The Vigilantes (Badge of Honor 10)

“You know, with missiles aimed at each other. To knock each other out. One fires, both sides are toast.”

After a moment Jan figured it out, and corrected him: “Mutually Assured Destruction.”

He looked at her and shrugged. “Same difference. If she tells on me, I tell on her, and away goes all her money and her license to practice law or anything else. It’d be suicide.”

Their met eyes again.

Badde thought: And if you haven’t realized it yet, honey, you and I are now in the same boat.

You know that kickbacks are funneled through Commonwealth, which also happens to be a nice contributor to my campaign for mayor.

And you’re helping funnel them.

After a moment, she nodded. After a moment, she nodded.

“Okay. I guess you’re right, Rapp. I sure hope so.”

She pointed at a thin sheaf of papers stapled at the top left corner.

“The fed funds for PEGI, at least the low-income-housing matching dollars, were due here last week. As was the paperwork that turns over possession of the prison to PEGI and the Volks Haus Initiative. We need those funds before the next step there. We’ve already cut checks for the first empty properties in Northern Liberties—bulldozers began some demolition last week—and then we’ll be cutting checks for those holdouts. Maybe the bulldozers will convince them it’s time to take the money and move on, and we won’t have to evict.”

“And tell me again: What’s the next step at Volks Haus?”

“Same as it was for the Diamond project.” She handed him the thin sheaf of papers.

He glanced at the cover sheet. It had the expected familiar letterhead: Commonwealth Law Center

1611 Walnut Street, Suite 840

Philadelphia, PA 19103

The law center office, he knew, was two floors below his accountant’s office.

Below that was printed in large lettering: TITLE 26 EMINENT DOMAIN

Just Compensation and Measure of Damages

“Eminent domain has two stages,” Jan said. “The first

is to prove that it’s legal to take property and, meeting that, the second is to determine a fair price for the property.”

He nodded, then turned to page two of the document, a table of contents, and began reading: 26 Pa.C.S.A. # 701 Just compensation; other damages

26 Pa.C.S.A. # 702 Measure of damages

26 Pa.C.S.A. # 703 Fair market value

He felt his eyes start to glaze over, then scanned the rest, stopping at the last one: 26 Pa.C.S.A. # 716 Attempted avoidance of monetary just compensation

He tossed the papers back onto the table.

“Jesus, I’m glad I hired you to deal with this bullshit.” He smiled at her, and when she smiled back, he added: “Hope we don’t have any trouble with that last one. I mean, what’s a fair price for abandoned buildings?”

“Condemned buildings,” she corrected him. “The Supreme Court fixed that for us with the Kelo vs. City of New London decision. There won’t be any Fifth Amendment problems with the properties.”

Badde then motioned at a long cardboard tube on the table.

“Has the Russian seen the architect’s drawings?”