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Dogan pulled out the keys to his Harley, but dropped them on the stained sidewalk. “Get off my damn bike, you little bastards,” he roared at them. Then he slowly reached down for the keys, taking care not to fall over.
“You drunk as a monkey,” shouted the one sitting on the bike. Both kids tittered.
The keys retrieved, Dogan drew himself upright. He didn’t like kids. He didn’t like blacks. The truth was he didn’t like anybody. And he double-disliked anybody messing with his bike. Even Christ himself had no business messing with Joe’s bike. And Christ hadn’t been to Camden in a long while.
Dogan struggled the gun out of his jacket pocket. The sight was caught in some fabric. He ripped it free.
“White man’s packing,” the kid on the bike cried out and he jumped off agilely. Laughing, the two of them ran away.
Stewed as he was, Dogan realized he shouldn’t be brandishing his weapon on the street. Not for fear of cops, who were as scarce as a brontosaurus in the fossilized ruins of Camden. This neighborhood, Dogan knew, was Mister Man’s turf, called H Town, for heroin. To the north was Dope City and to the south was Crackville. But in this swath of Camden, Mister Man was the absolute ruler, his power akin to Kim Jong-Il’s. In H Town, no one pulled out a piece unless Mister Man okayed it. Mister Man had the monopoly on firepower here. Dogan stuffed his .45 back into his pocket and jerkily mounted his bike.
He kick-started the Harley Night Rod into life. In a flash of chrome, he sped his 7,000 r.p.m. screamer through the rutted roads of H Town, past the unending series of boarded-up, graffiti-marred row houses and stores, past the dry fire hydrants, past the dead streetlamps. He headed for Wilson Boulevard, where he could open her up. If a cop stopped him, he had the juice to skip away free. Robert Stagg would ensure that.
What Joe Dogan needed was wind through his hair. What he needed was to wipe out the daytime nightmare of Brad Acton, dead a year now.
The memorial ceremony for Brad Acton droned on ad nauseam. The marbled, colo
Robert Stagg, a high-level county official, sat in the front row and suffered through the sentimental twaddle about the “historic Acton legacy.” Both New Jersey U.S. senators and the governor were on hand. Up at the podium was that moron De
“Brad would’ve been our next congressman from the First District,” De
To Stagg’s right was Brad’s widow, who still looked great if you didn’t look closely. She wore a Do
Everyone had been dismayed that Stagg had married Diana Acton, so soon after Brad’s death. But since Brad’s murder had devastated her, they got used to the idea.
“Take me home, Robert,” Diana said in that little-girl’s voice she had adopted lately. “This is all stupid.”
“If they ever find the coward who murdered Brad,” De
“This will be over in a moment,” Stagg whispered to his wife, containing his exasperation at her, at De
“There’s no need for it,” Diana went on. Stagg shushed her gently. He had always treated her gently, even when he shouldn’t.
“I played football at Haddonfield High with Brad, and thanks to him, we won the state championship two years in a row,” De
With rancor, Stagg recalled his service as team manager, when he waited on Brad like a servant, when he was the target of the team’s jokes and pranks, when even Brad called him “Stagg the Bag” for his shapeless body.
“Once Brad became a freeholder, he started to turn around our county seat,” De
The county’s white, bucolic suburbs surrounding Camden pretended to be impressed by that pledge, Stagg remembered ruefully. The truth was the wealthy suburbanites didn’t care about blighted i
So De
His attention wandered around the lobby, transformed nauseatingly into the Saint Brad Cathedral. He knew almost everyone in the crowd. And he liked that they gazed at him with respect, much as they had with Brad. He had been asked to speak, of course, yet had demurred out of concern for Diana. He needed to be at her side constantly.
Stagg’s eyes bugged out.
There. In the crowd, by the elevators. Standing tall. The blond hair over his forehead. Smiling as if every day was his birthday. Staring at Stagg.
Stagg whimpered involuntarily.
“What’s wrong, Freeholder Stagg?” asked Jimmy Sparacino, the Democratic Party’s county chairman, who sat to Stagg’s left.
“Nothing, nothing, nothing.” The vision of Brad had vanished in the throng.
“I wish you’d spoken today,” Sparacino whispered. “You were Brad’s best friend. I understand about poor Diana, but…”
Sparacino liked to refer to Brad’s widow as “poor Diana.” Luckily for her new husband, Diana was far from poor. She had inherited a load from her rich family, and Brad’s fortune had passed to her, also. Now it was Stagg’s.
Stagg thanked the chairman for his concern. “This is a rough day for her,” he said in a low voice she couldn’t hear. “All the memories rushing back—it’s hard to handle.”
When Brad chose Stagg to run, Sparacino had objected, saying, “Stagg’s fat, he’s bald, he’s ugly. The only reason to vote for him is he’s your gofer.” Since Brad’s death, Sparacino had changed his mind and come to value Stagg’s brains. As he should, having none himself.
At long, painful last, the ceremony ended. The dignitaries stood up to greet, gab and guffaw. Smiling is to politics what dribbling is to basketball. But Stagg wasn’t in the mood to play the game today. He took Diana’s arm and led her out.
He passed the U.S. Attorney, Javers, who was flanked by his young Dobermans in their Brooks Brothers suits. They regarded Stagg hungrily. “We’ll see you tomorrow morning at nine, Freeholder Stagg,” Javers said from somewhere above his bow tie. “Sharp.”
Stagg couldn’t meet the man’s eyes and instead looked to the side, toward the crowd. “Talk to my lawyer, Mr. Javers, not me.”
As they reached the crowded door, Diana said, in her nursery school cadences, “What did that mean-looking man in the bow tie want?”