Deadly Assets (Badge of Honor 12)

“So, Sully claims they were just there to keep an eye on Hooks, gather intel, follow him if necessary. The last thing he said would happen was for Hooks to be whacked like that. If that’s what happened.”

Payne looked at Harris and said, “Because it would not give them a chance to recover the stolen jewelry and, more important, it would not be the punishment that would make an example of why one does not rob their casino.”

“Almost word for word, more or less.”

“What did I miss? What wouldn’t you promise?”

“If we found Hooks and/or Cross dead or alive.”

—

When they pulled up to the scene, Payne saw that there was now some semblance of normalcy—or what passed for normalcy in that part of the city.

The raging fires had been brought under control, although smoke still rose from the rented panel van. Two fire engines were pulling away, and the last ladder truck was being packed up in preparation of leaving. Only one fire-rescue ambulance was in sight. And Payne also noticed that the PECO undercover van was still in its place, and in one piece, parked just off Twenty-ninth Street.

Then, parked just ahead of the PECO van, Payne saw a Ford Explorer wrapped in the logotype of Philly News Now and, near it, the logotype of Action News! on a Chevrolet Suburban. And there was an assortment of what looked like rental sedans, all with placards on their dashboards that read WORKING MEDIA and/or a station’s logo.

Standing next to the Suburban was a five-foot-tall buxom brunette reporter wearing high heels with her blue jeans. She had on a bright red knit sweater with a string of pearls. And an Action News! ball cap with her hair in a ponytail poking out the back.

Payne sighed.

“What?” Harris said.

Payne nodded toward the reporter.

“Wonder Woman, our fair city’s Super Anchor, is here.”

“What do you know about her?” Harris said, then grunted. “Besides that she wears pearls and heels in the hood.”

“For starters, that she’s dangerous. So don’t say a word to her. Let me do all the talking.”

Harris put the Crown Vic in park, then looked askance at Payne.

“You’re serious, Matt.”

“As a heart attack.”

“Not a problem. With the exception of O’Hara, I hate dealing with those media types. She’s all yours, boss, Sergeant, sir.”

“Good. She’s out to prove herself, and as Mickey told me last week, it’s not exactly pretty.”

—

The previous Saturday night at the Union League in Center City, two blocks down Broad Street from City Hall, the Honorable Jerome Carlucci had held his annual charity event in the Lincoln Hall ballroom to raise funds for holiday gifts for the needy.

Payne’s attendance had come under some pressure—“Uncle Denny couldn’t make it,” he had told Mickey O’Hara, “and when he asked if I could, I knew by his tone, not to mention he was holding out the tickets, that that was the same as him saying I would, and so here I am under durance vile”—and he had spent a majority of time holding court at the League’s ornate dark oak bar with O’Hara.

Both were in black tie and drinking Macallan eighteen-year-old single malts mixed, at Payne’s instruction, with a splash of water and two ice cubes, and, because he was a member of the Union League, billed to his house account.

As Payne tilted his head back to drain his second drink, he absently looked up at the television above the bar.

It was tuned to the newscast of Philadelphia Action News. A perky-looking buxom thirty-year-old stood outside a Center City diner, her brunette hair in a pony

tail poking out the back of a ball cap with the Action News! logotype across its front. The line along the bottom of the screen read RAYCHELL MEADOW INVESTIGATES.

“Why is this chick wasting time with Little Pete’s?” Payne said. “I thought it was closing because the building it’s in is set for demolition.”

An eccentric dive diner, Little Pete’s, at Seventeenth and Chancellor, around the corner from the Union League and across the street from the storied ninety-year-old Warwick Hotel, was an institution in its own right, having served in Center City around the clock, twenty-four/seven, for nearly four decades. And, judging by just the well-worn white-specked emerald green Formica tables, it more than looked its age—it appeared to have not had an update of any note since the doors first opened.