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Bucco looked at him and said, “I don’t know, Tommie. I’m getting a bad vibe. Maybe I’d better go and double-check.”
Turco looked at his watch, then said, “It was just a fucking mutt. Just swing it again. We can knock these shit-for-houses down in a couple hours, and I can return this crane by five and only pay for a half-day rental. Then we can get the hell off this job and on to the next one.”
Bucco looked at him a long moment, then at the big hole in the wall, then back at Turco. He shrugged and said, “Awww, all right, you’re the boss.”
The next swing of the two-ton ball took out almost all the rest of the upstairs exterior wall, which caused the roof to partially collapse.
And again Bobby the Ballbuster threw the lever that caused the drum to begin reeling in the lateral line.
This time, though, there was something stuck on the ball. Bucco and Turco knew it wasn’t unusual for either the ball or the cable to snag something—anything from electrical wiring to abandoned furniture—and carry it outside.
But as the ball exited the massive hole in the second-floor wall, it was clear that this wasn’t any building material.
As the ball was reeled closer to the cab, they had a stomach-turning view of what had gotten snagged.
“Shit, shit, shit !” Bucco said as he stared through the cab windshield at the wrecking ball—and at the limp body of one of the male holdouts, his jacket caught on the rusty hook that held the ball.
His lifeless eyes stared back at Bucco.
Bobby the Ballbuster struck Little Tommie with the cab door as he flung it open. Bucco’s vomit splashed all over Turco’s steel-toed work boots.
[FOUR]
Executive Command Center The Roundhouse Eighth and Race Streets, Philadelphia Sunday, November 1, 1:54 P.M.
“Thank you, Commissioner Walker,” Sergeant Matt Payne said into the receiver of one of three multiline telephones on the conference table in front of him. He looked at Detective Tony Harris, seated next to him, and rolled his eyes as he added, “I’m really grateful for your having pushed the processing of those prints.”
He looked past Harris and saw that not only had Corporal Kerry Rapier caught the unflattering gesture, he was grinning at it.
He’s not one of his starchy boss’s biggest fans either.
Payne looked at the “desk sign” on the conference table between him and Harris. As sort of an inside joke, Payne had fashioned it out of a sheet of legal-pad paper he’d folded lengthwise twice to make an inverted V. Handprinted on it was TASK FORCE OPERATION CLEAN SWEEP.
The sign reminded Payne that Deputy Police Commissioner Howard Walker had been among the first to flee the ECC after Mayor Carlucci had stormed out, still fuming over Kendrik Mays’s mother bringing in his bloody body for a ten-thousand-dollar reward.
Police Commissioner Ralph Mariana had then told Payne: “What Jerry announced about you having the full support of the department wasn’t just thrown out there for the benefit of appeasing the public.” He’d paused and smiled. “I think, though, that the part about calling in the FBI and others for help was. Jerry’s never been a fan of the feds coming in and telling us how it’s supposed to be done. I know I’m not.”
Mariana had looked from First Deputy Police Commissioner Denny Coughlin to Deputy Police Commissioner Howard Walker to Captain Henry Quaire to Lieutenant Jason Washington. All were standing in a loose group near the doorway, and all nodded their agreement.
“Whatever you want, Matt, you’ve got. Just say.”
“I appreciate it,” Payne had said. “But I believe that right now what I have”—he motioned to Harris and to Corporal Kerry Rapier seated at his control panel—“is all Operation Clean Sweep needs. Running lean and mean to start will help keep us focused, and the confusion to a minimum. I can always add people as I go. But if I get too many people in here too fast, we’ll spend more time and effort keeping the navel-gazers busy than actually hunting the doer.”
“Understood. Your call. All I ask is for someone to keep me posted so I can keep Jerry in the loop.” Mariana nodded once and went out the door.
Walker had then said, “Kerry, you heard him. Anything Sergeant Payne needs.”
And he’d looked at Quaire and Washington and added, “If there’s anything I can do, let me know.” Then Walker had bolted.
Payne had seen the exchange of looks between Coughlin, Quaire, and Washington. While not one of them would have said it aloud, Payne knew what they were thinking: that Walker was headed to Forensics to chew out in his snooty manner whomever he deemed responsible for the delay in processing the Halloween Homicides fingerprints—and the resulting egg on his face before the mayor of Philadelphia.
Coughlin had simply said, “Let us know, Matty,” and they were all gone.
Payne had walked to the door and swung it almost completely closed. Then he’d turned and looked between Tony Harris and Kerry Rapier and said, “Either of you buy that lean-and-mean bullshit?”
They had grinned.
“Me neither. I haven’t a fucking idea of what to do first.” He gestured at the banks of TV monitors that showed all the images of the pop-and-drop victims, the volumes of evidence, and live feeds that included a video of Shauna Mays being handcuffed. “Except, after interviewing this woman Hizzonor wants to make an example of, to run a fine-toothed comb back through everything.”
