What Happened to the Bennetts(69)

Retail level.

I separated the cards on the last row, presumably from the retail-level dealers, and took a look at the names and aliases. I realized I had to improvise, now that Hart and Contessa were dead. I would have to penetrate GVO, directly.

I turned to the box, dug under the folder, and found my new gun, an old Rossi revolver, .38 caliber, with a brown handle and a metal barrel. It felt heavy, and its steel chilled the palm of my hand. The gun had cost three hundred dollars, and the registration number underneath the barrel had been scratched off, which made it illegal.

I turned the gun in my palm, crossing a border for the first time. I was sitting in a cheap motel room in industrial Philadelphia, contemplating going into the belly of the beast.

No more playing it safe.

I turned the gun this way and that, then aimed it at the wall. A muscle memory came back to me. I had learned how to handle a rifle, growing up. I could shoot fairly well because we used to practice on cans. If I had to shoot, I could hit something.

I sat straighter, looking down the barrel. The sight was long and notched, and I imagined pulling the trigger in self-defense, or something darker. For the first time in my life, it didn’t seem impossible. I thought about Allison, but this time, instead of breaking my heart, it opened my eyes. I had to do whatever it took to get justice for her. To save my family. To free them from the program.

I set the gun on the bed and rose, thinking about my next move. I found myself walking to the window and eyeing the traffic on Delaware Avenue. My gaze found my car in the parking lot, next to a dirty white Hyundai with a Phillies decal on the bumper, peeling at the top.

I found myself looking at the decal. Underneath it looked as if there was the shadow of a dent, but it was really a dark shape where the Phillies decal had been. Random dirt stuck to the residual adhesive, like a shadow.

I thought of the dark blue BMW, with its odd vertical dent. Maybe it wasn’t a dent at all. Maybe it was a red P, for the Phillies. I flashed on the Phillies-themed flower arrangement on the lowest level of the display. It had been red roses in a baseball vase.

I crossed to the box of cards and picked up the card with a red Phillies logo. It was signed:

Condolences, from North Philly Phil

I put two and two together. The name of the BMW driver had to be North Philly Phil. I picked up my Tracfone and scrolled quickly to the court index. Now all I had to do was search the indictments for that alias to find the real name of the defendant.

I skimmed caption after caption. It didn’t take long to find Phillip Nerone, aka “North Philly Phil.” I scrolled to the White Pages and plugged in Phillip Nerone, but a flood of entries came up. I narrowed the search to Philadelphia and still got several screens. I skimmed them, scrolling through one page and the next, but none of the addresses was close enough to be the same Phil Nerone. I assumed he lived locally, so his address must not have been listed.

A plan began to form in my mind. I scrolled back to the court site and plugged in George Veria. I should be able to take the details from the indictments and use them to make maps of where GVO was doing business. It would take some doing, but it was the only lead I had.

I needed paper, a pen, and black coffee.

It was time for Plan B.





Chapter Forty-Three



I waited until after midnight to drive through New Cumberton, dismayed at how run-down the town had become. It had once been a thriving farming community, but the hay and soybean fields had been plowed under for developments. The jobs had evaporated, and it was too far to be a commuting suburb, so its future held little promise.

I figured it was as good a starting place as any to see if I could find the BMW driver, Phil Nerone. I had prepared for the trip all day, rereading every indictment, pleading, or opinion relating to GVO I could find. The most recent pleadings showed GVO had been concentrating its business in New Cumberton, and I could see why. The town was located right off of Route 202, with its own exit, so there was easy on-and-off for anybody buying drugs.

I drove quietly through the town, passing run-down brick rowhouses with old cars parked in front. Light glowed and TVs flickered from a few of the houses, but vacant ones remained dark, like missing teeth. Porches sagged, and windows and doors were barred. Streetlights were broken, and I was guessing it was intentional. Nobody on the street wanted a spotlight.

New Cumberton’s town proper was a ten-block area, its streets a grid pattern typical of the agricultural and mining towns around Philadelphia, modeled on the city itself. Townsend Street was the main drag, containing a pizza place, a Dollar Store, a tavern, a hoagie shop, and a Goodwill store. Everything but the pizza shop and the tavern was closed, and no one was on the street except on the corners, where young men hung out, laughing, smoking, and talking.

I watched cars stop on the corners, talk briefly to the young men, then cruise ahead. I no longer wondered why the drug business was booming, or why the dealers weren’t put away, because I knew the answer now. I lived the answer now. The justice system was broken.

I drove down Hunter Street, scanning the men on the corner. None of them were Phil Nerone or looked familiar, so I didn’t know if they weren’t GVO or simply hadn’t been at the funeral. I took a right onto Twenty-Seventh Street and kept driving, scanning the men selling drugs, then the faces of the drivers stopping by, just in case. No luck.

I got to the end of Twenty-Seventh and turned onto Price Street, and there was a large man on the street wearing a red Phillies ballcap, but it wasn’t North Philly Phil. I knew the big man watched me as I drove past because I could see the brim of the hat following me.