Jan met Rapp's eyes and said, "She needs to be your ex-wife."

Badde suddenly sat up, almost spilling his coffee.

"Are you kidding?" he said, his voice almost squeaking. "Do you know what the hell that would cost me? I mean, not only in money. I'd lose political capital, too!"

"So? You don't want to do right by me? Make me an honest woman?"

"Yes! I mean, no!"

Jan put her hands on her hips and cocked her head. "Well, which is it?"

He sighed. "It's not that simple, honey."

"Don't goddamn 'honey' me, Rapp."

"It's just better this way. If I sued for divorce, a lot of things would change." He knew how much Jan liked living in the luxury high-rise, especially for free. "This condo would go away, for one."

She considered that a long moment.

"What if she sues you for divorce?"

"For what?"

"For infidelity. Everyone saw that photograph of us in Bermuda."

With more than a little confidence, if not arrogance, he shot back: "Pennsylvania courts don't give a shit about cheating. And my wife knows it. How do you think I got away with that photo being run?"

He saw Jan eye him more carefully.

Suspiciously.

Like that was painful proof that she ain't the first regular piece I've had on the side.

Or maybe not the last…

"I know because I asked," Rapp went on, more evenly. "My lawyer told me."

"Even if the photos are in flagrante delicto?"

"In what?"

"In the act, Rapp. Screwing."

"Oh. Yeah. Even that. I asked."

Now, why the hell did she ask that?

Would she go that low-send Wanda photos of us fucking-thinking she could become Mrs. Mayor instead?

"But she could sue for other reasons. Could even say you beat her, if she got mad enough to go after you."

He didn't say anything.

Jan quoted, "'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.'"

Badde sighed and said, "She won't."

"How can you be so sure?"

"She's got the Badde name, got all that money, and everything that comes with it. Why change?"

"What if she blows the whistle on PEGI?"

"Oh, now, that won't happen. She likes the money too much. Once you been broke, you don't ever want to go back. If all the padded payments from PEGI go, so do all those billable hours the Commonwealth Law Center gets from handling the business that will come from Volks Haus and Diamond Development. And she can kiss goodbye those big steady retainer checks Kwame Construction has paid from the start."

Jan looked at him a long moment and shook her head.

"Rapp, I'm telling you that wives get revenge for a lot of reasons. And they're not thinking about money when they do it."

"I'm telling you, she won't," he said smugly. "Look, we're kind of like the U.S. and Russia were with that Mutual Asset Deduction."

"The what?"

"You know, with missiles aimed at each other. To knock each other out. One fires, both sides are toast."

After a moment Jan figured it out, and corrected him: "Mutually Assured Destruction."

He looked at her and shrugged. "Same difference. If she tells on me, I tell on her, and away goes all her money and her license to practice law or anything else. It'd be suicide."

Their met eyes again.

Badde thought: And if you haven't realized it yet, honey, you and I are now in the same boat.

You know that kickbacks are funneled through Commonwealth, which also happens to be a nice contributor to my campaign for mayor.

And you're helping funnel them.

After a moment, she nodded. After a moment, she nodded.

"Okay. I guess you're right, Rapp. I sure hope so."

She pointed at a thin sheaf of papers stapled at the top left corner.

"The fed funds for PEGI, at least the low-income-housing matching dollars, were due here last week. As was the paperwork that turns over possession of the prison to PEGI and the Volks Haus Initiative. We need those funds before the next step there. We've already cut checks for the first empty properties in Northern Liberties-bulldozers began some demolition last week-and then we'll be cutting checks for those holdouts. Maybe the bulldozers will convince them it's time to take the money and move on, and we won't have to evict."

"And tell me again: What's the next step at Volks Haus?"

"Same as it was for the Diamond project." She handed him the thin sheaf of papers.

He glanced at the cover sheet. It had the expected familiar letterhead:

Commonwealth Law Center 1611 Walnut Street, Suite 840 Philadelphia, PA 19103

The law center office, he knew, was two floors below his accountant's office.

Below that was printed in large lettering:

Just Compensation and Measure of Damages

"Eminent domain has two stages," Jan said. "The first is to prove that it's legal to take property and, meeting that, the second is to determine a fair price for the property."

He nodded, then turned to page two of the document, a table of contents, and began reading: 26 Pa.C.S.A. # 701 Just compensation; other damages 26 Pa.C.S.A. # 702 Measure of damages 26 Pa.C.S.A. # 703 Fair market value

He felt his eyes start to glaze over, then scanned the rest, stopping at the last one: 26 Pa.C.S.A. # 716 Attempted avoidance of monetary just compensation

He tossed the papers back onto the table.

"Jesus, I'm glad I hired you to deal with this bullshit." He smiled at her, and when she smiled back, he added: "Hope we don't have any trouble with that last one. I mean, what's a fair price for abandoned buildings?"

"Condemned buildings," she corrected him. "The Supreme Court fixed that for us with the Kelo vs. City of New London decision. There won't be any Fifth Amendment problems with the properties."

Badde then motioned at a long cardboard tube on the table.

"Has the Russian seen the architect's drawings?"

"Yuri had his assistant personally messenger them over from the Diamond Development office in Center City."

She grinned slyly, then added, "You know, I think that messenger boy of his is really his concubine."

"His what?"

"His young lover, his concubine."

Rapp stared at her with an incredulous look. "You shitting me? What's a billionaire Russian businessman doing with something like that? I mean, I've seen him with some incredibly hot women."

She shrugged. "Female intuition."

"Maybe. Just don't say anything to him. He has a mean goddamn temper."

"Guess that's how you get to be a billionaire," Jan said as she pulled the large sheets of architectural drawings from the cardboard tube.

Badde got up from the chair and walked around the marble-topped table. As he stood behind Jan, looking over her shoulder at the architect's renderings for Volks Haus, his hands slipped down to her waist. He rested his chin on her shoulder as he squeezed her hips.

"Pay attention," she said.

"I am paying attention," he said as he buried his nose in her neck and inhaled her lightly scented perfume. "Attention to you. I'll pay even better attention with this fancy outfit of yours off…"

She giggled, then let her head drop back toward his. Just as she said, "I surrender," Badde's Go To Hell cell phone started ringing.

"Dammit!" Badde said, grabbing it and quickly checking the caller ID. It read UNKNOWN CALLER. "Dammit!"

He stepped back from Jan and started walking toward the sliding glass door to the balcony. "Yes?" he said into the phone.

The caller was yelling so loudly that Badde had to hold the phone away from his ear.

Jan could almost clearly hear what the caller was telling Badde: "Reggie's dead! They're coming after me!"