Men In Blue

TEN

Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson was sitting on the sill of a wall of windows that provided a view of lower Market Street, the Delaware River and the bridge to New Jersey.

"So, I went down to Homicide," he said, nearing the end of his story, "and finally got to meet Miss Wells, also known as Dutton."

"Where had she been?" Brewster Payne asked. Mawson had aroused his curiosity. Through the entire recital of having been given a runaround by the police, and the gory details of the brutal murder of Jerome Nelson, he had not been able to guess why Mawson was telling it all to him.

"She wouldn't tell me," Mawson said. "She's a very feisty young woman, Brewster. I think she was on the edge of telling me to butt out."

"How extraordinary," Payne said, dryly, "that she would even consider refusing the services of 'Philadelphia's most distinguished practitioner of criminal law.'"

"I knew damned well I made a mistake telling you that," Mawson said. "Now I'll never hear the end of it."

"Probably not," Payne agreed.

"I have an interesting theory," Mawson said, "that she spent the night with the cop."

"Miss Dutton? And which cop would that be, Mawson?" Payne asked.

"Inspector Wohl," Mawson said. "He took her away from the apartment, and then he brought her in in the morning."

"I thought, for a moment, that you were suggesting there was something romantic, or whatever, between them," Payne said.

"That's exactly what I'm suggesting," Mawson said. "He's not what comes to mind when you say 'cop.' Or 'inspector.' For one thing he's young, and very bright, and well dressed…polished if you take my meaning."

"Perhaps they're friends," Payne said. "When he heard what had happened, he came to be a friend."

"She doesn't look at him like he's a friend," Mawson insisted, "and unless Czernick is still playing games with me, he didn't even know her until yesterday. According to Czernick, he assigned him to the Wells/Dutton girl to make sure she was treated with the appropriate kid gloves for a TV anchorwoman."

"I don't know where you're going, I'm afraid," Payne said.

"Just file that away as a wild card," Mawson said. "Let me finish."

"Please do," Payne said.

"So, after she signed her statement, and she rode off into the sunrise with this Wohl fellow, I came here and put in a call to Wells in London. He wasn't there. But he left a message for me. Delivered with the snotty arrogance that only the English can manage. Mr. Wells is on board British Caledonian Airways Flight 419 to New York, and ' would be quite grateful if I could make myself available to him immee-jut-ly on his arrival at Philadelphia.' "

"Philadelphia?" Payne asked, smiling. Mawson's mimicry of an upperclass British accent was quite good. "Does British Caledonian fly into here?"

"No, they don't. I asked the snotty Englishman the same question. He said, he 'raw-ther doubted it. What Mr. Wells has done is shed-yule a helicopter to meet the British Caledonian air-crawft in New York, don' t you see? To take him from New York to Philadelphia.' "

Payne set his coffee cup on the end table beside the couch.

"You're really very good at that," he said, chuckling. "So you're going to meet him at the airport here?"

Mawson hesitated, started to reply, and then stopped.

"Okay," Brewster Payne said. "So that's the other question."

"I don't like being summoned like an errand boy," Mawson said. "But on the other hand, Stanford Fortner Wells is Wells Newspapers, and there-"

"Is a certain potential, for the future," Payne filled in for him. " If he had counsel in Philadelphia, he would have called them."

"Exactly."

"We could send one of our bright young men to the airport with a limousine," Payne said, "to take Mr. Wells either here, to see you, or to a suite which we have reserved for him in the… what about the Warwick?… where you will attend him the moment your very busy schedule-shed-yule-permits."

"Good show!" Mawson said. "Raw-ther! Quite! I knew I could count on you, old boy, in this sticky wicket."

Payne chuckled.

"You said 'the other question', Brewster," Mawson said.

"What, if anything, you should say to Mr. Wells about where his daughter was when you couldn't find her, and more specifically, how much, if at all, of your suspicions regarding Inspector Wall-"

"Wohl. Double-U Oh Aitch Ell," Mawson interrupted.

"Wohl," Payne went on. "And his possibly lewd and carnal relationship with his daughter."

"Okay. Tell me."

"Nothing, if you're asking my advice."

"I thought it might show how bright and clever we are to find that out so soon," Mawson said.

"No father, Mawson, wants to hear from a stranger that his daughter is not as innocent as he would like to believe she is."

Mawson laughed.

"You're right, Brewster," he said. He walked to the door and opened it. "Irene, would you ask Mr. Fengler to come over, please? And tell him to clear his schedule for the rest of the day? And then reserve agood suite at the Warwick, billing to us, for Mr. Stanford Fortner Wells? And finally, call that limousine service and have them send one over, to park in our garage? And tell them I would be very grateful if it was clean, and not just back from a funeral?"

"Yes, sir," she said, smiling.

"Hello, Matt," Mawson said. "How are you?"

"Morning, Colonel," Matt said. "I was hoping to see Dad."

"Having just solved all the world's problems, he's available for yours," Mawson said, and turned to Brewster Payne. "Mart's waiting for you."

"I'll be damned," Payne said, and got up from the couch. "I wonder what's on his mind?"

He had, in fact, been expecting to see Matt, or at least to have him telephone. He had heard from Matt's mother how awkward it had been at the Moffitt home, and later at the funeral home, making the senseless death of Matt's uncle even more difficult for him. He had half expected Matt to come out to Wallingford last night, and, disappointed that he hadn't, had considered calling him. In the end he had decided that it would be best if Matt came to him, as he felt sure he would, in his own good time.

He went in the outer office and resisted the temptation to put his arms around Matt.

"Well, good morning," he said.

"If I'm throwing your schedule in disarray, Dad-" Matt said.

"There's nothing on my schedule, is there, Irene?"

"Nothing that won't wait," she said. "Go on in, Matt," Payne said, gesturing toward his office. "I've got to step down the corridor a moment, and then I'll be with you."

He waited until Matt was inside and then told Irene Craig that she was to hold all calls. "It's important. You heard about Captain Moffitt?"

"I didn't know what to say to him," she said. "So I said nothing."

"I think a word of condolence would be in order when he comes out," Payne said, and then went in his office and closed the door.

Matt was sitting on the edge of an antique cherrywood chair, resting his elbows on his knees.

"I'm very sorry about your uncle Dick, Matt," Brewster Payne said. " He was a fine man, and I know how close you were. Aside from that, I have no comforting words. It was senseless, brutal, unspeakable."

Matt looked at him, started to say something, changed his mind, and said something else: "I just joined the police department."

My God! He's not joking!

"That was rather sudden, wasn't it?" Brewster Payne said. "What about the Marine Corps? I thought you were under a four-year obligation to them?"

"I busted the physical," Matt said. "The marines don't want me."

"When did that happen?"

"A week or so ago," Matt said. "My fault. When I went to the naval hospital, the doctor asked me why didn't I take the flight physical, I never knew when I might want to try for flight school. So I took it, and the eye examination was more thorough than it would have been for a grunt commission, and they found it."

"Found what?"

"It had some Latin name, of course," Matt said. "And it will probably never bother me, but the United States Marine Corps can't take any chances. I'm out."

"You didn't say anything," Brewster Payne said.

"I'm not exactly proud of being a 4-F," Matt said. "I just… didn't want to."

"Perhaps the army or the air force wouldn't be so particular," Brewster Payne said.

"It doesn't work that way, Dad," Matt said. "I already have a brandnew 4-F draft card."

"Think that through, Matt," Brewster Payne said. "You should be embarrassed, or ashamed, only of things over which you have control. There is no reason at all that you should feel in any way diminished by this."

"I'll get over it," Matt said.

"It is not really a good reason to act impulsively," Brewster Payne said.

"Nor, he hesitates to add, but is thinking, is the fact that Uncle Dick got himself shot a really good reason to act impulsively; for example, joining the police force."

"The defense rests," Brewster Payne said, softly.

"Actually, I was thinking about it before Uncle Dick was killed," Matt said. "From the time I busted the physical. The first thing I thought was that it was too late to apply for law school."

"Not necessarily," Brewster Payne said. "There is always an exception to the rule, Matt."

"And then, with sudden clarity, I realized that I didn't want to go to law school," Matt went on. "Not right away, anyway. Not in the fall. And then I saw the ads in the newspaper, heard them on the radio

… the police department, if not the Marine Corps, is looking for a few good men."

"I've noticed the advertisements," Brewster Payne said. "And they aroused my curiosity to the point where I asked about them. The reason they are actively recruiting people is that the salary is quite low-"

"Thanks to you," Matt said, "that really isn't a problem for me."

"Yes, I suppose that's true," Payne said.

"I went out and got drunk with a cop last night."

"After you left the Moffitts', you mean? I thought maybe you would come home."

"I wanted to be alone, so I went to the bar in the Hotel Adelphia. It's a great place to be alone."

"And there you met the policeman? And he talked you into the police?"

"No. I'd met him that afternoon before. At Uncle Dick's house. Mr. Coughlin introduced us. Staff Inspector Wohl. He was wounded, too. He was a friend of Uncle Dick's, and he was there… at the Waikiki Diner. I think he was probably in the Adelphia bar to be alone, too. I spoke to him at the bar."

"Wohl?" Brewster Payne parroted.

"Peter Wohl," Matt said. "You know him?"

"I think I've heard the colonel mention him," Payne said. "Younger man? The word the colonel used was 'polished.' "

"He would fit in with your bright young men," Matt said. "If that's what you mean."

"I don't know how you manage to make 'bright young men' sound like a pejorative," Brewster Payne said, "but you do."

"I know why you like them," Matt said. "Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. If you started chewing tobacco this morning, they'd all be chawin' 'n' spitting by noon."

Payne chuckled. "Is it that bad?"

"Yes, it is," Matt said.

"You said you drank with Inspector Wohl?"

"Yeah. He's a very nice guy."

"And you discussed your joining the police department?"

"Briefly," Matt said. "I am sure I gave him the impression I was drunk, or stupid, or burning with a childish desire to avenge Uncle Dutch. Or all of the above."

"But you're still thinking about it?" Payne asked, and then went on without waiting for a reply. "It would be a very important decision, Matt. Deserving of a good deal of careful thought. Pluses and minuses. Long-term ramifications…"

He stopped when he saw the look on Matt's face.

"I have joined the police department," Matt said. "Fait accompli,or nearly so."

"How did you manage to do that, since last night? You can't just walk in and join, can you? Or can you?"

"I got to bed about two last night," Matt said. "And at half past five this morning, I was wide awake. So I went for a long walk. At five minutes after eight, I found myself downtown, in front of Wanamaker's. And I was hungry. There's a place in Suburban Station that serves absolutely awful hot dogs and really terrible 'orange drink' twenty-four hours a day. Just what I had to have, so I cut through City Hall, and that was my undoing."

"I don't understand," Payne said.

"The cops have a little recruiting booth set up there," Matt said, " presumably to catch the going-to-work crowd. So I saw it, and figured what the hell, it wouldn't hurt to get some real information. Five minutes later, I was upstairs in City Hall, taking the examination."

"That quickly?"

"I was a live one," Matt said. "Anyway, there are several requirements to get in the police department. From what I saw, aside from not having a police record, the most important is having resided within the city limits for a year. I passed that with flying colors, since I gave the Deke house as my address for my new driver's license, and that was more than a year ago. Next came the examination itself, with which I had some difficulty, since I had to answer serious posers like how many eggs would I have if I divided a dozen eggs by six. But I got through that, too. At eleven, I'm supposed to be in the Municipal Services Building, across from City Hall, for a physical, and, I think, some kind of an interview with a shrink."

"That's all there is to it?"

"Well, they took my fingerprints, and are going to check me out with the FBI, and there's some kind of background investigation they'll conduct here, but for all practical purposes, yes, that's it."

"I wonder how your mother is going to react to this?"

"I don't know," Matt said.

"She lost a husband who was a policeman," Brewster Payne said. "That' s going to be on her mind."

Matt grunted.

"I want to do it, Dad, at least to try it."

"You've considered, of course, that you might not like it? I don't know what they do with rookie policemen, of course, but I would suspect it's like anything else, that you start out doing the unpleasant things."

"I didn't really want to go in the marines, Dad," Matt said. "Not until after they told me they didn't want me, anyway. It was just something you did, like go to college. But I reallywant to be a cop."

Brewster Payne cocked his head thoughtfully and made a grunting noise.

"Well, I don't like it, and I won't be a hypocrite and say I do," Brewster Payne said.

"I didn't think you would," Matt said. "I sort of hoped you would understand."

"The terms are not mutually exclusive," Payne said. "I do understand, and I don't like it. Would you like to hear what I really think?"

"Please."

"I think that you will become a police officer, and because this is your nature, you will do the very best you can. And I think in… say a year… that you will conclude you don't really want to spend the rest of your life that way. If that happens, and you do decide to go to law school, or do something entirely different-"

"Then it wouldn't be wasted, is that what you mean?" Matt interrupted.

"I was about to say the year would bevery valuable to you," Brewster Payne said. "Now that I think about it, far more valuable than a year in Europe, which was a carrot I was considering dangling in front of your nose to talk you out of this."

"That's a very tempting carrot," Matt said.

"The offer remains open," Payne said. "But to tell you the truth, I would be disappointed in you if you took it. It remains open because of your mother."

"Yeah," Matt said, exhaling.

"And also for my benefit," Brewster Payne said. "When your brothers and sister come to me, and they will, crying 'Dad, how could you let him do that?' I will be able to respond that I did my best to talk you out of it, even including a bribe of a year in Europe."

"I hadn't even thought about them," Matt said.

"I suggest you had better. You can count, I'm sure, on your sister trying to reason with you, and when that fails, screaming and breaking things."

Matt chuckled.

"I will advance the proposition, which I happen to believe, that what you're doing is both understandable, and with a little bit of luck, might turn out to be a very profitable thing for you to do."

"Thank you," Matt said.

Brewster Payne stood up and offered his hand to Matt.

Matt started to take it, but stopped. They looked at each other, and then Brewster Payne opened his arms, and Matt stepped into them, and they hugged each other.

"Dad, you're great," Matt said.

"I know," Brewster Payne said. He thought, I don't care who his father was; this is my own, beloved, son.

When Peter Wohl walked into Homicide, Detective Jason Washington signaled that Captain Henry C. Quaire, commanding officer of the Homicide Division, was in his office and wordlessly asked if he should tell him Wohl was outside.

Wohl shook his head, no, and mimed drinking a cup of coffee. Washington went to a Mr. Coffee machine, poured coffee, and then, still without speaking, made gestures asking Wohl if he wanted cream or sugar. Wohl shook his head again, no, and Washington carried the coffee to him. Wohl nodded his thanks, and Washington bowed solemnly.

"We should paint our faces white," Wohl said, chuckling, "and set up on the sidewalk."

"Well, we'd probably make more money doing that than we do on the job," Washington said. "Mimes probably take more home in their begging baskets every day than we do in a week."

Wohl chuckled, and then asked, "Who's in there with him?"

"Mitell," Washington said. "You hear about that job? The old Italian guy?"

Wohl shook his head no.

"Well, he died. We just found out-Mitell told me as he went in that he just got the medical examiner's report- of natural causes. But his wife was broke, and didn't have enough money to bury him the way she thought he was entitled to be buried. So she dragged him into the basement, wrapped him in Saran Wrap, and waited for the money to come in. That was three months ago. A guy from the gas works smelled him, and called the cops."

"Jesus Christ!" Wohl said.

"The old lady can't understand why everybody's so upset," Washington said. "After all, it washer basement andher husband."

"Oh, God." Wohl laughed, and Washington joined him, and then Washington said what had just popped into Wohl's mind.

"Why are we laughing?"

"Otherwise, we'd go crazy," Wohl said.

"How did I do with the TV lady?" Washington asked.

"She told me she thought you were a very nice man, Jason," Wohl said.

"I thought she was a very nice lady," Washington said. "She looks even better in real life than she does on the tube."

"I don't suppose anything has happened?" Wohl asked.

"Gerald Vincent Gallagher's under a rock someplace," Washington said. "He'll have to come out sooner or later. I'll let you know the minute I get anything."

"Who's got the Nelson job?" Wohl asked.

"Tony Harris," Washington said. "Know him?"

Wohl nodded.

Detective Jason Washington thought that he was far better off, the turn of the wheel, so to speak, than was Detective Tony Harris, to whom the wheel had given the faggot hacking job.

The same special conditions prevailed, the close supervision from above, though for different reasons. The special interest in the Moffitt job came because Dutch was a cop, and it came from within the department. If Dutch hadn't been a cop, and the TV lady hadn't been there when he got shot, the press wouldn't really have given a damn. It would have been a thirty-second story on the local TV news, and the story would probably have been buried in the back pages of the newspapers.

But the Nelson job had everything in it that would keep it on the TV and in the newspapers for a long time. For one thing, it was gory. Whoever had done in Nelson had been over the edge; they'd really chopped up the poor sonofabitch. That in itself would have been enough to make a big story about it; the public likes to read about "brutal murders." But Nelson was rich, the son of a big shot. He lived in a luxurious apartment. And there was the (interesting coincidence) tiein with the TV lady. She'd found the body, and since everybody figured they knew her from the TV, it was as if someone they knew personally had found it.

And so far, they didn't know who did it. Everybody could take a vicarious chill from the idea of having somebody break into an apartment and chop somebody up with knives. And if it came out that Jerome Nelson was homosexual, that would make it an even bigger story. Jason Washington didn't think it would come out (the father owned a newspaper and a TV station, and it seemed logical that out of respect for him, the other newspapers and TV stations would soft-pedal that); but if it did, what the papers would have was sexual perversion as well as a brutal murder among the aristocracy, and they would milk that for all they could get out of it.

But that wasn't Tony Harris's real problem, as Jason Washington saw it. Harris's real problem was his sergeant, Bill Chedister, who spent most of his time with his nose up Lieutenant Ed DelRaye's ass, and, more important, DelRaye himself. So far as Washington was concerned, DelRaye was an ignorant loudmouth, who was going to take the credit for whatever Tony Harris did right, and see that Harris got the blame for the investigation not going as fast as the brass thought it should go.

Washington thought that what happened between DelRaye and the TV woman was dumb, for a number of reasons, starting with the basic one that you learn more from witnesses if you don't piss them off. Threatening to break down her door and calling for a wagon to haul her to the Roundhouse was even dumber.

In a way, Washington was sorry that Peter Wohl had shown up and calmed things down. DelRaye thus escaped the wrath that would have been dumped on him by everybody from the commissioner down for getting the TV station justifiably pissed off at the cops.

Washington also thought that it was interesting that DelRaye had let it get around that Wohl had been "half-drunk" when he had shown up. Jason Washington had known Wohl ten, fifteen years, and he had never seen him drunk in all that time. But accusing Wohl of having been drunk was just the sort of thing a prick like DelRaye would do, especially if he himself had been. And if DelRaye had been drunk, that would explain his pissing off the TV woman.

Washington admired Wohl, for a number of reasons. He liked the way he dressed, for one thing, but, far more important, he thought Wohl was smart. Jason Washington habitually studied the promotion lists, not only to see who was on them, but to see who had done well. Peter Wohl had been second on his sergeant's list, first on his lieutenant's list, third on his captain's list, and first again on the staff inspector's list. That was proof enough that Wohl was about as smart a cop as they came, but also that he had kept his party politics in order, which sometimes wasn't easy for someone who was an absolutely straight arrow, as Washington believed Wohl to be.

Peter Wohl was Jason Washington's idea of what a good senior police officer should be; there was no question that Wohl (and quickly, because the senior ranks of the Department would soon be thinned out by retirement) would rise to chief inspector, and probably even higher.

As Wohl put his coffee cup to his lips, Captain Quaire's office door opened. Detective Mitell, a slight, wiry young man, came out, and Quaire, a stocky, muscular man of about forty, appeared in it. He spotted Wohl.

"Good morning, Inspector," he said. "I expect you want to see me?"

"When you get a free minute, Henry," Wohl said.

"Let me get a cup of coffee," Captain Quaire said, "and I'll be right with you."

Wohl waited until Quaire had carried his coffee mug into his office and then followed him in. Quaire put his mug on his desk, and then went to the door and closed it.

"I was told you would be around, Peter," he said, waving toward a battered chair. "But before we start that, let me thank you for last night."

"Thank me for what last night?" Wohl asked.

"I understand a situation developed on the Nelson job that could have been awkward."

"Where'd you hear that?"

Quaire didn't reply directly.

"My cousin Paul's with the Crime Lab. He was there," he said. "I had a word with Lieutenant DelRaye. I tried to make the point that knocking down witnesses' doors and hauling them away in a wagon is not what we of the modern enlightened law-enforcement community think of as good public relations."

Wohl chuckled, relieved that Quaire had heard about the incident from his own sources; after telling the commissioner what he had told him was off the record, he would have been disappointed if the commissioner had gone right to DelRaye's commanding officer with it.

"The lady was a little upset, but nothing got out of control."

"Was he drunk, Peter?"

I wonder if he got that, too, from his cousin Paul? And is Cousin Paul a snitch, or did Quaire tell him to keep his eye on DelRaye?

"No, I don't think so," Wohl replied, and added a moment later, "No, I'm sure he wasn't."

But I was. How hypocritical I am, in that circumstance. I wonder if anybody saw it, and turned me in?

"Okay," Quaire said. "That's good enough for me, Peter. Now what can I do for you to keep the commissioner off your back and Chief Lowenstein off mine?"

"Lowenstein said something to you about me? You said you expected me?" Wohl asked.

"Lowenstein said, quote, by order of the commissioner, you would be keeping an eye on things," Quaire said.

"Onlyas a spectator," Wohl said. "I'm to finesse both Miss Dutton and Mr. Nelson. I'm to keep Nelson up to date on how that job is going, and to make sure Miss Dutton is treated with all the courtesy an ordinary citizen of Philadelphia, who also happens to be on TV twice a day, can expect."

Quaire smiled. "That, the girl, might be very interesting," he said. "She's a looker, Peter. Nelson may be difficult. He's supposed to be a real sonofabitch."

"Do you think the Commissioner would rather have him mad at Peter Wohl than at Ted Czernick?" Wohl said. "I fell into this, Henry. I responded to the call at the Waikiki. My bad luck, I was on Roosevelt Boulevard."

"Well, what do you need?"

"I'm going from here to see Nelson," Wohl said. "I'd like to talk to the detective who has the job."

"Sure."

"If it's all right with you, Henry, I'd like to ask him to tell me when they need Miss Dutton in here. I don't want anybody saying, 'Get in the car, honey.' "

"Tony Harris got the Nelson job," Quaire said.

"I heard. Good man, from what I hear," Wohl said.

"Tony Harris is at the Nelson apartment," Quaire said. "You want me to get him in here?"

"I really have to talk to him before I see Nelson. Maybe the thing for me to do is meet him over there."

"You want to do that, I'll call him and tell him to wait for you."

"Please, Henry," Wohl said.

Staff Inspector Peter Wohl's first reaction when he saw Detective Anthony C. Harris was anger.

Tony Harris was in his early thirties, a slight and wiry man already starting to bald, the smooth youthful skin on his face already starting to crease and line. He was wearing a shirt and tie, and a sports coat and slacks that had probably come from the racks of some discount clothier several years before.

It was a pleasant spring day and Detective Harris had elected to wait for Inspector Wohl outside the crime scene, which had already begun to stink sickeningly of blood, on the street. Specifically, when Wohl passed through the Stockton Place barrier, Harris was sitting on the hood of Wohl's Jaguar XK-120, which was parked, top down, where he had left it last night.

There were twenty coats of hand-rubbed lacquer on the XK-120's hood, applied, one coat at a time, with a laborious rubdown between each coat, by Peter Wohl himself.Only an ignorant asshole, with no appreciation of the finer things of life, would plant his gritty ass on twenty coats of hand-rubbed lacquer.

Wohl screeched to a stop by the Jaguar, leaned across the seat, rolled down the window, and returned Tony Harris's pleasant smile by snapping, "Get your ass off my hood!"

Then he drove twenty feet farther down the cobble-stoned street and stopped the LTD.

Looking a little sheepish, Harris walked to the LTD as Wohl got out.

"Jesus Christ, Tony!" Wohl fumed, still angry. "There's twenty coats of lacquer on there!"

"Sorry," Harris mumbled. "I didn't think."

"Obviously," Wohl said.

Wohl's anger died as quickly as it had flared. Tony Harris looked beat and worn down. Without consciously calling it up from his memory, what Wohl knew about Harris came into his mind. First came the important impression he had filed away, which was that Harris was a good cop, more important, one of the brighter Homicide detectives. Then he remembered hearing that after nine years of marriage and four kids, Mrs. Harris had caught Tony straying from the marital bed and run him before a judge who had awarded her both ears and the tail.

If I were Tony Harris, Peter Wohl thought, who has to put in sixty, sixty-five hours a week to make enough money to pay child support with enough left over to pay for an "efficiency" apartment for myself, and some staff inspector, no older than I am, pulls rank and jumps my ass for scratching the precious paint on his precious sports car, I would be pissed. And rightly so.

"Hell, Tony, I'm sorry," Wohl said, offering his hand. "But I painted that sonofabitch by myself. All twenty coats."

"I was wrong," Harris said. "I just wasn't thinking. Or I wasn't thinking about a paint job."

"I guess what I was really pissed about was my own stupidity," Wohl said. "I know better than using my own car on the job. Right after I saw you, I asked myself, 'Christ, what if it had rained last night?' "

"You took that TV woman out through the basement in her own car?" Harris asked.

"Yeah."

"It took DelRaye some time to figure that out," Harris said. "Talk about pissed."

"Well, I'm sorry he was," Wohl said. "But it was a vicious circle, the more pissed he got at her, the more pissed she got at him. I had to break it, and that seemed to be the best way to do it. The whole department would have paid for it for a long time."

"I think maybe he was pissed because he knew his ass was showing," Harris said. "You can't push a dame like that around. She file a complaint?"

"No," Wohl said.

Harris shrugged.

"Did Captain Quaire say anything to you about me?" Wohl asked.

"He said it came from upstairs that you were to be in on it," Harris said.

"I've been temporarily transferred to the Charm Squad," Wohl said. " I'm to keep Miss Dutton happy, and to report daily to Mr. Nelson's father on the progress of your investigation."

Harris chuckled.

"What have you got, Tony?"

"He was a fag, I guess you know?"

"I met him," Wohl said.

"I want to talk to his boyfriend," Harris said. "We're looking for him. Very large black guy, big enough, strong enough, to cut up Nelson the way he was. His name, we think, is Pierre St. Maury. His birth certificate probably says John Jones, but that's what he called himself."

"You think he's the doer?"

"That's where I am now," Harris said. "The rent-a-cops told me that he spent the night here a lot; drove Nelson's car-cars-and probably had a key. There are no signs of forcible entry. And there's a burglar alarm. One of Nelson's cars is missing. AJaguar, by the way, Inspector," Harris said, a naughty look in his eyes. "I put the Jag in NCIC."

The FBI's National Crime Information Center operated a massive computer listing details of crimes nationwide. If the Jaguar was found somewhere, or even stopped for a traffic violation, the information that it was connected with a crime in Philadelphia would be immediately available to the police officers involved.

"Screw you, Tony," Wohl said, and laughed.

"A new one," Harris went on. "An 'XJ6'?"

"Four-door sedan," Wohl furnished. "A work of art. Twenty-five, thirty thousand dollars."

Harris's face registered surprise at the price.

"Police radio is broadcasting the description every half hour," he went on. "I also ordered a subsector search. Nelson's other car is a Ford Fairlane convertible. That's in the garage."

"Lover's quarrel?" Wohl asked.

Harris held both palms upward in front of him, and made a gesture, like a scale in balance.

"Maybe," he said. "That would explain what he did to the victim. I think we have the weapons. They used one of those Chinese knives, you know, looks like a cleaver, but sharp as a razor?"

Wohl nodded.

"And another knife, a regular one, a butcher knife with a bone handle, which is probably what he used to stab him."

"You said 'maybe,' Tony," Wohl said.

"I'm just guessing, Inspector," Harris said.

"Go ahead," Wohl said.

"There was a lot of stuff stolen, or I think so. There's no jewelry to speak of in the apartment… some ordinary cuff links, tie clasps, but nothing worth any money. The victim wore rings, they're gone, we know that. No money in the wallet, or anywhere else that anybody could find. He probably had a watch, or watches, and there's none in there. And there was marks on the bedside table, probably a portable TV, that's gone."

"Leading up to what?"

"When two homosexuals get into something like this, they usually don' t steal anything, too. I mean, not the boyfriend. They work off the anger and run. So maybe it wasn't the boyfriend."

"Or the boyfriend might be a cold-blooded sonofa-bitch," Wohl said.

"Yeah," Harris said, and made the balancing gestures again. "We got people looking for Mr. St. Maury," he went on. "And for the Jaguar. We're trying to find if he had any jewelry that was good enough to be insured, which would give us a description. Captain Quaire said you were going to see his father?"

"I'm going there as soon as I leave here," Wohl said. "I'll ask."

"I'd like to talk to him, too," Harris said.

"I think I'd better see him alone," Wohl thought out loud. "I'll tell him you'll want to see him. Maybe he can come up with some kind of a list of jewelry, expensive stuff in the apartment."

"You'll get the list?"

"No. I'll ask him to get it for you. This is your job, Tony. I'm not going to stick my nose in where it doesn't belong."

Harris nodded.

"But I would like to look around the apartment," Wohl said. "So when I see him, I'll know what I'm talking about."

"Sure," Harris said. He started toward the door. "I'm really sorry, Inspector, about sitting on your car."

"Forget it," Wohl said.