The first line of the sheet read: "Absentee Ballot Application amp; Requirements."
He read farther down and saw the requirements for "Alternative Ballots": If you are a registered voter who is disabled or age sixty-five or older AND who is assigned to an inaccessible polling place, you are qualified to vote using an Alternative Ballot.
Badde looked up at Wynne and said, "And I do give the bastard credit. He found groups of voters who probably really had been forgotten by the system. Well… some, anyway."
Wynne shrugged and went on: "Then, some weeks back, Harvey Wilson across the street-"
Badde shook his head at first, but then he recognized the name: "The mortician?"
Wynne nodded. "He came banging on the front door. Said he'd caught Kenny in his office at the funeral home."
"What the hell was he stealing? Drugs? Do they even have drugs?"
Wynne shook his head. "No drugs. And Wilson said he wasn't really stealing anything, per se. At least nothing of real value to Wilson, as they were just records. But Wilson didn't like the idea of Kenny just making himself at home in his office, and told me to keep him the hell away."
"So, what was Kenny doing?"
"He got caught going through their files."
"Why?"
"He was methodically copying all the names and addresses of Wilson's recent clients."
"Identity theft of the dead?"
Wynne nodded. "Not that any of them were about to complain. If he could apply for the absentee-voter cards before the city got notice that these people were dead-and you know how muddled and long that kind of bureaucratic process can be-then he'd have even more quiet voters."
Badde grinned. "Smart. Never would've expected that from the dimwit."
Wynne nodded. "Yeah. And for all his faults-and there were many-Kareem was a stickler for detail. Maybe it was because he had so much time on his hands. He logged and filed everything."
Badde nodded toward the upturned filing cabinets.
"And took it all with him," he said.
"Stating the obvious, as long as those records were in there, and you already had been elected to office-"
Badde, affecting a bit of a French accent, authoritatively said, "It would have been faint plea, of course."
Wynne cocked his head as he puffed his pipe.
"A what?" Wynne said.
"You know, a faint plea-the French saying for 'the cow is out of the barn,' or even 'you can't get the toothpaste back in the tube.' It's a done deal, and you can't go back."
"You mean fait accompli," Wynne said. "An accomplished fact."
"That's it," Badde said.
Wynne noticed that Badde was wholly unembarrassed by the correction.
"Anyway," Wynne said, "if someone pulls those forms down at City Hall, or wherever the hell they're warehoused, they're going to see a lot of the same signatures at the same mailing addresses."
They exchanged a long glance.
"And then," Wynne went on, "it's not fait accompli, because if there's voter fraud, the courts get involved. And then…"
Badde nodded slowly at the implication.
He said: "And you think Kenny, Kareem, whatever the fuck you want to call him, has the forms?"
"As your political advisor, I think it's important that we proceed as if he does. Him, or someone more dangerous…"
City Councilman H. Rapp Badde, Jr., inhaled deeply, then let it out slowly.
Then a cell phone rang in his pants pocket, and Badde quickly grabbed his Go To Hell phone. But when he looked at the screen, there was nothing.
And the ringing was still coming from his pants pocket.
Other damned phone.
About time it's not the Go To Hell phone.
He exchanged phones, then looked at the caller ID.
What does Jan want?
"Whut up, honey?" he said into the phone.
"Damn it, Rapp, I thought I told you not to do things with PEGI without my knowledge," she said with absolutely no pleasantries.
Uh-oh. Bad tone.
She's way beyond pissed.
Now all I have to do is figure out which thing I've done without telling her.
That list could be endless.
"I'm sorry, honey. But-"
"Don't goddamn 'honey' me, Rapp. What's this about an expediter?"
"'An expediter'?" Rapp repeated.
"Yeah, the one who just got us in a whole helluva lot of hot water."
"What expediter?"
"Apparently, someone's saying he's the new expeditor at HUD and PEGI. One I didn't hire, and I thought you put me in charge of this."
"I did. I mean, I didn't. I didn't hire anyone, is what I mean. And I did put you in change, honey."
"Knock off the 'honey' crap, Rapp. I know where you are, who you're with."
"I'm out at the West Philly row house," Badde said somewhat piously. "Want to talk with Wynne?"
Smiling smugly, he exchanged glances with Roger Wynne.
Jan said: "Don't change the subject, Rapp. We got problems here."
H. Rapp Badde, Jr., then looked at the empty filing cabinets and thought, Honey, if you only knew…