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Stein picked up on that and shrugged, adding: “It’s why I’m here. It’s why we’re all here.”

[ TWO ]

While Edward Stein and James Finley were officially listed as being executives on the City of Philadelphia’s payroll, they fell under a unique provision of the law. The mayor, at his discretion, was permitted to have as many staff members as he deemed necessary for the good of the city—as long as the total of their salaries and pension liabilities did not exceed that of his office’s budget for personnel. To that end, Stein and Finley were each receiving a city payroll check once a year in the amount of $1.

Their real income, not including bonuses and stock options, was in the middle six figures—as appropriate for their level as senior vice presidents of a major corporation—and was paid by Richard Saunders Holdings, which had its headquarters at North Third and Arch Streets in Old City.

Thus, the reality of it was that they were on loan to the city by local businessman Francis Franklin Fuller V.

The forty-five-year-old Fuller traced his family lineage to Benjamin Franklin. He enthusiastically embraced everything that was Franklinite, starting with “Richard Saunders,” the pen name Franklin used in writing Poor Richard’s Almanack. Fuller even physically resembled his ancestor. He was short and stout and had a bit of a bulging belly. Tiny round reading glasses accented his bulbous nose and round face.

Fuller had been born into wealth, and had built that into a far larger personal fortune, one in excess of two billion dollars. Under his main company, Richard Saunders Holdings, he owned outright or had majority interest in KeyCargo Import-Exports (the largest user of the Port of Philadelphia docks and warehousing facilities), KeyProperties (luxury high-rise office and residential buildings), and the crown jewel, KeyCom, a Fortune 500 nationwide telecommunications corporation.

His Old City headquarters also housed a nonprofit organization that he funded. A devout believer in the Bible’s “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” Fuller chose the name Lex Talionis, which came from the Latin phrase for “Law of Talion” and essentially translated as “an eye for an eye.”

Tragedy had struck Fuller’s family five years earlier. His wife and young daughter, after making wrong turns and driving their Mercedes-Benz convertible into North Philadelphia West, had become collateral damage, killed in a hail of buckshot from the crossfire of a drive-by shooting. The gunmen were never caught.

A frustrated Fuller responded by setting up Lex Talionis and endowing it with an initial five million dollars. Every Friday—“Payday Friday,” Fuller came to call it—he ran advertisements in local media and all his KeyCom cable channels: “Lex Talionis will reward twenty thousand dollars cash to any individual who provides information that leads to the arrest, conviction, and/or removal from free society of a criminal guilty of murder or attempted murder, rape or other sexually deviant crime, or illicit drug distribution in the City of Philadelphia. Tipsters are provided a unique code to keep them anonymous. Lex Talionis works with the Philadelphia Police Department and courts to protect the identities of those providing the information, ensuring their anonymity.”

Carlucci had not liked it—in large part because it had been almost immediately effective, and thus embarrassed the leader of the East Coast’s second-largest city. At any given time, Philly had approximately fifty thousand criminals “in the wind”—robbers, rapists, junkies, and other offenders who’d jumped bail by ignoring their court date. They then became wanted on outstanding warrants. While some had fled the city, many remained. And when Fuller put a bounty on their heads, the fugitives—either dead or bound and gagged in some makeshift manner—were being dropped at the doorstep of Lex Talionis, and the rewards were promptly being paid.

It wasn’t that Carlucci didn’t want the criminals behind bars—or, in the case of known killers, in a grave. What the longtime law enforcement professional didn’t like was that the cash reward caused civilians to take the law into their own hands.

Carlucci had to use his iron fist—declaring that anyone who did not include the police department in apprehending the criminals would themselves be arrested and prosecuted, and then did so—while at the same time carefully bringing Lex Talionis more or less under the purview of the police department.

Shortly thereafter, Fuller, uninvited, had appeared at Carlucci’s office.

—

You arrogant sonofabitch! Carlucci thought as he watched Fuller push past the mayor’s secretary and then wave her off. The last thing I want to do is make nice with you.

“No interruptions, please,” Fuller said to the secretary as he closed the office door behind him.

He turned and looked at Carlucci.

“Jerry, I have two wo

rds for you.”

Carlucci was on his feet and coming out from behind his desk with his right hand outstretched.

“Frank, to what do I owe the pleasure of this surprise?”

“Hold the bullshit,” Fuller said, sticking his hand up, palm out. “I’ve got a busy day.”

Fuller then gestured with the same hand for Carlucci to take his seat. Fuller settled onto the couch.

“This is my office, Frank,” Carlucci said, coldly furious.

“Please,” Fuller replied evenly, and gestured again.

Carlucci made an angry face, then found his chair while impatiently gesturing back Let’s have it with his hand. “Okay. Two words.”

“Detroit and reelection.”

Carlucci cocked his head. “What the hell does that mean? I don’t know much, nor give a good goddamn, about Detroit politics.”

“Well, as Benjamin Franklin said . . .” He paused. “I’m sure you recall that I am a descendant of the wise patriot. He said, ‘When the well’s dry, we know the worth of the water.’ And we all would be wise to learn from Detroit’s dry well.”