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Curtis thought of Gartner, with a beak of a nose and squinty dark eyes, as a pale-faced prick. He was medium-size and in his early to mid fifties. He tried to appear much younger by dying the gray of his thinning hair, though the dye job, full of blotches, was badly done. He wore tight faded black jeans, a gray T-shirt stenciled with black arty lettering that read PEACE LOVE JUSTICE, and tan suede shoes that were open at the heel.

As his squinty eyes darted back and forth, Curtis recalled his first impression of Gartner: that he not only looked like a weasel, but projected a greasy sleaziness.

Gartner then said something to the motorcyclist as he was rocking his helmet side to side to slide it from his head. When he’d finally gotten it off and turned to lock it to the rear of the bike, Curtis saw yet another familiar face, a smug one.

Well, I will be goddamned! All the waiting really has paid off.

I’m going to get a twofer!

Jay-Cee, you miserable shit. You won’t be smug long, not for what you did to Wendy. . . .

John “JC” Nguyen was a cocky twenty-five-year-old—half Caucasian, half Asian, small-boned, five-two, and maybe one-ten soaking wet—who didn’t walk but strutted. His thick black hair was combed straight back and hung to his collar. He wore baggy blue jeans that barely clung to his hips, a long-sleeved white T-shirt, and, over the T-shirt, a Philadelphia Eagles football jersey.

The green jersey had a big white number 7 on the back and, in white block lettering across the shoulder blades, the name VICK.

Small surprise that the punk worships an overpaid jock who likes making dogs fight to the death.

But what the hell kind of justice is it that Michael Vick sat almost two years in the slam for that crime while this miserable shit abused my baby and never spent a single fucking night behind bars?

By the time he reentered the court system for the assault on Wendy Curtis, JC had had a long list of priors—more than a dozen arrests over as many years, mostly for either possession of, or possession with intent to distribute, pot and speed and other controlled substances. His first bust had been when he’d just turned fourteen, and it earned him the street name “JC,” for John Cannabis, a nod to the homegrown marijuana he first sold to his South Philly High schoolmates.

Curtis had learned, primarily from the prosecutors in the Repeat Offenders Unit of the district attorney’s office, that in all but Nguyen’s very first cases, he had been represented by Gartner.

Curtis also had been told that that did not necessarily mean Gartner was a good lawyer. In fact, one assistant district attorney assigned to prosecute Nguyen’s case said that the opposite was true.

“The one thing commonly said of Daniel O. Gartner, Esquire,” the prosecutor told Curtis, quietly but bitterly, “is that he’s the worst fucking lawyer in all the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

He’d then added, “If there existed a book titled The Dictionary of Dirt-bags , and in it was a definition of a lawyer who not only graduated at the bottom of his class but was as dirty as his clients, Gartner’s ugly mug would be beside it.” He’d exhaled audibly and added, “He’s always working the system.”

He explained that Gartner almost never really won a case for a client. Practically all them were negotiated with some sort of plea bargain to get the charges reduced, working the system so that the sentence left the scum with a very short term in the slam. Thus, it wasn’t unusual for Gartner to watch a less-than-ecstatic client in handcuffs and a faded orange jumpsuit being hauled out of court to go back behind bars.

Sometimes—thanks to the already overloaded justice system, its dockets packed, its prisons full—he managed to get only a slap-on-the-wrist sentence of probation.

And, on very rare occasions, Gartner got a case tossed out on a technicality.

Curtis had learned that the hard way in Wendy’s case, with Nguyen. Gartner got the guilty bastard off scot-free. All it had taken was for him to find a breach in how the evidence had been handled.

The animal didn’t even get probation. Nothing.

In the DA’s office, after giving the bad news to Will and Linda Curtis, then deeply apologizing for the administrative mistake, the prosecutor sighed and said, “It’s the reality of what we deal with every day. The system is broken. But like a broken watch that gets the time right twice a day, we eventually do get ’em. Meanwhile, guys like Gartner take advantage of the weaknesses to get their clients to walk.”

Will Curtis saw Gartner motion for JC to come inside. JC nodded in reply, then pulled a small nylon bag from under the weblike netting on the rear end of the motorcycle’s black seat.

Strutting like a rooster, he carried the bag to the open metal door, went through it, and closed the door behind him.

Will Curtis checked for traffic again and started across the street.

[THREE]

Loft Number 2180 Hops Haus Tower 1100 N. Lee Street, Philadelphia Saturday, October 31, 11:05 P.M.

“Maybe I’m wrong about you being a cop,” Dr. Amanda Law playfully whispered to Homicide Sergeant Matthew M. Payne, Philadelphia Police Department Badge Number 471, “because I’m beginning to think that you do your best work undercover.”

He saw that her face was flushed and glowing as she smiled and pulled her shoulder-length blond hair into a ponytail, then threw back the soft cotton cover in question.

She leaned over and kissed him wetly and loudly on his heaving chest. Then she stepped out of bed and, after taking a moment to catch her breath, said, “Be right back, Romeo.”

Twenty-seven-year-old Matt Payne—who was six feet tall, one-seventy-five with a chiseled face, dark intelligent eyes, and thick dark hair he kept trimmed short—marveled at the magnificent milk-white orbs that formed the toned derriere of Amanda Law as she padded stark naked across the hardwood flooring, then disappeared into the bathroom.