Final Justice

FOUR

Johnny Cassidy’s Shamrock Bar was on The Hill in Easton, near-and drawing much of its business from-Lafayette College. Even at four in the afternoon, there were a lot of customers, mixed students and faculty and other staff of the college.

Matt took a stool at the bar and ordered a beer, a pickled egg, and a Cassidy Burger-“Famous All Over The Hill”- and struck up a conversation with the bartender, who had a plastic nameplate with a shamrock and “Mickey O’Neal Manager” printed on it pinned to his crisp, white, open-collar, cuffs-rolled-up shirt. Matt thought he was probably thirty-five or forty, and was not surprised that he was talkative.

When Matt asked how Johnny Cassidy was, O’Neal shook his head sadly and said the Big C had gotten him, five, no six, months before. Johnny kept feeling tired, and he finally went to the doctor, and six weeks later he was dead. Died the same week as his mother, in fact.

“So what’s going to happen to the bar?”

“It’s going to stay open,” Mickey O’Neal said, firmly, and then went on to explain that he’d worked in the place for fifteen years before Johnny died, starting out as an afternoon bartender and working his way up to assistant manager, and got to know him real well. Johnny had been godfather to two of his kids. “They called him Uncle Johnny.”

When Johnny knew his time was up, he made a deal with Mickey and his brother-Johnny’s younger brother, nice guy, who’s a cop in Philadelphia, and who had cared for their mother until she died; Johnny had never married-which gave twenty-five percent of the place to O’Neal and the rest to his brother.

“We’re talking about me buying him out, over time, you know, but right now, I’m just running the place for the both of us. Once a month, I write him a check for his share of what we make. It’s a pretty good deal all around. The bar stays open, which means I have a job, and his brother gets a check-a nice check, I don’t mind saying-once a month. Which is nice, too. Johnny figured he owed his brother-did I say he’s a cop in Philly? — for taking care of their mother all those years.”

There were now answers to the questions raised by what Detective Payne had learned at the Northampton County Court House: Seven months before, for one dollar and other good and valuable consideration, all assets, real estate, inventory and goodwill of the property privately held by John Paul Cassidy at 2301 Tatamy Road, Easton, had been sold to the Shamrock Corporation. The building at 2301 Tatamy Road housed both Johnny Cassidy’s Shamrock Bar and, above it, four apartments on two floors.

It would appear on the surface-he would nose around a little more, of course-that there was a perfectly good reason for Captain Cassidy’s sudden affluence. If the brother had insurance, which seemed likely-and the mother did, which also seemed likely-that would explain where he had gotten the cash to buy the condominium at the shore. And it seemed reasonable that getting a check every month for his share of the profits would explain why Captain Cassidy felt he could afford to give his old Suburban to his daughter and buy a new Yukon XL, no money down, to be paid for with the monthly check.

Detective Payne had a third beer “on the house” and another pickled egg, and then got back in his Porsche to return to Philadelphia.

The temptation to take the very interesting winding road beside the old Delaware Canal was irresistible. But he didn’t want to go back through Doylestown-past the Crossroads Diner-so he turned off Route 611 onto Route 32 a few miles south of Riegelsville, and followed it along the Delaware.

A few miles past New Hope, his cellular phone tinkled. He looked at his watch and saw that it was quarter to five.

That’s probably Peter. Despite what he said about filling him in in the morning, he wants to know what I found out.

“Yes, sir, Inspector, sir. Detective Payne at your service, sir.”

“Hey, Matt,” a familiar voice said. It was that of Chad Nesbitt. They had been best friends since kindergarten.

“The Crown Prince of tomato soup himself? To what do I owe the honor?”

“Where are you?” Chad asked, a tone of exasperation in his voice.

“About five miles south of picturesque New Hope on Route 32. I presume there is some reason for your curiosity?”

“What are you doing way up there?”

“Fighting crime, of course. Protecting defenseless citizens such as yourself from evildoers.”

“Daffy wants you to come to supper. Can you?”

Daffy was Mrs. Nesbitt.

“Why does that make me suspicious?”

“Matt, for Christ’s sake, make peace with her. It gets to be a real pain in the ass for me with you two always at each other’s throat.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“There’s a girl she wants you to meet.”

“Not only no, but hell no.”

“This one’s nice. I think you’ll like her.”

“She’s a nymphomaniac who owns a liquor store?”

“Sometimes, Matt, you can be a real pain in the ass,” Chad said.

There was a perceptible silence.

“Come on, Matt. Please.”

“If you give me your solemn word that when I get there, we can go directly from ‘How do you do?’ to carnal pleasures on your carpet without-”

“Fuck you. Come or don’t.”

“When?”

“As soon as you can get here.”

“Okay,” Matt said. “Take me half an hour, depending on the traffic on Interstate 95.”

The Wachenhut Security guards who stood in the Colonial-style guard shack at the entrance to Stockton Place in Society Hill were chosen by Wachenhut with more care than their guards at the more than one hundred other locations Wachenhut protected in the Philadelphia area.

Not only was Wachenhut’s regional vice president for the Philadelphia area resident in one of the luxury apartments behind the striped-pole barrier, but so were executives of other corporations, which employed large numbers of Wachenhut Security personnel.

Number 9 Stockton Place, for example, a triplex constructed behind the facades of four of the twelve pre-Revolutionary brownstone buildings on the east side of Stockton Place, was owned by NB Properties, Inc., the principal stockholder of which was Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt III and was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick T. Nesbitt IV.

Mr. Nesbitt IV was working his way upward in the corporate ranks-he had recently been named a vice president-of Nesfoods International, of which his father was chairman of the executive committee. Four of Nesfoods International’s Philadelphia-area manufacturing facilities employed the Wachenhut Corporation to provide the necessary security, as did many other Nesfoods establishments around the world.

It therefore behooved Wachenhut to put its best security foot forward, so to speak, on Stockton Place.

It wasn’t only a question of providing faultless around-the — clock security-Wachenhut had learned how to do that splendidly over the years-but to do so in such a manner as not to antagonize those being protected, and their guests.

The senior security officer on duty in the shack when the Porsche Carrera rolled up was a retired soldier who had spent twenty years in the Corps in the military police. His retirement pay wasn’t going as far as he’d thought it would, and since he had enlisted at seventeen and retired at thirty-eight, he’d still been a young man who wanted to work.

Wachenhut had been glad to have him, assigned him- with a raise in pay-to Stockton Place after only six months on the job, and made him a supervisor eighteen months after he had joined the firm. His superiors thought he would be capable of handling the sometimes delicate Stockton Place assignment, and he had proven them right.

When the silver Porsche Carrera slowed as it approached the barrier, the senior security officer on duty nodded at it, then spoke softly to the trainee.

“Now this guy doesn’t look like he’s either about to break into an apartment, or try to sell something. Very few burglars drive cars like that. So you smile at him, ask him who he wishes to see, and then for his name. Then you say ‘Thank you very much, sir,’ raise the barrier, and call whoever he said he’s going to see and tell them he’s coming.”

“Got it,” the trainee said, and stepped out of the guard shack.

“Good evening, sir,” he said to the driver. “How may I help you?”

“Matthew Payne to see Mr. Nesbitt,” Matt said.

“Thank you, sir,” the trainee said, and stepped inside the guard shack, and pushed the button that raised the barrier. Before the Porsche was past the barrier, the Wachenhut supervisor was on the interior telephone.

“Like this,” he said, and then when the phone was answered, said, “This is the gate. We have just passed a Mr. Payne to see Mr. Nesbitt.”

Matt pulled the Porsche to the curb in front of Number 9, got out, walked to the red-painted door, and pushed the doorbell.

The door was opened almost immediately by Mr. Nesbitt IV, who looked very much like Matt Payne but a little shorter and a little heavier.

“Hello, you ugly bastard,” he said. Then he raised his voice. “Dump the dope! The cops are here!”

Then he embraced Matt.

“Thanks for coming. And for Christ’s sake, behave yourself. ”

The ground floor foyer of Number 9 was open to a skylight in the roof, invisible from the street. To the right was the door to the elevator, and to the left the door to the stairs. There were balconies on the first and second floors of the atrium.

Mrs. Chadwick T. Nesbitt IV, the former Daphne Elizabeth Browne, known for most of her life as “Daffy,” a tall, attractive blonde, appeared on the upper balcony, looked down, smiled, and called, “Matt, how nice! Come up.”

Matt and Chad got on the elevator, and when the door closed, and he was reasonably sure he couldn’t be heard, Matt asked, “ ‘How nice’? Is she into the sauce?”

Chad laughed.

“Looketh not ye gift horse in ye mouth,” he said.

The elevator stopped, and the door opened, revealing the living room of the apartment. Floor-to-ceiling tinted glass walls provided a view of the Delaware River, the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, and on the New Jersey shore, mounted on now-disused buildings, a huge illuminated sign showing a steaming bowl of soup and the legend “Nesfoods Delivers Taste and Nutrition!”

Daffy Nesbitt kissed Matt on the cheek, then turned and cried, “Terry, this is Chad’s and my oldest friend in the world.”

Sitting on the thickly carpeted floor with Miss Penelope Alice Nesbitt, aged twenty-two months, was Terry Davis.

She smiled at Matt’s pleased surprise.

Matt looked at Mrs. Nesbitt.

“Get it over with, Daffy,” he said.

“Get what over with?”

“Whatever you’re going to say next in the mistaken belief that it will either be clever or terribly amusing.”

“Hey, Matt, she’s being nice,” Chad said.

“That’s what worries me,” Matt said.

“Hello, again,” Terry said.

“Again?” Daffy asked.

“We met this morning,” Terry said.

“I’d tell Daffy we had breakfast together, but she would read something into that,” Matt said, smiling at Terry.

“Now who’s being clever and terribly amusing, you prick?” Daffy snapped.

“Daffy, please, try to control your vulgarity in front of my goddaughter,” Matt said, unctuously.

Terry Davis laughed.

“Is she really?” she asked. “Your goddaughter?”

“Yeah,” Matt said.

“She’s adorable.”

“Yeah.”

“What do you mean you had breakfast?” Daffy asked.

“At the Ritz-Carlton, no less,” Matt said.

“Anybody for a drink?” Chad asked.

“You got any champagne?” Matt asked.

“You hate champagne,” Daffy said.

“Not on those days on which I get promoted, I don’t,” Matt said. “But I’ll settle for scotch.”

“Promoted to what?” Daffy asked.

“To sergeant, thank you for asking.”

“No shit! Hey, good for you, Matt!” Chad said. He went behind a wet bar and came up with a bottle of champagne. “I knew there was one in here.”

“Terry,” Daffy said, “Matt is a police officer.”

“I know. ‘One of Philadelphia’s finest,’ ” Terry said.

“Who said that?” Daffy asked in disbelief.

“The monsignor. What was his name?”

“Schneider,” Matt said. “I think he’s a closet cop groupie.”

He dropped to the carpet and picked up the toddler, and tickled her.

She shrieked in delight.

“Matt, you know you’re not supposed to do that with her,” Daffy said.

“She obviously hates it,” Matt said. “What have you got against tickling?”

He nonetheless handed the child to Terry and got up.

“It hyperexcites her,” Daffy said.

“Oh,” Matt said.

The champagne cork popped, and Matt walked to the wet bar and took a glass, then handed it to Terry.

“Thank you,” she said. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” he said, and turned to Daffy. “Yes, thank you very much, I’d love to.”

“You’d love to what?”

“Stay for supper,” Matt said.

“Would you believe, wiseass, that Chad tried to call you to ask you to supper? He said they said you were out of town, and they didn’t know when you’d be back,” Daffy said.

“I talked to him, but I didn’t know if he could make it,” Chad said. “So I didn’t tell you.”

“Daffy has this terrible habit of offering me up to the ugliest women,” Matt said. “I think they pay her.”

“That’s what I thought she was doing to me when she said someone was coming she really wanted me to meet,” Terry said. “You’re not nearly as ugly as I thought you would be.”

“Then you can’t ask for your money back, can you?”

Terry laughed.

“You really are a bastard, aren’t you?” she asked.

He took a second glass of champagne from Chad, then, making a show of thinking it over carefully, shrugged and handed it to Daffy.

“In these circumstances, I will give you a walk,” he said.

“Which means what?”

“That tonight I will not wring your neck for playing cupid,” Matt said. “Half the police department already knows I’m in love with Terry.”

“Damn you, you’re embarrassing Terry!”

“Are you embarrassed, Terry?” Matt asked.

“I’m still having trouble getting used to the idea that you’re a policeman,” she said. “And that you showed up here. Did you know I was here?”

“Of course. I had you under surveillance from the time you left the Savoy-Plaza. That man in the overcoat who exposed himself to you on Broad Street? One of my better men.”

Terry laughed.

“Baloney!” she said.

“I’ll prove it to you. He has a camera… delicacy forbids my telling where. I’ll send you a print.”

He mimed opening an overcoat, focused his hips, and then mimed pushing a shutter cord.

“Say ‘Cheese.’ Click. Gotcha!”

Chad laughed.

“Oh, God!” Terry said.

“I can’t believe you did that!” Daffy said.

“But you’re smiling, Daffy darling!”

“We thought we’d eat in,” Daffy said, quickly changing the subject. “Terry has to be at the airport at eleven-thirty. I bought some shrimp at the Twelfth Street Market, but Monday the cook is off.”

“That’s Daffy’s way, Terry,” Matt said, “of asking whether I will be good enough to prepare my world famous Wild Turkey shrimp.”

“Wild Turkey shrimp?”

“Over wild rice,” Matt said. “Yes, Daffy, I will. But you’ll have to peel the slimy crustaceans. That’s beneath the dignity of a master chef such as myself.”

“I’ve got to give Penny her bath,” Daffy complained.

“I’ll peel the shrimp,” Terry said. “I have to see this. Wild Turkey-you’re talking about the whiskey?…” Matt nodded. “… shrimp?”

“Bring your glass, I’ll bring the bottle. The kitchen for some unknown reason is on the ground floor.”

Matt led Terry into the kitchen, turned on the fluorescent lights, and then took his jacket off and laid it on a counter. Then he took his pistol from its shoulder holster, held it toward the floor, away from Terry, removed the clip, and then ejected the round in the chamber.

“I’m impressed,” Terry said. “If that was your intention.”

He gave her a dirty look but didn’t reply. He reloaded the ejected round in the magazine, put the magazine in the pistol, the pistol in the shoulder holster, then shrugged out of that and hung it on an empty hook of the pot rack above the stainless-steel stove.

Then he looked at her.

“I wasn’t trying to impress you. I don’t like leaving guns around with a round in the chamber.”

“Sorry,” she said, and then asked, “What kind of a gun is that?”

He looked at her for a moment before deciding the question was a peace offering.

“It’s an Officer’s Model Colt,” Matt said. “A. 45. A cut-down version of the old Army. 45.”

“That’s what all the cops carry?”

“No. Most Philadelphia cops carry Glocks. They’re semiautomatic, like this one, but nine-millimeter, not. 45.”

“Then?”

“I think this a better weapon.”

“And they let you do that?”

“With great reluctance. I had to go through a lot of bureaucratic bullsh-difficulty before I got permission to carry this.”

“What is it with Colt?” Terry asked.

“Excuse me?”

“There’s some sort of significance, obviously. Stan actually changed his name legally to Colt. And he always carries a Colt automatic in his films.”

“What was his name before?”

“Coleman.”

“Stan Colt, nee Stanley Coleman?”

“Yeah.”

“Whatever works, I guess,” Matt said, chuckling. “To answer your question, I suppose there is a certain romance to ‘Colt.’ They call the old Colt. 44 revolver ‘The Gun That Won the West,’ and then the Colt Model 1911-the big brother of my pistol-was the service weapon right through Vietnam. Now the services use a nine-millimeter Beretta.”

“You ever shoot anybody with that pistol?”

“Not with that one.”

“But you have shot someone?”

“Why don’t we just drop this subject right here?” Matt flared.

“Sorry,” she said, offended and sarcastic.

He found a plastic bag of shrimp in the refrigerator, took it to the sink, tore the bag open, and started to peel them.

After a long moment, Terry went and stood beside him and took a handful of shrimp.

He glanced at her but said nothing.

They peeled shrimp in silence for perhaps three minutes, and then Matt said, “That’s not the first time you’ve peeled shrimp.”

“How can you tell?”

“Most people don’t know how to squeeze the tail that way.”

“My dad has a boat. We have a place on Catalina Island. I practically grew up peeling shrimp.”

“Your father’s a movie star? Producer? Executive?”

“Lawyer,” she said. “With connections in the industry. Enough to get me my first job with GAM.”

“So’s mine,” Matt said. “A lawyer with connections.”

"Daffy told me-when she was selling me on the blind date.”

“Actually, he’s my adoptive father,” Matt said, as he took a large skillet from an overhead rack.

“Your parents were divorced? Mine too.”

“My father was killed before I was born,” Matt said. “He was a cop, a sergeant named John X. Moffitt, and he answered a silent alarm and got himself shot. My mother married my dad-that sounds funny, doesn’t it? — about six months later. He’d lost his wife in a car crash. A really good guy. He adopted me legally.”

“Is that why you’re a policeman? Because of your father?”

“That’s one of the reasons, certainly,” Matt said, as he unwrapped a stick of butter. “I like being a cop.”

“Daffy doesn’t approve,” Terry said.

“I know. Daffy would be delighted-because of Chad-if I married a nice young woman, such as yourself, went to law school, and took my proper role in society.”

“Yeah,” Terry replied thoughtfully. “I picked up a little of that. Tell me about your promotion.”

“The sergeant’s examination list came out today,” Matt said. “With underwhelming modesty, I was number one, and get to pick my assignment.”

“Which is?”

“Homicide.”

“What is that, some sort of a death wish?”

“Huh?”

“Homicide sounds dangerous,” she said. “Killers, right?”

“I never thought about it,” Matt said. “But now that I do… Homicide’s not dangerous. Being on the street is dangerous. My father was a uniform sergeant in a district. That’s dangerous. Cops get hurt answering domestic-disturbance calls. Stopping speeders. Homicide’s nothing like that. You’ve been watching too many Stan Colt movies.”

“I don’t really understand.”

“Street cops face the bad guys every day. Last night, a uniform cop answered a robbery-in-progress call at the Roy Rogers restaurant on Broad Street. One of the two bad guys shoved a revolver under his bulletproof vest and killed him. The first homicide guy didn’t get to the scene for maybe fifteen minutes. By then, the bad guys were long gone.”

She looked at him but said nothing.

“The trick to this is to saute them slowly in butter with a little Cajun seasoning,” he said. “You add the booze just before serving, and flame it. And since the rice isn’t done, we can put this on hold and have another glass of wine while we wait for the rice and the bathers to finish with the bathee.”

“What about when they arrest… the bad guys? Isn’t that dangerous?”

“First you have to find out who the bad guys are. Then make sure you can-to the district attorney’s satisfaction- make the case against them. Then, if they’re not already in the Roundhouse surrounded by cops, if you have to go out to arrest them, you take enough uniforms with you to make sure nobody gets hurt.”

“That’s not much like one of Stan’s movies, is it?” she asked.

“Not much,” he agreed, as he filled her glass.

“Then why does Homicide have the prestige? You were as proud as a peacock to tell me you were going to Homicide.”

“Homicide detectives are the best detectives in the department, ” he said. “When you’re trying somebody for a capital offense, all the ‘t’s have to be crossed and the ‘i’s dotted. There’s no room for mistakes. People who kill people should pay for it.”

“And Homicide sergeants?”

“Modesty precludes my answering that question.”

“Modest you ain’t, Sergeant.”

“Sergeant I ain’t, either. I’m just number one on The List. God only knows when I’ll actually get promoted and sent to Homicide.”

“And in the meantime, you’ll have to do something beneath your dignity, like protecting Stan from his adoring fans? Or vice versa.”

“Meaning?”

“Now that we’re going to be professionally associated, I think I should tell you that Stan likes young women. Very young women.”

“That ought to go over big with the monsignor and the cardinal. And I’m not-I am now really sorry to say-going to be involved in that. That’s Dignitary Protection, and sometimes, since the subject came up, that can be really dangerous. Dignitaries, celebrities, attract lunatics like a magnet.”

“You’re not going to be involved?”

“No. I was just there this morning to see-for my boss- what the triumphal visit will involve. I’m with Special Operations, and we usually provide the bodies needed.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she said.

“We will solve that problem when you come back,” he said. “I really want to see more of you.”

“So what do you do in Special Operations?” she said, obviously changing the subject.

“Today, for example, I think I proved that a cop who’s been spending more money than a cop makes came by it entirely honestly.”

“Internal Affairs?”

“No. This was unofficial, before Internal Affairs got involved. Now there won’t be an Internal Affairs investigation. A good thing, because just being involved with Internal Affairs makes people look bad.”

Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick T. Nesbitt IV and a freshly bathed Penelope in her nightgown appeared in the kitchen at this point, and Detective Payne resumed his preparation of Wild Turkey shrimp over wild rice.

At 10:45 Matt said that he would be happy to deliver Terry to the airport to catch the red-eye to the coast.

At 11:17, as he closed the trunk of the Porsche after having taken Terry’s luggage from it, and she was standing close enough to him to be kissed, a uniform walked up and said, “You’re going to have to move it, sir. Sorry.”

Matt took out his badge and said, “Three sixty-nine,” which was police cant for “I am a police officer.”

The uniform walked away. Matt looked at Terry, saddened by the lost opportunity.

Terry stood on her toes and kissed him chastely on the lips.

“Thanks,” she said, then quickly turned and entered the airport. She turned once and looked back at him, and then he lost sight of her.

He got back in the Porsche, and on the way to Rittenhouse Square decided that, all things considered, today had been a pretty good day.

The Hon. Alvin W. Martin, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, a trim forty-three-year-old in a well-cut Harris plaid suit, smiled at Police Commissioner Ralph J. Mariani and waved him into his City Hall office.

“Thank you for coming so quickly, Ralph,” he said. “Have you had your coffee?”

The mayor gestured toward a silver coffee service on a sideboard.

“I could use another cup, thank you,” Mariani said. He was a stocky Italian, balding, natty.

“I was distressed, Ralph,” the mayor said, “to hear about the trouble at the Roy Rogers.”

“Very sad,” Mariani said. “I knew Officer Charlton. A fine man.”

“And Mrs. Fernandez, who paid with her life for calling 911.”

“A genuine tragedy, sir,” Mariani said.

“I’m going to the funeral home at three this afternoon,” Martin said. “I should say ‘homes.’ Officer Charlton’s first, and then Mrs. Fernandez’s. I think it would be a good idea if you went with me.”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

“I feel sure the press will be there,” the mayor said. “I’d really like to have something to tell them.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much news, Mr. Mayor,” Mariani said. “We’re working on it, of course. And it’s just a matter of time until we nail those animals, but so far…”

“When you say you’re working on it, what exactly does that mean?”

“That we’re applying all our resources to the job.”

“Who’s in charge of the investigation?”

“Lieutenant Washington, of Homicide, sir.”

The mayor knew Lieutenant Jason Washington, which was not the same thing as saying he liked him. The mayor thought of Washington as a difficult man who was not able to conceal-or perhaps didn’t want to conceal-his contempt for politicians.

Mayor Martin had sought Lieutenant Washington out shortly after taking office. The police department always provides a police officer, sometimes a sergeant, but most often a lieutenant, to drive the mayoral limousine, serving simultaneously, of course, as bodyguard.

He’d toyed with the idea of having a white officer-a very large, happy, smiling Irishman who would look good in the background of news photos came to mind-but before he could make the appointment, he’d seen Washington striding purposefully though the lobby of the Roundhouse, and asked who he was.

That night he had mentioned the enormous lieutenant to his wife, Beatrice, at supper.

“I thought you knew Jason,” Beatrice said. “He’s Martha’s husband.”

The mayor knew his wife’s friend, Martha Washington. Beatrice, as the mayor thought of it, was “into art and that sort of thing,” and Martha Washington was both a very successful art dealer and a painter of some repute.

“No, I don’t,” the mayor confessed. “How do you think he’d like to be the mayor’s driver?”

“I don’t think so,” Beatrice had said. “I can’t imagine Jason as a chauffeur-yours or anyone else’s.”

“You’re going to have to get used to being the mayor’s wife, precious.”

Mayor Martin had taken the trouble to meet Washington socially, which had proven more difficult to do than he thought it would be.

The mayor had arranged for the Washingtons to be invited to a friend’s cocktail party, and when they sent their regrets, to a second friend’s cocktail party, which invitation they also declined with regret. On the third try, he finally got to meet them, and Alvin W. Martin’s first impression of Jason Washington that night was that he was going to like him, possibly very much, and that he would look just fine in the background of press photos.

Washington was an imposing man, superbly tailored, and erudite without rubbing it in your face. The mayor, studying Washington’s suit with the eye of a man who appreciated good tailoring, wondered how he could afford to dress that well on a detective’s salary. He decided the artist wife picked up the tab.

He finally managed to get him alone.

“I’d really like to get together with you, Jason. You don’t mind if I call you ‘Jason,’ do you?”

“Not at all.”

“I’m in the process of selecting a driver. Would you be interested?”

“With all possible respect, Mr. Mayor, absolutely not.”

“Actually, it would entail more than just driving the limo,” the mayor had said. “I really need someone around who can explain the subtleties of the police department to me.”

“I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding such a person, Mr. Mayor.”

“And, specifically, I need input from someone knowledgeable about what I might be able to do for our fellow blacks in the police department.”

“I can tell you that, Mr. Mayor, in a very few words: Really support a meaningful pay raise; get it through the City Council. Policemen often have a hard time making ends meet.”

“I was speaking specifically of black police officers.”

“There are two kinds of police officers, Mr. Mayor. The bad ones-a small minority-and all the others. And all the others are colored blue.”

“That’s a little jingoistic, isn’t it, Lieutenant?”

“Simplistic, perhaps, Mr. Mayor, and perhaps chauvinistic, but I don’t think jingoistic, which, as I understand the word, carries a flavor of belligerence I certainly didn’t intend.”

“Let me be very frank,” the mayor said. “When I asked around for the name of an outstanding black officer to whom I could turn with questions regarding the police department generally, and black officers in the department specifically, your name immediately came up. You have a splendid reputation. And I wondered how it is you’re a lieutenant.”

“ ‘Only’ a lieutenant? Is that what you mean?”

“All right, if you want to put it that way. You don’t think race had anything to do with you having been a policeman twenty-three years before being promoted to lieutenant?”

“Mr. Mayor, I’ve spent most of my career in Homicide…"”

“You’ve been described to me as one of the best homicide investigators anywhere.”

Washington ignored the compliment, and continued:

“… where, because of the extraordinary amount of overtime required, most detectives make as much as inspectors and some as much as chief inspectors. I was a little late reaching my present rank because I never took the examination until I had assurance, in writing, that should I pass and be promoted, I would not be transferred from Homicide.”

Aware that his temper was rising, the mayor said, “I wasn’t aware that you could make deals like that.”

“They aren’t common.”

“Frankly, the more you reject the idea, the more it appeals to me. I need someone who will tell me how things are, rather than what they think I want to hear. And I was under the impression that police officers serve where their superiors decide they can be of the most value.”

“That’s true, of course,” Washington had replied. “But it is also true that police officers my age with twenty years or more of service can retire at any time they so desire.”

The mayor suddenly saw the headline in the Bulletin: ACE HOMICIDE LIEUTENANT RETIRES RATHER THAN BECOME MAYOR’S DRIVER.

“Well, I’m disappointed, of course,” the mayor had said. “But I will certainly respect your wishes. You will be available, won’t you, if I need an expert to explain something to me?”

“I’m at your service, Mr. Mayor,” Washington had said.

Mayor Martin now looked across his desk and asked, “And what does Lieutenant Washington have to say about why these people haven’t been arrested? It’s been two days, Commissioner.”

Mariani replied, “I talked to him last night, Mr. Mayor. He says he’s doing everything he can think of to do, and that something’s bound to turn up. Right now, we don’t even know who the doers are.”

“There were no witnesses?”

“There were witnesses, sir. Mickey O’Hara of the Bulletin even took a picture of the doers as they left the restaurant. He was one of the first to reach the scene. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very good photograph.”

“We have a picture of these people?” the mayor asked, incredulously.

“Not a very good picture, Mr. Mayor.”

“I can see the story in the Bulletin,” the mayor said, unpleasantly. “Even with a photo provided by the Bulletin, police are unable to identify, much less arrest-”

"O’Hara wouldn’t write a story like that,” Mariani said. “He understands our problem.”

“You have more faith in the press than I do, obviously,” the mayor said. “And none of the witnesses can come up with a description of these people?”

“We put police artists on the job immediately, Mr. Mayor. The result of that has been a number of pictures none of which look like any other picture. Everybody saw something else.”

“The bottom line, then, is that you don’t have a clue as to who these people are.”

“We’re doing our best, sir.”

“That’s really not good enough, Commissioner,” the mayor said. “I need something for the press, and I need it by three this afternoon.”

“What would you like me to say, sir?”

“How about forming a task force?”

“We have one in everything but name now, sir. A cop has been killed. Washington can have anything he asks for. It’s just going to take some time, I’m afraid.”

“A cop and a single mother of three,” the mayor said. “We don’t want to forget her, do we?”

“We’re not forgetting her, sir. But when a police officer is killed, it sort of mobilizes the entire department.”

“Just for the record, Commissioner, the entire police department should be mobilized whenever any of our citizens is brutally murdered.”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

“What about Special Operations, Commissioner?”

“Sir?”

“Supposing I announce this afternoon that I have ordered that the Special Operations Division take over the investigation? ”

“Sir, it’s a homicide,” the Commissioner said.

“You don’t think it’s a good idea, I gather?”

“Mr. Mayor, it won’t accomplish anything that’s not already been done. If I call Inspector Wohl…”

“Who is?”

“The commanding officer of Special Operations, sir.”

“Okay.”

“If I call him right now and give him the job, he’ll say ‘Yes, sir,’ and then he’ll call Lieutenant Washington and ask him how he can help. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’ll bet Wohl has already done that.”

“Let’s do it anyway,” the mayor said. “Make it official. And tell this Inspector… Wohl, you said?”

“Yes, sir.”

“To light a fire under Washington.”

“Yes, sir. Sir, Inspector Wohl was once a homicide detective…."”

“So much the better.”

“A rookie homicide detective. Jason Washington, as a very experienced, very good, homicide detective, was charged with bringing Detective Wohl up to homicide speed-”

“Commissioner,” the mayor interrupted somewhat sharply, “I’m getting the feeling you’re dragging your feet, for reasons I can’t imagine. So I repeat, call this Inspector Wohl and tell him he is now in charge of this investigation task force, and I expect results.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll do so immediately.”

“There’s one more thing,” the mayor said. “The cardinal called me at home last night.”

“Yes, sir?”

“About the visit of Stan Colt. The cardinal said that Colt being here may raise a half million dollars or more for West Catholic High School.”

“It probably will, sir.”

“The cardinal wants to make sure Mr. Colt’s visit goes smoothly. And in this case, I want what the cardinal wants.”

“So do I, Mr. Mayor. After the cardinal called me about Mr. Colt coming here, I gave Mr. Colt ‘Visiting Dignitary’ status for his trip. He will be under the care of the Dignitary Protection Unit.”

“So he told me,” the mayor replied. “What he called me about was the assignment to Colt’s visit of a particular detective. Apparently this detective made a very good impression on Monsignor Schneider-who’s doing the nuts and bolts of Colt’s visit for the cardinal-when they met at some sort of preliminary meeting. I’d like this done.”

“Certainly, sir. You have the detective’s name?”

“Payne,” the mayor said. And then he read the commissioner’s face. “You know him? Is there going to be some problem with this?”

“We published the sergeant’s examination ratings yesterday, ” the commissioner said. “Detective Payne ranked number one.”

“In other words, he’s a very bright detective?”

“And a very good one.”

“And now he’s a sergeant?”

“He will be whenever the promotion ceremony is held.”

“And when will that be?”

“Whenever you decide, Mr. Mayor.”

“How about…” He checked his calendar. “I’m free from nine-fifteen until ten tomorrow morning.”

“Sir, we have the funds to promote the top twenty-one men on the list immediately. It would be difficult to get all twenty-one in on such short notice.”

The mayor gave him a look that was mingled curiosity and exasperation.

“We could promote the top five,” Commissioner Mariani said. “You will recall, sir, we offered the top five examinees their choice of assignment.”

“And you can get all five in here tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sure I can.”

“Good. We’ll get him in here and promote him, and the others, and then assign Sergeant Payne to Dignitary Protection. ”

“But there’s a small problem there, too, I’m sorry to say. Payne is entitled to his choice of assignment.”

“Commissioner, why don’t you suggest to Detective Payne that the Dignitary Protection Unit would be a fine choice of assignment?”

“He wants to go to Homicide, sir.”

“How do you know that?”

“Deputy Commissioner Coughlin told me, sir. He’s Detective Payne’s godfather.”

“Figuratively speaking, or literally?” the mayor asked, sarcastically.

“Both, sir.”

The mayor exhaled in exasperation.

“Then I suggest you suggest to Deputy Commissioner Coughlin that he suggest to Detective Payne that Dignitary Protection would be a fine choice-indeed the only choice- for Detective Payne to make.”

“Mr. Mayor, the prize-the choice of assignment-has been widely publicized. If we don’t make good on the promise…”

“What?”

“I’m afraid the Fraternal Order of Police would-”

“Jesus Christ!” the mayor exploded. “How about this, then, Commissioner? We promote Payne. Sergeant Payne is assigned to Homicide, and then temporarily assigned to Dignitary Protection for Stan Colt’s visit?”

“That would work fine, sir.”

“Then please see that it’s done,” the mayor said. “I’ll look for you here about quarter to three. Thank you, Commissioner. ”