“What exactly are your ambitions?” I asked as the footsteps of the marchers and the chanting rose around us. Left. Left. Your left, your right. Left.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought the councilman explained all that to you. The Nadine Moore Youth Home is a pilot program. We only have room in this facility for one student out of every thirty who are referred to us. Our goal is to build fifteen more here in Philadelphia and then expand into other cities. This home acts not only as a center for these children but also as a laboratory, and we expect our success here will serve as the model for a great bloom of healing. Our great hope,” she said, as the councilman surveyed the troops marching to and fro on the basketball court, something wet and glistening in his eyes as they chanted, Sound off, one two, little louder, three four, kick it around, one two three four one two – threefour, “our great dream,” she said, “is that for every child in this country struggling with drugs there be a Nadine Moore Youth Home to help her through her time of deepest need.”

“This is our next one,” he said. Henry had driven us to a vacant lot on Lehigh Avenue, across from a stream of crumbling row houses and boarded-up stores. A school was up the avenue just a bit. “The Art Museum fund-raiser gave us just enough to complete the effort. We start construction in two months. This will be twice the size of the facility you saw.”

“It certainly is a grand ambition,” I said.

“It will be her immortality,” said Jimmy Moore. “After she died I realized that what had killed my daughter was not someone else’s problem. It was everywhere. And I was in a position to do something about it. Something. For the first time I saw what politics could be about and it was not about hating or getting. That was when my passion reared and my mission began. First fight the dealers, then heal the children. We are making progress on both fronts and when I become mayor we’ll win it all. We’ll put the lords of death out of business and build those youth homes throughout the city. And not just homes, youth centers, boys’ clubs and girls’ clubs. I can do it. I will do it. It was as good as done before they set me up.”

“Who set you up?”

“I don’t know exactly. Maybe the mayor, maybe the dealers. I was in danger before the indictment. Why do you think I ride around in that limousine? My City Council car was shot up more than once by my enemies. But my black beauty is bulletproof now and I continue on. Then the feds, after consulting with the mayor, determined my fund-raising extortionate. And even if it is, so what? The money is going to the right place. But then came the murder and the arson and they decided to pin that on me too.”

“So you didn’t kill Bissonette?”

He turned to me and looked me square in the eye. “No,” he said without a flicker of his eye, without a hesitation in his voice. “Absolutely not. Why would I kill that boy? For money? That’s the problem with prosecutors, they’re so willing to sell out for a small piece of change they think everyone else is too. I’m on the track to something big, huge, and you’ve just seen the tip of it. Besides, did you know that the money Bissonette was able to mysteriously raise for Ruffing came from Raffaello?”

So that was what Raffaello had meant when he said Jimmy was too smart to kill as part of the extortion plot. What he meant was that Jimmy was too smart to fight him. “If you didn’t kill him, why are you setting up Chester to take the fall?” I asked.

“Because I don’t have a choice,” he said quickly.

“Bullshit.”

He let out a sigh, took out a cigarette, tapped it on its box, and lit it. “Maybe it is bullshit. Maybe I’m just a coward, I don’t know. I hire a lawyer, the best in the city, and I tell him to do anything he has to do to get me off and save my dream. He’s a hard bastard, clever, and what he tells me is that if he can’t prove who actually did the killing, the only way to get me off is to go after Chet. He told me we needed an attorney to represent Chet who wouldn’t get in the way. Someone he could control. First it was McCrae. But then he took his ill-advised trip to Chinatown and so we needed someone else.”

“And that was me,” I said bitterly. The cabana boy.

“He told me it was my only choice. That if it works right it will make the government’s case look so weak we might both get off.” Jimmy took a deep drag from the cigarette and let it out slowly. “So I told him to go ahead.”

“Even if Chester ended up behind bars for good.”

“What do you think, I like this? I don’t have a choice. No choice at all. We’re in a war here, fighting to build something grand and noble, but as in any war there will be casualties. Concannon might be one. I’ll take care of Chet, and he knows it. But my enemies are coming after me. I won’t let them win. If they do, it is the children who will pay the price. We need you to stick with us, to follow Prescott’s direction and foil the government’s plot against me. I brought you here so you would be aware of all you are endangering if you oppose us. Together we can make a difference.” He flicked his cigarette onto a tuft of weeds sprouting through cracked brick and it smoldered there. “If you want, I’ll put you on the board of CUP. A terrific position for a young lawyer. Together we can change the world for the better.”

That would be a terrific position for me, I knew. It was on charitable boards and political committees that lawyers found clients. Serve on enough boards, get enough clients, and you become a rainmaker, with the power to go to any firm in the city and name a price. I didn’t jump right away onto my hind legs and say, “Okay,” but I was thinking.

“So who killed him?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he spit out. “God, I wish I did. You’re the man with the theories, you find out. See if you can do any better than we did.”

I looked out over the vacant lot and then the neighborhood. There was something eerily familiar about it. “What number is this?” I asked.

“Nineteenth Street.”

Now I knew where I was. The old baseball stadium had been a block away. Connie Mack Stadium. Where the park had been was now a big modern brick church, like a giant McDonald’s, but when it had still been a ballyard my grandfather had brought me there to watch the Phillies play. He called it Shibe Park, its old name. We’d sit in the bleachers and chant, “Go Phillies Go,” and watch Willie Mays beat the hell out of the home team. Richie Allen and Clay Dalrymple, Jim Bunning and Johnny Callison. And Gene Mauch sitting in the dugout, his dark face in the pained squint that became permanent after the team collapsed in ’64. But what I remembered right then was not just the baseball but the young boy holding his grandfather’s hand, walking past the parked cars on 20th Street to get into the park. How had he become me?

“Where’s the rest of the money?” I asked, suddenly tired of the dog-and-pony show, tired of Jimmy Moore’s self-righteousness. “The missing quarter-million.”

“I don’t know,” he said, his arm spreading over his vacant lot. “But it’s going to end up here, I’ll make damn sure of it, and in the others we will build. I’m working on it as we speak.”

“Mr. Raffaello wants his share.”

“Not a penny,” he shouted. “They sell their poison right under his nose and it’s fine so long as he gets his cut. He’s a disgrace. I’d sooner die.”

“I’m sure he could arrange it.”

“Let him try. If he wants a war that’s what he’ll get.” He pointed a thick finger at me. “I’m ready to take him on and take on anyone else who gets in my way. We’re going to fill this vacant lot and fourteen like it with facilities that will heal a generation. It is my mission, and I will do anything to protect it. Anything. My mission is all I have left to care about now.”

I guess it all was getting to me, the false nobility, the lies, the inevitable bribes, a deal here, a settlement there, a position on an influential board. Was it so clear that I could be bought, was a “FOR SALE” sign printed on my face, unmistakable above my watery eyes. I hated it, especially here, where I felt haunted by the little shoe merchant and the young boy holding his hand. I couldn’t help my anger from bubbling out. Even so, I might have kept quiet if his prick hadn’t been so damned thick. But when he got all self-righteous on me I thought of the sight of him in that cold shower and I got even angrier and I said, “But that’s not the only thing to still care about, is it, councilman?”