"So this is the community garden," he said, eyeing the lot. "Very pretty." His gaze fell on the unfinished left side, in the shade. "What are you going to plant there?"

Vicki cringed. It never failed, his always seeing the negative. She'd bring home four A's and a B, and he'd ask, Why the B?

"We're not planting anything there," Reheema answered. "We voted to make a place for the little kids. Put in one of those nice wooden playground sets and some wood chips underneath, so they don't get hurt if they fall."

"When are you going to install it?"

"When we get the money. Those wooden sets, they cost like two grand. The neighborhood's tapped out, after the dirt and the railroad ties, but we'll get it." Reheema nodded. "You know, this garden wouldn't have come about without your daughter, Mr. Allegretti. I was just telling your wife, Vicki's the one who got the crack dealers out of here."

"Please," Vicki said, reddening, but Reheema ignored her.

"Vicki saved this block, this whole neighborhood. She should get all the credit."

Her mother smiled, tightly. "We were so worried about her, we didn't appreciate the good she was doing. Maybe we were too worried."

"No, you shoulda been worried!" Reheema laughed. "If she were my daughter, I woulda been worried sick! You wouldn't believe the trouble we got ourselves into, the newspapers only had half the story. She's a real badass, your daughter!"

Hoo boy.

"She gets it from me," her mother said, her smile relaxing, and Vicki laughed, surprised.

But her father didn't reply and kept looking at the garden. Reheema seemed to run out of steam, uncharacteristically speechless. The moment was so awkward that Vicki stepped in to fill the silence.

"Thanks for the tour," she said. "We should probably get going. Congratulations on the garden."

"Thanks, take care."

"Yes, congratulations," her mother said, hugging Reheema briefly. Then she looped an arm around Vicki and they walked onto the sidewalk.

Her father didn't join them but lingered at the entrance to the garden.

"Dear?" her mother asked, and Vicki turned.

"In a minute," her father said quietly, then looked at Reheema. "I'd like to help you with the playground."

"I don't understand," Reheema said, and neither did Vicki.

"I'd like to send you a check, for the playground. I'll make it out for three thousand dollars, to cover the cost of the playset and the mulch. If you need more, you'll let me know."

"You don't have to do that, Mr. Allegretti," Reheema said, with a puzzled smile. "You don't have any responsibility for the garden. You don't even live here."

"I did once, and Victoria's right, part of me always will."

Whoa! Vicki thought, astounded. She would have hugged him but she wasn't sure he'd taken his Pravachol.

"Well. Okay." Reheema broke into a grin. "Mr. Allegretti, thank you so much, from the whole neighborhood."

"You're welcome," her father said, turning to Vicki with a new smile. "Come on, Devon. I'm taking my girls out to dinner."

"You got it," Vicki said, happily surprised, and the three of them turned to walk up Cater Street.

"That was a wonderful gesture, Victor," her mother whispered, taking her father's hand, and he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

Vicki felt her spirits lift, walking behind the two of them. Maybe Dan had been right that night in the hospital. Maybe she just had to accept her father the way he was. And think out loud at every opportunity. Like now:

"Dad, I can't get over it. You said I was right. In front of witnesses."

Her father turned, smiling. "I won't make a habit of it."

"I hope not." Then Vicki got an idea. "Hey, now that we're all in the love mood, can we go to an Olive Garden for dinner?"

"No," her parents answered, in unison.

And Vicki laughed.

AUTHOR'S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I don't know what other authors do for fun, but I eat saturated fats, ride Buddy the Pony, and watch trials at the federal courthouse, where, in my ex-life, I worked as a lawyer. Not long ago I wandered into a courtroom and found myself watching a jury trial for crack-cocaine trafficking against members of one of the most violent gangs in Philadelphia history. I had seen only five minutes of the testimony before ideas and characters started to flow, and I knew I had a novel. In fact, the next morning I woke up with the first line of Devil's Corner. That has never happened before, and I'm hoping it happens again. Every year for the next ten years.

The case was United States v. Williams, and it was a piece of a much larger prosecution, United States v. Carter, et al. The 135-count indictment in United States v. Carter, et al., is almost as thick as this book, and names thirty-seven defendants, charging, inter alia, conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine, use of a firearm during commission of drug crime, and employing children to distribute drugs near schools and playgrounds. For the next few weeks at trial, I had an eye-opening lesson in crime and justice in a major American city, which happens to be my hometown.

You may recall that the crack cocaine trade reached peak levels in cities in the late 1980s, when it got more media attention than any narcotic deserves. But now that the spotlight has departed, crack trafficking has become business as usual, and unfortunately for all of us, stabilized at very high levels in major American cities, becoming a fixture in the urban landscape and bringing with it a continuous supply of crime and violence, tearing apart neighborhoods and families. As part of its Pulse Check program, the Office of National Drug Control Policy monitors crack cocaine trafficking and its effects in twenty-five major American cities: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Sacramento, St. Louis, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa/St. Petersburg, and Washington, D.C. According to the most recent Pulse Check, of January 2004, crack abuse and trafficking are now infecting formerly "nice" neighborhoods in these cities and, inevitably, moving beyond the city into the suburbs. Also, crack is more frequently being traded for guns, stolen merchandise, drug-buying services, and sex than during the past ten years, though cash remains eternal. The effects on the quality of life, and of death, are profound, and they affect our country as a whole.

I wanted to deal with those themes in Devil's Corner, and I picked the brains of many experts, most of them involved in some way with U.S. v. Williams, to give this story its verisimilitude. Of course, any and all mistakes or misinterpretations are mine. The prosecution in U.S. v. Williams was steered by the experienced, able, and remarkably kind Rich Lloret Esq., of the U.S. Attorney's Office, working with his colleague AUSA Kathy Stark Esq., and super-dedicated them Special Agent Anthony Tropea, Special Agent Steve Bartholomew, and as luck would have it, Special Agent Mike Morrone, whose wife, Marcelle, is an old friend of mine. I should make the obvious clear before I go further: I admire these people, not only for their intelligence and skill, but for their dedication and service to the public. I don't think we know enough about the amazing job they do, or the many sacrifices they make for all of us. But the characters in this book are not them, or "real" in any sense whatsoever, and this story isn't based on U.S. v. Williams or U.S. v. Carter. No truly original novel duplicates court cases or is "ripped from" today's headlines. Any fiction worth reading (or writing) comes from the imagination, and heart.