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Then she looked at the crowd and said, “Javier’s right! This piece of shit actually is worth something. And we can share the reward with Sasha.”

She looked again at Javier. “Where’s the place?”

He thought back to the Medical Examiner’s Office unit that had picked up the three bodies the previous night. “In Old City, Arch and Third. Place is called . . . what the hell was it? . . . Lex Talionis.”

Yvette nodded.

She then turned to the male with the baseball bat and said, “Go get your truck!”

He ran to the red Ford pickup, got in, and sped back.

Two teenage males were already waiting with the unconscious Xavier Smith in their hands. Everyone watched as the pair threw his limp body into the back of the truck like some sack of trash, then climbed in after him. Five others followed, filling the small truck until its rear seat sat low with their weight.

Then the truck roared away.

Yvette turned to Javier. She reached up and gingerly pulled back his right hand, inspecting the injury.

“Oh, wow,” she said, wincing. “That’s going to be a nice shiner.” Then she smiled and added, “Big bruise for big bro.”

“Great. Just what I need,” he said. He pulled out his cell phone, scrolled the list of stored numbers, and called the one he’d entered as SGT PAYNE.

Wonder what the odds are of Xpress being alive when they get there?

[TWO]

Homicide Unit Interview Room II The Roundhouse Eighth and Race Streets, Philadelphia Sunday, November 1, 1:11 P.M.

“I want my reward,” Shauna Mays repeated to Sergeant M. M. Payne.

“Yes, you’ve said that. And I’ve told you we need some questions answered about Kendrik’s death.”

Payne felt his cell phone vibrating. He carefully pulled it from his pants pocket. He glanced at its screen but did not recognize the caller ID number, so he let the caller get routed into voice mail.

“And I want these damn handcuffs off,” she said. “I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

Interview Room II was small, ten by twelve feet, and held only a single bare metal table and two metal chairs, all pushed up against one wall. The chair that Shauna Mays sat in was bolted to the floor. One end of a pair of handcuffs was clipped around a bar on the seatback, the other cuff around her left wrist. On the opposite wall was a four-foot-square one-way mirror.

The room was harshly lit, and it was cold. Shauna Mays, her arms and legs crossed, shivered in her dirty, loose-hanging T-shirt and torn black jeans. Payne was not sure if the cause was the clothing or her obvious lack of a recent bath, but she gave off a musty odor that reeked of filth. He tried not to come too close to her.

There was a handheld digital audio recorder on the table between them. But the real recording equipment, audio and video, was behind the one-way mirror, in the small viewing room. Tony Harris, watching the interview with Jason Washington, was running the camera.

It had taken no time at all to bring in Shauna Mays—Third and Arch was only four blocks from the Roundhouse—particularly after Mayor Jerry Carlucci let loose with his famous temper when he saw her and her dead son on the bank of TV monitors in the Executive Command Center.

After saying “Oh, shit!” his very next breath had been: “Get that damn uniform to arrest her right damn now on suspicion of murder and bring her here for questioning! I damn well just said that those responsible for any death will be prosecuted to the fullest—and goddamn it, that’s what’s going to happen!”

Matt Payne now looked down at the gaunt and badly bruised woman, and took pity.

Someone’s really slapped her around, especially in the face. And her hand, which she must have tried to use for protection.

She could barely stand on her own two feet while they were rolling her fingers for prints and checking her hands for gunpowder residue.

The only person she’s a danger to is herself. . . .

He said, “I’ll remove the cuff, but one thing goes wrong and it goes back on.”

She nodded.

Taking out his handcuff key, Payne asked, “Who hit you?”