Punks such as Xavier “Xpress” Smith, who got his nickname selling crystal methamphetamine, and delivering it fast.
Except they didn’t always stay in jail.
III
[ONE]
Loft Number 2180 Hops Haus Tower 1100 N. Lee Street, Philadelphia Saturday, October 31, 11:48 P.M.
The irony was not lost on Matt Payne. Here, at almost the stroke of midnight on All Hallows’ Eve, he was headed for Liberties Bar to spend time talking about some goddamn bad guys who were stupid enough to get themselves murdered.
What a shitty way to spend a holiday.
Even more to the point: especially when my other option was staying in that wonderful bed with the goddess.
Who, all things considered, would really rather have me there than here.
He felt his phone vibrate twice, and when he looked at the screen, there were two text messages, the first from Amanda—“Be safe out there, baby”—and the second from Mickey O’Hara—“Where the hell are you?”
He had a mental image of Amanda walking Luna on the leash out to the grassy area that the Hops Haus Tower called “the Pet Run.” Matt had started calling it “Piss Park,” which was the nicer of the two nicknames that had come to mind. He was convinced that the tower’s four-legged residents outnumbered the two-legged ones—the vast majority of the latter, it appeared, by both sight and smell, choosing to ignore the Pet Run’s garbage can, roll of disposable plastic bags, and sign reading PLEASE PICK UP AFTER YOUR PET.
As he texted “See you soon, sweetie” back to Amanda, he was reminded again of the “obituary.”
She’s always going to be concerned.
It’s sweet. And it’s somewhat worrisome—because what happens if she doesn’t get over that?
Then again, what the hell happens if she’s right?
He texted a reply to O’Hara: “5 mins out . . . order me a Macallan 18.”
If nothing else right now, Payne did find himself enjoying the energy of those celebrating Halloween. The infectious laughter and vibrant music coming out of the bars along Second Street could be heard damn near all the way back to Amanda’s place.
Most everyone he’d seen up and down the sidewalks, pub crawling, was having one helluva Halloween. In the elevator and the lobby of the Hops Haus Tower, Payne had come across quite a few twenty- and thirtysomethings in Halloween costumes, some of which were quite interesting—if not totally wild. Such as the one worn by the cute, well-built blonde in her early thirties who was having difficulty opening one of the big glass doors at the lobby’s main entrance. She was dressed as Little Bo Peep. But her scant, frilly, white-and-baby-blue outfit, the ruffled skirt cut high and the push-up top cut low, was anything but G-rated. The costume gave the character a whole new meaning, especially when she kept bending over to pick up her sheepherder’s staff and the outfit revealed far more than an eyeful of lovely flesh.
Bo Peep, indeed, Payne thought with a grin.
Then, as he walked down Second Street toward Liberties, Payne had also gotten a chuckle when he saw two guys more or less staggering out of a bar wearing T-shirts that, while not technically Halloween costumes, were appropriately dark-humored.
One T-shirt had a representation of the Liberty Bell with the words COME TO PHILADELPHIA FOR THE CRACK.
The other showed a white chalk outline of a human and the words: A FRIEND WILL HELP YOU MOVE
BUT A GOOD FRIEND WILL HELP YOU MOVE THE BODY.
Either of which, Payne thought, would be appropriate to wear into Liberties for tonight’s discussion on pop-and-drops with Tony Harris and Mickey O’Hara.
It certainly would not be the first time such topics had been broached in Liberties. The bar was the unofficial preferred watering hole of the Homicide Division, as well as cops from other divisions who’d discovered the comfortable old neighborhood bar that served stiff drinks and great food and—some would argue—occasionally more than a little gruff attitude.
The place has real character.
Payne then idly wondered how much longer such older establishments would survive. Because there was no doubt that this section of the city, thanks to the new Hops Haus complex and its fancy new neighbor, the Schmidt’s Brewery development, was seeing its real estate prices pushed up. And that, in turn, was forcing out the longtime residents who couldn’t afford to live there anymore, everybody from older retirees to young bohemian artists.
The more expensive properties that attracted young professionals were replacing the low-rent row houses and abandoned industrial areas, and the newcomers generated new jobs for others. And money spent meant money taxed, which translated to more revenue to fill the city’s coffers.
Such is the rejuvenation of Philadelphia.
And Lord knows so much of it needs renovation.
Too many parts are a living hell.
That gave some hope to a lot of people—including Matt—who feared that Philly, with all its crime, corruption, and broken infrastructure, was circling the goddamned drain.
Payne knew that supporting the gentrification was one of the reasons Amanda Law bought a place in Hops Haus Tower rather than one in Center City, where Payne had his small apartment. She liked the idea of renewal and rebuilding. The location wasn’t any closer to her work—the difference would have been only minutes—but she believed that it was a vibrant place where for too long there had been little more than misery.
And the fact that Philadelphia—the city Matt loved but knew so many others loved to hate—had been allowed to reach such depressing depths was something that frustrated him.
How in hell does the city that’s the birthplace of the most important law of our land—the United States Constitution—become one of our nation’s most lawless?
And one of our nation’s most fucked up?
How does that get fixed?
How do we get back that honor and pride?
He shook his head.
Could the answer be found here?
Two major speculators, one who built Hops, the other who developed Schmidt’s, had both denied for nearly a decade that they were at all interested in a lost cause like Northern Liberties.
But once one of the speculators had quietly pieced together enough property to begin a development, the renovation had begun on the Schmidt’s Brewery building. Then, like a Phoenix rising above the ashes of Philly’s Northern Liberties, additional two-story buildings went up, filled with expensive apartments, stores, restaurants, and, of course, office space.
Then, when that development had proved a success, the owner of the Hops Brewery site began his renovation project. And soon the twenty-one-floor Hops Haus Tower also had risen, well above Schmidt’s.
People want to save this city, want to preserve its history.
And there’s damn sure plenty of it. All over Philly.
But throwing all kinds of money at a problem is no guarantee of success—just look at Center City, Philly’s shining star, of all places. It has parts that still look like ghetto.
Maybe this place is past the point of saving?
[TWO]
5550 Ridgewood Street, Philadelphia Saturday, October 31, 11:50 P.M.
At the kitchen sink, Joelle Bazelon struggled to regain the strength in her knees, then moved as quickly as her legs and weight allowed. She came out of the kitchen and headed toward the sounds of scuffling at the front of the house. When she entered the living room, she came almost face-to-face with Xavier “Xpress” Smith. His left hand gripped Sasha’s right arm. He had a snub-nosed chrome-plated .32-caliber revolver in his right hand.
This was not Joelle’s first encounter with Smith. He’d grown up one block over, on Pentridge Street. A twenty-four-year-old black male with a short temper, he had a hard, mean face and wore baggy denim pants that hung so low that half of his brown boxer shorts were visible, a T-shirt, a zipper-front hoodie, and a New York Mets ballcap, the brim worn sideways over his right ear, in which a diamond stud twinkled.
Sasha
cried, “I didn’t see him hiding in the dark by the porch, Grammy!”
“Shut up, bitch!” Smith shouted at her.
As she’d done with so many students over so many years, Joelle carefully studied the punk. Though he had a pistol and was waving it, he wasn’t directly aiming it at anyone.
She saw that his eyes were bloodshot, his movements jerky and hyperactive.
He’s on something, she thought.
“You will not speak to my granddaughter in that manner,” Joelle said in her crisp English accent, as calmly and authoritatively as she could. She felt as if her rapidly beating heart was about to burst through her chest.
Smith tried to stare her down.
“I told you this would happen!” he then shouted. “I warned you, don’t talk with nobody! You old bitch, you been fucking with me all my life!”
What Joelle Bazelon had done the previous week was more or less the same thing she’d done ten years earlier, when she’d seen Xavier Smith, then fourteen years old, beating up younger boys as they walked to Shaw Middle School. After the first shakedown, she’d telephoned his house to speak with his parents. But Xavier’s mother—also, Joelle then learned, a single parent—had told her that she should mind her own business, that she could take care of her own boy. Then, when Joelle had seen Xavier shake down another boy the very next week, taking his money and wristwatch, she’d called the cops.
She’d told the cops that she was saddened to see such bad behavior, but it could not be tolerated.
And she’d still felt the same way four days ago when she’d again called the cops.
The City of Philadelphia was divided into twenty-six patrol districts— twenty-five numbered ones, plus Center City. The corporal who answered the phone at the police department’s Twelfth District, down on Woodland Avenue at Sixty-fifth, dispatched a pair of patrol officers to respond to the house of the complainant, one Mrs. Joelle Bazelon at 5550 Ridgewood Street.
Joelle had been waiting in the wooden rocking chair on the front porch when the Chevrolet Impala squad car pulled up to her curb. She repeated to the uniformed patrol officers what she’d witnessed: that when she’d been in the alleyway putting out trash that afternoon, she’d seen Xavier sneaking out the back of the neighbor’s house two doors down. He’d been carrying the new flat-screen television that she knew the neighbor had just bought.
When Xavier had realized she’d seen him, he’d shouted at her: “Mind your own business, bitch! Or there be trouble!”
The cops asked a few questions, wrote down her statement, had her read and sign it, and then told her that they’d be in touch if they needed anything else.
And that was the last she’d heard about the episode.
That was, until tonight, when Xavier Smith, angry and hopped up on some drug, burst into her house.
“I seen that police car here!” he said. “Next I knowed, I was picked up!” Then he made an odd smile, showing his bad teeth. “But I got me a good lawyer.”
He looked at Sasha and leered at her backside. “Your girl got herself one fine booty.”
Sasha glared at him.
He noticed the bulge in the back pocket of her tight jeans.
“Give me that cell phone,” he said, and when she didn’t move, he worked it out of her pocket and put it in his front pocket.
“Xavier, please let go of my granddaughter,” Joelle said as evenly and sternly as she could. “Then please leave. If you don’t—”
He suddenly laughed out loud, interrupting her.
“Leave, old woman? You telling me to leave? You crazy! I ain’t leaving till I show you what happens when you call the police on me! That cost me money, had to pay my lawyer and bail. I don’t like losing money.”
Joelle started to move toward the couch, and to the white telephone with the long cord there. “I’m going to call—”
“You not calling nobody!” he said. He waved with the pistol in the direction of the couch. “Sit there, you old bitch!”
“Xavier . . .”
He suddenly shook his head violently, as if trying to clear it, then shouted: “Don’t you be trying to talk me down!”
He let go of Sasha’s arm, then waved the pistol muzzle at the elderly woman as he walked over to her. He then pushed her so hard that she fell onto the couch.
As she lay there, struggling to sit up, he grabbed the telephone from the side table. He took up the slack in its cord and yanked hard, snapping it free of the wall plug.
He then went back to Joelle and pushed her back down on the cushions. After tucking the snub-nosed revolver in the hoodie’s belly pocket, he grabbed Joelle’s wrists and started wrapping them with the cord. She resisted, pulling apart her wrists after a moment and undoing his work.
He grabbed the pistol from the pocket and raised it above his head as if he was about to hit her.
“Don’t make me do it,” he said, almost in a growl, then put the pistol back in his pocket and rewrapped her wrists, then tied her ankles.
The white vinyl-coated cord pressed deeply into her loose black flesh.
He looked down at her and said, “Now I’m gonna show you what it’s like when you got something to lose, too!”
He walked back over to Sasha, who was visibly shaking.
He aimed the pistol at her chest.
“Get to your knees, whore!”
Joelle, who suddenly started to hyperventilate, cried out: “Xavier, please! Don’t hurt her! She’s all I have left!”
Sasha started sobbing.
“Do it!” Smith said, pointing to the ground.
Sasha suddenly shook her head in defiance.
Smith hauled back his left hand, then swung forward, slapping her with an open palm with such force that it knocked her off her feet.
As she started to get up, trembling, he grabbed her by the hair, yanking her around till she was on her knees, facing his crotch.
“Go on, whore. You know what to do with it.”
“No, please,” she said, starting to sob deeply. “No . . .”
Joelle could be heard taking faster breaths, shorter ones.
Smith looked down at Sasha.
“Do it!”
She shook her head again, closing her eyes at the anticipation of being slapped again.
He didn’t hit her but, instead, touched the muzzle of the revolver to her head and slowly thumbed back the hammer. As he did so, the cylinder rotated. The metallic click-click sounds made her open her eyes wide.
When he’d finished, Sasha began to sob softly.
Xavier “Xpress” Smith, still with his left fist gripping her hair and his right hand holding the pistol to her head, then terrified the beautiful teenager one last time.
“Bang-bang, bitch,” he said as he smiled and squeezed the trigger.
Sasha screamed at the sound of the hammer falling forward.
But there was no bang.
There was just silence—and a great gasping from the couch. Then nothing.
Smith laughed as he and Sasha looked over to the couch.
The old woman had either fainted or was pretending to sleep.
“Next time, old woman, there be a bullet in there,” he called to her.
His left hand let loose of Sasha’s hair. He patted her head.
“That was good, girl. Real good. I just might make you my steady bitch.”
Sasha got to her feet and bolted over to the couch.
“Grammy!” she cried as she reached her.
There was no response. Sasha shook her, but still nothing. She put her cheek to her grandmother’s nose and mouth, looking for an exhaled breath, then desperately touched the inside of her wrists and all along her neck at the jawbone, hoping to find a pulse, however weak.
“She’s dead!” Sasha wailed. “Oh, Grammy!”
Xavier “Xpress” Smith ran over to the couch and felt the wrist and neck of the old woman.
Sasha balled her fists and started hitting Xavier Smith on the back and arms. “D
on’t touch Grammy, you bastard!”
He stood up and nervously aimed the pistol at Sasha.
“Listen, bitch. Don’t you say a word I was here. You hear me?”
She stared at him, a mixture of deep sadness and hatred in her eyes.
He moved quickly toward the front door and said, “Don’t you forget. I can come here anytime I want. Or find you anywhere. Anytime.”
Then Xavier “Xpress” Smith lived up to his nickname and fled into the dark of night.
[THREE]
705 N. Second Street, Philadelphia Saturday, October 31, 11:59 P.M.
Tony’s and Mickey’s cars, Harris’s city-issued battered unmarked gray Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor and O’Hara’s new black BMW M5 sedan, were parked in front of Liberties Bar.
Inside, Matt Payne saw that the place was not as packed as he’d expected. Along the left wall were wooden tables with booths. A couple were filled, but most looked like they’d recently been vacated. They were still covered with empty and unfinished drinking glasses. Same was true in the middle of the room, where there were more wooden tables and chairs. The busboy was working busily, and would be for some time.
Matt noticed some motion across the room and looked to the century-old, ornately carved oak bar. It ran from the front window almost back to the wooden stairway leading to second-floor seating. The bar was three-quarters full, and at its right end, nearest the front window that looked out onto the street, stood Michael J. “Mickey” O’Hara.
The Irishman exuded an infectious energy, and now used that to enthusiastically wave his right hand high above his very curly red hair.
Standing next to him, wearing his usual well-worn blue blazer and gray slacks, was Tony Harris. He’d noticed Mickey’s manic wave and looked over his shoulder. When Tony saw Matt, he shuffled to the left, making a place for him at the bar. His move gave Matt a clear view of Mickey—more specifically, of what he wore under his tweed jacket: a green T-shirt that had a four-leaf clover and read KISS ME, I’M IRISH.
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