The Blonde

3:30 a.m.

On the Way to Spring Garden Street

All the way up Eighteenth, speeding past construction sites and office towers and a giant cathedral and more construction sites and an underground expressway and row homes and then a left onto Spring Garden. Jack remembered the name of the street from the foldout map of Philly he’d purchased at O’Hare. Center City’s northernmost boundary was Spring Garden Street. It sounded so pleasant on the map. But it didn’t look like spring up here, and there certainly weren’t any gardens. As the street numbers ticked down, everything looked increasingly industrial, as if civic leaders had simply thrown up their hands and said, “Well, it’s not Center City anymore, build whatever the hell you want.”

Eventually, the cab made its way to Third Street, hung a left, then turned into a shadowy alley. Jack didn’t see a bar or a store or anything.

“What is this?”

“Best Sybian club in town, my friend.”

“Best what?”

“Hang tight. Let me run this package upstairs; then I’ll be back and I can take you down to the airport.”

Alarm bells.

“No. Let me go with you.”

The cabdriver hooked an arm around his seat and looked at Jack. “Best what, huh.”

“I won’t say a word. Let me go up with you.”

“If it were up to me, that’d be fine. But it’s a private club. I can’t take you up there.”

Of all of the random cabs he could have jumped into, Jack had to pick the one with a guy who doubled as a deliveryman for a Sybian club. Whatever the hell that was. Sybia. One of the former Soviet republics, maybe? The driver didn’t have a Russian accent. Was this a Russian mob joint? The driver turned off the ignition, and what little air-conditioning had been circulating in the car stopped.

“Crack open your door for air. I’ll be back in a sec and—”

“No! Please!”

Jack opened his door and scrambled out of the backseat.

“Come on, chief. Don’t make this weird.”

“I’ll pay you.”

“It’s not about the money. The people in this club wouldn’t appreciate it. They wouldn’t even like me talking about it, for Christ’s sake.”

“Name your price.”

Jack meant it. There was enough on the home-equity card to cover whatever this guy had in mind. All for a ride to the airport. He took out his wallet from his back pocket to make sure the driver knew he was serious. There wasn’t much cash left, but they could go to an ATM. A drive-thru. It’d have to be a drive-thru. Get a cash advance from his equity card.

The driver waited. He was considering it, obviously, but wanted Jack to throw out the first bid.

His wallet open, Jack looked down and saw her. Behind the laminate: a photo of his girl, Callie, playing inside a giant wooden airplane at their favorite playground. The smile on her face reassured him: Yes, this was all worth it. You want your daughter to grow up knowing a father, don’t you?

Jack threw out a price.

The driver recoiled as if he’d tasted something rotten, so Jack threw out another one. This didn’t offend the driver as much. But it took a third one to seal the deal.