The Assassin

SIX

"My car's over there," Matt said, and started to lead Mrs. Glover toward it.

Mrs. Glover seemed to want the reassurance of his arm around her, and stayed close to him. He was very much aware of her body against his.

He put her in the car.

"Listen," he said. "We can't leave now. Let me go talk to the lieutenant, and I'll come back."

The lieutenant told him there was nothing he could do now but wait for Homicide and the brass to show up.

That means instead of Mother's western omelet, I will have to find sustenance in a cup of coffee in a paper cup, and if I'm lucky, a stale doughnut.

The first Homicide detective to arrive at the crime scene was Detective Joe D'Amata. Matt knew him. He waited until D'Amata had taken a quick look around inside, and then gone to the body in the parking lot, and then walked up to him.

"Hey, Joe."

"Matthew, my boy," D'Amata said, smiling. "Don't tell me you did this."

"I came in to get a dozen eggs."

"You see what happened?"

"No. But I know who owns this car, the one he ran into."

"Oh?"

"She's a librarian at U of P. Nice lady. She saw the body and she' s nearly hysterical."

"I would be too," D'Amata said. "Do you think she saw anything?"

"She saw what I saw, zilch. We were in the back of the store."

"We'll need your statements," D'Amata said. "But I don't see why you couldn't take her to the Roundhouse before the mob gets there. I' ll let them know you're coming."

"I owe you one, Joe."

"Yeah. Don't forget."

Matt went back to his Bug and got behind the wheel and turned to Mrs. Glover.

"What happens now?" she asked.

"I know one of the Homicide detectives. He's fixed it so that we can go to the Roundhouse now, before the crowd gets there, and make our statements."

"But I didn't see anything."

"That's your statement. And they'll want to know about your car."

"What am I going to do about my car?"

"They'll want to take pictures of it. Maybe, if we're lucky, we can get them to turn it loose when they're finished. We can ask."

"What would have happened if you weren't here?"

"They'd have taken you, when they got around to it, to the Roundhouse in a car."

"What's this 'Roundhouse' you keep talking about?"

"The Police Administration Building. At 8^th and Race. That's where Homicide is." He paused. "You all right, Mrs. Glover?"

"I'll be all right," she said.

He started the Bug and drove downtown to the Roundhouse.

It was quarter to twelve when they left. Captain Quaire, the commanding officer of Homicide, had come in, and he authorized the release of Mrs. Glover's car to her when the Mobile Crime Lab was through with it.

When they got back to the Acme parking lot, they were told that it would be at least an hour before the car could be released.

"I'm sorry," Matt told Mrs. Glover. "But that's the way it is. I' ll take you home and then bring you back in an hour."

"You're sweet, Matt. I appreciate all this," Mrs. Glover said, and touched his arm.

He started the car and asked her where she lived. She gave him an address in Upper Darby Township.

"It's not far," Mrs. Glover said. "But I appreciate the offer to take me back there."

"I'll take your husband back," Matt said. "What you should do is make yourself a stiff drink, and then go to bed, and forget this whole thing."

He saw they had crossed into Upper Darby Township. "You're going to have to start giving me directions."

It was a fairly nice ranch house in a subdivision, the sort of house he would have expected people like the Glovers to have. He remembered hearing that Mr. Glover, probablyDoctor Glover, was some sort of professor. There was a light on in the carport, and there were lights in the living room, behind the curtain that covered the picture window.

"I don't see a car," Matt said. "It looks like Dr. Glover's not home."

"Not here, he's not," Mrs. Glover said, more than a little bitterly.

Oh!

"Could you use one of those stiff drinks you recommended for me?" Mrs. Glover asked. "Or are you on duty?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, you're going to have to watch while I have one, I'm afraid. I'm shaking like a leaf."

"I meant that 'no drinking on duty' business is only in the movies, or on TV cop shows. And anyway I'm not. On duty, I mean."

She got out of the car and went to the door that opened off the carport into the kitchen. He followed her inside. She snapped on fluorescent lights and pulled open a cabinet over the sink.

"I'm not much of a drinker," she said, taking out four bottles. " But this is an occasion, isn't it?" She turned to him. "What do you recommend?"

There was a bottle of gin, a bottle of blended whiskey, a bottle of Southern Comfort, and, surprisingly, an unopened bottle of Martel cognac.

"The cognac, if that would be all right," Matt said.

"I've even got the glasses for it," she said. "They're probably a little dusty."

She went farther into the house and returned with two snifters that were, in fact, dusty. She wiped them with a paper towel and set them on the kitchen counter.

"Do you need a corkscrew?"

"No, I don't think so," he said, and twisted the metal foil off the neck. The bottle was closed with a cork, but the kind that can be pulled loose.

He poured cognac in both glasses, and handed her one.

"You don't mix it with anything?"

"My father says it's a sin to do that," Matt said. "But my mother drinks hers with soda water."

"I've got ginger ale. Would that be all right?"

"That would be a sin," he said.

"I think I'll be a sinner," she said, and went into the refrigerator and took out a bottle of ginger ale, and poured some into her glass. Then she held the glass out to touch his.

"I'm glad you were there, Matt," she said. "This whole experience has been horrible. I would have hated to have had to go through it alone."

He smiled and took a sip from his glass. She took a tentative sip of hers. She smiled. "That's not so bad."

He took another swallow and felt the warmth course through his body.

"Funny," Mrs. Glover said, "you don't look like a detective."

"Probably because I've only been a detective a couple of weeks."

"Or a policeman," she said. "I thought you were one of those who was going in the Marines?"

He was surprised that she had paid enough attention to him to have known that.

"I flunked the physical," he said.

"Oh," she said. "And do you like being a policeman?"

"Most of the time," he said. "Not tonight."

She hugged herself, which caused the material of her blouse to draw taut over her bosom.

"That warms you, doesn't it?" she said.

"Yes, it does."

"My husband's father gave him that when he was promoted."

"Oh."

"I was tempted to throw it out when he left, but I decided that would be a waste, that sooner or later, I'd need it. For an occasion. I didn't have something like this in mind."

"Well, it's over," Matt said. "Put it out of your mind."

"I'm not letting you get on with whatever you were about to do when this happened."

"Don't worry about it."

"Where do you live?"

"In Center City. I was driving past the Acme, saw the parking lot was pretty empty, and thought it would be a good time to get a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread."

"Me too," she said, and upended her brandy snifter and drained it. "I went there to get something for my supper. Have you eaten?"

He shook his head, no.

"The least I can do is feed you," she said. "There should be something in the freezer."

She found two Swanson Frozen Turkey Breast Dinners and put them in the oven.

"It'll take thirty-five minutes," she said. "Is that going to make you terribly late where you were going?"

"I just won't go," he said. "It wasn't important."

She made herself another cognac and ginger ale and extended the bottle to him.

"Well, we'll eat the leathery turkey, and then you can drive me back there."

"Fine."

"I'm now going to do something else I rarely do," Mrs. Glover said. "I'm going to smoke a cigarette."

"I'm sorry, I don't have any."

"I've got some somewhere," she said, and went farther into the house again. She immediately returned. "I'm sorry. Why are we in the kitchen? Come on in the living room."

An hour later, they drove back to the Acme Supermarket. Her car was gone, and so had just about everybody else. There was a uniformed cop by the shattered plate-glass window.

Matt showed him his badge.

"Where's the car, the victim's car the doer ran into?"

The uniformed cop shrugged. "I guess they took it to an impound area. Maybe at the district."

Matt returned to the Bug and told Mrs. Glover that the authority they had to reclaim her car was useless. It was somewhat in limbo, and there was nothing that could be done until the morning.

"What do I do now?" Mrs. Glover asked. "Can you take me home again?"

"Of course."

She wanted an explanation of where in "limbo" her car actually was, so it seemed perfectly natural that he follow her into the house again and have another cognac.

"I was thinking," Mrs. Glover said an hour later, dipping her index finger into her cognac snifter to stir the ginger ale into the cognac, "I mean it's just an idea. But if you stayed here, there's a guest room, you could drive me down to the Roundhouse in the morning."

She is not making a pass at me. She is at least thirty years old, maybe thirty-five, and…

"And the truth of the matter seems to be that we've both had more of this cognac than is good for us," she added.

"Well, if it wouldn't inconvenience you."

"Don't be silly," she said. "I'll just get sheets and make up the spare bed."

"I'm sorry I don't have any pajamas to offer you," Mrs. Glover said at the door to the spare bedroom.

"I don't wear them anyway. I'll be all right."

"If you need anything, just ask," she said, and gave him her hand. "And thank you for everything."

"I didn't do anything," he said.

She smiled at him and pulled the door closed.

He looked around the room, and then went and sat on the bed and took his clothing off. He rummaged in the bedside table and came up with a year-old copy ofScientific American. He propped the pillows up and flipped through it.

He could hear the sound of a shower running, and had an interesting mental image of Mrs. Glover at her ablutions.

"Shit," he said aloud, turned the light off, and rearranged the pillow.

He had a profound thought: No good deed goes unpunished.

The sound of the shower stopped after a couple of minutes. He had an interesting mental image of Mrs. Glover toweling her bosom.

A moment later he heard the bedroom door open.

"Matt, are you asleep?"

"No."

He sensed rather than heard her approach the bed. When she sat on it, he could smell soap and perfume.

Maybe perfumed soap?

She found his face with her hand.

"I've been separated from my husband for eleven months," Mrs. Glover said. "I haven't been near a man in all that time. Not until now."

He reached up and touched her hand. She caught his hand, locked fingers with him, and then moved his hand to the opening of her robe, directed it inside, and then let go.

His fingers found her breast and her nipple, which was erect. She put her hand to the back of his head and pulled his face to her breast.

When he tried to pull her down onto the bed, she resisted, then stood up.

"Not here," Mrs. Glover said throatily. "In my bed."

At quarter to seven the next morning, Detective Matt Payne drove into the garage beneath the Delaware Valley Cancer Society Building, and turned to look at Mrs. Glover, whose Christian name, he had learned two hours before, was Evelyn.

"What is this?" she asked.

"This is where I live. Where I have to change clothes."

"The signs says this is the Cancer Society."

"There's an attic apartment," he said.

"Oh."

"Come on up. It won't take me a minute."

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea."

"You mean, you don't want to see my etchings?"

"What happened last night was obviously insane. Maybe we better leave it at that."

"I like what happened last night."

"You should be running around with girls your own age, not having an affair with someone my age. And vice versa."

"I don't seem to have much in common with girls my own age," Matt said. "And I don't think that was the first time in the recorded history of mankind that…"

"A woman my age took a man your age into her bed?"

"Right."

"Go change your clothes, Matt. I'll wait here."

"You don't want to do that."

"Yes, I do."

"Whatever you say," Matt said, and got out of the Bug and went to the elevator.

When he reached the top step of the narrow stairway leading into his apartment, he saw the red light blinking on his telephone answering machine. He pulled his sweater over his head, tossed it onto the couch, went to the answering machine, and pushed the PLAY MESSAGES switch

"Matt, I know you're there, pick up the damned telephone."

That was Amelia Payne, M.D. He wondered what the hell she wanted, and then realized she probably wanted a report on Penny Detweiler's trip home.

Then Brewster Cortland Payne II's voice: "Matt, Amy insisted I try to get you to call her. She's positive you're there and just not picking up. She wants to talk to you about Penny. Will you call her, please? Whenever you get home?"

The next voice was Charley McFadden's: "Matt, Charley. Give me a call as soon as you can. I gotta talk to you about something. Oh. How was Las Vegas?"

Something's wrong. I wonder what? Well, it'll have to wait.

"Matt, this is Penny. I just wanted to say 'thank you' for coming out there to get me. I forgot to thank you at the airport. When you have a minute, call me, and I'll buy you an ice-cream cone or lunch or something. Ciao."

Oh, Christ, I don't want to get sucked into that!

"Matt, this is Joe D'Amata. They took your lady friend's car to the Plymouth place in Upper Darby. I called her house, and there was no answer. If we'd left it at the scene, there would be nothing left but the ignition switch."

Jesus, why didn't I think about just calling Joe from her house? Because you were thinking with your dick, again, Matthew!

"Payne, this is Al Sutton. If you were thinking of coming to work this morning, don't. They want you in Chief Lowenstein's office at half past one."

Now, what the hell is that about? Something to do with last night?

He pushed the REWIND button and went into his bedroom and laid out fresh clothes on his bed. He picked a light brown suit, since he was possibly going to see Chief Lowenstein and did not want to look like Joe College. Then he took his clothing off.

The doorbell rang.

He searched for and found his bathrobe and went to the intercom.

"Yeah?"

"You were right, I don't want to wait down there," Mrs. Glover said. "May I come up?"

He pushed the door release button and heard it open. She came up the stairs.

"That wasn't exactly true," she said. "Curiosity got the best of me."

"They took your car to the Plymouth place in Upper Darby," Matt said. "There was a message on the machine. Let me grab a shower, and I'll take you out there."

"They don't open until nine-thirty," she said.

"Well, we'll just have to wait."

He smiled uneasily at her, and then walked back in the apartment toward his bedroom.

"Matt…"

He turned.

"Was that true, what you said, about you don't have much in common with girls your own age?"

"Yes, it was."

"You're a really nice guy. Be patient. Someone will come along."

"I hope so," he said, and turned again and went and had his shower.

When he came out, he sensed movement in his kitchen. He cracked the door open. Mrs. Glover was leaning against the refrigerator. She had a cheese glass in one hand, and a bottle of his cognac in the other.

"I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not."

"You want one?"

"No. I don't want to smell of booze when I go to work."

"When do you have to be at work? Is taking me back to Upper Darby going to make you late?"

"No. I've got until half past one."

She looked at him, and then away, and then drained the cheese glass.

"What I said before," she said, "was what my father told me when Ken and I broke up. That I was a nice girl, that I should be patient, that someone would come along."

What the hell is she leading up to? Am I the someone?

"I'm sure he's right."

"Now, you and I are obviously not right for each other…"

Damn!

"…but what I've been thinking, very possibly because I've had more to drink in the last twelve hours than I've had in the last six months, is that, until someone comes along for you, and someone comes along for me…"

"The sky wouldn't fall? There will not be a bolt of lightning to punish the sinners?"

She raised her head and met his eyes.

"What do you think?"

"I think I know how we can kill the time until the Plymouth place opens."

"I'll bet you do," she said, and set the cheese glass and the bottle of cognac on the sink and then started to unbutton her blouse.

As Matt Payne was climbing the stairs to his apartment at quarter to seven, across town, in Chestnut Hill, Peter Wohl stepped out of the shower in his apartment and started to towel himself dry.

The chimes activated by his doorbell button went off. They played "Be It Ever So Humble, There's No Place Like Home." One of what Wohl thought of as the "xylophone bars" was out of whack, so the musical rendition was discordant. He had no idea how to fix it, and privately, he hated chimes generally and "Be It Ever So Humble" specifically, but there was nothing he could do about the chimes. They had been a gift from his mother, and installed by his father.

He said a word that he would not have liked to have his mother hear, wrapped the towel around his middle, and left the bathroom. He went through his bedroom, and then through his living room, the most prominent furnishings of which were a white leather couch, a plateglass coffee table, a massive, Victorian mahogany service bar, and a very large oil painting of a Rubenesque naked lady resting on her side, one arm cocked coyly behind her head.

The ultrachic white leather couch and plate-glass coffee table were the sole remnants of a romantic involvement Peter Wohl had once had with an interior decorator, now a young suburban matron married to a lawyer. The bar and the painting of the naked lady he had acquired at an auction of the furnishings of a Center City men's club that had gone belly up.

He unlatched the door and pulled it open. A very neat, very wholesome-looking young man in a blue suit stood on the landing.

"Good morning, Inspector," the young man said. His name was Paul T. (for Thomas) O'Mara, and he was a police officer of the Philadelphia Police Department. Specifically, he was Wohl's new administrative assistant.

Telling him, Peter Wohl thought, that when I say between seven and seven-fifteen, I don't mean quarter to seven, would be like kicking a Labrador puppy who has just retrieved his first tennis ball.

"Good morning, Paul," Wohl said. "Come on in. There's coffee in the kitchen."

'Thank you, sir."

Officer O'Mara was a recent addition to Peter Wohl's staff. Like Peter Wohl, he was from a police family. His father was a captain, who commanded the 17^th District. His brother was a sergeant in Civil Affairs. His grandfather, like Peter Wohl's father and grandfather, had retired from the Philadelphia Police Department.

More important, his father was a friend of both Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin and Chief Inspector (Retired) Augustus Wohl. When Officer O'Mara, who had five years on the job in the Traffic Division, had failed, for the second time, to pass the examination for corporal, both Chief Coughlin and Chief Wohl had had a private word with Inspector Wohl.

They had pointed out to him that just because someone has a little trouble with promotion examinations doesn't mean he's not a good cop, with potential. It just means that he has trouble passing examinations.

Not like you, Peter, the inference had been. You're not really all that smart, you're just good at taking examinations.

One or the other or both of them had suggested that what Officer O'Mara needed was a little broader experience than he was getting in the Traffic Division, such as he might get if it could be arranged to have him assigned to Special Operations as your administrative assistant.

"Now that you've lost Young Payne:" his father had said.

"Now that Matt's gone to East Detectives…" Chief Coughlin had said.

In chorus: "You're going to need someone to replace him. And you know what a good guy, and a good cop, his father is."

And so Officer O'Mara had taken off his uniform, with the distinctive white Traffic Division brimmed cap, and donned a trio of suits Inspector Wohl somewhat unkindly suspected were left over from his high school graduation and/or obtained from the Final Clearance rack at Sears Roebuck and come to work for Special Operations.

Peter Wohl was sitting on his bed, pulling his socks on when Officer O'Mara walked in with a cup of coffee.

"I couldn't find any cream, Inspector, but I put one spoon of sugar in there. Is that okay?"

Inspector Wohl decided that telling Officer O'Mara that he always took his coffee black would be both unkind and fruitless: He had told him the same thing ten or fifteen times in the office.

"Thank you," he said.

"Stakeout got two critters at the Acme on Baltimore Avenue last night. It was on TV," Officer O'Mara said.

"'Got two critters'?"

"Blew them away," O'Mara said, admiration in his voice.

"Any police or civilians get hurt?"

"They didn't say anything on TV."

Wohl noticed that Officer O'Mara did not have any coffee.

"Aren't you having any coffee, Paul?"

"I thought you just told me to get you some," O'Mara said.

"Help yourself, Paul. Have you had breakfast?"

"I had a doughnut."

"Well, we're going to the Roundhouse. We can get some breakfast on the way."

"Yes, sir," O'Mara said, and walked out of the bedroom.

Peter Wohl walked to his closet and after a moment's hesitation selected a gray flannel suit. He added to it a light blue button-down collar shirt and a regimentally striped tie.

Clothes make the man, he thought somewhat cynically. First impressions are important. Particularly when one is summoned to meet with the commissioner, and one doesn't have a clue what the sonofabitch wants.

There was no parking space in the parking lot behind the Police Administration Building reserved for the commanding officer, Special Operations, as there were for the chief inspectors of Patrol Bureau (North), Patrol Bureau (South), Command Inspections Bureau, Administration, Internal Affairs, Detective Bureau, and even the Community Relations Bureau.

Neither could Paul O'Mara park Peter Wohl's official nearly new Ford sedan in spots reserved for CHIEF INSPECTORS AND INSPECTORS ONLY, because Wohl was only a staff inspector, one rank below inspector. The senior brass of the Police Department were jealous of the prerogatives of their ranks and titles and would have been offended to see a lowly staff inspector taking privileges that were not rightly his.

Wohl suspected that if a poll were taken, anonymously, of the deputy commissioners, chief inspectors, and inspectors, the consensus would be that his appointment as commanding officer, Special Operations Division, reporting directly to the deputy commissioner, Operations, had been a major mistake, acting to the detriment of overall departmental efficiency, not to mention what harm it had done to the morale of officers senior to Staff Inspector Wohl, who had naturally felt themselves to be in line for the job.

If, however, he also suspected, asked to identify themselves before replying to the same question, to a man they would say that it was a splendid idea, and that there was no better man in the Department for the job.

They all knew that the Hon. Frank Carlucci, mayor of the City of Philadelphia, had suggested to Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernick that Wohl be given the job. And they all knew that Mayor Carlucci sincerely-and not without reason-believed himself to know more about what was good for the Police Department than anybody else in Philadelphia.

A "suggestion" from Mayor Carlucci to Commissioner Czernick regarding what he should do in the exercise of his office was the equivalent of an announcement on faith and morals issued by the pope, ex cathedra. It was not open for discussion, much less debate.

Peter Wohl had not wanted the job. He had been the youngest, ever, of the fourteen staff inspectors of the Staff Investigations Unit, and had liked very much what he was doing. The penal system of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was now housing more than thirty former judges, city commissioners, and other high-level bureaucrats and political office holders whom Peter Wohl had caught with their hands either in the public treasury or outstretched to accept contributions from the citizenry in exchange for special treatment.

He had even thought about passing up the opportunity to take the examination for inspector. There had been little question in his mind that he could pass the examination and be promoted, but he suspected that if he did, with only a couple of years as a staff inspector behind him, with the promotion would come an assignment to duties he would rather not have, for example, as commanding officer of the Traffic Division, or the Civil Affairs Division, or even the Juvenile Division.

Department politics would, he had believed, keep him from getting an assignment as an inspector he would really like, which would have included commanding one of the nine Police Divisions (under which were all the police districts) or one of the two Detective Field Divisions (under which were the seven Detective Divisions) or the Tactical Division, under which were Highway Patrol, the Airport, Stakeout, Ordnance Disposal, the police boats in the Marine Unit, the dogs of the Canine Unit, and a unit whose function he did not fully understand called Special Operations.

And then Mayor Carlucci had a little chat with Commissioner Czernick. There was a chance for the Philadelphia Police Department to get its hands on some federal money, from the Justice Department. Some Washington bureaucrat had decided that the way to fight crime was to overwhelm the criminal element by sheer numbers. Under the acronym ACT, for Anti-Crime Team, federal money would allow local police departments to dispatch to heavy crime areas large numbers of policemen.

Philadelphia already was trying the same tactic, more or less, with the Highway Patrol, an elite, specially uniformed, two-men-in-acar unit who normally practiced fighting crime by going to heavy crime areas. But they were, of course, paying for it themselves.

There was a way, Mayor Carlucci suggested, to enlist the financial support of the federal government in the never-ending war against crime. The Philadelphia Police Department would form an ACT unit. It would be placed in the already existing Special Operations Unit. And since Highway Patrol was already doing the same sort of thing, so would Highway Patrol be placed in the Special Operations Division. And Special Operations, the mayor suggested, would be taken out from under the control of the Special Investigations Bureau, made a division, and placed under the direct command of the police commissioner himself.

And the mayor suggested that they needed somebody who was really bright to head up the new division, and what did the commissioner think of Peter Wohl?

The police commissioner knew that as Mayor Carlucci had worked his way up through the ranks of the Police Department, his rabbi had been Chief Inspector Augustus Wohl, retired. And he know that Peter Wohl had just done a hell of a fine job putting Superior Court Judge Moses Findermann into the long-term custody of the state penal system. But most important, he understood that when His Honor the Mayor gave a hint like that, it well behooved him to act on it, and he did.

Paul O'Mara, on his second trip through the parking lot, finally found a place, against the rear fence, to park the Ford. He and Staff Inspector Wohl got out of the car and walked to what had been designed as the rear door, but was now the only functioning door, of the Police Administration Building.

A corporal sitting behind a thick plastic window recognized Inspector Wohl and activated the solenoid that unlocked the door to the main lobby. Officer O'Mara pushed it open and held it for Staff Inspector Wohl, an action that made Wohl feel just a bit uncomfortable. Officer Payne had not hovered over him. He was willing to admit he missed Officer Payne.

They rode the curved elevator to the third (actually the fourth) floor of the Roundhouse and walked down the corridor to where a uniformed police officer sat at a counter guarding access to what amounted to the executive suite. Officer O'Mara announced, somewhat triumphantly, their business: "Inspector Wohl to see the commissioner."

The commissioner, Peter Wohl was not surprised to learn, was tied up but would be with him shortly.

The door to the commissioner's conference room was open, and Wohl saw Captain Henry C. Quaire, the head of the Homicide Division, whom he liked, leaning on the conference table, sipping a cup of coffee.

He walked in, and was immediately sorry he had, for Captain Quaire was not alone in the room. Inspector J. Howard Porter, commanding officer of the Tactical Division, was with him.

Inspector Porter had, when word of the federal money and the upgrading of Special Operations had spread through the Department, naturally considered himself a, perhaps the, prime candidate for the command of Special Operations. He not only had the appropriate rank, but his Tactical Division included Highway Patrol.

He had not been given the Special Operations Division, and Highway Patrol had been taken away from Tactical and given to Special Operations. Peter Wohl did not think he could include Inspector Porter in his legion of admirers.

"Good morning, Inspector," Wohl said politely.

"Wohl."

"Hello, Henry."

"Inspector."

"Do you know Paul O'Mara?"

"I know your dad," Quaire said, offering O'Mara his hand.

Inspector Porter nodded at Officer O'Mara but said nothing, and did not offer to shake hands.

What is that, Wohl thought, guilt by association? Or is shaking hands with a lowly police officer beneath your dignity?

He glanced at Quaire, and their eyes met for a moment.

I don't think Quaire likes Porter any more than I do,

"I saw your predecessor last night," Captain Quaire said, as much to Wohl as to O'Mara. "You heard about what happened at the Acme on Baltimore Avenue?"

"I didn't hear Payne shot them," Wohl said without thinking about it.

Quaire laughed. "Not this time, Peter. He was just a spectator."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"That's why we're here," Quaire said. "The commissioner wants to be absolutely sure the shooting was justified."

"Was there a question?"

"Hell no. Both of the doers fired first."

The commissioner's secretary appeared in the conference room door.

"The commissioner will see you now, Inspector," she said, and then realized there were two men answering to that title in the room, and added, "…Wohl."

"Thank you," Peter Wohl said.

If I needed one more nail in my coffin, that was it. Porter knows I just walked in here. And I get to enter the throne room first.