Special Operations

EIGHT

When Peter Wohl drove into the parking lot behind the Police Administration Building at Eighth and Arch, he pulled up to the gasoline pump and filled the Ford's gas tank.

It took 19.7 gallons. He had heard somewhere that the Ford held 22 gallons. That meant that despite the gas gauge needle pointing below E, he really had been in no danger of running out of gas.

There was a moral to be drawn from that, he thought, as he drove around the parking lot, looking for a place to park. For yea, though I walk along the edge of the crumbling cliff, I seem to have an unnatural good luck that keeps me from falling off.

He pulled the Ford into one of the parking slots reserved for official visitors and got out, leaving the windows open a crack to let the heat out. There was, he rationalized, not much of a chance that even the most dedicated radio thief would attempt to practice his profession in the Roundhouse parking lot.

The Police Administration Building was universally known as the Roundhouse. It was not really round, but curved. The building and its interior walls, including even those of the elevators, were curved. It was, he thought, called the Roundhouse because that came easier to the tongue than "Curved House."

He entered the building by the rear door. Inside, to the right, was a door leading to the Arraignment Room. The Roundhouse, in addition to housing the administrative offices of the Police Department on the upper floors, was also a jail. Prisoners were transported from the districts around the city to a basement facility where they were fingerprinted, photographed, and put in holding cells until it was their turn to face the magistrate, who would hear the complaint against them, and either turn them loose or decide what their bail, if any, should be.

There was sort of a small grandstand in which the family and friends of the accused could watch through a plate-glass wall as the accused was brought before the magistrate.

To the left was the door leading to the lobby of the Roundhouse. It was kept closed and locked. A solenoid operated by a Police Officer, usually a Corporal, sitting behind a thick, shatterproof window directly opposite the door, controlled the lock.

Most senior officers of the Police Department of the City of Philadelphia, that is to say from Deputy Commissioners on down through the Captains, were known by sight to the cop controlling the door. Peter Wohl, as a Staff Inspector, was rather high in the police hierarchy. He was one of seventeen Staff Inspectors, a rank immediately superior to Captains, and immediately subordinate to Inspectors. On the rare occasions when Staff Inspector Wohl wore his uniform, it carried a gold oak leaf, identical to that of majors in the armed forces. Inspectors wore silver oak leaves, and Chief Inspectors a colonel's eagle.

Senior officers were accustomed, when entering the Roundhouse, to having the solenoid to the locked door to the lobby buzzing when they reached it. When Peter Wohl reached it, it remained firmly locked. He looked over his shoulder at the cop, a middle-aged Corporal behind the shatterproof glass. The Corporal was looking at him, wearing an official, as opposed to genuine, smile, and gesturing Wohl over to him with his index finger.

Peter Wohl had been keeping count. This made it thirteen-six. Of the nineteen times he had tried to get through the door without showing his identification to the cop behind the shatterproof glass window, he had failed thirteen times; only six times had he been recognized and passed.

He walked to the window.

"Help you, sir?" the Corporal asked.

"I'm Inspector Wohl," Peter said. The corporal looked surprised and then uncomfortable as Wohl extended the leather folder holding his badge (a round silver affair embossed with a representation of City Hall and the lettersSTAFF INSPECTOR) and identification for him to see.

"Sorry, Inspector," the Corporal said.

"You're doing your job," Peter said, and smiled at him.

He went back to the door, and through it, and walked across the lobby to the elevators. Then he stopped and walked to a glass case mounted on the wall. It held the photographs and badges of Police Officers killed in the line of duty. There was a new one, of an officer in the uniform of a captain of Highway Patrol. Richard C. Moffitt.

Captain Dutch Moffitt and Peter Wohl had been friends as long as Wohl could remember. Not close friends-Dutch had been too flamboyant for that-but friends. They had known they could count on each other if there was a need; they exchanged favors. Wohl thought that the last favor he had done Dutch was to convince Jeannie, the Widow Moffitt, that Dutch had business with the blonde Dutch had been with in the Waikiki Diner on Roosevelt Boulevard when he had been fatally wounded by a junkie holding the place up.

Wohl turned and entered the elevator and pushed the button for the third floor, the right wing of which was more or less the Executive Suite of the Roundhouse. It housed the offices of the Commissioner, the Deputy Commissioners, and some of the more important Chief Inspectors, including that of Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin.

The corridor to that portion of the building was guarded by a natty man in his early thirties, either a plainclothesman or a detective, sitting at a desk. He knew Wohl.

"Hello, Inspector, how are you?"

"About to melt," Wohl said, smiling at him. "I heard some of the cops in Florida can wear shorts. You think I could talk Chief Coughlin into permitting that?"

"I don't have the legs for that," the cop said, as Wohl went down the corridor.

Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin shared an outer office with Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernick, separated from it by the Commissioner's Conference Room.

Sergeant Tom Lenihan sat at a desk to the left. A pleasant-faced, very large man, his hair was just starting to thin. He was in his shirtsleeves; a snub-nosed revolver could be seen on his hip.

"Well, I'm glad you could fit the Chief into your busy schedule," Lenihan said, with a smile. "I know he'll be pleased."

"How do you think you're going to like the last-out shift in the Seventeenth District, Sergeant?" Wohl said.

Lenihan chuckled. "Go on in. He's expecting you."

Wohl pushed open the door to Chief Inspector Coughlin's office. Coughlin's desk, set catty-cornered, faced the anteroom. Coughlin was also in his shirtsleeves, and he was talking on the telephone. He smiled and motioned Wohl into one of the two chairs facing his desk.

"Hold it a minute," he said into the telephone. He tucked it under his chin and searched through theHOLD basket on his desk. He came out with four sheets of teletype paper and handed them to Wohl. He smiledrather smugly, Peter thought-at him, and then he resumed his telephone conversation.

The teletype messages had been passed over the Police Communications Network. There was a teletype machine in each of the twenty-two districts (in New York City, and many other cities, the term used for district police stations was "precinct"); in each Detective Division; and elsewhere.

Wohl read the first message.

GENERAL: 0650 06/30/73 From Commissioner

PAGE 1 OF 1

*** CITY OF PHILADELPHIA***

*** POLICE DEPARTMENT***

ANNOUNCEMENT WILL BE MADE AT ALL ROLL CALLS OF THE FOLLOWING COMMAND

ASSIGNMENT: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY CAPTAIN DAVID S. PEKACH IS

REASSIGNED FROM NARCOTICS BUREAU TO HIGHWAY PATROL AS COMMANDING OFFICER.

Well, there goes whatever small chance I had to plead Mike Sabara's case. Now that it's official, it's too late to do anything about it.

He read the second message.

General: 0651 06/30/73 From Commissioner

PAGE 1 OF 1

*** CITY OF PHILADELPHIA***

*** POLICE DEPARTMENT***

THE FOLLOWING COMMAND REORGANIZATION WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT ALL ROLL CALLS: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY A SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION IS FORMED WITH HEADQUARTERS IN THE 7TH POLICE DISTRICT/HIGHWAY PATROL BUILDING, COMMANDING OFFICER SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION WILL BE IMMEDIATELY SUBORDINATE TO THE COMMISSIONER, REPORTING THROUGH CHIEF INSPECTOR COUGHLIN. THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION WILL CONSIST OF THE HIGHWAY PATROL, THE ANTI-CRIME TEAM (ACT) UNIT, AND SUCH OTHER UNITS AS MAY BE LATER ASSIGNED. THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION HAS CITYWIDE JURISDICTION. SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION MOTOR VEHICLES (EXCEPT HIGHWAY PATROL) ARE ASSIGNED RADIO CALL SIGNS S-100 THROUGH S-200, AND WILL USE THE PHONETIC PRONUNCIATION "SAM."

The radio designator "Sam" was already in use, Wohl knew. Stakeout and the Bomb Squad used it. It was "Sam" rather than the military " Sugar" because the first time a Bomb Squad cop had gone on the air and identified himself as "S-Sugar Thirteen" the hoots of derision from his brother officers had been heard as far away as Atlantic City.

Special Operations had been given, he reasoned, the "Sam" designator because Special Operations, also "S" was going to be larger than "S" for Stakeout. So what were they going to use for Stakeout and the Bomb Squad? It would not work to have both using the same designator.

But that was a problem that could wait.

He read the third and fourth teletype messages.

General: 0652 06/30/73 From Commissioner

PAGE 1 OF 1

*** CITY OF PHILADELPHIA***

*** POLICE DEPARTMENT***

ANNOUNCEMENT WILL BE MADE AT ALL ROLL CALLS OF THE FOLLOWING COMMAND ASSIGNMENT: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY STAFF INSPECTOR PETER F. WOHL IS REASSIGNED FROM INTERNAL AFFAIRS DIVISION TO SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION AS COMMANDING OFFICER.

General: 0653 06/30/73 From Commissioner

PAGE 1 OF 1

*** CITY OF PHILADELPHIA***

*** POLICE DEPARTMENT***

ANNOUNCEMENT WILL BE MADE AT ALL ROLL CALLS OF THE FOLLOWING COMMAND ASSIGNMENT: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY CAPTAIN MICHAEL J. SABARA IS REASSIGNED FROM (ACTING) COMMANDING OFFICER HIGHWAY PATROL TO SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION AS DEPUTY COMMANDER.

"I'll be in touch," Chief Coughlin said to the telephone, and hung up. He turned to Wohl, smiling.

"You don't seem very surprised, Peter," Coughlin said.

"I heard."

"You did?" Coughlin said, surprised. "From who?"

"I forget."

"Yeah, you forget," Coughlin said, sarcastically. "I don't know why I'm surprised."

"I don't suppose I can get out of this?" Wohl asked.

"You're going to be somebody in the Department, Peter," Coughlin said. "It wouldn't be much of a surprise if you got to be Commissioner."

"That's very flattering, Chief," Wohl said. "But that's not what I asked."

"Don't thank me," Coughlin said. "I didn't say that. The mayor did, to the Commissioner. When the mayor told him he thought you should command Special Operations."

Wohl shook his head.

"That answer your question, Inspector?" Chief Coughlin asked.

"Chief, I don't even know what the hell Special Operations is," Wohl said, "much less what it's supposed to do."

"You saw the teletype. Highway and ACT. You were Highway, and you've got Mike Sabara to help you with Highway."

"I don't suppose anybody asked Mike if he'd like to have Highway?" Wohl asked.

"The mayor says Mike looks like a concentration camp guard," Coughlin said. "Dave Pekach, I guess, looks more like what the mayor thinks the commanding officer of Highway Patrol should look like."

"This is a reaction to that'Gestapo in Jackboots' editorial? Is that what this is all about?"

"That, too, sure."

"TheLedger is going after Carlucci no matter what he does," Wohl said.

"His Honor the Mayor," Coughlin corrected him.

"And after me, too," Wohl said. "Arthur J. Nelson blames me for letting it out that his son was… involved with other men."

Arthur J. Nelson was Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Daye-Nelson Publishing, Inc., which owned theLedger and twelve other newspapers across the country.

" 'Negro homosexuals,' " Coughlin said.

It had been a sordid job. Jerome Nelson, the only son of Arthur J. Nelson, had been murdered, literally butchered, in his luxurious apartment in a renovated Revolutionary War-era building on Society Hill. The prime suspect in the case was his live-in boyfriend, a known homosexual, a man who called himself "Pierre St. Maury." A fingerprint search had identified Maury as a twenty-five-year-old black man, born Errol F. Watson, with a long record of arrests for minor vice offenses and petty thievery. Watson had himself been murdered, shot in the back of the head with a.32 automatic, by two other black men known to be homosexuals.

Wohl believed he knew what had happened: It had started as a robbery. The almost certain doers, and thus the almost certain murderers, were Watson's two friends. They were currently in the Ocean County, New Jersey jail, held without bail on a first-degree murder charge. Watson's body had been found buried in a shallow grave not far from Atlantic City, near where Jerome Nelson's stolen Jaguar had been abandoned. When the two had been arrested, they had been found in possession of Jerome Nelson's credit card, wristwatch, and ring. Other property stolen from Jerome Nelson's apartment had been located and tied to them, and their fingerprints had been all over the Jaguar.

The way Wohl put it together in his mind, the two critters being held in New Jersey had gotten the keys to the Nelson apartment from Watson, probably in exchange for a promise to split the burglary proceeds with him. Surprised to find Jerome Nelson at home, they had killed him. And then they had killed Watson to make sure that when the police found him, he couldn't implicate them.

But the two critters had availed themselves of their right under theMiranda Decision to have legal counsel. And their lawyer had pointed out to them that while they were probably going to be convicted of the murder of Watson, if they professed innocence of the Nelson robbery and murder, the Pennsylvania authorities didn't have either witnesses or much circumstantial evidence to try them with.

It was a statement of fact that sentences handed down to critters of whatever color for having murdered another critter tended to be less severe than those handed down to black men for having murdered a rich and socially prominent white man. And if the two critters in the Ocean County jail hadn't known this before the State of New Jersey provided them with free legal counsel, they knew it now.

Their story now was that they had met Watson riding around in a Jaguar, and bought certain merchandise he had for sale from him. They had last seen him safe and sound near the boardwalk in Atlantic City. They had no idea who had killed him, and they had absolutely no knowledge whatever of a man named Jerome Nelson, except that his had been the name on the credit card they bought from Errol Watson/Pierre St. Maury.

Ordinarily, it wouldn't have mattered. It would have been just one more sordid job in a long, long list of sordid jobs. The critters would have gone away, even if the New Jersey prosecutor had pleabargained Watson's murder down to second-degree murder or even firstdegree manslaughter. They would have gotten twenty-to-life, and the whole job would have been forgotten in a month.

But Jerome Nelson was not just one more victim. His father was Arthur J. Nelson, who owned theLedger, and who had naturally assumed that when Mayor Jerry Carlucci and Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernick had called on him immediately after the tragedy to assure him that the full resources of the Philadelphia Police Department would be brought to bear to bring whoever was responsible for this heinous crime against his son to justice, that the Police Department would naturally do what it could to spare the feelings of the victim's family. That, in other words, the sexual proclivities of the prime suspect, or his racial categorization, or that he had been sharing Jerome's apartment, would not come out.

Mayor Carlucci had seemed to be offering what Arthur J. Nelson had, as the publisher of a major newspaper, come to expect as his due; a little special treatment. Commissioner Czernick had even told Nelson that he had assigned one of the brightest police officers in the Department, Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, to oversee the detectives in the Homicide Division as they conducted their investigation, and to make sure that everything that could possibly be done was being done.

That hadn't happened.

Mr. Michael J. O'Hara, of theBulletin, had fed several drinks to, and stroked the already outsized ego of, a Homicide Division Lieutenant named DelRaye, which had caused Lieutenant DelRaye to say something he probably would not have said had he been entirely sober. That resulted in a front page, bylined story in theBulletin announcing that " according to a senior police official involved in the investigation" the police were seeking Jerome Nelson's live-in lover, who happened to be a black homosexual, or words to that effect.

Once Mickey O'Hara's story had broken the dam, the other two major newspapers in Philadelphia, plus all the radio and television stations, had considered it their sacred journalistic duty to bring all the facts before the public.

Mrs. Arthur J, Nelson, who had always manifested some symptoms of nervous disorder, had had to be sent back to the Institute of Living, in Hartford, Connecticut, said to be the most expensive psychiatric hospital in the country, after it had come out, in all the media except theLedger, that her only child had been cohabiting with a Negro homosexual.

Mr. Arthur J. Nelson had felt betrayed, not only by his fellow practitioners of journalism, but by the mayor and especially by the police. If that goddamned cop hadn't had diarrhea of the mouth, Jerome could have gone to his grave with some dignity, and his wife wouldn't be up in Hartford again.

Peter Wohl had been originally suspected by both Arthur J. Nelson and the mayor as the cop with the big mouth, but Commissioner Czernick had believed Wohl's denial, and found out himself, from Mickey O'Hara, that the loudmouth had been Lieutenant DelRaye.

When Mayor Carlucci had called Mr. Nelson to tell him that, and also that Lieutenant DelRaye had been relieved of his Homicide Division assignment and banished in disgrace- and in uniform-to a remote district; and also to tell him that Peter Wohl had been in on the arrest of the two suspects in Atlantic City, what had been intended as an offering of the olive branch had turned nasty. Both men had tempers, and things were said that could not be withdrawn.

And it had quickly become evident how Arthur J. Nelson intended to wage the war. Two days later, a young plain-clothes Narcotics Division cop had caught up with Gerald Vincent Gallagher, the drug addict who had been involved in the shooting death of Captain Dutch Moffitt. It had been a front-page story in all the newspapers in Philadelphia, the stories generally reflecting support for the police, and relief that a drug-addict cop-killer had been run to ground. TheLedger had buried the story, although factually reported, far inside the paper. TheLedger editorial, headlined"Vigilante Justice?" implied that Gerald Vincent Gallagher, who had fallen to his death under the wheels of a subway train as he tried to escape the Narcotics cop, had instead been pushed in front of the train.

The most recent barrage had been the"Jackbooted Gestapo" editorial. Arthur J. Nelson wanted revenge, and apparently reasoned that since Mayor Carlucci had risen to political prominence through the ranks of the Police Department, a shot that wounded the cops also wounded Carlucci.

"What is he doing," Wohl asked, "putting me between him and theLedger?"

"Peter, I think what you see is what you get," Coughlin said.

"What I see is me," Wohl said, "who hasn't worn a uniform or worked anywhere but headquarters in ten years being put in charge of Highway, and of something called ACT that I don't know a damned thing about. I don't even know what it's supposed to do."

"The mayor told the Commissioner he has every confidence that, within a short period of time-I think that means a couple of weeks-he will be able to call a press conference and announce that his Special Operations Division has arrested the sexual deviate who has been raping the decent women of Northwest Philadelphia."

"Rape is under the Detectives' Bureau," Wohl protested.

"So it is," Coughlin said. "Except that the Northwest Philly rapist is yours."

"So itis public relations."

"What it is, Peter, is what the mayor wants," Coughlin said.

"Matt Lowenstein will blow a blood vessel when he hears I'm working his territory."

"The Commissioner already told him," Coughlin said. "Give up, Peter. You can't fight this."

"Who's in ACT? What kind of resources am I going to find there?"

"I've sent you three people," Coughlin said, "to get you started. Officers Martinez and McFadden. They've been ordered to report to you at eight tomorrow morning."

Officer Charley McFadden was the plainclothes Narc theLedger had as much as accused of pushing Gerald Vincent Gallagher in front of the subway train; Officer Jesus Martinez had been his partner.

Wohl considered that for a moment, then said, "You said three?"

"And Officer Matthew Payne," Coughlin said. "Dutch's nephew. You met him."

After a moment, Wohl said, "Why Payne? Is he through the Academy?"

"I had a hunch, Peter," Coughlin said, "that Matt Payne will be of more value to you, and thus to the Department, than he would be if we had sent him to one of the districts."

"I'm surprised he stuck it out at the Academy," Wohl said.

"I wasn't," Coughlin said, flatly.

"What are you talking about? Using him undercover?" Wohl asked.

"Maybe," Coughlin said. "We don't get many rookies like him. Something will come up."

"The only orders I really have are to do something about this rapist?" Wohl asked.

"Your orders are to get the Special Operations Division up and running. That means trying to keep Highway from giving theLedger an excuse to call them the Gestapo. And it means getting ACT up and running. There's a Sergeant, a smart young guy named Eddy Frizell, in Staff Services, who's been handling all the paperwork for ACT. The Federal Grant applications, what kind of money, where it's supposed to be used, that sort of thing. I called down there just before you came in and told him to move himself and his files out to Highway. He'll probably be there before you get there. Czernick told Whelan to give you whatever you think you need in terms of equipment and money, from the contingency fund, to be reimbursed when the Federal Grant comes in. Frizell should be able to tell you what you need."

"The mayor expects me to catch the rapist," Wohl said, and paused.

"That's your first priority."

"Who am I supposed to use to do that? Those kids from Narcotics?" He saw a flash of annoyance, even anger, on Coughlin's face. "Sorry, Chief," he added quickly. "I didn't mean for that to sound the way it came out."

"The initial manning for ACT is forty cops, plus four each Corporals, Sergeants, and Lieutenants; a Captain, four Detectives, and of course, you," Coughlin said. "I already sent a teletype asking for volunteers to transfer in. You can pick whoever you want."

"And if nobody volunteers? Or if all the volunteers are guys one step ahead of being assigned to rubber gun squad or being sent to the farm in their districts?"

Coughlin chuckled. "Being sent to the farm" was the euphemism for alcoholic officers being sent off to dry out; the rubber gun squad was for officers whose peers did not think they could be safely entrusted with a real one.

"Then you can pick, within reason, anybody you want," Coughlin said. "Making this thing work is important to the mayor; therefore to Czernick and me. You're not going to give me trouble about this, Peter, are you?"

"No, of course not, Chief," Wohl said. "It just came out of the blue, and it's taking some getting used to."

Chief Coughlin stood up and put out his hand.

"You can handle this, Peter," Coughlin said. "Congratulations and good luck."

He had, Peter Wohl realized as he put out his hand to take Coughlin' s, not only been dismissed but given all the direction he was going to get.

"Thank you, Chief," he said.

Wohl went to the parking lot, opened the door of his car, and rolled down the windows, standing outside a moment until some of the heat could escape. Then he got in and started the engine, and turned on the air conditioner. He cranked up the window and shifted into reverse.

Then he changed his mind. He reached over to the glove compartment and took out the microphone.

"Radio, S-Sam One Oh One," he said.

"S-Sam One Oh One, Radio," Police Radio replied. They didn't seem at all surprised to hear the new call sign, Wohl thought.

"Have you got a location on Highway One?" Wohl asked.

The reply was almost immediate: "Out of service at Highway. "

"What about N-Two?" Wohl asked, guessing that Dave Pekach, who was, now that he had been promoted, the second-ranking man in Narcotics, would be using that call sign.

"Also out of service at Highway, S-Sam One Oh One," Police Radio replied.

"If either of them come back on the air, ask them to meet me at Highway. Thank you, Radio," Wohl said, and put the microphone back in the glove compartment. Then he backed out of the parking space and headed for Highway Patrol headquarters.