Final Justice

TWENTY-TWO

The theory that using Final Tort V, the Payne fifty-eight-foot Hatteras, as a platform from which, as he watched the waves go up and down, Matt could do some really serious thinking-and, his father hoped, incidentally get some rest- would be an excellent idea did not work out well in practice largely because of her captain.

Her captain, retired Coast Guard chief petty officer Al Bowman, who had been with the Paynes since Matt was ten, when the family boat was Final Tort II, a much smaller Hatteras, was on vacation.

Matt had learned small-boat handling from Chief Bowman, and took not a little pride in knowing he had met Chief Bowman’s criteria in that area. Usually, when they went out on Final Tort V together, the chief would come to the bridge only to hand Matt another beer.

Standing in for him in his absence was another, much younger retired Coast Guard chief petty officer, who was visibly nervous when Matt went to the control console, fired up the engines, and asked him to let loose the lines, with the obvious intent of taking the vessel to sea with himself at the helm.

Even when Matt managed to get the Final Tort V away from the wharf and into the wide Atlantic without running her aground, the stand-in captain never got far from Matt or the controls.

What was worse, however, was that the replacement captain had seen in the Bulletin both the photograph of Matt getting off the Citation with Homer C. Daniels and the photograph of Matt, pistol in hand, in the parking lot near La Famiglia, and naturally presumed Matt would be delighted to tell him all about the murdering rapist, exchanging gunfire with a couple of armed robbers, and what it was really like to be a real-life Stan Colt. And incidentally, what’s Stan Colt really like?

Compounding the problem was that the replacement captain was a really nice guy, the sort of man to whom one could not say, “I wish you’d shut the fuck up!” although that thought did run more than once through Matt’s mind.

And finally, if there were fish in the Atlantic, none of them showed any interest whatever in the bait supposed to tempt them to any of the four lines Matt put in the water.

At 2 P.M., Matt said, “I think we’d might as well call it a day. You want to take her in?”

The replacement captain had been obviously pleased with the request for his professional services.

Matt, sitting in a fishing chair with his feet on the stern rail, watching the churning water, had time for two beers and some private thoughts before he saw that they were nearly at the dock and he would have to go forward and handle the lines.

He had reached no profound conclusions, except that he didn’t want to do this again tomorrow.

When he went forward, he saw a familiar vehicle, a Buick Rendezvous with an antennae farm on its roof, sitting beside the house.

Michael J. O’Hara himself was sprawled in a lawn chaise on the wharf, drinking from the neck of a beer bottle. The chair was from the deck of the house. There was a portable cooler beside Mickey that he’d obviously brought with him.

He waved, but rose from the chair only when Matt called, “Hey, Mickey, want to grab the line?”

On the third try, he managed to do so, whereupon he inquired, “What am I supposed to do with it?”

Matt resisted the temptation to tell him the first thing that came to his mind, and instead said, “Wrap it, twice, around that pole, and then hang on to it.”

When he saw that Mickey had done so, he went aft to handle the stern lines.

I wonder what he’s doing here. Who cares? I really am glad to see him.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” Mickey said, by way of greeting. “I was about to call the cops.”

“On the water, you call the Coast Guard, not the cops,” Matt said. “Write that down.”

“So why didn’t you answer the phone?”

“I didn’t have it turned on, for one thing,” Matt said, helping himself to a beer from the cooler, “and for another, I was probably out of range.”

“You’re not supposed to be,” O’Hara said.

“Well, sorry. My profound apologies.”

“I meant of this,” Mickey said, and patted his shirt pocket, which held what looked to Matt like a bulky cellular telephone. “They advertise worldwide service. They use satellites.”

“Then I guess I didn’t have my phone turned on.”

“I guess not,” Mickey said.

It occurred to Matt that unless they got off the wharf before the reserve captain got off Final Tort V, he would probably be joining them for whatever happened next, which included a couple of beers, for sure, and then probably dinner.

Worse, that he would probably recognize Mickey’s name, and start asking questions about what it was like being a famous journalist, and even worse than that, Mickey would delight in telling him.

“All I had for lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich,” Matt said. “Let’s go get something to eat.”

“Steamed clams,” Mickey announced. “I didn’t have any lunch at all, and steamed clams seems like a splendid idea.”

He picked up the portable cooler and started down the wharf.

“Are we going out tomorrow?” the reserve captain called down from the Final Tort V.

“I’ll call you,” Matt said.

In the Rendezvous, Mickey asked,

“You okay, Matty?”

“I’m fine.”

“I heard you came apart for a while.”

“I came apart for a while, but I’m fine now.”

Mickey handed him his cellular telephone.

“Call Denny Coughlin and tell him. He’s worried about you.”

“He sent you down here to keep me company?”

“He told me how to get here,” O’Hara said. “You have to dial Zero Zero One first.”

“Zero Zero One first?”

“That’s the United States,” O’Hara explained.

“I thought that’s where we were.”

“That’s a worldwide telephone. You have to dial the country code first. Call Denny, for Christ’s sake.”

Matt punched in the numbers, including the Zero Zero One country code, then the Philadelphia area code, and then Commissioner Coughlin’s number, and was finally connected with him.

He told him that he was fine, thank you; that Mickey had found him; that they were in his car en route to get some steamed clams; and that he felt fine, thank you, nothing has changed in the thirty seconds since you asked me that the first time.

“Is Mickey going to be in the way, Matty? He really wanted to see you. I thought maybe you’d like some company, so I told him where to find you.”

“I’m glad you did. Thank you.”

“Well, have a couple of beers, but get some rest. And give me a call every once in a while, okay?”

“I’ll do it,” Matt said, and pushed the Off button.

They sat at the bar of the Ocean Vue Bar amp; Grill and viewed the ocean while eating two dozen steamers and drinking two Heinekens each. Aside from “Hand me the Tabasco, please,” there was not much conversation.

Matt pushed the second tin tray of empty mollusk shells away from him, finished his beer, signaled for another round, and then asked,

“Can I ask you a personal question, Mick?”

“Shoot.”

“Have you ever been out of the country?”

“No. Why should I have been?”

“Then what’s with the worldwide dial Zero Zero One as the country code telephone all about?”

“I’m thinking of going to Europe,” Mickey said.

“Really? What for?”

“Actually, Matty, that’s one of the reasons I came all the way over here. The other was to apologize for not coming to see you after Doc Michaels told me that he let you out of the loony bin. I was busy.”

“You have been discussing my mental condition with Dr. Michaels, I gather?”

“He said medical ethics prohibited his discussing your case with me, but apropos of nothing whatever, there was nothing wrong with you that a little rest wouldn’t fix. He’s a good guy.”

“And he suggested you come to see me?”

“No,” Mickey said, his tone suggesting that even the question surprised him. “What happened was after I heard that you’d been in and out of the loony bin, I called your mother, and she gave me the runaround about where you were, so I called your father, ditto, and I began to have visions of you in a rubber room somewhere, so I went and saw Doc Michaels, and he told me… what I told you he told me.. so I called Denny and asked him where you were, and he told me. So I came.”

“Tell me about Europe.”

“I told you I was busy. What it was was that I was involved in a contractual dispute with my employers.”

“About what?”

“I knocked my city editor on his ass,” Mickey said. “With a bloody nose.”

“Why?”

“It was a matter of journalistic principle,” Mickey said. “The lawyers for the Bulletin said it was justification for my termination, unless I apologized to the sonofabitch, which I will do the morning after the Pope gives birth to triplets.”

“So where does the matter stand now?” Matt said, smiling.

“Casimir responded that in this era of political correctness, it is not professionally acceptable behavior for a supervisor, before a room full of his fellow employees, to call an underling ‘you insane Shanty Irish sonofabitch’…”

“He actually called you that?” Matt asked, on the edge of laughter.

Mickey nodded, smiling, and went on, obviously quoting Bolinski verbatim,

“…‘and to threaten a distinguished Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist such as Mr. O’Hara, before the same gathering of his peers, with using his influence to ensure that Mr. O’Hara would never find employment again, even with the National Enquirer, a periodical generally held in contempt by responsible journalists.’ ”

“He did that?”

“As blood dripped down his chin from his bloody nose onto his shirt,” Mickey said.

“What set you two off?” Matt asked.

“That’s not important. The sonofabitch has never liked me, and vice versa. It just happened.”

“So what’s going to happen?”

“We have entered a thirty-day cooling-off period, during which they hope that I will change my mind about apologizing-they know I won’t-and the Bull hopes Kennedy will make a full and public apology for his reprehensible remarks and behavior to me-which he just might. During this period, I have withdrawn my professional services from the Bulletin. I still get paid, of course.”

“So what can we two rejects of society as we know it do for the next thirty days?” Matt asked.

“That’s what I came to talk to you about,” Mickey said.

“Whiskey and wild, wild women? You want to go to Atlantic City? What about Vegas?”

“Casimir has this nutty idea-has had it for years-that I should write a book.”

“You told me about that, Mick. And I told you it doesn’t sound nutty to me at all.”

“The original idea was a collection of stuff that I’ve done, Matt, and I even started putting stuff together for that.”

“I know.”

“But what Casimir did now was call some publisher and tell him that what they really needed was a book about Fort Festung, and I was just the guy to write it.”

“Why him?”

“Casimir said the Frogs can’t stall much longer-he looked into it, I suppose-and they’re going to extradite the slimy sonofabitch.”

“I agree with the Bull,” Matt said. “If they send Festung back, it’d be national news. That’d sell a lot of books. And you are just the guy to write it.”

“Yeah, well, anyway they threw a lot of money at me- which I don’t have to give back, by the way, even if I don’t write the book, or they don’t like it-and I’m going to France to have a look at him.”

“Hence the worldwide telephone?”

“Yeah. My mother goes bananas in the nursing home unless I call her once a day. I think it’s nine dollars a minute or something when you use it, but what the hell.”

“The more I think about this, it’s a great idea,” Matt said.

“Come with me,” O’Hara said.

“What?”

“Come with me. What else have you got to do?”

“Wow!” Matt said. “That came out of left field.”

“You’ve been there, right? You even speak a little Frog?”

“Very little,” Matt said. “Ouvrez la porte de mon oncle. That means ‘open the door of my uncle,’ if you’re taking notes.”

“That’s more than I speak. Come on, Matt. Everything on me, of course.”

Matt didn’t reply.

“I already know all I have to know about the sonofabitch, so all I have to do is take a quick look at this farmhouse, maybe get a couple of pictures of it, him and his wife, then we can go to Paris, or wherever, drink a lot of wine, and cherchez la femme.”

“Mick, if I didn’t think this was be nice to poor, loony Matt time, I actually think I’d go with you.”

“I want you to go because I don’t want to go by myself, okay?” O’Hara said.

Jesus, he means that. Mr. Front Page himself, the battling brawler of the city room, is afraid to leave Philadelphia by himself.

What the hell, why not? What else have I got to do?

“What the hell, Mick, why not?” Matt said.

Mickey took out the cellular, pushed one button, and then put the instrument to his ear.

“What happened to the Zero Zero One routine?” Matt asked.

“The Bull’s got one of these, too. They store a hundred numbers of other people with one of them,” Mickey explained, then held up his hand to cut Matt off.

“Antoinette, this is Michael. Would it be possible for me to speak with Casimir, please?”

It took several minutes for Mr. Bolinski to get on the line. He explained he was floating around the pool.

“Matt says he’ll go, Casimir,” O’Hara said. “Set it up.”

Bolinski said something Matt couldn’t hear.

“You got a passport? Is tomorrow night too soon for you?” Mickey asked.

“Yes and no,” Matt said.

“That’s fine with Matt, Casimir. Set it up.”

Bolinski said something else Matt couldn’t hear.

“He’s fine. He was exhausted, is all.”

Mickey broke the connection after Bolinski said something else.

“The Bull says he’s glad to hear you’re okay.”

“That’s nice of him.”

Mickey pushed another button on his worldwide telephone and put it to his ear.

“Hi, Mom!” he began. “How you doing?”

He spoke with his mother for five minutes, then handed the cellular to Matt.

“You want to call your mom?”

“Not particularly.”

“She’s your mother, for Christ’s sake. Call her.”

Matt called his mother and told her that he was fine, thank you, and that he was going to Paris tomorrow night with Mickey O’Hara.

When Air France Flight 2110 deposited them at Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris the second morning later, French customs showed great interest in Mr. O’Hara’s brand-new luggage-a last-minute purchase after Matt suggested that if they were going to be gone a couple of weeks Mickey would need more space than his zipper bag with the Philadelphia 76ers logotype would provide-and went through it suspiciously before gesturing they could pass.

Outside Customs, a man in a chauffeur’s cap was waiting for them, holding a sign lettered “M. O’Hara.”

He drove them, in a new Mercedes, to the George V Hotel, where they were installed in a two-bedroom, two-bath, sitting room suite on a corner of the building. From two windows in the sitting room, if they looked carefully, they could see the Champs Elysees, a block away.

They unpacked their luggage and then walked over to the Champs Elysees, took a quick look at the Arc de Triomphe at the other end, and went in search of breakfast.

Then they went to the U.S. Embassy at the foot of the hill, where-after Mickey threatened him with calling Pennsylvania’s junior senator right then and on his worldwide telephone-the press officer somewhat reluctantly promised to be prepared to give him the latest developments vis-a-vis the extradition of Isaac Festung once a day when Mickey called.

As they left the embassy, Matt said they were within walking distance of two famous Paris landmarks, the Louvre Museum and Harry’s New York Bar.

“Let’s take a quick look at the museum,” Mickey said. “Just so we can say we saw it. And then we’ll go to the bar and hoist a few.”

They went into the museum a few minutes before eleven and left a few minutes more than eight hours later, when at closing time three museum guards-immune to Mickey’s argument that he was the press, for Christ’s sake, and entitled to a little consideration-escorted them out.

He immediately announced to Matt that they were going to have to come back tomorrow.

“I could spend all goddamn day in there just looking at Venus de Milo,” Mickey said.

They called their respective maternal parents while sitting at the bar in Harry’s. When Matt told his mother they had spent most of the day in the Louvre, and had only minutes before arrived at Harry’s Bar, she chuckled knowingly.

“Have a good time, sweetheart,” she said. “But get some rest.”

When they left Harry’s four beers and an hour later, and were walking toward the Opera, where Matt remembered a restaurant his father particularly liked, Mickey offered a philosophical/historical/literary observation:

“Did you know that’s the joint where Hemingway used to hang out?” he asked.

“I heard.”

“Did you know that before he became a writer, he was a newspaperman?”

“I heard that too.”

“I don’t mean some schmuck on a small-town rag, he worked for the Herald-Tribune, here,” Mickey said. “He gave a speech one time where he said he thought working on a newspaper was the best training he ever had to become a writer.”

“I didn’t know that, but I’m sure he was right,” Matt said.

“Yeah,” Mickey said, thoughtfully. “He probably was.”

Am I in the company of the next Tom Clancy? The next Whatshisname, the guy who made millions writing about dinosaurs?

“When do you want to go to Cognac-Boeuf, Mick?”

“What’s that?”

“That’s where Festung is.”

“Soon, but not right away. I told you, I want to go back to the Louvre. You can’t see half what they have in that place in one day, for Christ’s sake.”

Over the next five days, they developed a routine. On waking, while Matt ordered their room-service breakfast, and while waiting for it to be delivered, Mickey first got on the phone to the embassy’s press officer, then would get on the Internet with Matt’s laptop, go to the Bulletin’s Web site, and catch up on what was happening in Philadelphia.

After breakfast, they took a cab to the Louvre. Matt thus got to see more of the museum than he’d seen in his previous- more than a dozen-visits to the City of Lights. Once they went out of the museum to lunch, but that took too much time for Mickey, so the other days they had eaten lunch standing up at a museum concession.

He did manage to get Mickey briefly to the top of the Eiffel Tower-to which Mickey’s reaction was “What’s the big deal?” and “Are you sure it’s safe? It’s rusty all over”- and to Napoleon’s Tomb, but that was about all.

They called their respective maternal parents daily, usually from Harry’s New York Bar after the Louvre closed. And then they went to dinner, and after that, twice, to jazz places on the East Bank.

Matt realized that he was having a good time, largely because Mickey was what his father described as “a good traveling companion.”

On the morning of the sixth day, Mickey called, “Hey, you better take a look at this!”

Matt, munching a croissant, walked to where Mickey was at his laptop. The screen showed the front page of the Bulletin, and for a moment Matt didn’t understand what he was being shown. And then, in the “Inside Today’s Bulletin” box, he saw: “Police Arrest Two in Fast-Food Restaurant Murder. Page 3, Section 2.”

There wasn’t much of a story there, even though it had a double byline on it.

TWO ARRESTED IN FAST-FOOD DOUBLE MURDER BY RICHARD HIGBEE AND BETTY-JO WOLFF BULLETIN STAFF WRITERS

Philadelphia-Police Commissioner Ralph J. Mariani announced the arrest early this morning “without incident” of Lawrence John Porter, 20, and Ralph David Williams, 19, at their homes in the Paschall Homes Project. The two, who are cousins, have been charged with the double murder of Ms. Maria M. Fernandez and Police Officer Kenneth J. Charlton during a robbery of the Roy Rogers restaurant at South Broad and Snyder Streets earlier this month.

“We’ve had the two under round-the-clock surveillance for some time,” Commissioner Mariani said, “but delayed arresting them while assembling irrefutable evidence against them.”

Mariani said that evidence included the murder weapon, a. 38-caliber handgun, which police divers, assisted by the Philadelphia Treasure Hunters Club, recovered later yesterday from the silt banks of the Schuylkill River, where it had been thrown.

Mariani cited the involvement of the Treasure Hunters, who joined the police in searching the murky waters of the Schuylkill, as another example “for which I am grateful and proud” of civilian cooperation with the police.

Philadelphia mayor Alvin W. Martin, in a separate statement, said that all Philadelphians “can and should take pride in the professionalism and dedication of the officers of the Special Operations Division Task Force, which I ordered formed, in apprehending these individuals under extremely difficult circumstances.”

“Jesus, what a shitty story,” O’Hara said. “And it took two of them to write it.”

“There’s not much, is there?” Matt said. “For all the effort that went into that job.”

“On the other hand,” O’Hara said, more charitably, “it might have been my pal Kennedy’s editing. I know the broad. She’s got talent.”

O’Hara looked thoughtful for a minute, and judging by the look on his face, Matt was not very surprised at what came next.

“Matty, unless you really want to go back to the Louvre… You’ve been there before a lot, right?”

“Yeah, I have.”

“How would you feel about making arrangements to getting us to where… I forget where you said…”

“Cognac-Boeuf,” Matt furnished.

“Right. Where this sleazeball Fort Festung is.”

“Sure, Mick. Good idea. We better rent a car. I don’t know if we can find one to rent down there.”

“See if you can get us a Lincoln, or a Cadillac. These Frog cars look tiny to me. What I’d really like to have is my Rendezvous.”

The concierge in the lobby of the George V said it would be impossible to provide either a Cadillac or a Lincoln-much less a Porsche or a Buick Rendezvous-and he would therefore recommend a Mercedes.

“Unless M’sieu would like a Jaguar?”

“Tell me about a Jaguar,” Matt said.

He put the Jaguar rental on his American Express card, because every time he’d tried to pick up a bill, O’Hara had been adamant that the whole trip was on him. “Put your goddamn money away,” he’d say.

Signing the receipt triggered the memory of what Detective Olivia Lassiter had said to him in Alabama about his not even looking at the bill there before he signed it, and his first reaction was, “Screw her!”

But she stayed in his mind all day, and about six-thirty, as he sat in the hotel bar in the vain hope that Mickey would leave the Louvre before they threw him out, he remembered that Mickey had left his worldwide telephone in the suite. And after one more drink, he went to the suite, dialed Zero Zero One, and after some difficulty was connected with the Northwest Detectives Division of the Philadelphia police department.

“Detective Lassiter, please.”

“Who’s calling?”

“Sergeant Payne.”

“Hello, Matt. How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“I heard-”

“I’m fine, Olivia. Thank you for asking. I was about to send you one of those ‘having lovely time in Gay Paree wish you were here’ postcards, but I figured what the hell, I’d call you.”

“Matt, I’m working.”

“Can I call you later?”

"I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” Olivia said. And hung up.

The next morning at ten, Matthew M. Payne and Michael J. O’Hara, both more than a little hungover, watched their luggage being loaded into a powder blue Jaguar XK8 Cabriolet. Then they got in and, with Matt at the wheel, drove across Avenue George V onto Rue Pierre Charron, then turned right onto the Champs Elysees and headed for French National Highway A20.

They stopped for lunch in Orleans, then drove on, this time with Mickey at the wheel. At seven-thirty, by which time it was already too dark to take pictures, they pulled into the cobble-stoned forecourt of Le Relais in the village of Cognac-Boeuf.

“It looks,” Matt said, “as if it’s been here for centuries.”

“It looks like a dump,” Mickey said. “Is this the best we can do?”

“This is it, unless you want to go back to Bordeaux.”

Mickey wordlessly turned the engine off and got out of the car.

The only accommodation available was one room. It had two single beds and a washbasin. The bath and water closet were in separate rooms down a narrow corridor.

“And I’ll bet you snore, too, don’t you?” Mr. O’Hara inquired.

Their dinner-roast lamb — was very good, and so was the wine. At nine o’clock, they retired to their room.

“I want to get up early, find their house, and take a couple of shots,” Mickey announced, “then hang around for a while to see if I can get a couple of shots of Festung, and then get the hell out of here.”

They called their respective maternal parents, turned off the worldwide telephone because the battery was running low, and then got into bed.

“You know what else-besides forgetting to charge the phone in the car-you made me do when you decided to drink everything in Paris last night?” Mr. O’Hara inquired across the dark room.

“I can hardly wait to hear.”

“I didn’t call that jackass in the embassy.”

“You can call the jackass in the embassy in the morning,” Matt said.

They were both asleep by half past nine.

When it is half past nine in Cognac-Boeuf, France, it is half past three in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

At 3:33 P.M., Dianna Kerr-Gally, Executive Assistant to the Honorable Alvin W. Martin, stepped to the mayor’s door and coughed.

“What’s up?” he inquired.

“I’ve got Eileen Solomon on the line,” Dianna said.

“Put her through,” he said.

“She wants to know if there is any reason you can’t see her right now.”

“See me? As opposed to talk to me?”

Dianna nodded.

“Did she say what she wants?”

Dianna shook her head, “no.”

He shrugged.

“You think I should talk to her?”

“I think you should tell me if there’s some reason you can’t see her right now.”

“Tell our distinguished district attorney that my door is always open to her,” the mayor ordered. “And stall whatever’s on the schedule until she shows up.”

The Honoable Eileen McNamara Solomon, trailed by Detective Al Unger, appeared ten minutes later in the mayor’s outer office, and was immediately shown into the inner office by Dianna Kerr-Gally, who stood just inside the door.

“This is between the mayor and me,” Eileen Solomon said. “Do you mind?”

Mrs. Kerr-Gally smiled somewhat thinly and left the office.

Our D.A. is really pissed off about something. I wonder what? And what does it have to do with me?

“You seem a little upset, Eileen,” the mayor said.

“ ‘Little’ is an understatement, and ‘upset’ a euphemism,” she said.

“Well, let’s see what we can do to make things right,” the mayor said. “What’s happened?”

“I had a call just now from Walter Davis,” Eileen began. “He told me he was really delighted to be able to tell me that Isaac Festung would soon be returned to Philadelphia.”

“Well, that’s certainly good news after all this time.”

“Specifically, that he was reliably informed by the legal attache of our embassy in Paris… You do know, don’t you, Alvin, that for reasons I never really understood, they call FBI agents assigned to embassies ‘legal attaches’?”

“No, I can’t say that I did,” Martin confessed.

“Rephrasing, the FBI agent at our embassy has told Davis that the French court is about to extradite Isaac Festung.”

“And for some reason I don’t understand, you’re annoyed about that?”

“Davis said that as soon as the French court orders his extradition, the legal attache-read FBI agents-there will take custody of his person, and then they and U.S. marshals will escort him home.”

“You’re going to have to explain to me, I’m afraid, what’s wrong with that.”

“When I was on the bench, Alvin, after Festung jumped bail, I spent a lot of effort-and a lot of taxpayers’ money- trying to find him. After he was convicted in my court of murder in the second, and-surprising me not at all-the FBI had not been able to find him, much less bring him back here and lock him up, I spent even more effort and taxpayer money trying to find him and bring him back here.”

“And the FBI was not very useful in this, I gather?”

“What they did, Alvin, was notify Interpol. ‘Hey, fellas, the local cops here are looking for this guy. If you stumble over him, give us a call, huh?’ ”

Mayor Martin was tempted to smile, but wise enough to know that this was not the time to do so.

“And since I became D.A.,” the D.A. went on, “my people- my fugitive guy and others-have spent a fortune running this sonofabitch down all over Europe. We found out from the French cops that he was-wherever the hell he is, in some village in the South of France-and when Interpol and the FBI did nothing to get him back, I sent two assistant D.A. s over there-at the taxpayers’ expense-to light a fire under them.”

“I see,” Alvin W. Martin said, although he really didn’t.

The only thing he knew for sure was that he had never seen the Honorable Eileen McNamara Solomon so angry before, and from which he drew the conclusion that one could anger Mrs. Solomon only at great peril.

“I have no intention of standing there, smiling in gratitude, when the FBI or the marshals take him off the plane,” Eileen McNamara Solomon declared.

“I understand how you feel, Eileen,” he said.

“I want a Philadelphia cop’s handcuffs on him,” she said. “I want a Philadelphia cop to bring him back.”

“I can understand that,” the mayor said.

“Those bastards try this sort of thing all the time. They even showed up in Alabama, trying to steal Jason Washington’s pinch of Homer C. Daniels.”

“I didn’t know that,” the mayor said, truthfully. “Is that what it’s called, ‘stealing a pinch’? That sounds like something that would happen at a high school junior prom.”

It was evident on District Attorney Solomon’s face that she did not share Mayor Martin’s sense of humor.

“Well, what can we do about this, you and I, Eileen, to make things right?”

“What you can do, Alvin, is call Ralph Mariani and tell him to get a cop-preferably one from Homicide-over to France before the FBI gets away with this.”

“Is there going to be time to do that?”

“There will have to be,” Eileen McNamara Solomon declared.

“Homicide, Lieutenant Washington.”

“Mariani, Washington. Is Quaire there?”

“No, sir. He is not.”

“Come up here, please, Jason. Right now.”

After he had explained the situation to Lieutenant Washington, Commissioner Mariani was surprised, and a little annoyed, at the amused look on Washington’s face.

“This is not funny, Lieutenant. We better be able to do something, and do it right now.”

“As it happens, Commissioner, there does happen to be a man from Homicide in France right now.”

“How did that happen?”

“Sergeant Payne-two days ago, anyway-was in Paris, sir.”

“I ordered him to take thirty days’ vacation time!”

“Yes, sir. That’s what he’s doing. He and Mr. O’Hara. Sergeant Payne told his mother, and she told me, that Mr. O’Hara is quite taken with the artistic treasures of the Louvre.”

The commissioner waited for him to go on.

“There is a rumor circulating, sir, that Mr. O’Hara and Mr. Kennedy, the city editor of the Bulletin-”

“I know who he is,” Mariani interjected impatiently.

"— exchanged blows in the city room of the newspaper…”

“No kidding?”

“… and that Mr. O’Hara is on a thirty-day sabbatical from his duties. According to my information-again via Sergeant Payne’s mother-Mr. O’Hara is thinking of writing a book about Festung. Anyway, sir, the two of them are in France.”

“How do we get in touch with them?”

“They are-or were-in the George the Fifth Hotel in Paris, sir,” Washington said. “And Mr. O’Hara, I understand, has one of the new worldwide satellite telephones. It shouldn’t be any problem.”

Commissioner Mariani picked up his telephone.

“Put in a person-to-person call to either Sergeant Matthew Payne or Mr. Michael O’Hara in the George the Fifth Hotel in Paris, France,” he ordered.

Ten minutes later, Commissioner Mariani was informed that both Mr. O’Hara and Mr. Payne had checked out of the hotel that morning and left no forwarding address.

“I knew that was too good to be true,” Mariani said. “What about this around-the-world telephone of O’Hara’s? Can you get the number?”

“I’m sure that won’t be a problem, sir.”

“Well, get it. Get them on it. Tell them to call me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you better see who else has a passport… Do you?”

“It’s being renewed, sir.”

“Get somebody else started, in case we can’t get through to Payne. Hell, they may be on their way home.”

A half hour later, Lieutenant Washington telephoned Commissioner Mariani to report that he was having trouble getting O’Hara’s number but he was working on it, and hoped to have it shortly.

He also reported that they had made reservations for someone to fly to Paris. It had yet to be determined who would go, but there would be plenty of time to make the decision. The next available seat to Paris was on a flight leaving New York tomorrow afternoon. When he added that only first-class seats were available, he anticipated the commissioner’s next question:

“It would appear we’re in the tourist season, sir,” Washington concluded.

“In that case, I would suggest that you make every effort to get O’Hara’s phone number,” Commissioner Mariani said. “Keep me advised, Lieutenant. I’m about to tell the mayor we are making every effort to comply with his wishes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Two hours after that, Lieutenant Washington called the commissioner again.

“Sir, I have the number. I had to get it from Mr. Casimir Bolinski. But when I call it, the recording says that it’s been turned off. Probably overnight, sir. I’ll try again in the morning.”

“No,” Commissioner Mariani said, “you, or some one you delegate, will try that number every thirty minutes until someone answers.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Michael J. O’Hara rose at first light and, without disturbing Sergeant Payne, went down the narrow corridor to the communal bath, took one look at it, and decided he would just have to remain unwashed until they found a decent hotel.

Then-with less trouble than he expected to have-he got directions in the form of a hand-drawn map to the Piaf Mill, and got in the Jaguar and drove there.

He had a little trouble getting the shots he wanted. There were half a dozen French gendarmes guarding the place, and when they spotted him, they tried to run him off. But he finally got what he wanted, and even a shot of Isaac “Fort” Festung, standing in the doorway of the ancient mill house.

Then he drove back to Le Relais with a sense of mission accomplished. He had all he needed. He’d wake Matty up, they’d get some breakfast, and then “Sayonara, Cognac-Boeuf! Or whatever the hell this place is called.”

He had already stopped the Jaguar when he remembered he had forgotten to take the telephone with him. He had planned to see how much of a charge it would take plugged into the Jaguar’s cigarette lighter hole.

He went to their room, turned the light on, woke Matty and told him to get his ass out of bed, as soon as they had breakfast they were out of here, and took the telephone down-the battery of which was now really dead, he having apparently failed to turn it off correctly the night before-to the Jaguar.

The clever Englishmen had designed the interior to frustrate him. It took him almost five minutes to find the cigarette lighter hole. It was in the ashtray, mounted in such a position that it couldn’t he seen by the driver unless he bent nearly flat and looked around the gearshift lever.

Matt was just coming into the combined bar and dining room of Le Relais when Mickey finally went in.

Mickey explained that he had had difficulty finding the cigarette lighter holder, but that he had finally succeeded, and the phone was now being charged.

“Maybe not, Mick,” Matt said. “Sometimes the lighter hole is hot only when the ignition is on.”

“Shit!”

Mickey went back out to the Jaguar and immediately discovered that Matt had been in error. The cigarette lighter hole was hot, even with the ignition off. The proof was that the once dead-as-a-doornail device was chirping.

Mickey wondered what the hell Casimir-the only person who had the number-wanted this time of night. It was eight-fifteen here, which meant that it was 2:15 A.M. in the States.

“What’s up, Casimir?”

“That you, Mickey?”

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

“Jason Washington.”

“What the hell do you want?”

“Is Matt somewhere around? And how is he?”

“He’s fine. We’re about to have breakfast. Can I give him a message?”

“Can’t you just give him the phone, Mick?”

“I don’t think the battery will last that long,” Mick said. “This is important? Nothing wrong with anybody?”

“It’s important, Mick. Nothing’s wrong with anyone.”

“Hang on, I’ll get him.”

“This afternoon, huh?” Mickey asked after Matt returned from the Jaguar and reported the gist of his conversations with Lieutenant Washington and a somewhat sleepy-sounding Commissioner Ralph J. Mariani. “It’s a sure thing?”

“So says Mariani. He says Eileen Solomon told him she talked to the embassy.”

“That bastard in the embassy never said a goddamn word to me.”

“Possibly because you forgot to call him.”

“Screw you, Matty. Did they say where?”

“The Palais de Justice in Bordeaux.”

“Well, we better drive over there after we finish breakfast,” O’Hara said.

“Actually,” Matt said, thoughtfully. “It makes a pretty good last act. The fat lady sings. The last act of the Wyatt Earp of the Main Line. I’m quitting the job, Mickey.”

“You’re not going to bring that crap up again, are you?”

“Again?”

“You had a couple of drinks-eight or ten-too many the other night, pal, after you had your little chat with the lady detective.”

“And I told you?”

“You were… somewhat loquacious… Matty. You would never love again, and you were quitting the job. Ad infinitum.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“And thus you don’t remember what I told you?”

“No.”

“I said you were probably lucky Detective Whatsername dumped you-I never liked her; she’s one of those dames who’s never satisfied-and as full of shit as a Christmas turkey about quitting the job. You could no more do anything else than I could become a ballet dancer. You’re a cop, Matty. A good one. It’s in your blood.”

The conversation was interrupted by the entrance into the combined bar and dining room of Le Relais of Mr. Isaac Festung.

He was accompanied by two gendarmes.

He was wearing what looked like a dirty white poncho and baggy blue cotton trousers, and was barefoot in leather sandals.

He looked around the room and spotted Mickey.

He walked to the table.

“You were at my home this morning,” he challenged. “Taking pictures.”

“Yes, I was.”

“Morbid interest? Or journalistic? Or is there a difference? ”

"I’m a reporter, if that’s what you mean,” O’Hara said.

“Well, I’m sorry to tell you that I’m not granting any interviews right now.”

“That’s good, because I’m not asking for one.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

"I just rode down here with him,” O’Hara said, nodding at Matt.

Festung turned his attention to Matt.

“You’re a reporter?”

“No, I’m not, Mr. Festung,” Matt said. “I’m a police officer. I’m here to take you into custody when the court of appeals denies your appeal.”

“Well, then, I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time, too, my young friend. That’s not going to happen.”

“We’ll know for sure about that this afternoon in Bordeaux, won’t we? And I’m not your young friend, Mr. Festung. I’m Sergeant Matthew Payne, Badge 471, Homicide Unit, Philadelphia police department.”

Festung met Matt’s eyes for a long moment, and when Matt didn’t blink, apparently lost his appetite for breakfast, for he suddenly spun around on his heels and stalked out of Le Relais, with the two gendarmes on his heels.

“That felt good, admit it,” Mickey said.

“I don’t know about ‘good,’ Mick, but it felt right.”

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Mickey said.

And they left.