City Hall is a massive Victorian building hewn of white marble, with a slate mansard roof and dormers. Built in the center of the grid that is Philadelphia, it contains eight floors of courtrooms and administrative offices that wrap around an enclosed courtyard.
Municipal workers, just released for lunch, chattered past me in the courtyard. Attorneys with briefcases whispered as they hurried by, coaching their clients on the noon break from trial. Police strolled in groups of two and three, at City Hall to testify in criminal trials. I figured this courtyard would be the safest place in the city to meet a murderer. I may sleep with lawyers, but I’m not totally crazy.
Underneath my sturdy pumps was the black center of the huge compass that was painted on the floor of the courtyard. The compass’s black directional spikes, limned with crackling gold paint, pointed at the four arched entrances to the courtyard. I faced south toward my father’s store and waited for the killer, suppressing the sensation that I was standing in the middle of a target. Smack-dab on the bull’s-eye.
People poured through the south arch of the courtyard, but no one looked familiar. No one approached me. Could the killer be watching from the building? I scanned the windows. In some the blinds were drawn, in some they were slightly askew. Two women workers stood in a large window on the first floor, chatting. No killers in City Hall unless you counted the budget deficit.
Beyond the top tier of windows, the sky was a clear blue. A hot sun glinted on the large mirrored ball suspended over the center of the compass. The mirrored ball was an unusual sight, a sparkling globe oddly incongruous in the marble courtyard. The object of the ball was to see yourself as part of the whole city in its fish-eye lens, but the lesson was lost on the kids who made toothy faces into it.
The lesson was lost on me as well. I valued the mirror ball because I could see all four courtyard entrances in it at the same time. I checked my backup in the ball as it swung slightly in a warm breeze. Cam lurked under the south arch, slouching under a Phillies cap. Herman leaned against the west arch, fake-reading the Daily News. Sal stood under the north arch in his Ray-Bans, eating a soft pretzel. No one had the east arch because I’d run out of senior citizens. I’d had to enlist David and his friend to watch my father in the hospital.
I shifted on my feet and glanced at my watch: 11:55.
I scanned the crowds coming through the courtyard. If the bluff worked, the killer would come through one of the entrances at noon. Then one of the backup men would tail him, ready to grab him and scream bloody murder as soon as I gave the high sign. I hoped the killer turned out to be the rasta-haired motorcyclist. I didn’t know how I would feel if it were Paul, now that the time had come.
11:58. I fingered the plastic Baggie in one of my blazer pockets. It held my father’s knife, the one that looked like the murder weapon. Then I checked the Polaroids in the other pocket, pictures I’d taken yesterday of my father’s knife in a lab-like setting. I gritted my teeth. I was ready. Was the killer? I rocked on my pumps and tried not to sweat on the bull’s-eye.
Suddenly there was a commotion under the west arch. I tensed. Had Herman spotted the killer? The crowd under the arch scattered and a trio of bare-chested teenagers broke free, rowdy, play-fighting. Two cops, walking by, looked back, then said something to each other and moved on. I breathed a relieved sigh.
12:01.
He was late. Maybe he wouldn’t come at all, maybe he wouldn’t fall for it. The bluff was that I’d kept the real murder weapon, had it tested privately, and turned up some telltale DNA. I said I’d trade the weapon, and my silence, for my father’s life. It wasn’t a bad bluff. How could the killer be sure the knife, apparently old and well-used, was absolutely clean? It would be too big a risk to take, even for a risk-taker.
12:06. I checked the entrances again. East, south, west, north. Everything looked normal. Herman gave me a discreet nod over his tabloid, knowing I must have been rattled by the teenagers.
I waited. 12:08.
Maybe it wasn’t a good bluff after all. Maybe the killer had cleaned the knife completely, or borrowed it. Maybe I’d lost my touch. Then something caught my eye behind an older couple ahead of me. The quick flutter of a Phillies cap. It was Cam, signaling. The couple looked normal enough, tourists with a street map, pointing at the mirrored ball. But over the man’s shoulder was a figure I recognized.
Paul. Oh God. I felt my stomach turn over. Not him.
He barreled toward me. His face was anxious, his features strained. His clothes were disheveled and his eyes looked bloodshot as he elbowed the tourists aside.
I told myself to stay calm. “Paul?” I still couldn’t believe it was him all along.
“Rita, we have to talk,” he said, his voice angry. He grabbed me roughly by the arm.
“What about?” I said, but I could see Cam coming on fast, over Paul’s shoulder. He wasn’t supposed to take Paul yet, I didn’t have anything incriminating on the dictaphone in my breast pocket. Wait, Cam, I prayed silently. Give me one more minute. “Why are you here, Paul? Did you come for-”
“No!” Paul said. “We’re not talking here. This is ridiculous!” He grabbed me hard and shoved me off toward the east exit.
Cam looked stricken, then determined. Suddenly he lurched forward and yanked Paul backward. I caught one glimpse of Paul’s shocked expression and heard his bewildered shout as Cam threw him to the ground, red-faced, in a fury. “Don’t you dare hurt her!” he shouted. “Don’t you dare!”
“Cam, wait!” I screamed, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t hear. The tourists reached for each other, aghast. Passersby stared in horror. Paul’s head cracked against the brick. It looked like Cam was going to kill him. “Cam, no!” I screamed. “Help!”
Sal ran over and scrambled on top of Cam, trying to pry him off. A group of teenagers sprinted over. Two cops hustled from the south arch, one drawing a billy club as he ran. I watched, horrified at how it had all gone wrong, when I heard a voice whisper right behind my ear. “Walk, now,” commanded the voice.
“What?” Who was behind me? I twisted around, but a strong arm squeezed mine.
“No. Straight ahead. Now.”
I felt a hard object press into my lower back. I looked wildly at the mirrored ball, but it was spinning, blurring the crowd. I couldn’t find Herman. There was confusion everywhere. “Help!” I shouted, but anyone who could hear thought I was talking about the fight.
“Go! Now!” ordered the voice. The gun dug into my upper backbone. I was being pushed away from the melee, toward the east arch.
Christ. He wouldn’t shoot me, not before he got the knife. I took a deep breath and broke free of his grasp, running as fast as I could through the courtyard. “Help!” I screamed, but onlookers hurried past me into the courtyard, misunderstanding. I could hear his heels as he ran behind me. A heavy tread. He was almost upon me.
Where to run? Inside. There’d be more cops there and I knew City Hall like the back of my hand, I’d tried hundreds of cases there. I fought the crowd pressing into the courtyard and ran through the east arch toward the stairs. I shoved by a souvenir vendor and hit the stone stairs up to the second floor two by two. I twisted around when I got to the top to see who was chasing me.
At the bottom of the stair was Stan Julicher.
He was the killer? Holy Christ.
I turned around and banged through the wooden doors to the second floor. I scrambled to lock them behind me but the polished brass lock was keyed. I could see Julicher through the glass in the door, his face mottled with rage.
Run.
I skidded on the waxed floor and ran to the left, remembering a second too late that the mayor’s office was to the right. I sprinted for the end of the hallway, screaming for help, but the shouts went unheeded. The place had emptied out for lunch and whoever was left must’ve gone outside to the courtyard. I heard sirens, then Julicher’s footsteps right behind me.
“Help! Help!” I screamed.
“Help! Help!” Julicher shouted, louder. “In the courtyard!”
Dick. I hit the doors at the end of the hall and flew up the grand, cantilevered staircase, running for my life. My chest was heaving, my heart pounding. Julicher had killed his own client. Why? The granite steps spiraled up and up in dizzying hexagons. It was dark, the only light came from tiny windows on the landing. I grabbed the mahogany rail not to fall.
Run, run. Faster. Harder. There were six more floors to the top and no one on the stairs but a homeless man, slumped on the third-floor landing. Christ. Run.
“We can talk, Rita!” Julicher said, hardly puffing. “You have it with you?”
Of course. The knife. I fumbled in my pocket but the Polaroids flew out and scattered on the stairs. I kept running. Julicher, gun in hand, picked up a photo and threw it down as he ran up the stairs. “Stop, Rita! We can talk!”
Sure. Right. I climbed higher and higher, sweating through my blouse, gasping for breath. There was an alarm box on the eighth floor in front of the elevator, I remembered it from my trial last week. The case I won on my last bluff, dressed in mourning. Only this time it could be my funeral.
“Do you have it with you?” Julicher shouted, gaining on me.
Get the knife. I let go of the handrail and jammed my hand into my pocket, then stumbled and fell. My chin slammed into the gritty granite step and I let out a cry of pain. I scrambled to my feet. Blood spurted down the front of my suit, but the Baggie was in my other hand, with the knife inside.
“Let’s make a deal, Rita!”
I tore through the Baggie with my teeth and ran up the stairs. Sixth floor. My chest was heaving. I shook the Baggie off the knife and took it in hand, feeling its heft like an old friend. Me and knives go way back. I ran up the stairs, running the knife along the banister. Two floors to go.
Running. Like my mother. It filled me with anger, fueling me. I tore up to the seventh floor and fell against the cold marble wall, dizzy from the circular climb. Julicher was gaining on me, starting the seventh.
I stumbled up the staircase to the eighth floor. Right inside the hall, next to the elevator, was the box. PYROTRONICS FIREFIGHTER’S TELEPHONE. USE KEY OR BREAK GLASS. I took the butt of the knife and slammed it through the glass window. It splintered and I reached through and popped the receiver off the hook. If there was any justice in this courthouse, help would be here in minutes. I was about to hit the elevator button, then I stopped. These elevators were too slow, it would never come in time.
No more running. I had a knife, I knew how to use it. I thought of LeVonne, then my father. No more games. I would take honestly and justly. Face-to-face. Or I would die trying and get the whole thing on tape.
I pulled the knife and went back to the landing to meet him. I felt crazed, hopped-up. “Stay right the fuck where you are, Julicher!”
He stopped at midstairs and laughed. “What did you come back for? I have a gun, you have a knife.”
“We had a deal. The murder weapon for my father’s life.”
“Oh yeah? You got a confirmation letter on that?”
Keep him talking, for the tape. “Why’d you do it? Why did you kill Patricia?”
“She wanted to drop the case. Said she didn’t want to go through with it, after what happened at the dep. I told her no, not when I had everything all lined up. Everybody in the loop, talking book deals. Even a TV movie, based on a true story. She told me I had the case of my career, then she tried to fuck with me.”
“So you killed her?”
He grew angry. “What was I supposed to do? Let the bitch make a fool of me in front of the goddamned country?”
Sirens sounded outside. “You framed the judge.”
“It was perfect. When life hands you a lemon, you know?” He took a step toward me and aimed the gun at my chest. I tried not to look at its lethal black barrel.
“Why’d you hurt my father? Why’d you kill LeVonne?”
“I wanted you out of commission. The nigger was just a fuck-up.”
Bile rose in my throat. “Why’d you plant the knife, you shit?”
He arched an eyebrow and smiled. “To stir the pot, keep the case in the headlines. Something new’s gotta happen every day. Nothing’s worse than old news.”
“And you got the Jag-”
“What is this, twenty questions? My cousin has one.” He laughed and cocked the gun.
Terrific. I swallowed hard at the mechanical sound.
“The way it worked out, it was better PR than winning the harassment case.” He laughed, then took a step nearer, so close I could almost grab the gun. “Tell me, Rita. What did these lab tests show? No fingerprints, I know. That knife was whistle clean.”
You gotta believe. “A general-purpose knife, used for hunting-”
“Fishing.”
Shit. I flashed on the weekend sunburn, the boat he mentioned at the deposition. My father, saying the knife could be used for fish. The sirens sounded louder, but nowhere near loud enough.
“Hey!” came a shout from below. The homeless man was waking up in a stupor. Julicher looked back to see what it was and in that split second I seized the only opening I’d get. I stabbed the hand with the gun, forcing the sharp knifepoint right between the bones, using the first grip my father ever taught me. The gun fell from his hand and clattered to the floor.
“You cut me, you bitch!” Julicher screamed in pain.
You’re goddamn right I did. Before he could react, I brought the knife down again, slicing clean at the first hunk of flesh I could find. His cheek split like a new pig.
“Aaah!” he screamed, and staggered back against the railing. Blood poured out onto his shirt and tie.
“Hey, baby!” shouted the homeless man, stoned out of his mind. “You callin’ me, sweet stuff?”
Shouting came from the first floor. Not the fire department, but cops. Three of them, with guns drawn, but too far away to do any good. I prayed some of them had taken the elevator. “Help, police! Eighth floor!” I yelled.
Julicher, his hand and face bloodied, reached for my neck. I stepped away, but he was quicker. Stronger. He squeezed me by the throat and slammed my head back into the glass door. Pain exploded in my skull. I couldn’t breathe. I slashed futilely with the knife. The staircase grew darker and darker.
Suddenly there was a terrific blast and the glass door behind me shattered. A round red bullet hole burst onto the middle of Julicher’s forehead. He fell backward, his face frozen in agony. Another gunshot came from behind. Julicher’s chest exploded into crimson and the force of the blast spun him around. Before I could reach him, he fell against the railing like a scarecrow and pitched over the side.
I whirled around to see who had saved my life.
It was Herman, standing behind a Luger, with a faraway look in his eye.