He turned his head, looking over his shoulder. He was viciously chewing his gum, a sign that this
was
important. He nodded his head to her, signaling her to hurry up. When Grace reached him, he stepped back from the crowd and leaned against the wall.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Is the president visiting this dump?” She pushed back a fallen lock of red hair.
“Nah,” he answered standing close to her, close enough so that the smell of spearmint almost knocked her out. “Just the DA”
“The DA? She gets all this attention—all this fuss? What did she do?”
“Nothin’. She just got herself killed,” he snickered.
“Oh my God, that’s horrible…”
“She deserved it. She was a bitch,” he said flatly. Then smiled, nodding his head. “What goes around, comes around. She fried a lotta people…a lotta my friends.”
Grace was shocked. She had just seen a news clip on CNN about Muriel Gates that morning while she was dressing. Nick had a habit of turning CNN on each morning and never turning it off until he got home at night. She was cleaning up the crack houses in North Philadelphia with a vengeance…and now she was dead? It was unreal. Grace didn’t realize that she had actually been verbalizing her thoughts until she heard Shoes’ response.
“Yep. That’s what all the fuss is about,” he said calmly, picking lint from his black, sharkskin jacket. His pitiless eyes, surrounded by dark hollows, showed no emotion.
“Who’s in there—in the middle of that mob? Do you know?” she asked.
“It’s your ex-bosses. Two other winners.”
“Silvio and Levin?”
“Yep. One of their lawyers, a girl I think, was shot wit’ her. Killed, too. Shame about her, but she was probably a lesbo, too. No big loss.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“Margo Griffin?” Grace’s green eyes widened.
“Don’t know her name.” He sucked on a toothpick, twisting it in his mouth and being careful not to catch it in his gum.
“She’s the only female attorney in the firm.”
“Then it must be her. I heard she was a real fox, too. Too bad she wasted herself on the fat dyke.” He shook his head.
Grace walked toward the moving circle, pushing her way into the center of the crowd. A middle-aged woman, angling her large frame in for a close camera shot, accidently struck her in the head with a heavy telephoto lens. Grace didn’t flinch. Instead she placed the high heel of her shoe on the photographer’s instep and ground down on it like a discarded cigarette butt. The woman squealed and fell back, leaving Grace room to make her way into the middle of the fray.
Marty Silvio was flailing around in a vain attempt to get out of the ring. Harry was holding his jacket over his head and face, more to protect himself from all the hard metal being shoved at him than to hide his identity.
“Sir, I understand that the young woman killed along with the district attorney was your employee…and there was a relationship…
What about the detective who was shot…Did you know him?”
Silvio glanced at the reporter, shaking his head, still trying to claw his way out of the herd, sorry he had left the courtroom during the break for some stale air and a cigar.
“No—she was not your employee? No relationship?”
“No!” Silvio shouted. “I’m not answering any questions and get that thing out of my face, before I shove it your mouth.”
Grace had seen what she needed, and started to step back. Fortunately Little Al was behind her in the middle of the mess, and with his substantial girth he was able to create a hole for her as he backed and elbowed her way out of the ring.
“Margo Griffin.” She uttered the name, in shock. “Why would anyone want to kill
her
, and how did anyone get past security to kill the DA? I don’t understand.”
“I do. It’s easy to get into public offices. I done it a hundred times. But it’s hard to get out.” Little Al brushed himself off, and
then bent down to wipe the footprints off his Italian slip-ons. “Fuck, I hate it when my shoes get messed up. I just paid five bucks for a shine. It was a hit, and the fucker who shot them shot up a whole office on another floor to get at two kids. Killed everyone but the kids. The two kids was wit’ the detective, but they escaped.”
“What about the detective?”
“He’s alive, they say. He had Kevlar on, but he had a heart attack and ain’t doing too good.”
“Did you hear any names?” Grace asked anxiously, hoping that it wasn’t who she suspected.
“Nah, I ain’t too good wit’ names. The detective’s… you know…Irish, like Kelly.”
“Could it be Kirby?”
“Could be,” Al said, shrugging his shoulders. “The two kids are spics—I mean Spanish,” he grinned sheepishly, correcting himself. “Let’s see.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Garcia, Gutierrez. All them names is alike. I can’t remember. They was two girls. I know dat.”
“Possibly Lopez?” Grace asked.
“Yeah. Could be. Two little girls, dey said. An’ one of ‘em got the shooter— hit him over the head wit’ a toilet tank top. Imagine dat—a kid whackin’ a hit wit’ a toilet top!” His face became bright red as his shoulders shook with laughter. “How embarrassin’.”
“Al!” she shouted. “Listen to me. Try to remember the names. The names, Al,” she commanded.
He closed his eyes, scratched his forehead. “Yeah. One’s named Lily. I remember hearin’ dat name. Reason I know…my mudder’s name is Lil. At’s how I know… Right.”
“Lily!” And with the speed of a gazelle, Grace fled the gray granite building, making her way through the beggars in the courtyard, past the stench of urine and into a cab waiting at the corner of Fifteenth and Market Streets.
Grace had been a paralegal with the DA’s office, and she knew investigative procedure like the back of her hand. They would take the kids to Central Detectives, prop them up on a broken-down
desk, give them ice cream, teddy bears, french fries, Coke (the brown, liquid kind), and make them feel as though they were at Grandma’s.
Grace knew Carmen well. She had spent a lot of time with the young girl, old beyond her years, when her mother brought her in on school holidays. She knew Carmen could use a computer as well as she could, and she also knew that Carmen was curious about the operation of Silvio and Levin—the cases in inventory, the individual stories of clients, and office gossip. And her mother shared everything with her. Carmen and Lily had been in danger. Had almost gotten killed. This was clear. Carmen’s savvy and guts had saved them this time. But what about the next time? And until Silvio and Levin were behind bars, there was sure to be a next time.
Within minutes Grace found herself at Central Detectives thanks to the rocket speed of a brown cab driver with one gold tooth, front and center. His name was Shamir something or other, and his dark face, laminated in plastic on the acrylic window dividing him from her, smiled at her as he wildly wove through traffic. She made the sign of the cross and braced herself, then bowed her head in thanks as he screeched to a halt in front of the dirty brick building, blackened by the fumes of too many exhausts over the past decades. The City of Philadelphia was certainly not spending the taxpayers’ money on cleaning its facades. Rather the funds went into the bottomless pit of the city agencies and pension funds where administrators could siphon off their cut without detection. Even its crown jewel, City Hall, covered with rust and lichen and trash trees growing through its ornate eaves, gave testament to decades of politics—Philadelphia style. The sight never failed to break Grace’s heart, even at this time of urgency and need to focus. It was a flash of depression that she felt, and then it was gone as she made her way to the front desk.
“Grace, what brings you here?” There was instant recognition from the cop who had been assigned to the front desk for the last ten years due to a gunshot wound that had shattered her right knee.
“Hi, Helen. I need to speak to the captain.”
“What about?”
“About this morning’s murder and two Latino girls you guys are holding. I know them very well. Their mother and I worked together.”
“Ain’t it a bitch?” The cop shook her oiled and coiled braids, which glistened in the overhead fluorescent lights. “What’s the world coming to?” She fixed on Grace’s red face and shook her head apologetically. “I don’t think I can do that, hon. The captain has orders. This is too high profile. You see, even the newspaper and TV boys and girls are nowhere in sight. Right now they’re at the coroner’s office and in front of 1421 Arch Street. The captain doesn’t want anyone near the kids. Not even me.” She rolled her dark eyes and pointed to her ample chest, tightly wrapped in a spotless blue blouse.
“Tell the captain that I can help him. With the kids…” Grace paused and took a deep breath. “Look, Helen, I don’t have time to explain, but there’s a lot going on now…”
“Tell me about it, girl. DA murdered—a dozen folks gunned down—one of our best detectives hurt—God knows how bad…”
“Who was the dick?” Grace asked, interrupting her litany. She didn’t have time to hear, again, what she already knew.
“Ralph Kirby. He was about to retire. Now he may have to retire permanently before he wants to—you know what I mean?” She rolled her eyes again out of habit.
Grace mentally prepared herself for the worst. “Is he going to die?”
“Don’t know. They say his vest saved him. The miracle of Kevlar.” She paused, examining her manicured tips. “But he has a bad heart and now that’s the problem.”
“Helen, I need to see the kids. Just ask. Do me a favor, OK? There’s one named Carmen, a thirteen-year-old, smart as a whip. In more ways than one.”
Helen smiled cynically. “I know about that one. She’s a pip— threatening to sue the police department. She wants a lawyer…
’cause she’s the one that clobbered the hit man with the toilet tank, and the fucker ain’t dead, either.”
“She’s not being booked, is she?”
“No, ma’am. She deserves a medal. We told her that. But she won’t open up. Doesn’t trust us. Doesn’t trust anybody.”
“Can’t blame her, can you?” Grace was quick to interrupt. “She’s had a tough time, and she doesn’t come from a neighborhood where they trust cops.”
Just then what had been muted shouting became audible, something that sounded like, “Get me a lawyer or get me the fuck outta here!” It was Carmen all right.
“See what I mean—foul-mouthed little witch,” Helen said, shaking her head. “They should put her in the slammer for a few hours to cool her off.”
“Tell the captain I need to talk to him, Helen. You can do that for me, can’t you?” Grace smiled tensely.
Helen looked squarely at Grace for a second, and then, convinced of the urgency, she nodded her head in the affirmative. “Can’t hurt, that’s for sure. And if you can shut the little foulmouthed twit up for a while, my headache might just get a little better.” She got up and moved her bottom-heavy frame toward the rear of the dingy reception room, which was in bad need of a paint job—among other things.
Grace paced, looking at her watch. She was anxious to get back to the trial. It had been fifteen minutes since she had gotten into the jet-propelled cab. She wasn’t sure where she should be, where she was needed most: with Nick or with the girls. She knew that somehow she had to try to be at both places, as close in time as possible. She knew there was a connection here. She was sure— with all the murders—with the Lopez girls, and with the Riley case. She had to find out what it was. Why were the girls a target? Why had Gates and Griffin been targets? And what was Kirby doing with them? Kirby couldn’t talk, and maybe he never would if his heart gave out. She needed to find out more—Carmen was her only hope.
Just then, the captain emerged from his office, if one could dignify his quarters with the word
office
. He was red-faced, which wasn’t unusual for him since he was Irish and the Irish are a ruddy lot, but the captain happened to be ruddier than usual today. His blue eyes were bleary with exhaustion as he squinted at Grace. It was a look inspired by Job himself. His patience was wearing thin, and he was having a hard time holding his temper. And what a temper he had. It was a curse peculiar to him, and it took great control to keep it from exploding. His white crew cut, the same haircut he had worn as a Marine drill instructor, stood more on end than ever, and his pink scalp was pinker than ever from all the blood rushing to it. He wiped a bead of sweat from his Catholic brow, more accustomed to being touched with the sign of the cross, which he had made at least a hundred times this morning while praying for the patience—the patience not to strangle the little tan skinned girl with the sinful, foul, disrespectful mouth.
“Gracie,” he said, using the name he had called her by since she had been baptized. They had been neighbors for years as she was growing up, living only two doors apart in Port Richmond, a bulwark of Irish Catholicism. That was before she had run off like a common hussy to live with a married man of the Jewish persuasion, who had no intention of making an honest woman of her. She had said she didn’t care because he was a good influence on her and besides Jesus was Jewish and Christians including Catholics were originally Jews. Her lover had inspired her to go on to college for her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and then had left her just before graduation to go back with his wife. But Grace had pulled herself up by the old you-know-whats, went to confession, did her penance and was back in the fold of the Catholic Church again. The captain had helped her get her first job as a paralegal in the DA’s office. She had always been under his nose, asking questions, looking for evidence, documents she wasn’t supposed to see, samples from the crime lab she shouldn’t have been tampering with. So one day the captain had told her so in a controlled manner. But she got her Irish up, used a string of unmentionables that only
the Jewish man could have taught her, and walked the hell out. Then got a job with that backstabbing, thieving personal injury firm and totally tarnished herself forever. And what in the name of the Holy Family did she want from him now! “What brings you here this lovely morning?”