Devil's Corner (43 page)

"She's a great gardener." Her father kept frowning, but maybe the sun was in his eyes. "She's been talking about that garden all week. This drive was her idea."

Really
. "Mom said you wanted to go inside your old house."

"No."

No?
"We could." Vicki gestured at the front door, which had been repaired. "A new family moved in, I heard from Reheema. We could just knock and ask, I'm sure they'd let us. Everybody knows Reheema."

"No, it was my father's house, not mine. I don't have any happy memories here. Let's go find your mother."

Ouch
. "Okay."

Her father walked back to the Mercedes. "You'll never get a space on Cater, Dad." He turned. "I can't leave it here."

"Yes, you can. It's safe."

"It's an S class." Vicki smiled. "It'll be fine."

"You'll indemnify me?"

"Up to thirty-seven bucks." Her father pulled out his car keys and chirped the car locked, twice. Vicki turned and they fell into step, walking around the corner, where her father stopped, examining a brick wall. "Funny. I used to play stickball here, against this wall, with a broom and a pimple ball."

"A pimple ball?"

"They were white rubber balls with little raised dots. A pimple ball. We'd play for hours, with a half ball."

"Why half?"

"After the ball was dead, we didn't throw it away. We were too poor to throw it away. We cut it in half." Her father ran his fingers over the wall's soft bricks and came away with soot on his fingerpads that surprisingly, he didn't seem to mind. "We'd mark the wall with chalk for a single, a double, a triple."

"Sounds like fun."

"It was." Her father resumed their walk. "Played with the kids from the block. Mimmy. Squirrel. Lips. Tommy G." Vicki looked over again, and her father was smiling. "Nicknames," he explained, needlessly. "Your friends."

"Right. We didn't play on Lincoln as much, because of the traffic." They turned onto Cater and walked two doors down, where he slowed his pace in front of a row house. An African-American man stood on a metal ladder, hanging new red shutters on the windows. Her father stopped in front of the house. "My buddy Lips lived here. Leon DiGiacomo. We used to shoot craps in front of this house."

"That's illegal."

"Tell me about it. I got picked up once, by the cops."

"
You
?"

"Yes, me." Her father sounded almost proud. "They picked us all up for, what they'd call"—he thought a minute, his head cocked—"‘gambling on the highway,' that was it. Must've been an old ordinance. They took us into the station and they made us buy tickets to the thrill show."

"What's a thrill show?"

"Like a circus. The PAL put it on, I think. Motorcycles and dancing bears." Her father laughed, and so did Vicki, surprised. She had never heard him talk about his childhood, and now she couldn't shut him up. He was walking again, pointing across the narrow street to the other side. "And we used to play knuckles in the street, right there."

"Knuckles?"

"A card game. And over there we played Pig and Dog. Basketball. We nailed a trash can to the telephone pole for a hoop." He mused as they walked, the sun shining on his head and shoulders. "I played outside all the time. We all did."

"Sounds like you have some happy memories, after all."

"Nah." Her father stiffened, suddenly. "You can't go home again, Victoria."

"I know people say that, but I disagree. I think you never really leave."

"What?"

"I'm Devon, Dad. I'm Devon, wherever I go. Some people are pure South Philly, and a New Yorker is always a New Yorker." Vicki never thought out loud in front of her father, but didn't stop. It was time to stop editing herself, even with him. "Think about it, Dad. There's Jersey girls and Valley girls. Chicagoans and San Franciscans, Texans and Bostonians. Steel magnolias and Southern gentlemen. And Reheema is so West Philly, when you meet her, you'll see it. She's great."

Her father was frowning, but maybe the sun was in his eyes again. Maybe the sun was always in his eyes, even indoors. Someday he would realize they had therapy for that, but Vicki wasn't going to be the one to tell him.

They reached the garden, where her mother was talking with Reheema. More neighbors were hard at work, weeding the pepper beds, restaking the tomato plants, and cutting cosmos for their dinner tables. Vicki introduced Reheema to her father, who shook her hand stiffly.

"So this is the community garden," he said, eyeing the lot. "Very pretty." His gaze fell on the unfinished left side, in the shade. "What are you going to plant there?"

Vicki cringed. It never failed, his always seeing the negative. She'd bring home four A's and a B, and he'd ask,
Why the B?

"We're not planting anything there," Reheema answered. "We voted to make a place for the little kids. Put in one of those nice wooden playground sets and some wood chips underneath, so they don't get hurt if they fall."

"When are you going to install it?"

"When we get the money. Those wooden sets, they cost like two grand. The neighborhood's tapped out, after the dirt and the railroad ties, but we'll get it." Reheema nodded. "You know, this garden wouldn't have come about without your daughter, Mr. Allegretti. I was just telling your wife, Vicki's the one who got the crack dealers out of here."

"Please," Vicki said, reddening, but Reheema ignored her.

"Vicki saved this block, this whole neighborhood. She should get all the credit."

Her mother smiled, tightly. "We were so worried about her, we didn't appreciate the good she was doing. Maybe we were too worried."

"No, you
shoulda
been worried!" Reheema laughed. "If she were my daughter, I woulda been worried
sick
! You wouldn't believe the trouble we got ourselves into, the newspapers only had half the story. She's a real badass, your daughter!"

Hoo boy.

"She gets it from me," her mother said, her smile relaxing, and Vicki laughed, surprised.

But her father didn't reply and kept looking at the garden. Reheema seemed to run out of steam, uncharacteristically speechless. The moment was so awkward that Vicki stepped in to fill the silence.

"Thanks for the tour," she said. "We should probably get going. Congratulations on the garden."

"Thanks, take care."

"Yes, congratulations," her mother said, hugging Reheema briefly. Then she looped an arm around Vicki and they walked onto the sidewalk.

Her father didn't join them but lingered at the entrance to the garden.

"Dear?" her mother asked, and Vicki turned.

"In a minute," her father said quietly, then looked at Reheema. "I'd like to help you with the playground."

"I don't understand," Reheema said, and neither did Vicki.

"I'd like to send you a check, for the playground. I'll make it out for three thousand dollars, to cover the cost of the playset and the mulch. If you need more, you'll let me know."

"You don't have to do that, Mr. Allegretti," Reheema said, with a puzzled smile. "You don't have any responsibility for the garden. You don't even live here."

"I did once, and Victoria's right, part of me always will."

Whoa
! Vicki thought, astounded. She would have hugged him but she wasn't sure he'd taken his Pravachol.

"Well. Okay." Reheema broke into a grin. "Mr. Allegretti, thank you so much, from the whole neighborhood."

"You're welcome," her father said, turning to Vicki with a new smile. "Come on, Devon. I'm taking my girls out to dinner."

"You got it," Vicki said, happily surprised, and the three of them turned to walk up Cater Street.

"That was a wonderful gesture, Victor," her mother whispered, taking her father's hand, and he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

Vicki felt her spirits lift, walking behind the two of them. Maybe Dan had been right that night in the hospital. Maybe she just had to accept her father the way he was. And think out loud at every opportunity. Like now:

"Dad, I can't get over it. You said I was right. In front of witnesses."

Her father turned, smiling. "I won't make a habit of it."

"I hope not." Then Vicki got an idea. "Hey, now that we're all in the love mood, can we go to an Olive Garden for dinner?"

"No," her parents answered, in unison.

And Vicki laughed.

AUTHOR'S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I don't know what other authors do for fun, but I eat saturated fats, ride Buddy the Pony, and watch trials at the federal courthouse, where, in my ex-life, I worked as a lawyer. Not long ago I wandered into a courtroom and found myself watching a jury trial for crack-cocaine trafficking against members of one of the most violent gangs in Philadelphia history. I had seen only five minutes of the testimony before ideas and characters started to flow, and I knew I had a novel. In fact, the next morning I woke up with the first line of
Devil's Corner
. That has never happened before, and I'm hoping it happens again. Every year for the next ten years.

The case was
United States v. Williams,
and it was a piece of a much larger prosecution,
United States v. Carter, et al
. The 135-count indictment in
United States v. Carter, et al.,
is almost as thick as this book, and names thirty-seven defendants, charging, inter alia, conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine, use of a firearm during commission of drug crime, and employing children to distribute drugs near schools and playgrounds. For the next few weeks at trial, I had an eye-opening lesson in crime and justice in a major American city, which happens to be my hometown.

You may recall that the crack cocaine trade reached peak levels in cities in the late 1980s, when it got more media attention than any narcotic deserves. But now that the spotlight has departed, crack trafficking has become business as usual, and unfortunately for all of us, stabilized at very high levels in major American cities, becoming a fixture in the urban landscape and bringing with it a continuous supply of crime and violence, tearing apart neighborhoods and families. As part of its Pulse Check program, the Office of National Drug Control Policy monitors crack cocaine trafficking and its effects in twenty-five major American cities: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Sacramento, St. Louis, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa/St. Petersburg, and Washington, D.C. According to the most recent Pulse Check, of January 2004, crack abuse and trafficking are now infecting formerly "nice" neighborhoods in these cities and, inevitably, moving beyond the city into the suburbs. Also, crack is more frequently being traded for guns, stolen merchandise, drug-buying services, and sex than during the past ten years, though cash remains eternal. The effects on the quality of life, and of death, are profound, and they affect our country as a whole.

I wanted to deal with those themes in
Devil's Corner
, and I picked the brains of many experts, most of them involved in some way with
U.S. v. Williams
, to give this story its verisimilitude. Of course, any and all mistakes or misinterpretations are mine. The prosecution in
U.S. v. Williams
was steered by the experienced, able, and remarkably kind Rich Lloret Esq., of the U.S. Attorney's Office, working with his colleague AUSA Kathy Stark Esq., and super-dedicated agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, among them Special Agent Anthony Tropea, Special Agent Steve Bartholomew, and as luck would have it, Special Agent Mike Morrone, whose wife, Marcelle, is an old friend of mine. I should make the obvious clear before I go further: I admire these people, not only for their intelligence and skill, but for their dedication and service to the public. I don't think we know enough about the amazing job they do, or the many sacrifices they make for all of us. But the characters in this book are not them, or "real" in any sense whatsoever, and this story isn't based on
U.S. v. Williams
or
U.S. v. Carter
. No truly original novel duplicates court cases or is "ripped from" today's headlines. Any fiction worth reading (or writing) comes from the imagination, and heart.

Having said that, this is me thanking every one of the people named above, who took the time to answer my endless questions, permitted me to watch them in action, and took me on office tours. Special thanks to Special Agent Mike Morrone, who lent encouragement, read a draft of the manuscript, and made corrections. Likewise, I am indebted to Nancy Beam Winter of the U.S. Attorney's Office, a brilliant and gorgeous prosecutor who read
two
early drafts of this novel; I owe you forever, girl, and admire you more than I can say.

Thanks, too, to my old friend Joan Markman Esq., of the U.S. Attorney's Office, who put me on to the right track at the outset. For background information about criminal defense lawyering, many thanks to Joe Mancano Esq., who was court-appointed in
U.S. v. Williams
and was equally generous with his time and expertise to help me, and to David Nenner Esq. And a special thanks to Judge Stewart Dalzell, of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, who is one of the smartest, fairest, and finest jurists ever to serve on our local, or any other, bench. His integrity, literacy, and humanity epitomize what a judge should be.

Thanks again to Glenn Gilman Esq., public defender extraordinaire, and Art Mee, retired detective extraordinaire.

And thanks to another special group. As is my custom, character names in this novel have been auctioned off to wonderful people who supported a number of worthwhile causes, and thanks are due to those generous people; first to the Durham family, who contributed to the Literacy Council of Miami Valley, Ohio, in honor of their beloved mother, Marilyn Durham. Marilyn was a book lover and a devoted reader of mine, but sadly, she passed away before she could see her name in print. I think of Marilyn and her daughters often, and this book is in her memory.