“How you guys doin’?”
“We’re all right.” I glanced back at the two security guards. “They call you?”
“Yeah, they thought it was suspicious that you went in with the lady, and then she came out without you.”
I waved at the security guards, but they didn’t wave back. I was beginning to think that Philly was just not a waving kind of town. “Who’s your friend?”
Michael gestured toward his partner. The young man beside him was roughly the same size as Michael and in very good shape. He looked like he was enjoying himself, too, and I figured we’d have to fight them because we’d never outrun them. “This is Malcolm Chavez. Malcolm, this is Sheriff Walt Longmire and his Native American sidekick, Henry Standing Bear.”
“Actually, I’m his sidekick.” Henry didn’t seem to care one way or the other. “Aren’t you guys out of your district?”
“Yeah, we heard about the wild west show on the radio and called it in ourselves.”
I looked at the Bear’s fringed jacket. “It’s your fault.” He didn’t seem to care about that either. “Are we in trouble?”
“Well, we have to file a report even if you didn’t do anything.”
“We didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, well, we have to file a report which means you’re probably going to hear from Vic the Father.”
“Our Vic and this one’s dad.” Henry nodded, continuing to give the cops the wooden Indian treatment. I put my hands in my pockets and looked at my boots. “Do Katz and Gowder work for him?”
“Yes, they’re Homicide North, but I heard that Katz had switched over to Internal Affairs.” He glanced at Chavez, who nodded. “I’m not sure why he’s back with Gowder in homicide, but it must’ve been some real juice from upstairs. I’m sure Vic Senior ain’t happy about it.”
I looked back up. “I got a question for you. Does Vic the Father get along with anybody?”
It was the first time I’d seen him smile without any warmth in it. “I gotta feeling you’re gonna find out.”
We filed through the revolving doors and back onto the street. Chavez opened the back door of the cruiser for us. “You guys are just giving us a ride, right?” He nodded, and we got in.
It was the beginning of the late watch, so they dropped Henry off at the Academy and drove me over the bridge into their own district. The lights on the Schuylkill River reflected the buildings along the west side of the city, and I got a quick glimpse of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the stairs that Sylvester Stallone ran up in Rocky. Just past the museum, the eerie outline of Boathouse Row gave the empty impression of haunted houses, and I tried to think about something other than how the back seat of the cruiser smelled.
I watched the back of the two patrolmen’s heads through the screening, the high and tight haircuts and the perfect uniforms; they even wore their hats in the car. Most of my stuff was pretty threadbare, like me. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d requisitioned a duty shirt.
Chavez responded to a call on the radio as we drove past 30th Street Station on the way to the hospital. Michael leaned back, laid his arm across the seat, and looked at me through the rearview as we waited at a stoplight. “We have to make a little detour.”
“As long as your mother doesn’t mind staying with Cady a little longer.”
Michael looked at Chavez, who smiled back at me. “Hey, man, did he just say something about your mother?”
They both exhaled a laugh and then turned on the light bar and sirens. We turned up 34th and turned left on Lancaster Avenue. I called Lena. She said to take my time, that there was no change, and that she was reading a Margaret Coel and was fine. The neighborhood began changing from the late-night bustle of Market and the colleges as we headed west; the buildings became smaller, rundown, and dirty. People began disappearing, and the streetlights grew farther apart. We were in a place like the Indian reservations back home, a place where dreams would die unquestioned, a place for the quick and, more than likely, the dead.
We traveled a ways up Lancaster before Michael responded to another call and slowed the cruiser to a stop, turning off the lights and siren. We parked in a deserted gas station. There was a wig shop across the street at the end of the block with only one unbroken window. Michael switched off the headlights and let his eyes adjust to the dark. He peered past the corner, but I had to lean forward to see where he was looking.
It was an abandoned lot, unwanted and unoccupied except for the usual urban detritus. There had probably been more than one building there at one time, but they had collapsed or burned. Only a three-story row house was still standing. I could tell that it had been something in its day, but the years of neglect and abuse had left it looking decrepit and dangerous. There were no lights in the building, only the mirrored illumination in the broken windows, which reflected the glow of the one streetlight left lit half a block away and the close shine of the low-flying clouds. There was garbage everywhere, and a barricade of dumpsters overflowed across the street.
Chavez turned his head to look at me, putting his palm out flat to introduce the scene. “May I present Toy Diaz’s Fort, the Wanamaker’s of crack houses.” I could make out patterns of movement in the shadows as he spoke. “The seller takes the money from the buyer, the seller goes into the building to give the money to the holder, the holder gives the stuff to the seller, and the seller comes back out and gives the stuff to the buyer. Pretty slick,
