W. Griffin: Deadly Assets

Broad Street and Erie Avenue, North Philadelphia

Monday, December 17, 8:45 P.M.

Matt Payne impatiently squeezed past the small groups of passengers that had just gotten off the subway train cars of the Broad Street Line, and moved with purpose down the tiled concourse toward the exit.

The muscular twenty-seven-year-old was six feet tall and a solid one-seventy-five. His chiseled face had a two-day scrub of beard. Behind black sunglasses, dark circles hung under sleep-deprived eyes.

He wore a Philadelphia Eagles ball cap and a gray hooded sweatshirt with the red TEMPLE UNIVERSITY logotype. Concealed inside the waistband of his blue jeans, at the small of his back, was an Officer’s Model Colt.45 ACP semiautomatic pistol. And in his back pocket, in a black leather bifold holder, were his badge and the Philadelphia Police Department-issued card identifying him as a sergeant of the Homicide Unit.

Taking the subway, which Payne had boarded at the City Hall station after paying the $2.25 fare, hadn’t been his first-or his second-choice. But considering his options at the time, it had seemed the fastest.

And with leads in the killings all but dried up, he had no time to waste.

After exiting the concourse, he took the steps, two at a time, up to street level, then started across the deep gray slush of snow and melted ice that covered the sidewalk.

At the newsstand shack on the southeast corner of Erie and Broad, he quickly tugged a newspaper from a stack topped with a chunk of red brick, stuffing it beneath his left arm, then peeling from his money clip a pair of dollar bills. He handed the cash to the attendant-a heavily clothed elderly black man with leathery hands and a deeply wrinkled face and thin beard-and gestured for him to keep the change.

Payne turned and glanced around the busy intersection.

The storefronts were a blend of bars and fast-food chain restaurants, banks and pharmacies, barbershops and convenience stores. Payne thought that the facades of the aged buildings, as well as the streets and sidewalks, looked much like he felt-tired, worn out.

On Erie, halfway down the block, Payne saw the coffee shop he was looking for-tall stenciled lettering in black and red on its front window read THE DAILY GRIND-then grunted.

On the second floor, above the diner, was a small, locally owned bookstore that had signage advertising WE SHIP TO PRISONS. Directly across the street, a new billboard on a rooftop had in bold lettering REPORT CRIME TIPS! LEX TALIONIS PAYS CASH REWARDS UP TO $20,000-800-LEX-TALN, and, in a strip along the billboard’s bottom, the wording MAKE A DIFFERENCE-BECOME A PHILADELPHIA POLICE OFFICER next to a photograph of the smiling faces of attractive young women and men attending the police academy.

Payne walked quickly to The Daily Grind.

As he pulled on the stainless steel handle of the diner’s glass door, then started to step inside, he almost collided with a grim-faced heavyset Latina in her twenties carrying three waxed paper to-go coffee cups. He made a thin smile, stepped back, made a grand sweep with his free arm for her to pass through the doorway first, then went inside.

It was a small space, permeated by the smell of fried grease and coffee. The only seating was at a stainless steel countertop at the back that overlooked the open kitchen. Elsewhere, customers could stand at the nine round high-top tables and at the worn wooden counter that ran at chest height along the side walls and the front windows.

There were just two customers now, both older men who were seated at opposite ends of the back counter and busy with their meals. An enormous coal-black man in his forties, wearing a grease-stained white apron tied over jeans and a sweaty white T-shirt, stood stooped at the gas-fired grill, his large biceps bulging as he methodically worked a long-handled wire brush back and forth. Flames flared up with each pass.

The cook stopped, looked over his shoulder, saw Payne, called out, “Hey, man, he’ll be right with you,” then turned back to scrubbing the grill.

At the far right end of the counter, under a sign reading ORDER HERE/PAY HERE that hung from the ceiling tiles by dust-coated chains, was the cash register. And just beyond it was a faded emerald green wooden door with TOILET FOR PAYING CUST ONLY!! that appeared to have been handwritten in haste with a fat-tipped black ink permanent marker.

The bathroom door began to swing open, and a brown-skinned male in his late teens stepped out, drying his hands on a paper towel.

Daquan Williams was five-foot-eight, extremely thin, and, under a ball cap with THE DAILY GRIND in stenciled letters across its front, his shoulder-length wavy reddish-brown hair was tied back with a rubber band. He wore black jeans and a tan T-shirt that was emblazoned with a coarse drawing of the Liberty Bell, its crack exaggerated, and the wording PHILLY-NOBODY LIKES US amp; WE DON’T CARE.

The teenager made eye contact with Payne, nodded just perceptibly, then looked away as he went to the rack of coffeepots. He pulled a heavy china mug from a pyramid-shaped stack, filled it with coffee, then carried it to Payne, who now stood by a window in the front corner of the shop, opposite the door, watching the sidewalk traffic over the top edge of the newspaper as he casually flipped its pages.

The teenager placed the steaming mug on the wooden counter beside a wire rack containing packets of cream and sugar.

“Thanks, Daquan,” Payne said, then yawned widely as he reached for the coffee. “I really need this.”

He held out a five-dollar bill.

Daquan didn’t take it. He nodded toward the enormous cook cleaning the grill.

“Boss man say you don’t pay,” he said, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard.

“I appreciate that, but I like to pay my way.”

Payne put the money on the counter, then sipped the coffee.

Daquan nodded. He took the bill.

Payne glanced at Daquan’s left ear. What looked like a new diamond stud sparkled in the lobe. Payne considered mentioning it, but instead gently rattled the newspaper cover page.

“So,” Payne said quietly, “what do you know on this hit?”

Daquan’s eyes shifted to the front page of the newspaper, and his facial expression changed to one of frustration.

The photograph showed, behind yellow tape imprinted with POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS, two members of the medical examiner’s office standing at the rear of a white panel van. They were in the process of lifting through the van’s back doors a gurney holding a full body bag. Splashed across the image was the headline: #360. ANOTHER MURDER, ANOTHER RECORD.

The teenager, head down, quickly turned on his heel and marched to the cash register. He punched in the coffee, made change, then carefully closed the cash drawer as he scanned the front door and windows. Then, from beneath the register, he pulled out the busboy cart and rolled it to the front of the diner.

“Your change,” he said in a normal voice, holding the money out to Payne.

“That’s your tip. Keep it.”

“Thanks.”

Daquan stuffed it in the front pocket of his jeans as he immediately turned his back to Payne. He busied himself clearing the small plates and cups from the nearest high-top table.

“What about the drive-by?” Payne pursued, again speaking quietly as he flipped pages.

“I really can’t say,” Daquan replied, almost in a whisper, without turning around.

“Can’t?” Payne said. “Or won’t?”

Daquan shrugged.

“Peeps talk, they get capped. That’s what happened to Pookie. Law of the street. That’s why I texted you now, after they came-”