Final Justice

TWELVE

Matt Payne awoke at five minutes to six. For a moment, he wondered why so damned early-he had two alarm clocks to make sure he was awakened at seven-and then he remembered some of what had happened the night before, and thought that might have something to do with it.

“Jesus Christ!” he said in wonderment, then went to his bathroom, which his father had described as being somewhat smaller than those found on old Pullman railroad cars.

He examined himself in the mirror over the toilet.

What the hell happened to my face?

He remembered.

Sliding along the concrete driveway in hot pursuit of the critter in the hot car who’d run the red light and slammed into the Caravan.

“Nevertheless, sir, minor facial blemishes aside, you look like the well-laid man of fame and legend!” he said aloud.

He smiled at the memories of other of the previous evening’s activities.

However, a moment later, when in an habitual act he reached inside the shower stall to open the faucet that would long moments later bring hot water all the way from the basement to the garret apartment, his hand really hurt him.

Shit! The goddamn-what did she say? — “puncture wound.”

When he came out of the shower, the damned thing still hurt, and it looked angry.

“Shit!”

He had two thoughts, one after the other.

Maybe Olivia would know what to do with it. Do I put a bandage on it? Soak it in hot water? What?

Maybe, if I called, she might say, “I’ll come by on my way to work and have a look at it.”

That’s a very interesting prospect.

He went naked and dripping into his bedroom-which his father also compared unfavorably to a sleeping compartment on an old Pullman car-and picked up his cellular from the bedside table, where it lay beside his Colt Officer’s Model. 45.

Twenty seconds later, a sleepy female voice said, “Lassiter.”

“Good morning.”

“Oh, God!”

“I was calling to inquire whether your schedule is free for breakfast.”

“Oh, God! What time is it?”

“A little after six.”

There was no immediate response.

“For reasons I can’t imagine, I’m ravenous,” Matt said.

“I don’t even want to think about breakfast,” Olivia said. “My God, Matt!”

“My God, what, Olivia?”

“I haven’t even had time to think, and you want breakfast?”

“Think about what?”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Everything!”

“What is there to think about?”

“You know I didn’t want that to happen.”

Oh, shit!

“Do I detect a slight tone of regret?”

“I didn’t say that, Matt,” Olivia said. “Oh, God!”

“May I infer, then, that it was not an entirely disappointing experience for you?”

Olivia giggled.

“Not entirely,” she said. “My God!”

“You keep saying ‘My God.’ ”

“I keep remembering what happened,” she said. “My God, I can’t believe I behaved like that!”

“For my part, it was an entirely delightful experience.”

“Was it?”

“Couldn’t you tell?”

“Oh, Matt! What are we going to do?”

“That brings us back to breakfast.”

“No. For one thing, I’m not hungry, and for another, I don’t want anyone to see us together.”

“Why not?”

“You know why not.”

“I don’t give a damn who sees us together. Anyway, we’re working together.”

“I do. I want to stay in Homicide.”

“Oh.”

“I need time to think, and if I see you, I won’t be able to think clearly.” She paused. “Matt, will you do me a big favor?”

“Name it.”

“Forget what happened last night.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that? It happened, and at the risk of repeating myself, I found it to be an entirely delightful experience.”

“I’m not saying it wasn’t,” she said. “My God, couldn’t you tell? What I’m saying is that I don’t want anybody even to guess about it until I can think about it, really think about it. Will you do that for me?”

“Whatever you say, Mother.”

“Thank you.”

“I suppose your having a look at my hand is entirely out of the question?”

“What’s wrong with your hand?” she asked.

That’s genuine concern in her voice.

“I believe you described it as a ‘puncture wound.’ ”

“And I also told you to stop at an emergency room on your way home. You mean you didn’t?”

“I seem to have forgotten that instruction. I must have had something else on my mind. Bleeding to death didn’t seem important at the time.”

“You’re bleeding now?”

More genuine concern.

He looked at his hand.

“No, but it looks unhealthy.”

“Matt, go to an emergency room, please. Right now. I’ll see you at work.”

“How about doing me a favor?”

“If you want me to come there, I will,” she said after a moment.

“What I want you to do is tell me now if you’re trying to… let me down gently.”

“Oh, God! If I was trying to dump you, kindly or otherwise, I would not have offered to come there.”

“You mean that?”

“You think last night was a one-night stand for me?”

“Oh, God, I hope not,” he said, and laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“I seem to have acquired your penchant for ‘Oh, God!’ ”

“Are you all right to drive with your hand?”

“Sure.”

“Then go to an emergency room and I’ll see you at work. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And we won’t look in each other’s eyes. Agreed?”

“With great reluctance.”

“Oh, God!” she said, and then there was the hiss that told him she had pressed the End key on her cellular.

Matt pulled the Porsche into the Emergency Trauma Center of Hahnemann Hospital on North Broad Street and parked beside a Sixth District wagon in the area with the sign POLICE AND EMERGENCY VEHICLES ONLY.

A man of about his age, wearing hospital greens and what looked like twenty-four hours of beard growth, stopped him as he was walking toward the hospital entrance.

He pointed wordlessly at the sign.

“I’m on the job,” Matt said, and pushed his jacket away from the badge on his belt with his sore hand.

“What did you do to the hand?”

“Fell over a fence,” Matt said.

The man waved his hand in a signal for Matt to follow him inside.

“You’re a doctor?” Matt asked.

“No, I wear this stuff because I like pastel colors.”

The paperwork didn’t take long.

The doctor was waiting for him in a treatment room.

“That’s nasty,” the doctor said. “Puncture wounds can be bad news. How’d you do it?”

“Going over a fence,” Matt said. “The top of the fence- the twisted ends of the wire?”

The doctor nodded. “Your tetanus up to date?”

“I suppose so.”

“Suppose doesn’t count,” the doctor said, as he opened a glass door in a white cabinet.

“This is going to hurt,” the doctor said.

It did.

And so did the injection of an antibiotic “as a precaution” in the other buttock.

“I hope you can shoot right-handed, Sherlock,” the doctor said. “For the next three, four days, that paw is going to be tender.”

“I’m right-handed. You going to put a bandage on it?”

“You want a bandage?”

“What I don’t want is people asking, ‘What did you do to your hand, it looks ghastly?’ ”

“I could paint the area with some lovely lavender antiseptic.”

“Just a simple large Band-Aid, please.”

“Okay. Why not?”

“Thank you.”

“You mind if I ask a couple of questions, Sherlock?”

“Shoot.”

“Why were you jumping over a fence?”

“I was chasing a guy who drove a stolen car through a red light and clobbered a family in a minivan.”

“You get him?”

Matt nodded.

“Good for you.”

“You said two questions.”

“Why did the cops stand around with their thumbs up their ass while that girl was being raped and murdered?”

Matt’s gluteus maximus began to ache as he got on the Roundhouse elevator. The doctor had said that both the tetanus booster and the antibiotic would probably cause “mild discomfort.”

The mild discomfort left his mind when he walked into Homicide and found that Detective Lassiter had already reported for duty. She was sitting at a desk with a telephone to her ear.

She was wearing a skirt and a double sweater. It didn’t matter. Her naked form was engraved forever in Matt’s mind.

She looked at him, then away.

“Already at it, Mother?” he said.

She looked at him, nodded, and then quickly looked away again.

“Captain wants to see you, Sergeant,” Detective Alonzo Kramer, a stocky, ruddy-faced, forty-three-year-old, said, pointing to Captain Quaire’s office.

Matt could see through the glass enclosure that Lieutenant Gerry McGuire, the commanding officer of Dignitary Protection, was with Quaire.

I wonder what that’s about?

Oh, shit! Stan Colt! I forgot all about that!

Quaire saw Matt coming and waved him into his office. “Good morning,” Matt said, politely.

“What happened to your face?” Quaire asked.

“I took a slide on a concrete driveway last night chasing a guy.”

Quaire gestured give me more with both hands.

“I almost had Lassiter home…”

“From where?” Quaire asked, smiling.

“From Liberties. Lieutenant Washington had us meet him there. And afterward, I took her home. She had to give her unmarked back to Northwest.”

“And what happened? Detective Lassiter didn’t do that to your face, did she, Sergeant?” Captain Quaire asked, mock seriously. He looked to see if Lieutenant McGuire shared his sense of humor. From his smile, it was obvious that he did.

“No, sir,” Matt said. “As we came down Knight’s Road, off Woodhaven, a fellow in a stolen Grand Am ran the Red Lion stoplight, rammed into a Dodge Caravan, and took off running.”

“I saw that in the overnights,” McGuire said. “I thought Highway bagged that guy. You got involved in that?”

“I saw it. I had to.”

Quaire made another give me more gesture with his hands.

“It happened right in front of us. Lassiter called it in, then checked the people in the van, and I started chasing the guy.”

“And he gave you trouble?” Quaire asked, now seriously. “The face?”

“No, sir. While I was chasing him, I took a dive over a wire and scraped my face on a driveway. Then I tried going over a fence, and bruised my hand.”

“But you got the guy?”

“Yes, sir. Eighth District locked him up. But I’m going to have to go to Northeast Detectives to give a Detective Coleman a full statement. He only got the initial details for the affidavit ^3 last night.

“Why didn’t you give your statement last night?” Quaire asked.

“I wanted to get some antiseptic on my face.”

“So why didn’t you do the paperwork last night, after you went to the emergency room and got some antiseptic on your face?”

“I didn’t go to the emergency room last night. I went to Hahnemann this morning.”

Quaire nodded.

“Consider yourself as of right now on temporary assignment to Dignitary Protection,” he said, and added, to McGuire: “Getting Sergeant Payne to Northeast Detectives Division to give his statement is now your responsibility, Lieutenant.”

“Thanks a lot,” McGuire said.

“Captain, can’t I get out of that?” Matt asked.

"Ask Lieutenant McGuire,” Quaire said. “You are now working for him.”

“I’m working the Williamson job,” Matt said.

“You are now working the Stan Colt job, Sergeant Payne,” McGuire said. “Mr. Colt, who will arrive at approximately three-fifteen, told Monsignor Schneider, who told the cardinal, who told the commissioner, who told me, that he’s really looking forward to working with you.”

“What does that mean?”

Quaire and McGuire smiled at each other.

“I think,” McGuire explained, smiling broadly, “that when the monsignor-who apparently is one of your biggest fans- spoke with Mr. Colt, he told him about your many heroic exploits. I think Mr. Colt heard that when Harrison Ford was preparing to make the movie Witness he came here to spend time with a real, live Philadelphia homicide detective…”

“Jesus Christ!” Matt said.

“… and has apparently decided that what was good enough for Harrison Ford is good enough for him.”

“Harrison Ford is an actor. Colt is a goddamn joke!”

“Don’t let the monsignor hear you say that,” Quaire said. “Much less the commissioner.”

“And for that matter, I have one day on the job in Homicide. I am hardly an experienced-”

“Lie down, shut up, and take this like a man, Matt,” Quaire said. “You’re dead. The commissioner has spoken.”

“It’s a dirty job, Sergeant, but someone has to do it,” McGuire said, smiling broadly.

Quaire chuckled. Matt glared at McGuire, who didn’t seem to notice.

“Mr. Colt,” McGuire went on, “will arrive by private jet at North Philadelphia Airport at three-fifteen. He will be met by the commissioner-or possibly the mayor, if he can get free; or both-Monsignor Schneider, myself, four Highway Patrol bikes, two of my people, representatives of the media, and of course you. Following what that good-looking press agent- What’s her name?”

“Terry Davis,” Matt furnished, automatically.

Jesus, Terry! She certainly dropped off my radar screen in a hurry after Olivia, didn’t she?

“-what Miss Terry Davis,” McGuire went on, “refers to as a ‘photo op,’ Mr. Colt and party will proceed-escorted by the Highway bikes-to the office of the cardinal, where there will be another photo op as the cardinal welcomes Mr. Colt back to Philadelphia…”

“He’s just a movie actor,” Matt said, shaking his head. “A lousy movie actor!”

“Who is about to raise several million dollars for West Catholic High School,” Captain Quaire said. “Which pleases the cardinal, and whatever pleases the cardinal pleases the commissioner.”

“… following which,” McGuire went on, “we will proceed to the Ritz-Carlton. Highway’s responsibility-the bikes- will end there. They’ll provide bikes to escort his limo to the events, but aside from that, it’s up to me to protect Mr. Colt from his hordes of fans, and you to keep him happy.”

“What makes him happy is young girls,” Matt said.

“Excuse me, Sergeant?” Quaire asked, coldly.

“Mr. Colt apparently likes young girls,” Matt said. “Very young girls.”

“Did you get that from one of the magazines in a supermarket checkout lane, or do you have another source of information? ” Quaire asked, sarcastically.

“Terry Davis told me,” Matt said. “I think she wants us to be prepared for that.”

“Oh, God!” Quaire said. “She wasn’t pulling your leg, Matt?”

“No, sir. I’m sure she was serious.”

“That should make this interesting for you, Gerry,” Quaire said.

“I don’t know how to handle something like that,” Matt said.

“We’ll just have to sit on him around the clock,” McGuire said. “If something like that gets in the papers, we’ll be held responsible.”

“He wants to see how real cops work,” Quaire said. “Show him. Everything from school crossing guards up. Keep him busy.”

“He’s going to want to see what he thinks is interesting,” Matt said. “Narcotics, Major Crimes, Homicide…”

“Vice,” McGuire said, chuckling.

“I wouldn’t be laughing if I were you, Gerry,” Quaire said. “And I don’t want him around here.”

“With all respect, sir, how do I tell him no?” Matt said.

Quaire thought that over before replying.

“If it happens, Matt, it happens. You know how I feel about it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’re going to get some help from Special Operations?” Matt asked.

McGuire nodded.

“Sure.”

“Do we know who?”

“Somebody special you wanted?”

“Detectives McFadden and Martinez,” Matt said.

“Mutt and Jeff?” Quaire asked. “Dignitary Protection isn’t quite their specialty, is it?”

Detective Jesus Martinez, who was of Puerto Rican ancestry, and who was five feet eight inches tall and weighed just over one hundred thirty pounds, and Detective Charles T. McFadden, who was six feet two and outweighed Martinez by a hundred pounds, had been partners since they had graduated from the Police Academy.

The first assignment for nearly all academy graduates was to a district, and almost always to a district wagon, where for their first year or so on the job, they learned the nuts and bolts of being a police officer on the street by responding with the wagon to assist other officers in everything from hauling Aunt Alice to the hospital after she’d fallen in her bathtub, to hauling drunks and other violators of the peace and dignity of the City of Brotherly Love to the district lockup.

Almost routinely, however, two brand-new police officers were assigned to work undercover in the Narcotics Division. McFadden and Martinez were chosen for the assignment in the hope that few drug dealers would suspect either the small, intense Latino or the large, open-faced South Philadelphia Irishman of being police officers when they tried to make a buy of controlled substances.

McFadden and Martinez quickly proved themselves to be very adept at what they were assigned to do. But their superiors realized it was only going to be a matter of time until they became known to the drug trade generally-in other words, their appearance in court to testify against the drug dealers- and would lose their usefulness.

At this point, it was expected the young officers would be assigned to a district and start driving the district wagon.

Something else happened: McFadden and Martinez had- on their own, off-duty-joined the citywide search for the junkie who had shot Captain Dutch Moffitt, of Highway Patrol, to death. In the belief that Gerald Vincent Gallagher would be somewhere in the area, they staked out the Bridge and Pratt Street terminal of the subway.

When Gallagher had finally shown up, he refused to obey their order to halt and had run off down the subway tracks. McFadden and Martinez-already known as “Mutt and Jeff,” after the cartoon characters-had chased him, ignoring the danger, down the tracks until Gallagher fell against the third rail and then got himself run over by a subway train.

In the movies, or in cops-and-robbers programs on TV, with the mayor and assorted big shots beaming in the background, the commissioner would have handed them detective badges and congratulations for a job well done. But this was real life, and promotions to detective in the Philadelphia police department came only after you had taken, and passed, the civil service examination. Martinez and McFadden hadn’t been on the job long enough even to be eligible to take the examination.

And their sudden celebrity-their faces had been on the front pages of every newspaper in Philadelphia, and on every TV screen-had of course completely destroyed their usefulness as undercover Narcotics officers.

It had looked as if their reward for catching the junkie who’d shot Captain Dutch Moffitt-something the rest of the police department hadn’t been able to do for an embarrassingly long period-was going to be reassignment to driving a wagon in a district.

It didn’t seem fair, but who said a cop’s life was fair? Life’s a bitch, and then you die.

At the same time, Cadet Matthew M. Payne, Captain Moffitt’s nephew, had been about to graduate from the Police Academy. In the opinion of then-Chief of Patrol Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, the chances that Matt Payne would last six months on the job-much less that the police department would be his career-ranged from zero to zilch.

Coughlin believed that Matt-whom he had known from the day of his birth-had reacted to (a) the death of his uncle and (b) his failure of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Pre-Commissioning Physical Examination by applying for the police department to (a) avenge his uncle and (b) prove his manhood.

It was understandable, of course, but the bottom line was that a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, who had been raised not only in wealth but as the adopted son of a Philadelphia Brahmin, was very unlikely to find happiness walking a police beat. Worse, he was liable to get hurt.

Sergeant Dennis V. Coughlin had knocked at the door of his best friend’s pregnant wife to tell her that Sergeant Jack Moffitt had been killed responding to a silent alarm at a gas station in West Philadelphia.

Chief Inspector Coughlin had no intention of knocking at the door of Mrs. Patricia Moffitt Payne to tell her that her son-Jack’s son, his godson-Matt, had been killed in the line of duty.

And all of this had coincided with the formation, at the “suggestion” of the then-mayor of the City of Philadelphia, the Hon. Jerome H. “Jerry” Carlucci, of the Special Operations Division of the police department.

Mayor Carlucci, who boasted that he had held every rank in the Philadelphia police department except for policewoman, had not been at all bashful about making suggestions about the department to then-Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernich.

Mayor Carlucci had also “suggested” to Commissioner Czernich that he consider Staff Inspector Peter F. Wohl, then assigned to Internal Affairs, to be the commanding officer of the new Special Operations Division. Commissioner Czernich had immediately seen the wisdom of the suggestions, and issued the appropriate orders.

Peter Wohl was then the youngest staff inspector-ever- in the department. It was well-known that his father, Chief Inspector (Retired) August Wohl, had been Jerry Carlucci’s rabbi as the mayor had risen through the ranks. But it was also well-known that Peter Wohl was a hell of a good cop, an absolutely straight arrow, and smarter than hell, so the cries of nepotism were not as loud as they might have been.

Coughlin, the then-chief inspector, had solved the problem of what to do with Officers Martinez, McFadden, and Payne by ordering their assignment to Special Operations.

In a private chat with then-Staff Inspector Wohl, he suggested that in his new command Wohl would probably be able to find places where Officers Martinez and McFadden could be useful in plainclothes, and that Officer Payne could probably make himself useful as Wohl’s administrative assistant, until he realized the mistake he had made by coming on the job, and quit and got on with his life.

Wohl had accepted Coughlin’s suggestions with as much alacrity as the commissioner had accepted the mayor’s suggestions. He was wise enough to know that he had very little choice in the matter. His rabbi had spoken.

Finding useful employment for Martinez and McFadden had posed no problem. Wohl had been pleasantly surprised how well they had performed in interviews with suspects. Between them, they had seemed to know when they were not being told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and then one or the other of them had been able to get it.

When they played Good Cop/Bad Cop, Martinez had been very effective as the frightening arm of the law, and McFadden, despite his size, as the kindly young Irishman who understood what had happened and wanted only to help.

Officer Payne had, not surprising Wohl, been an efficient administrative assistant-sort of a male secretary-from the first day. Wohl, who agreed with Chief Coughlin that Payne would leave the job just as soon as he realized that he really belonged in law school, as the next step on the ladder to an eventual partnership in Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo amp; Lester, arguably Philadelphia’s most prestigious law firm, was surprised to realize that he was actually going to miss him when he was gone.

When a serial rapist began to operate in the Northwest, and Northwest Detectives had difficulty finding him-and this difficulty was gleefully reported daily in the press-Mayor Carlucci had been very unhappy. When the rapist killed one of his victims, triggering even more scornful journalistic comment, Mayor Carlucci called a press conference and announced that henceforth the investigation would be handled by the newly formed Special Operations Division.

It was good press, but the reality was that Wohl’s Special Operations Division was less qualified to conduct the investigation than Homicide was, and Wohl, who had been a homicide detective, knew it.

Homicide had assigned the two best Homicide detectives, Jason Washington and his partner, Tony Harris, to the job. Wohl, with the assistance of Chief Coughlin, arranged-over their bitter objections-the transfer of Washington and Harris to Special Operations. Once they had reported for duty, Wohl assigned Officer Payne to the job. Payne was told that his duties were to relieve Washington and Harris of as many administrative details as possible, and to report to Wohl at least once a day-more often if necessary-of how the investigation was proceeding.

It was, Wohl thought, a really useful thing for Payne to be doing before he left the job.

It never occurred to Wohl, Washington, or Harris that Payne would do anything but run errands. Everyone understood that despite the badge on his belt and the. 38 “Detective’s Special” snub-nosed revolver in his shoulder holster, he wasn’t really on the job.

He was a really nice college boy, and Denny Coughlin’s god-son, and Coughlin had given him to Peter Wohl to sit on, out of harm’s way, until he realized he wasn’t cut out to be a cop.

When Wohl told Coughlin that he had given Payne to Washington and Harris as a gofer, Coughlin had smiled.

“Twenty years from now, he will fondly remember his days as a Homicide officer,” Coughlin said.

Four days after Officer Payne went to work as Washington’s and Harris’s gofer, the following story appeared on page one of the Philadelphia Bulletin:

NORTHWEST SERIAL RAPIST-MURDERER KILLED BY “HANDSOME” SPECIAL OPERATIONS COP AS HE RESCUES KIDNAPPED WOMAN BY MICHAEL J. O’HARA BULLETIN STAFF WRITER

Officer Matthew Payne, 22, in what Mayor Jerry Carlucci described as an act of “great personal heroism,” rescued Mrs. Naomi Schneider, 34, of the 8800 block of Norwood Street in Chestnut Hill, minutes after she had been abducted at knifepoint from her home by a man the mayor said he is positive is the man dubbed the Northwest Serial Rapist.

The man, tentatively identified as Warren K. Fletcher, 31, of Germantown, had, according to Mrs. Schneider, broken into her luxury apartment as she was preparing for bed. Mrs. Schneider said he was masked and armed with a large butcher knife. She said he forced her to disrobe, then draped her in a blanket and forced her into the rear of his Ford van and covered her with a tarpaulin.

“The next thing I knew,” Mrs. Schneider said, “there was shots, and then breaking glass, and then the van crashed. Then this handsome young cop was looking down at me and smiling and telling me everything was all right, he was a police officer.”

Moments before Officer Payne shot the kidnapper and believed rapist-murderer, according to Mayor Carlucci, the man had attempted to run Payne down with the van, slightly injuring Payne and doing several thousand dollars’ worth of damage to Payne’s personal automobile.

“Payne then, reluctantly,” Mayor Carlucci said, “concluded there was no choice but for him to use deadly force, and he proceeded to do so. Mrs. Schneider’s life was in grave danger and he knew it. I’m proud of him.”

Mayor Carlucci, whose limousine is equipped with police short-wave radios, was en route to his Chestnut Hill home from a Sons of Italy dinner in South Philadelphia when the rescue occurred.

“We were the first car to respond to the ‘shots fired’ call,” the mayor said. “Officer Payne was still helping Mrs. Schneider out of the wrecked van when we got there.”

Payne, who is special assistant to Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, commanding officer of the newly formed Special Operations Division, had spent most of the day in Bucks County, where the mutilated body of Miss Elizabeth Woodham, 33, of 300 East Mermaid Lane, Roxborough, had been discovered by State Police in a summer country cottage.

Miss Woodham was abducted from her apartment three days ago by a masked, knife-wielding man. A Bucks County mail carrier had described a man meeting Mr. Warren K. Fletcher’s description and driving a maroon Ford van, identical to the one in which Mrs. Schneider was abducted, as being at the cottage where her body was discovered. Police all over the Delaware Valley were looking for a similar van.

Payne, who had been assigned to work as liaison between ace Homicide detectives Jason Washington and Anthony Harris and the Special Operations Division, had gone with Washington to the torture-murder scene in Bucks County.

He spotted the van in the early hours of this morning as he drove to the Chestnut Hill residence of Inspector Wohl to make his report before going off duty.

“He carefully appraised the situation before acting, and decided Mrs. Schneider’s very life depended on his acting right then, and alone,” Mayor Carlucci said. “She rather clearly owes her life to him. I like to think that Officer Payne is typical of the intelligent, well-educated young officers with which Commissioner Czernich and I intend to staff the Special Operations Division.”

Payne, who is a bachelor, recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He declined to answer questions from the press.

After that, Chief Coughlin was no longer quite so sure that Officer Payne would soon resign from the police department. And he didn’t.

“Captain,” Sergeant Payne said now, “those two can do anything they’re asked to do.” He looked at Lieutenant McGuire. “I’d really like to have them.”

“Wohl said ‘anything we think we need,’ ” McGuire said. “Let’s see if he meant it.”

He asked permission with his eyes to use Captain Quaire’s telephone. Quaire nodded. McGuire punched in numbers.

“Lieutenant McGuire for Inspector Wohl, please.”

Then he reached to Quaire’s phone and pushed the Speaker button.

Peter Wohl’s voice came somewhat metallically over the speaker:

“Hey, Gerry, what can I do for you?”

“Inspector, you said I could ask for anything for the Stan Colt job.”

“My toothbrush excepted, ask away.”

“Mutt and Jeff. They on something that won’t wait?”

“When and where do you want them, Gerry?”

“North Philadelphia Airport at three. Tell them to report to Sergeant Payne.”

“They’ll be there.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Any time.”

The line went dead.

“Why don’t you take Lassiter to Northeast Detectives now, and get that over with?” Quaire said.

“Yes, sir.”

“And then I’ll see you at the airport at three,” McGuire said.

“Yes, sir.”

Matt stood patiently by Olivia’s desk and waited until she finished talking on the telephone.

“I really appreciate that, Lieutenant,” she said. “We really want to get this guy.”

She put the handset in its cradle and looked up at Matt.

“Cincinnati Homicide,” she said. “Nice guy. Nothing that he can think of offhand, but he’s going to check around for me. What’s up?”

“Let’s go out to Northeast and get our statements out of the way,” Matt said.

She didn’t reply, but stood up, and took her purse from the desk drawer, and then waited for him to lead the way out of the office.

In the elevator, she asked, “What was going on in the captain’s office?”

“That was Lieutenant McGuire of Dignitary Protection,” Matt said. “He’s about to protect Stan Colt from his horde of fans.”

“And?”

“I’m going to help him,” Matt said.

“What’s that all about?”

The elevator door opened onto the lobby.

“I’ll tell you later,” he said, and held the keys to the Porsche out to her. “Follow me to my place, and I’ll dump the car there.”

It seemed for a moment as if she was going to object, but she finally took the keys without comment.

Matt drove the unmarked Crown Victoria into the basement garage first, pulled it into one of his slots, and got quickly out to show her where to park the Porsche.

When she opened the door, he was standing there. When she got to her feet, they were so close that he could feel her breath on his face.

He resisted the impulse to put his arms around her, but bent slightly, far enough down to kiss her.

“Oh, God!” she said. “I should have trusted my instincts.”

“About what?”

“About what you had in mind when you handed me the keys.”

“What I had in mind was getting the Porsche out of the Roundhouse lot before it got ticketed or boosted,” he said.

Her face told him she did not believe this at all.

“All the way here, I thought of reasons why I shouldn’t let you kiss me.”

“Which are?”

“I can’t remember,” she said, and they kissed again.

She looked into his eyes.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“Which question would get the desired response,” Matt said. “One, ‘Would you like to see my etchings?’ or two, ‘You want to come upstairs for a minute?’ ”

“You really have etchings?” she asked.

He nodded.

“If we go to your apartment, you know what will happen.”

“I hope I know what will happen.”

“I mean it will take longer than a minute.”

“The way I feel right now, I’m not sure it’ll take as long as a minute.”

“Oh, God!” Olivia said.

Olivia came out of Matt’s bathroom wearing his terry-cloth robe. He thought she looked adorable.

“Well, now we know, don’t we?” she asked.

“Know what?”

“That just beneath my nice girl surface there is a lewd, lascivious, and shameless slut.”

“Come on!”

She walked to the door and began picking her clothing up from the floor.

“I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I never have behaved like this in my life.”

“Yeah, I would,” he said.

“I don’t believe you, but thank you anyway.”

Matt’s cellular buzzed.

“Don’t answer it!” Olivia ordered.

Matt picked it up.

“Payne,” he said, then, a moment later, “Hold one.”

He shoved the telephone under a pillow on the bed.

“I asked you not to answer that,” Olivia said.

“It was more like an order, but I have worked for Peter Wohl for five years, and have developed an uncontrollable Pavlovian response to my phone ringing: Answer it immediately.”

“That’s Inspector Wohl?”

“No. It’s my regular girlfriend.”

He could tell by her face that she could not quite make up her mind whether to believe him or not.

“You want me to go in the bathroom and give you a little privacy?”

“No. Come and eavesdrop,” he said. “You’ll probably find it interesting.”

She headed for the bathroom.

“Hey!” Matt called. “Here!”

He pointed to the bed.

She didn’t move.

He took the cellular out.

“Detective McFadden,” he said. “It warms the cockles of my heart to hear your voice.”

He pointed to the bed again, and Olivia came and sat gingerly on the edge. He moved the cellular away from his ear so that she could hear.

“Matt, what the fuck’s going on?” Detective McFadden demanded.

“You mean right now?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m in bed with a beautiful, almost naked woman.”

Olivia pinched Matt painfully on his inner thigh.

“I wouldn’t put it past you, you bastard.” McFadden chuckled. “I mean, Dignitary Protection at the North Philly Airport at three o’clock. Wohl just told me.”

Matt responded to the pinch of his thigh by reaching into Olivia’s robe and taking her nipple between his fingers.

“You wouldn’t dare!” she whispered furiously.

“You and Man Mountain Martinez have been selected to assist Lieutenant McGuire and his staff, and me, in the protection of Mr. Stan Colt, the movie star…”

“What?” McFadden challenged incredulously.

Matt let go of Olivia’s nipple, then kissed the fingers that had held it with appreciation. Olivia shook her head in resignation.

“With particular emphasis on protecting Mr. Colt from himself.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“He likes very young girls, Charley. We are going to see that he doesn’t get any while he’s in town.”

“You’re not pulling my chain, are you?” McFadden asked, seriously.

“No. If there is an… incident, we are all up that famous creek without a paddle.”

“How the hell did you get involved in this?”

Matt started to push his robe from Olivia’s shoulders. She stiffened, but then relaxed and then shrugged out of it.

“Colt is here to raise money for West Catholic High-”

“I saw that in the paper,” McFadden interrupted.

Matt raised his head and kissed Olivia’s nipple.

She sighed. When he lay back down, she shook her head, tolerantly.

“-Monsignor Schneider, who’s the cardinal’s man for the visit, is a cop groupie. When Colt told him he would like to see real cops at work, Schneider thought of me and went to the commissioner, and I got stuck with it.”

“But why you?”

“Schneider thinks I was a real heroic cop in Doylestown,” Matt said after a perceptible pause.

“Oh, shit!” McFadden said, sympathetically.

Susan Reynolds’s sightless eyes came to Matt’s mind.

“Shit!” Matt said.

“What?” McFadden asked.

Olivia looked at him with concern, then touched his cheek to turn his head so that she could look in his eyes. Her eyes asked, “What?”

“Nothing,” Matt said. “Charley, I have to go…”

“The naked broad’s horny?”

“Absolutely. I’ll see you and Hay-zus at the airport at three.”

“Yeah,” Detective McFadden said, and hung up.

Matt tossed the telephone aside and looked up at Olivia. “A lot of people thought you acted heroically in Doylestown,” she said.

“That’s a joke. I didn’t even do the job right. If I had, Susan would still be alive.”

“ ‘Susan’? You were friends?”

“More than friends,” Matt said.

“I saw you crying on TV,” she said. “I wondered.”

He looked at her but didn’t say anything.

“You know what I feel like doing to you right now?” she said.

“I’m yours! And I love your imagination.”

“I feel like putting my arms around you and holding you and telling you that everything’s going to be all right.”

“That isn’t exactly what I thought you had in mind.”

“Can I?” Olivia asked.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment.

She leaned toward him and he half sat up, and she put her arms around him and held him to her breast.

They stayed that way for perhaps three minutes, and then Olivia glanced down at the sheet covering his groin.

“You horny sonofabitch,” she said, wonderingly.

“Is that a complaint?”

She pushed him away from her breast and back onto the bed and looked down at him for a moment before shaking her head, “no.”

Fifteen minutes later, they got into the unmarked Crown Victoria and rode out to the Northeast Detectives Division and gave their statements.