Reheema nodded. "You mean, the teenage kids who shot your partner worked for the white van guy or his boss?"

"Yes."

"But why would they shoot the guy's girlfriend? 'Cause she was pregnant, to hurt him?" Reheema frowned, puzzled. "That man, Browning, he got enough kids already."

The fish-scale coke. Vicki made a judgment call and filled Reheema in, then concluded, "So the rival gang, if that's what they are, struck at Browning to steal his coke stash. They only killed Jackson because she was there, in the way."

"So it wasn't personal. Okay, I'm with you. Lotta business at stake." Reheema thought a minute. "Still doesn't say why your snitch set me up."

"No, it doesn't. That's an open question." Vicki made a mental note. "It must be a turf war." "And we walked into the middle." "Wonder if it's over Cater Street." "There's a thousand Cater Streets in this city." Vicki nodded. "At least we know it's directed at Browning." "Oh, it's directed, all right." Reheema laughed, but it was hollow. "The problem is that now we don't have anybody to follow back up the chain." "Unless the white van supplies from the same place." "Right." "How likely is that?" Reheema's eyes glittered under her cap. "Likely. It's the little guys that fight it out, block by block, brick by brick. The supplier doesn't care who moves his product." "So we gotta find the white van." "Us and Action News. And, oh yeah, the cops. A white work van with an American flag? No license plate? No sweat." "Hold on, I have an idea," Vicki said, her thoughts racing ahead. "Let's go."

Vicki sat in front of her desktop computer at home, wolfing down a Big Mac while Reheema ate a McDonald's shaker of salad over her shoulder, watching the screen.

"Okay, they're loaded," Vicki said, snapping in the photo card and clicking to slide show, and they both sat back and watched. The pictures, downloaded from her digital camera, started last night in the dark and played out like a short film with a miserably unhappy ending. A shot appeared of Browning and his driver digging the car out, almost pitch black, then bright shots of Browning's wife and son coming out of the house, getting in the car, and the photos continued all the way to the Toys "R" Us, with Reheema going in and out, then finally appearing with Browning, slipping on her cap and smiling at him.

Vicki clicked and pointed. "There, in the right corner. The front bumper of the white van."

"Got it."

"I thought it was waiting for a space. What an idiot."

"Keep going."

Vicki double-clicked and the slide show restarted, each picture dissolving into the next, in that corny way the software dictated, horribly inappropriate in context. The scene changed to a laughing Browning and Reheema, in close-up, cutting out the white van, and then the last shot caught the salesclerk going down, before Vicki had dropped the camera in horror.

"Sweet Jesus," Reheema said, and Vicki put down her sandwich, her stomach upset.

"Somebody has to stop these guys. This is just lawlessness. They're turning the city into the wild, wild West. No order, no justice. Only money and murder." It gave Vicki a second wind. She clicked though the slide show, searching. She had taken so many pictures, one had to have the driver of the white van. The van had been pointing out of the lot, ready to make a quick getaway, and the driver's side had been facing Vicki, full on. She'd been only half a lot away. She had to have him on film. She moved the mouse to the right corner of the photo, then clicked. The front end of the white van peeked onto the corner of the frame.

"Yes!" they both said.

"Gotcha, you animal." Vicki eyed a perfect shot of the driver's window, but it was small and dark.

"Can you make it bigger?"

"Watch and be amazed." Vicki moved the mouse to the toolbar and clicked away. Ten clicks later, her large Gateway monitor had a pixelated photo of the driver, dim but visible.

"All right, girl!"

"Thank you, thank you." Vicki scrutinized her handiwork. The photo was dim and too grainy to be perfect, but the features of the driver were clearly visible, and he was young and white.

"Ha!" Reheema snorted. "Ice, ice, baby."

"How does a white boy take over the trade on Cater, street level?"

"He doesn't show his face, that's how. He's the man who talks to the man. He has his boys do his dirty work." Reheema set down her salad.

The driver looked about twenty-five, his face young and unlined, with large, light eyes, maybe blue or hazel. His hair was shaved into a fade of a light hair, its color impossible to ascertain in this light. Next to him in the seat sat a shadow. Vicki couldn't make out the features of his accomplice.

"Now what do we do?"

"First thing, we get the photo to the cops. Philly, ATF, FBI, the whole alphabet."

"Show our hand?"

"No, not if we don't have to. I still need my job. And I have another lead I want to follow up." Vicki paused. "If I e-mail this, they'll know where it came from."

"Then what?"

"We do it the old-fashioned way." Vicki checked her watch. Three o'clock. Then she remembered. "They're having a meeting today at five with all the brass, about Morty's investigation."

"Goody."

"Just so they get started," Vicki said, and they both smiled. She hit Print. "Maybe this actual photo of the murderer will help?"

"Least we can do." Reheema laughed. "So what's the old-fashioned way? Drop it off and run like hell?"

"Bingo." But Vicki was thinking about that meeting, and what would happen when Dan came home.

THIRTY-TWO

It was cold and dark by the time Vicki and Reheema had finished their mail run, delivering enlargements of the white van driver to receptionists at the U.S. Attorney's Office, the FBI, ATF, Philly Homicide, and the four major news stations. They completed the task in disguise, having Reheema drop off where Vicki would be recognized and vice versa. Vicki had considered taking the next step in the Former Master Plan, but she was exhausted and wanted to find out from Dan how the big meeting had gone. And the shooting had taken a toll on Reheema, who seemed exhausted and had reverted to being remote. After a side trip for some groceries for each of them, they pulled up in front of Vicki's house.

"You sure you don't want to come in?" Vicki asked. "I'm feeling very domestic. I could make you a quick dinner."

"How would you explain me to your boyfriend?"

"Oh, right. I forgot." Vicki wasn't used to coming home to anything but bills.

"I'm wiped out, anyway. I'm gonna go home and make myself a nice chef salad."

"Didn't you have that for lunch?"

"If it comes in a glass, it ain't a salad."

Vicki had noticed Reheema shopping with a sharp eye on prices at the Acme. "Can I ask what you're doing for money?"

"Using the same green as you."

"You can't have much, after being in the FDC so long." Vicki was choosing her words carefully, especially because she was responsible for putting Reheema there. "And you have to pay bills, get the utilities on. You need infrastructure, right?"

"I'm okay for a while. After we're done, I'm gonna get a job."

"Not at Bennye's."

"God, no."

"Can I lend you some money?"

"No, I'm fine." Reheema stiffened, and Vicki regretted it instantly.

"Okay, just let me know. See you tomorrow morning, later, like nine, after Dan goes to work?"

"Fine."

"I'll let you know anything I find out."

"Good." Reheema faced front, nodding.

"Bye." Vicki got out of the Sunbird, retrieved her groceries from the backseat, and closed the door with a final slam, feeling oddly as if she had lost something.

A friend.

Or her innocence.

Vicki opened her front door on to a grinning Dan Malloy, standing on her front step in the frigid night, dripping calico cat, the animal's black-and-orange legs draped over his arm. "Well!"