Deadly Assets

[TWO]

Seventeenth and Chancellor

Center City, Philadelphia

Monday, December 17, 8:05 A.M.

As Matt Payne went out the front door of Little Pete’s while sipping a to-go cup of coffee, he suddenly felt a bit nostalgic realizing how many times, after a long night of drinking, he had walked the few blocks from his apartment at Rittenhouse Square to the diner.

And, thanks to Five-Eff tearing down the building for something shiny and new, Pete’s is going away.

He glanced across the street at the Warwick Hotel.

I hope that place never disappears.

Payne snugged his cap down against the blowing snow. He turned and walked toward South Broad.

His mind flashed to the previous week, when he and Amanda had seen Melody Gardot perform in the Warwick’s jazz bar. And thinking of Gardot made his mind flash to when he was driving Amanda in his 911 to drop her off at work at Temple Hospital and he had just vented about the crumbling of the city.

–

“This place is collapsing both physically and, even worse, morally,” Payne said as Amanda had reached up to change the radio station.

“It is sad,” she said as she tapped the radio’s memory button labeled 1, setting the tuner to the 88.5 frequency, the University of Pennsylvania’s WXPN.

A sultry voice singing “La Vie en Rose” softly flowed from the Porsche’s high-fidelity speakers.

“Ah,” Amanda said, her tone brighter. “Our hometown girl Melody Gardot. She’s an example of what makes this city great. I love her cover of this far better than Edith Piaf’s original.”

She turned up the volume and sang along, “‘Quand il me prend dans ses bras / Il me parle tout bas, / Je vois la vie en rose.’”

Matt glanced at her and smiled warmly.

“Very nice,” he said.

After the song ended, she turned down the volume.

She looked at Matt and said: “‘When he takes me in his arms / And speaks softly to me, / I see life in rosy hues.’”

Matt, braking as the traffic light cycled to yellow, then red, smiled and nodded, then said, “Gardot’s version is beautiful, but I actually like Satchmo’s take on it better than Piaf’s.”

“That’s because you can understand Louis Armstrong singing the English lyrics,” Amanda said, her tone playful.

“Exactly,” Matt said, and then sang, not anywhere near on key, “‘Give your heart and soul to me / And life will always be, / La vie en rose.’”

He leaned over, kissed her on the neck-then playfully squeezed her thigh.

“Life in pink,” he said. “I think I like the sound of that.”

“Mind out of the gutter, Matt! You are shameless!”

He grinned, clearly unrepentant.

Amanda went on: “It actually translates more to ‘Life through rose-colored glasses,’ you know. Don’t be such a Neanderthal.”

She was shaking her head but grinning.

He pointed at the radio.

“But look at that, getting back to my complaints about this place.”

“Look at what?”

“I mean, look at her. There’s a genuine success story. Gardot grew up here, raised in large part by her Polish grandmother while her mother traveled for work as a photographer. Their family had no money. Had to bounce from place to place. But they scraped together enough so that she could start taking music lessons when she was nine.”

The light cycled to green, but Matt had to wait while what appeared to be a homeless male slowly pushed a battered grocery cart covered in a tarp out of the crosswalk.

He continued: “By the time she was sixteen, she was playing piano in Philly clubs on the weekend. She was working hard to get ahead-and studying fashion design at Community College on Spring Garden Street-when a hit-and-run driver turned her world upside down.”

“She was riding a bicycle, if I remember,” Amanda said, nodding gently as she looked out her window.

“Which offered zero protection,” Matt picked up, “and she was left with broken bones and brain damage that made it difficult to even talk. Stuck on her back in a hospital bed for a year, she had to relearn everything. That was when?”

“Maybe ten years ago? When she was nineteen.”

“Amazing. There she was, unable to sit at a piano, not to mention play. She began by humming, then later singing, and then taught herself to play guitar. When XPN heard recordings of the new music, the station aired them. And now? Now she’s an international artist, with gold- and platinum-selling albums, even a Grammy nomination.”

Matt paused, then grunted.

“There she’d been a year in bed,” he finished, “recovering from broken bones, broken brain, broken everything. Except no broken spirit. You don’t see her standing on the sidewalk corner, needle tracks on her arms, blaming The Man for holding her down.”

–

Payne approached South Broad.

He heard his cell phone Ping! and saw the text from Daquan Williams: “I got real trouble. It’s about Pookie. Can you come talk? I’m at work. Daily Grind diner. Broad/Erie.”

Payne turned on Broad and saw City Hall ahead. He knew that when William Penn had put charcoal to paper in 1682 and mapped out what would become the City of Philadelphia, Penn had put City Hall at its exact center.

Payne looked up at the historic building-the country’s largest municipal building, larger than the U.S. Capitol-his eyes going all the way to the bronze statue of Penn standing atop its dome, keeping vigil over his city.

Wonder what ol’ Willie Penn would think of this place today? And all that’s gone on in the chambers below his bronze boots?

Bet he’d shove a bronze boot up their collective corrupt asses if given the chance. .

Payne glanced around at traffic.

Fat chance finding an empty taxi in this weather.

And my car is at Amanda’s.

He looked back at City Hall.

Well, at least the place has one good thing going for it-the subway.

Hell, just take it.

Payne texted back: “Be there shortly.”

—

Payne impatiently squeezed past the small groups of passengers that had just gotten off the subway train cars of the Broad Street Line, and moved with purpose down the tiled concourse toward the exit.

He then took the steps, two at a time, up to street level, then started across the deep gray slush of snow and melted ice that covered the sidewalk.

At the newsstand shack on the southeast corner of Erie and Broad, he quickly tugged a newspaper from a stack topped with a chunk of red brick, stuffing it beneath his left arm, then peeling from his money clip a pair of dollar bills. He handed the cash to the attendant-a heavily clothed elderly black man with leathery hands and a deeply wrinkled face and thin beard-and gestured for him to keep the change.

Payne turned and glanced around the busy intersection.

The storefronts were a blend of bars and fast-food chain restaurants, banks and pharmacies, barbershops and convenience stores. Payne thought that the facades of the aged buildings, as well as the streets and sidewalks, looked much like he felt-tired, worn-out.

On Erie, halfway down the block, Payne saw the coffee shop he was looking for-tall stenciled lettering in black and red on its front window read THE DAILY GRIND-then grunted.

As he pulled on the stainless steel handle of the diner’s glass door, then started to step inside, he almost collided with a grim-faced heavyset Latina in her twenties carrying three waxed paper to-go coffee cups. He made a thin smile, stepped backward, made a grand sweep with his free arm for her to pass through the doorway first, then went inside.

It was a small space, permeated by the smell of frying grease and coffee. The only seating was at a stainless steel countertop at the back that overlooked the open kitchen. Elsewhere, customers could stand at the nine round high-top tables and at the worn wooden counter that ran chest height along the side walls and the front windows.

There were just two customers now, both older men, who were seated at opposite ends of the back counter and busy with their meals. An enormous coal-black man in his forties, wearing a grease-stained white apron tied over jeans and a sweaty white T-shirt, stood stooped at the gas-fired grill, his large biceps bulging as he methodically worked a long-handled wire brush back and forth. Flames flared up with each pass.

The cook stopped, looked over his shoulder, saw Payne, called out, “Hey, man, he’ll be right with you,” then turned back to scrubbing the grill.

At the far right end of the counter, under a sign reading ORDER HERE/PAY HERE that hung from the ceiling tiles by dust-coated chains, was the cash register. And just beyond it was a faded emerald green wooden door with TOILET FOR PAYING CUST ONLY!! that appeared to have been handwritten in haste with a fat-tipped black ink permanent marker.

The bathroom door began to swing open and a brown-skinned male in his late teens stepped out, drying his hands on a paper towel.

Daquan Williams-in black jeans and a tan PHILLY-NOBODY LIKES US amp; WE DON’T CARE T-shirt-made eye contact with Payne, nodded just perceptively, then looked away as he went to the rack of coffeepots.

He pulled a heavy china mug from a pyramid-shaped stack, filled it with coffee, then carried it to Payne, who now stood by a window in the front corner of the shop, opposite the door, watching the sidewalk traffic over the top edge of the newspaper as he casually flipped its pages.

The teenager placed the steaming mug on the wooden counter beside a wire rack containing packets of cream and sugar.

“Thanks, Daquan,” Payne said, then yawned widely as he reached for the coffee. “I really need this.”

He held out a five-dollar bill.

Daquan didn’t take it. He nodded toward the enormous cook cleaning the grill.

“Boss man say you don’t pay,” he said, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard.

“I appreciate that, but I like to pay my way.”

Payne put the money on the counter, then sipped the coffee.

Daquan nodded. He took the bill.

Payne glanced at Daquan’s left ear. What looked like a new diamond stud sparkled in the lobe. Payne considered mentioning it, but he instead gently rattled the newspaper’s front page.

“So,” Payne said quietly, “what do you know about this hit?”

Daquan’s eyes shifted to the front page of the newspaper and his facial expression changed to one of frustration.

The photograph showed, behind yellow tape imprinted with POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS, two members of the medical examiner’s office standing at the rear of a white panel van. They were in the process of lifting through the van’s back doors a gurney holding a full body bag. Splashed across the image was the headline: #360. ANOTHER MURDER, ANOTHER RECORD.

The teenager, head down, quickly turned on his heel and marched to the cash register. He punched in the coffee, made change, then carefully closed the cash drawer as he scanned the front door and windows. Then, from beneath the register, he pulled out the busboy cart and rolled it to the front of the diner.

“Your change,” he said in a normal voice, holding the money out to Payne.

“That’s your tip. Keep it.”

“Thanks.”

Daquan stuffed it in the front pocket of his jeans as he immediately turned his back to Payne. He busied himself clearing the small plates and cups from the nearest high-top table.

“What about the drive-by?” Payne pursued, again speaking quietly as he flipped pages.

“I really can’t say,” Daquan replied, almost in a whisper, without turning around.

“Can’t?” Payne said. “Or won’t?”

Daquan shrugged.

“Peeps talk, they get capped. That’s what happened to Pookie. Law of the street. That’s why I texted you now, after they came. .”

“Who did it?”

“Capped Pookie?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s just it-I don’t know,” he said, then looked over his shoulder at Payne. “Matt, I didn’t even know the dude. They’re threatening me over something I don’t know.”

“Any guess who did do it?”

Daquan turned back to busing the table, and shrugged again.

“I heard word that King Two-One-Five knows,” he said.

Payne thought: Tyrone Hooks knows-or ordered it done?

He pulled his cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans, rapidly thumb-typed and sent a short text message, then tucked the phone back.

“When’s the last time you saw your parole officer, Daquan?” he said, picking the newspaper back up.

“Few days ago.”

“It go okay?”

“I guess.”

“How’s school coming?”

“Hard, man. Just real hard.”

“One day at a time. You’ll get that GED.”

Daquan then pulled a hand towel and a spray bottle of cleaner from the cart and began wiping the tabletop.

Payne said, “Nice diamond stud. Is it real?”

Daquan stopped wiping.

“Uh-huh. S’posed to be, anyway,” he said, made two more slow circles, and added, “Got my momma something nice for Christmas. And this earring, it was part of the deal.”

“Really?”

Daquan grunted.

“Really,” he said, then moved to the next table. “You know I’m trying to get my life straight, staying away from the street. You think I like busing tables? Only gig I could find.”

“I know. Remember?”

Daquan sighed.

“Yeah, of course I remember. You know I appreciate the help, man.”

“Keep your nose clean, make it through the probation period, and we’ll work on getting your record cleared. Have the charge expunged. Then we’ll find you something else. Right now, this is good, honest work.”

“I know.”

“You should be proud. Your mother told me she is. Especially now, after Dante’s death. .”

At the mention of his cousin, Daquan looked over his shoulder and at Payne.

Payne saw deep sadness in his eyes. They glistened, and it was obvious that he was fighting back the tears.

“I can’t get past that, Matt. We were real close, you know, going way back. Now he’s gone and I’m here.” He looked down and rubbed his eyes. “But I’m really not here. I’m just a shell, walking around.”

Daquan lifted his head, looked at Payne-then his eyes immediately looked past Payne, out the window.

Payne saw the sadness in Daquan’s face suddenly replaced with fear.

“Shit!” Daquan said. “They’re back!”

He grabbed the busboy cart and started pushing it quickly to the back of the diner.

Just then, as Payne turned and looked out the window, the glass front door swung open.

Two teenaged black males wearing thick dark parkas marched in, the first one, tall and burly, raising a black semiautomatic pistol in his right fist.

Payne dropped the newspaper and quickly reached behind his back to pull his.45 out from under his sweatshirt.

Daquan shoved the busboy cart at the pair and then jumped behind the back counter as the tall, burly teenager fired three shots.

The sound of gunfire in the small diner was deafening.

Payne leveled his pistol at the shooter as he shouted, “Stop! Police! Don’t move!”

The ringing in Payne’s ears caused his words to sound odd.

The tall, burly teenager turned and tried to aim at Payne.

Payne instinctively responded by squeezing off two rounds in rapid succession.

The copper-jacketed lead hollow points, as designed, on impact mushroomed and then fragmented, the pieces ripping through the teen’s upper torso.

The shooter staggered backward to the wall, dropping the gun when he struck the wooden counter there.

The second teenager, who had frozen in place at the firing of the first shots, immediately turned and bolted back out the glass door.

The shooter slid to the floor.

As Payne rushed for the door, he kicked the shooter’s gun toward the back counter. The two customers there were lying on the floor in front of it. The one to the left was curled up in the corner with his back to Payne and, almost comically, shielding his head by holding a white plate over it. The one on the right was facedown and still. Blood soaked the back of his shirt.

The enormous cook, who had ducked below the counter, now peered wide-eyed over its top.

Payne shouted, “Call nine-one-one!” then threw open the door and ran out.

Daquan, blood on his right hand as he gripped his left upper arm, crawled out from beneath the cash register.

He hesitated a moment before moving toward the shooter, who was motionless. He picked up the small-frame semiautomatic pistol from the floor.

The cook stood and shouted, “Daquan, don’t!”

Daquan went out the door.

He turned right and took off down the sidewalk, following Payne.

—

The storefronts along Erie Avenue gave way to a decaying neighborhood of older row houses. Daquan Williams watched the teenager dart out into traffic and dodge vehicles as he ran across Erie, headed in the direction of a series of three or four overgrown vacant lots where houses had once stood.

He saw that Matt Payne, arms and legs pumping as he picked up speed, was beginning to close the distance between them.

“Police! Stop!” Payne yelled again.

The teenager made it to the first lot off Thirteenth Street, then disappeared into an overgrowth of bushes at the back of it.

Payne, moments later, reached the bushes, cautiously pushed aside limbs, swept the space with his pistol, and then entered.

Daquan started to cross Erie but heard a squeal of brakes and then a truck horn begin blaring. He slid to a stop, narrowly missing being hit by a delivery truck. It roared past, its huge tires splashing his pants and shoes with slush from a huge pothole. A car and a small pickup closely following the truck honked as they splashed past.

Daquan finally found a gap in traffic and made his way across.

He ran to the bushes, then went quickly into them, limbs wet with snow slapping at him. One knocked his cap off. The dim light made it hard to see. After a long moment, he came out the other side, to another open lot. He saw Payne, who had run across another street, just as he disappeared into another clump of overgrowth at the back of another vacant lot between row houses.

While Daquan ran across that street to follow, a dirty-brown four-door Ford Taurus pulled to the curb in front of the house bordering the lot. Daquan dodged the sedan, running behind it, then started across the lot.

Ahead, from somewhere in the overgrowth, he heard Matt Payne once again shouting, “Stop! Police!”

This time, though, was different.

Almost immediately there came a rapid series of shots-the first three sounding not quite as loud as the final two.

Daquan heard nothing more as he reached the overgrowth and then, while trying to control his heavy breathing, entered it slowly. He raised the pistol and gripped it tightly with both hands.

More snow fell from limbs onto his soaked T-shirt and jeans. He shivered as he stepped carefully in the dim light, listening for sounds but hearing only his labored breath. He finally reached the far side.

He wiped snow from his eyes.

And then his stomach dropped.

Oh, shit!

Matt Payne was laying facedown in the snow.

The teenager, ten feet farther into the vacant lot, was making a blood-streaked path in the snow as he tried to crawl away.

Then he stopped moving.

“Matt!” Daquan called as he ran to him.

Payne turned his head and, clearly in pain, looked up at Daquan.

“Call nine-one-one,” he said. “Say, ‘Officer down. . Police officer shot.’”

Daquan, now kneeling, saw the blood on the snow beneath Payne.

His mind raced. He looked at the street ahead.

There ain’t time to wait for help.

I’ve gotta get him to it. .

“Hang on, Matt.”

Daquan then bolted back through the bushes. As he came out the far side, he saw the driver of the Ford sedan, a heavyset black woman in her late fifties, leaning over the open trunk, looking over her shoulder as she rushed to remove bulging white plastic grocery bags.

He ran toward her and loudly called, “Hey! I need your car. .”

The woman, the heavy bags swinging from her hands, turned and saw Daquan quickly approaching.

Then she saw that he held a pistol.

She dropped the bags, then went to her knees, quivering as she covered her gray hair with her hands.

“Please. . take whatever you want. . take it all. . just don’t hurt me. .”

Daquan saw that a ring of keys had fallen to the ground with the bags.

“It’s an emergency!” he said, reaching down and grabbing the keys.

—

Tires squealed as he made a hard right at the first corner, going over the curb and onto the sidewalk, then squealed again making another right at the next intersection. He sped along the block, braking hard to look for Payne down the first vacant lot, then accelerating again until braking at the next lot.

He finally found the one with Payne and the teenager-Payne was trying to sit upright; the teen had not moved-and skidded to a stop at the curb.

Daquan considered driving across the lot to reach Payne faster but was afraid the car would become stuck.

He threw the gearshift into park and left the car engine running and the driver’s door open as he ran toward Payne.

He saw that Payne held his left hand over the large blood-soaked area of his gray sweatshirt. And, as Daquan approached closer, he saw Payne, with great effort, raise his head to look toward him-while pointing his.45 in Daquan’s direction.

“Don’t shoot, Matt! It’s me!”

“Daquan,” Payne said weakly, then after a moment lowered his pistol and moved to get up on one knee.

Daquan squatted beside him. Payne wrapped his right arm around Daquan’s neck and slowly they stood.

“This way,” Daquan said, leaning Payne into him and starting to walk.

The first couple steps were awkward, more stumbles than solid footing, but then suddenly, with a grunt, Payne found his legs.

They managed a rhythm and were almost back to the car when Daquan noticed a young black male in a wheelchair rolling out onto the porch of a row house across the street.

“Yo! What the fuck!” the male shouted, coming down a ramp to the sidewalk. “Why’d you shoot my man Ray-Ray for?”

Daquan said nothing but kept an eye on him as they reached the car and he opened the back door. He helped Payne slide onto the backseat, slammed the door shut, then ran and got behind the wheel.

“Yo!” the male shouted again.

As Daquan pulled on the gearshift, he could hear the male still shouting and then saw in the rearview mirror that he had started wheeling up the street toward the car.

And then he saw something else.

“Damn!” Daquan said aloud.

He ducked just before the windows on the left side of the car shattered in a hail of bullets.

And then he realized there was a sudden burning sensation in his back and shoulder.

He floored the accelerator pedal.

—

Daquan knew that Temple University Hospital was only blocks down Broad Street from Erie Avenue. Driving to the ER would take no time. But Daquan suddenly was getting light-headed. Just steering a straight line was quickly becoming a challenge.

He approached Erie Avenue, braked and laid on the horn as he glanced in both directions, then stepped heavily on the gas pedal again.

His vision was getting blurry and he fought to keep focused. He heard horns blaring as he crossed Erie and prayed whoever it was could avoid hitting them.

By the time the sedan approached Ontario, Daquan realized that things were beginning to happen in slow motion. He made the turn, carefully, but again ran up over the curb, then bumped a parked car, sideswiping it before yanking the steering wheel. The car moved to the center of the street.

Now he could make out the hospital ahead and, after a block, saw the sign for the emergency room, an arrow indicating it was straight ahead.

Then he saw an ambulance, lights flashing, that was parked in one of the bays beside a four-foot-high sign that read EMERGENCY ROOM DROP OFF ONLY.

Daquan reached the bays and began to turn into the first open one.

His head then became very light-and he felt himself slowly slumping over.

The car careened onto the sidewalk, struck a refuse container, and finally rammed a concrete pillar before coming to a stop.

Daquan struggled to raise his head.

Through blurry eyes, he saw beyond the shattered car window that the doors on the ambulance had swung open.

Two people in uniforms leaped out and began running to the car.

Daquan heard the ignition switch turn and the engine go quiet, then felt a warm hand on him and heard a female voice.

“Weak,” she said, “but there’s a pulse.”

“No pulse on this guy,” a male voice from the backseat said. “I’m taking him in. .”

Then Daquan passed out.

TWO DAYS LATER. .