Then Coughlin looked back toward Finley, and on the television saw the caption had changed to A POLICE SOURCE REPORTS THAT SGT. PAYNE WAS CLEARED LAST WEEK BY INTERNAL AFFAIRS IN NOVEMBER’S SHOOT-OUT ON CASINO BOARDWALK THAT LEFT 3 DEAD.
Finley looked up and saw that everyone was looking behind him.
He turned to the television just as the caption changed to SGT. PAYNE IS ALSO KNOWN AS THE WYATT EARP OF THE MAIN LINE.
“Damn it!” Finley said. “And now him!”
“What?” Carlucci said, now stone-faced, purposefully having lost the grin. “Payne gets his man. It’s what you said you wanted.”
Finley’s head jerked. He met the mayor’s eyes.
Here it comes, Coughlin thought.
Finley, he’s playing you like a fine instrument. .
“What I want,” James Finley snapped, “is for there to be fewer killings so he will have fewer bastards to go after-and fewer chances for him to get in shoot-outs that wind up sensationalized in the media with that Wild West tagline!”
“When that nickname first made headlines,” Carlucci said, somewhat sharply, “the reporter meant it as a compliment. Marshal Earp was considered the most effective lawman of his time. Matt comes from a family of good cops. His father was killed by a robber months before Matt was born. And it reflects well on the department to have in its ranks officers from the Main Line, especially one who’s smarter than hell. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania summa cum laude and, not surprisingly, scored the highest in the department on the sergeant’s exam.” Carlucci glanced at Coughlin, then looked at Finley. “And, because Matt also comes from money, he doesn’t need his job, either. In a sense the same as you, James-with one difference.”
“And what is that?”
“He’s time and again put his life on the line to save people in this city,” Carlucci said.
Finley stared for a long moment at Carlucci, then looked at Stein.
“Ed? What do you say?”
Stein looked between Finley and Carlucci.
“I agree the media sensationalizes the O.K. Corral thing. If, however, you mean about Matt? You won’t be thrilled, James, but I say I like him. And that’s not because I used to work for his father’s firm.” He paused, then in a lighter tone added, “Or because it would appear that we frequent the same clothier. .”
Finley snorted.
Stein shrugged. “I’m with the mayor. I think Matt’s a great cop doing a great job that most people do not understand and would never do once they learned what it takes to protect our society from the barbarians. He does not go to work looking to shoot someone. He’s a deadly asset, and without such deadly assets, crime soars.”
I suddenly like you even more, Stein, Carlucci thought.
“Well, that is putting a happy face on it,” Finley said sharply. “Because that’s damn sure what happens. Over and over. He’s been in-what? — three shootings that resulted in deaths in just as many months? And that’s just recently.”
“And every one has been found to be righteous. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it,” Carlucci said, his tone smug. After a moment, he added, “What I’d like to do is find out who the hell’s the source in the department that’s leaking the names of cops.”
“What do you mean?” Finley said.
Carlucci looked at Coughlin.
“In an Officer-Involved Shooting,” Coughlin offered, “we don’t release the officer’s name until after the incident has been thoroughly investigated, and only release it then if the officer is found to have erred.”
“Why not before?”
“Because,” Carlucci picked up, “if the officer is cleared and then his name gets released, he’ll get dragged through the mud that is the news media, and then could become targeted-simply for doing his job correctly. A shooting that is determined to be righteous is exactly that.”
Carlucci exchanged glances with Coughlin, then looked quickly at the television. “Now what the hell are they doing?”
All eyes turned to see a small group of African-American men marching into view behind the reporter interviewing Payne. They were wearing black cape-like flowing garments over white shirts, some with clerical collars. They carried four-by-six-foot homemade signs atop what looked like wooden broomsticks.
The first, with rows of photographs of dead men, read PASTORS FOR PEACE NOW! The one behind it had NO MORE MURDERS! and the numbers 360 and 361 crossed out and 362 written next to them. The last one read STOP KILLADELPHIA! All had across the bottom: WORD OF BROTHERLY LOVE MINISTRY.
“Well,” Finley said, “I didn’t want to mention the good Reverend Josiah Cross, but I wondered when he and his flock would get involved. That last sign would indicate to me that they’re the ones fanning the flames on the Internet.”
Another sign then appeared right behind Payne. It had an enlarged photograph of Payne that had run widely in the media a few months earlier. It showed him lit by camera flash in a darkened parking lot. He was wearing a dinner jacket and holding his Colt Officer’s Model.45 ACP pistol-and standing over an armed robber he had just shot. Above that image were the words PUBLIC ENEMY #1.
“That,” Carlucci said angrily, almost spitting out the words, “is what I mean by targeting a police officer cleared of any wrongdoing whatsoever.”
“Not to mention another PR fire for me to put out,” Finley said sarcastically, and then in a more excited tone added, “You don’t think Payne will shoot them?”
Finley then sighed.
“What the hell else could happen today?”
[FOUR]
Lucky Stars Casino amp; Entertainment
North Beach Street, Philadelphia
Saturday, December 15, 12:55 P.M.
You ain’t going to be smiling in a minute, Tyrone Hooks thought as he returned the doorman’s automatic greeting with a curt nod and entered the casino through a revolving door. And smile all you want, but I know you really checking me out. On those cameras, too.
Overhead, closed-circuit surveillance cameras were clearly visible, as well as the countless black bubbles in the high ceiling tiles that concealed additional recording devices. They were all completely capable, Hooks had heard when he’d joined a group taking the casino’s free introductory tour, of capturing every move of anyone in the casino.
But the last thing the rail-thin five-foot-ten twenty-five-year-old was worried about was being recorded. If anything, the security cameras would show him nowhere near the crime when it went down.
He paused a moment to stomp the snow from his new high-top gray leather athletic shoes, then he slipped off his heavy winter coat and hung it over his right arm, taking care so that the wad of twenties and hundreds didn’t fall out of the coat’s inside pocket. Underneath he had on a black short-sleeved T-shirt covered by a baggy orange and blue Philadelphia 76ers jersey.
He made a grand gesture of checking the time on his wristwatch. The new eighteen-karat yellow-gold Rolex President hung loosely, and he had to rotate it in order to see its hands showing it was five minutes before one. The watch was heavy and enormous, and against his skinny black wrist looked even larger, almost counterfeit. But it was genuine. A month earlier, Hooks had paid for it in part with his winnings from the blackjack tables.
The cash for the vast majority of the total price-$8,999 before tax, to be exact-had come, however, from the street. His crews pushed plastic baggies of crack, smack, and pot on street corners in the shadows near the Market-Frankford Line El, particularly along a sad stretch of the ironically named Hope Street, no more than a mile from the casino.
Hooks thought the Rolex’s high cost had been worth every penny, because when he flashed the watch-and the cash and told everyone at the tables that he was an upcoming rap music artist, “King 215”-no one tried kicking the rapper to the curb of the Lucky Stars parking lot.