Dead End Street Read Online Free Page B

before two I was waiting in the lobby for my zealous escorts.

CHAPTER 3
    Tyrone and Cherisse arrived in a nondescript four-door sedan that had seen better days. I wondered if that was a reflection of their modesty, or recognition that we were headed for a neighborhood that would welcome a high-end car—for all the wrong reasons, like seeing it as a source of spare parts.
    North Philadelphia begins only a few blocks north of Market Street, which runs east to west and extends for miles. This I knew from looking at maps and reading the papers. I couldn’t recall that I’d ever set foot in any part of it, unless I was with someone who was most likely lost. It could be Mars for all its kinship to Center City. It is a slum, a ghetto, a blot on the city.
    Once upon a time, long, long ago, it had been a prosperous family neighborhood, full of tidy row houses that housed working-class people, and neighborhoods revolvedaround the factories, the churches, the union halls, the front stoops, and for some, the bars. Now, after the early families had fled to the suburbs, the factories had moved to China, and poorer minorities had moved in, it was known as the Badlands, or Killadelphia. Those guys we passed, standing on street corners, were drug dealers, and they weren’t hiding it. Much of the time the cops were part of the problem rather than the solution. Not only was there widespread corruption, but I’d read very recently that the US Justice Department had reviewed shootings by cops in the city and found that while New York’s population and police force were each five times larger than Philadelphia’s, Philadelphia had far more police shootings.
    And the Society owned a property smack in the middle of it. I was ashamed. And I had to do something about it.
    â€œIs it far?” I asked Tyrone, who was driving.
    â€œCloser than you might think. You didn’t find anything in your records?”
    â€œNot yet. I have my director of development looking into it, but I didn’t have much to work with. What is it you want me to look at here?” Apart from the poverty and crime and depressing ugliness.
    â€œWhat do you know about row house history?” Cherisse asked, turning in her seat to face me.
    â€œLess than I should, I’m sure. What can you tell me?”
    â€œShort version?” Cherisse asked. I nodded. “Row houses were built to accommodate a growing artisan and commercial population—you could call them early middle class,” she began. “They were built quickly—which is not the same as badly—and often left unfinished so that thepurchasers could add their own details. There were also a lot of row houses built as rentals, and they tended to be plainer. Usually three rooms deep, but narrow, with a small yard behind and an alley at the back between the rows. Front room was fancier, and that’s where the heat was. Dining room and kitchen behind—the kitchen was usually pretty small, more an ell than a room. Or even in the basement, sometimes. Upstairs, two bedrooms in the front, either side of the staircase, and a bathroom at the back, over the kitchen. That pretty much sums it up. That’s what you’ve got.”
    â€œI see.” I did—but I saw much more. I saw streets where vacant lots alternated with abandoned buildings interspersed with a few houses that looked like someone was living—or squatting—in them. People hanging around, watching any car that passed with suspicion. Trashed cars parked at clumsy angles to the sidewalks. A few scraggly trees, usually at the back of the properties, where they’d sprung up untended. It was possible to see that these houses had once been nice, or at least respectable, but not anymore. “Can you answer something honestly for me? Are you taking me along the worst possible route, or is this actually typical?”
    The two in the front seat exchanged glances. “Half and