The Assassin

SEVEN

"Good morning, Peter," Commissioner Czernick said, smiling broadly. He was a large, stocky, well-tailored man with a full head of silver hair. "Sit down."

"Good morning, sir."

"Would you like some coffee?"

"Please."

"Black, right?"

"Yes, sir."

I don't think I am about to have my head handed to me on a platter. But on the other hand, I don't think he called me in here to express his appreciation for my all-around splendid performance of duty. And nothing has gone wrong in Special Operations, or I would have heard about it.

"How's your dad?"

"Fine, thank you. I had dinner with him on Monday."

"Give him my regards, the next time you see him."

"I'll do that, thank you."

"You see the Overnights, Peter?"

The Overnights were a summary of major crimes, and/or significant events affecting the Police Department that were compiled from reports from the districts, the Detective Divisions, and major Bureaus, and then distributed to senior commanders.

"No, sir. I came here first thing."

Obviously, I've missed something, and I am about to hear what it is, and why it is my fault.

"Stakeout took down two critters at an Acme on the Baltimore Pike," Czernick said. "It's almost a sure thing these were the characters we've been looking for. If it was a good shooting, we're home free."

"I did hear about that, sir. And from what I heard, I think it was a good shooting."

"Every once in a while, Peter, we do do something right, don't we?"

I'll be damned. I didn't do anything wrong.

"Yes, sir, we do."

"The Vice President's coming to town."

"I saw it in the newspaper."

"He's coming by airplane. He's going to do something at Independence Hall. Then he wants to make a triumphal march up Market Street to 30^th Street Station, and get on a train."

"'March,' sir?"

"Figure of speech. What do they call it, 'motorcade'?"

"Yes, sir."

"I talked to the Secret Service guy. He really wants a Highway escort. On wheels, I mean. I think he thinks, or at least the Vice President does, that that makes them look good on the TV."

"Well, there's nothing I know of, sir, that would keep us from giving Dignitary Protection all the wheels they want."

Highway Patrol, as its name suggested, had been formed before World War II, as "The Bandit Chasers." That had evolved into the " Motor Bandit Patrol" and finally into the Highway Patrol. It had originally been equipped with motorcycles ("wheels") only, and its members authorized a special uniform suitable for motorcyclists, breeches, leather boots, leather jackets, and billed caps with an unstiffened crown.

It had evolved over the years into an elite unit that, although it patrolled the Schuylkill Expressway and the interstate highways, spent most of its effort patrolling high-crime areas in two-man RPCs. Other RPCs in the Department were manned by only one police officer, and patrolled only in the district to which they were assigned.

The evolution had begun when command of Highway had been given to Captain Jerry Carlucci, and had continued under his benevolent, and growing, influence as he rose through the ranks to commissioner, and continued now that he was mayor.

Applying for, being selected for, and then serving a tour in Highway was considered an almost essential career step for officers who had ambition for higher rank. Peter Wohl had been a Highway sergeant before his promotion to lieutenant and assignment to the Organized Crime Intelligence Unit.

Highway still had its wheels, and every man in Highway was a graduate of the Motorcycle Training Program (known as "Wheel School"), and continued to wear, although months often passed between times that a Highway Patrolman actually straddled a motorcycle, the special Highway uniform.

Dignitary Protection was ordinarily an inactive function; a sergeant or a lieutenant in the Intelligence Division of the Detective Bureau performed the function and answered that phone number in addition to his other duties.

When a dignitary showed up who needed protection, a more senior officer, sometimes, depending on the dignitary, even a chief inspector, took over and coordinated and commanded whatever police units and personnel were considered necessary.

"What I've been thinking, Peter," Commissioner Czernick said, "is that Dignitary Protection should really be under you. I mean, really, it's a special function, a special operation, am I right? And you have Special Operations."

Carlucci strikes again, Peter Wohl thought. Czernick might even have come by himself to the conclusion that Dignitary Protection should come under Special Operations, but he would have kept that conclusion to himself. He would not have done anything about it himself, or even suggested it to the mayor, because the mayor might not like the idea, or come to the conclusion that Czernick was getting a little too big for his britches.

"Yes, I'm sure you're right," Wohl said. "Dignitary Protection is a special function, a special operation."

"And there's something else," Czernick went on. "I don't think it would be a bad idea at all to show the feds where all that ACT money is going."

"Yes, sir."

"What I thought I'd do, Peter…Do you know Sergeant Henkels?"

"No, sir. I don't think so."

"He's the man in Chief Lowenstein's office who handles Dignitary Protection. I thought I'd ask Lowenstein to get the paperwork going and transfer him and his paperwork out to the Schoolhouse."

When the Special Operations Division had been formed from the Special Operations Unit, there had been no thought given to providing a place for it to exist. Since there was no other place to go, Peter Wohl had set up his first office in what had been the Highway Patrol captain's office in a building Highway shared with the 7^th District at Bustleton Avenue and Bowler Street in Northeast Philadelphia.

There really had not been room in the building for both the District and Highway, and the addition of the ever-growing Special Operations staff made things impossible. His complaints had fallen on deaf ears for a long time, but then, somewhat triumphantly, he had been told that the City was willing to transfer a building at Frankford and Castor Avenues from the Board of Education to the Police Department, and Special Operations could have it for their very own.

There was a slight problem. The reason the Board of Education was being so generous was that the Board of Health had determined that the Frankford Grammar School (built A.D. 1892) posed a health threat to its faculty and student population, and had ordered it abandoned. There were, of course, no funds available in the Police Department budget for repairs or rehabilitation.

But since a building had been provided for Special Operations, Staff Inspector Wohl was soon led to understand, it would be considered impolite for him to complain that he was no better off than he had been. It was also pointed out that the health standards that applied to students and teachers did not apply to policemen.

And then Staff Inspector Wohl's administrative assistant, Officer M. M. Payne, who apparently had nothing more pressing to do at the time, read the fine print in the documents that outlined how the ACT funds could be spent. Up to $250,000 of the federal government's money could be expended for emergencyrepairs to, but notreplacement of, equipment and facilities. He brought this to Wohl's attention, and Wohl, although he was not of the Roman Catholic persuasion, decided that it was time to adopt a Jesuit attitude to his problem:The end justifies the means.

Replacingbrokenwindowpanes was obviously proscribed, and could not be done. But emergencyrepairs to windows (which incidentally might involve replacing a couple of panes here and there) were permissible. Similarly,replacing shingles on the roof was proscribed, butrepairing the roof was permissible.Repairing the walls, floor, and plumbing system as a necessary emergency measure similarly posed no insurmountable legal or moral problems vis-a-vis the terms of the federal grant.

But the building's heating system posed a major problem. The existing coal-fired furnaces, after seventy-odd years of service, were beyond repair. In what he seriously regarded as the most dishonest act of his life, Peter Wohl chose not to notice that therepairs to the " heating system" consisted of "removing malfunctioning components" (the coal furnaces) and "installing replacement components" (gas-fired devices that provided both heat and air-conditioning).

He had also circumvented the City's bureaucracy in the matter of awarding the various contracts. On one hand, his experience as a staff inspector had left him convinced that kickbacks were standard procedure when the City awarded contracts. The price quoted for services to be rendered to the City included the amount of the kickback. On the other hand, he knew that the law required every contract over $10,000 to be awarded on the basis of the lowest bid. He was, in fact, consciously breaking the law.

He had come to understand, further, that it wasn't a question of if he would be caught, but when. He didn't think there would be an attempt to indict him, but there had been a very good chance that he would either be fired, or asked to resign, or, at a minimum, relieved of his new command when the Department of Public Property finally found out what he had done.

That hadn't happened. The mayor had visited the Schoolhouse and liked what he found. And from a source Peter Wohl had in the Department of Public Property, Peter learned that the mayor had shortly thereafter visited the Department of Public Property and made it clear to the commissioner that he didn't want to hear any complaints, to him, or to the newspapers, about how the old Frankford Grammar School building had beenrepaired.

There were several reasons, Wohl had concluded, why the mayor could have chosen to do that. For one thing, it would have been politically embarrassing for him had there been a fuss in the newspapers. He had appointed Wohl to command Special Operations, and look what happened!

Another possibility was that it was repayment of a debt of honor.

Peter didn't know all the details, or even many of them, but he had heard enough veiled references to be sure that when Jerry Carlucci had been an up-and-coming lieutenant and captain and inspector, Chief Inspector Augustus Wohl had gone out on the limb a number of times to save Carlucci's ass.

Another obvious possibility was that since Carlucci had saved his ass, he was now deeply in Carlucci's debt.

The last possibility was the nicest to consider, that the mayor understood that while Peter was bending, even breaking, the law he was not doing it for himself, but for the betterment of the Department. Peter didn't like to accept this possibility; it let him off the hook too easily.

The road to hell, or more precisely to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's penal system, was paved, his experience had taught him, if not entirely with good intentions, then with good intentions and the rationalization you aren't doing something really crooked, but rather something that other people do all the time and get away with.

"Is that all there is, Commissioner, one sergeant?"

"He just holds down the desk until there's a dignitary to protect," Czernick said. "You didn't know?"

"No, sir. I didn't."

"You don't have any objections to this, Peter, do you?"

"No, sir. If you think this makes sense, I'll give it my best shot."

"If you run into problems, Peter, you know my door is always open."

"Yes, sir. I know that, and I appreciate it, Commissioner."

The commissioner stood up and offered his hand.

"Always good to see you, Peter," he said. "Ask my girl to send Inspector Porter and Captain Quaire in, will you?"

"Yes, sir."

There was a Plymouth station wagon in the driveway of Evelyn Glover's ranch house in Upper Darby when Matt turned into it in the Porsche.

"You've got a visitor," he said.

Evelyn tried to make a joke of it. "That's no visitor, that's my husband."

As Matt stopped the car, a man, forty years old, tall, skinny, tweedy, whom Matt vaguely remembered having seen somewhere before, and who had apparently been peering into the kitchen door, came down the driveway.

Evelyn fumbled around until she found the tiny door latch, opened the door, and got out.

Matt felt a strong urge to shove the stick in reverse and get the hell out of here, but that, obviously, was something he could not do. He opened his door and got out.

He heard the tail end of what Evelyn's husband was saying: "…so I called the library, and when they said they had no idea where you were, I got worried and came here."

He looked at Matt with unabashed curiosity.

"Mr. Payne," Evelyn said, "this is my husband. He saw my car at Darby Plymouth."

Professor Glover offered his hand to Matt.

"Harry, this is Detective Payne," Evelyn said. "He's been helping me. We just came from Darby Plymouth."

"How do you do?" Professor Glover said, and then blurted what was on his mind: "That's quite a police car."

"It's my car," Matt said. "I'm off duty."

"Oh," Professor Glover said.

"Well, if there's nothing else I can do for you, Mrs. Glover…"

"You've already done more for me than I had any right to expect," Evelyn said, and offered him her hand. "I don't know how to thank you."

"Don't mention it," Matt said. "Sorry you had the trouble. Nice to meet you, Professor."

"Yes," Professor Glover said.

Jesus Christ, he knows!

Matt got back in the Porsche, and backed out of the driveway. He glanced at the house and saw Professor Glover following his wife into the house.

Officer Paul O'Mara dropped Staff Inspector Wohl at a door over which was carved in stone, GIRLS' ENTRANCE, at the former Frankford Grammar School, and then drove around to the cracked cement now covering what at one time had been the lawn in front of the building and parked the Ford.

Captain Michael Sabara, a swarthy, acne-scarred, stocky man in his forties, who was wearing a white civilian shirt and yellow V-neck sweater, and Captain David Pekach, a slight, fair-skinned man of thirty-six, who was wearing the special Highway Patrol uniform, were both waiting for Wohl when he walked into his (formerly the principal' s) office.

Captain Mike Sabara was Wohl's deputy. He had been the senior lieutenant in Highway, and awaiting promotion to captain when Captain Dutch Moffitt had been killed. He had naturally expected to step into Moffitt's shoes. Dave Pekach, who had been in Narcotics, had just been promoted to captain, and transferred to Special Operations.

Enraging many of the people in Highway, including, Wohl was sure, Mike Sabara, he had named Sabara his deputy and given Highway to Pekach. But that had been almost a year ago, and it had worked out well. It had probably taken Sabara, Wohl thought, no more than a week to realize that the alternative to his being named Wohl's deputy was a transfer elsewhere in the Department, and probably another month to believe what Wohl had told him when he took over Special Operations, that he would be of greater usefulness to the Department as his deputy than he would have been commanding Highway.

Wohl understood the Highway mystique. He still had in his closet his Highway sergeant's leather jacket and soft-crowned billed cap, unable to bring himself to sell, or even give them away, although there was absolutely no way he would ever wear either again. But it had been time for Sabara to take off his Highway breeches, and for Pekach, who had worn a pigtail in his plain-clothes Narcotics assignment, to get back in uniform.

"Good morning, Inspector," they said, almost in chorus.

Wohl smiled and motioned for them to follow him into his office.

"I hope you brought your notebooks," he said. "I have just come from the Fountain of All Knowledge."

"I don't like the sound of that," Sabara said.

Pekach closed the office door behind him.

"What did the Polack want, Peter?" he asked.

Wohl did not respond directly.

"Is Jack Malone around?" he asked. "I'd rather go through this just once."

"He went over to the garage," Sabara said, stepping to Wohl's desk as he spoke and picking up a telephone. "Have you got a location on Lieutenant Malone?" He put the phone back in its cradle. "He just drove in the gate."

Wohl sat down at his desk and took the Overnight from his IN box. He read it. He raised his eyes to Pekach.

"We have anybody in on the shooting at the Acme?"

"One car, plus a sergeant who was in the area."

"Did you talk to them? Was it a good shooting?"

"It looks that way. They shot first. The lieutenant-what the hell is his name?-"

Wohl and Sabara shrugged their shoulders.

"-not only identified himself as a police officer, but used an electronic megaphone to do it. One of the doersthen shot at him and another Stakeout guy. When he was down, the other doer started shooting. It looks to me like it was clearly justified."

"The commissioner seemed a little unsure," Wohl said. "Open the door, Dave, and see if O'Mara's out there. If he is, have him lasso Jack."

"I'll tell you who was also at the Acme, Peter, in case you haven' t heard. Matt Payne."

"I heard. I saw Henry Quaire in the Roundhouse."

"This time he was a spectator," Sabara said.

Pekach came back into the office, followed by a uniformed lieutenant, John J. "Jack" Malone, who showed signs of entering middle age. His hairline was starting to recede; there was the suggestion of forming jowls, and he was getting a little thick around the middle.

"Good morning, sir," he said.

"Close the door, Jack, please," Wohl said. "Gentlemen, I don't believe you've met the new commanding officer of Dignitary Protection?"

Malone misinterpreted what Wohl had intended as a little witticism. The smile vanished from his face. It grew more than sad, bitter.

"When did that happen, sir?" he asked.

Wohl saw that his little joke had laid an egg, and he was furious with himself for trying to be clever. Malone thought he was being told, kindly, that he was being transferred out of Special Operations. And with that came the inference that he had been found wanting.

"About ten minutes ago, Jack," Wohl said, "which is ten minutes after the commissioner told me we now have Dignitary Protection. Have you got something against taking it over?"

"Not here," Malone said, visibly relieved. "I thought I was being sent to the Roundhouse."

Well, that's flattering. He likes it here.

"Do you know a sergeant by the name of Henkels?"

"Yes, sir, I know him."

"There is something in your tone that suggests that you are not especially impressed with the sergeant."

"There used to be a Sergeant Henkels in Central Cell Room," Pekach volunteered. "If it's the same guy, he has a room temperature IQ."

"That's him, Captain. I guess they moved him upstairs," Malone said.

The Central Cell Room was in the Police Administration Building.

"Well, Sergeant Henkels and his Dignitary Protection files are about to be transferred out here. Into your capable command, Lieutenant Malone."

"Oh, God. He's a real dummy, Inspector. God only knows how he got to be a sergeant."

"Well, I'm sure you will find a way to keep the sergeant usefully occupied."

"How about sending him to Wheel School and praying he breaks his neck?" Malone suggested.

"I don't think there will be time to do that before the Vice President comes to town," Wohl said.

"I saw that in the papers," Malone said. "We're going to have that? There's not a hell of a lot of time…"

"We'll have to manage somehow."

"Who are they going to move into command?" Malone asked. "Did the commissioner say?"

Wohl shook his head, no. He was more than a little embarrassed that he hadn't considered that.

"One of the chiefs probably," Mike Sabara said. "It's the Vice President."

"They're not going to move anybody in," Peter Wohl said, softly but firmly. "If this is a Special Operations responsibility, we'll be responsible."

"You'd be putting your neck on the line, Peter," Mike Sabara said. "Let them send somebody in, somebody who's familiar with this sort of operation."

"Let them send someone in here with the authority to tell our people what to do?" Wohl replied. "No way, Mike. We'll do it. Discussion closed."

Corporal Vito Lanza had not been the star pupil in Bishop John Newmann High School's Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced Typing courses, but he had tried hard enough not to get kicked out of the class. Being dropped from Typing would have meant assignment as a library monitor (putting books back on shelves), or as a laboratory monitor (washing all that shit out of test tubes and Erlenmeyer flasks), neither of which had great appeal to him.

Almost despite himself, he had become a fairly competent typist, a skill he thought he would never use in real life after graduation, and certainly not as a cop, chasing criminals down the street on his Highway Patrol Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

There was a two-and-a-half-year period after graduation from Bishop Newmann High, until he turned twenty-one and could apply for the cops, during which Vito had had a number of jobs. He worked in three different service stations, worked in a taxi garage, and got a job cleaning Eastern airliners between flights at the airport. He hated all of them, and prayed after he took the Civil Service Examination for the cops that he would not be found wanting.

Officer Lanza had quickly learned that being a cop was not what he thought it would be. Right out of the Academy, he had been assigned to the 18^th District at 55^th and Pine Streets. He spent eight months riding around the district in a battered Ford van, with another rookie police officer. Hauling prisoners (a great many of whom were drunks, not even guys who'd done a stickup) from where they had been arrested to the holding cells in the District Station was not exactly what he'd had in mind when he had become a law enforcement officer. Neither was hauling sick people from their houses to a hospital.

(Philadelphia Police, unlike the police of other major American cities, respond to every call for help. The citizens of Philadelphia have learned over the years that what one does when Junior falls off the porch and cracks his head open, or Grandma falls on an icy sidewalk, or Mama scalds herself with boiling water on the stove, is to call the cops.)

And Vito learned that while it was certainly possible that he could become a Highway Patrolman and race around the streets on a Harley, or in one of the antennae-festooned special Highway Radio Patrol Cars, fighting crime, that would have to be some time in the future.After he had four, five, sixgood years on the job, he couldapply for Highway. It was police folklore-which is not always accurate-that unless you had done something spectacular, like personally catch a bank robber, or unless you knew somebody in Highway, or had a rabbi, some white shirt who liked you, your chances of getting in Highway were about as good as they were to win the Irish Sweepstakes.

But one night, after he had been pushing the van for eight months, the sergeant at roll call had asked, "Does anybody know how to type good?"

Vito had always thought that typing was something girls did, and was reluctant to publicly confess that he could do that sort of thing, but maybe it would get him out of the fucking van for the night.

"Over here, Sergeant," Officer Lanza had said, raising his hand.

"Okay," the sergeant had said. "See the corporal. Sweitzer, you take his place in the van."

"Shit," Officer Sweitzer said.

The district was behind in its paperwork, the corporal told Officer Lanza, and the captain was on his ass, because the inspector was on his ass.

It had not taken Officer Lanza long to figure out that (a) while he was not a really good typist, compared to anybody in the district he was a world fucking champion and (b) that sitting behind a desk in the district building pushing a typewriter was way ahead of staggering around in the ice and slush loading a fat lady into the back of a van.

That particular typing job had taken three days. Over the next two years, Officer Lanza had spent more and more time behind a typewriter in the office than he had spent in an emergency patrol wagon, in an RPC, or walking a beat.

When he had almost three years on the job, he had taken the examinations for both detective and corporal. He hadn't expected to pass either first time out-he just wanted to see what the fuck the examinations were like-and he didn't. He found that the detective examination was tougher than the corporal examination. Probably, he deduced, because he had been doing so much paperwork, which is what corporals did, that he had come to understand a lot of it.

Two years later, when there was another examination for both detective and corporal, he figured fuck the detective, I think I'd rather be a corporal anyhow, detectives spend a lot of time standing around in the mud and snow.

He passed the corporal's examination, way down on the numerical list, so it was another year almost before he actually got promoted. He did four months working the desk in the Central Cell Room in the Roundhouse, and then they transferred him upstairs to the Traffic Division, where he had met Lieutenant Schnair, who was a pretty good guy for a Jew, and was supposed to have Chief Inspector Matt Lowenstein, the chief inspector of the Detective Division, for a rabbi.

Obviously, pushing a typewriter for the Traffic Division in the Roundhouse was a lot better than standing in the snow and blowing your whistle at tractor trailers at some accident scene for the Traffic Division, and Vito tried hard to please Lieutenant Schnair.

When Schnair got promoted to captain, and they gave him the Airport Unit (which, so far as Vito was concerned, proved Chief Lowensteinwas his rabbi), he arranged for Corporal Lanza to be transferred to Airport too, after one of the corporals there got himself killed driving home from the shore.

It was a good job. All he had to do was keep on top of the paperwork, and everybody left him alone. The lieutenants and the sergeants and the other corporals knew how good he got along with Captain Schnair. If he came in a little late, or left a little early, no one said anything to him.

It never entered Corporal Vito Lanza's mind to ask permission to leave his desk in the Airport Unit office at 11:15. He simplytold the lieutenant on duty, Lieutenant Ardell, that he was going to lunch.

He would get back when he got back. He was going to have a real lunch, not a sandwich or a hot dog, which meant getting out of the airport, where they charged crazy fucking prices. Just because he had a bundle of Las Vegas money was no excuse to pay five dollars for something worth two-fifty.

The Buick surprised him by starting right off. Now that he was going to dump the sonofabitch, it had decided to turn reliable. It was like when you went to the dentist, your teeth stopped hurting.

Thinking of dumping the Buick reminded him that he was supposed to meet Antoinette after work and go see her uncle, who had a car lot. He'd told her, of course, that he'd had a little luck in Vegas and was going to look around for a Caddy, and she told him her uncle had a car lot with a lot of Caddys on it.

He hadn't been sure then whether she had been trying to be nice to him, or just steering her uncle some business. After she'd taken him to her apartment, he decided that she really did like him, and maybe this thing with her uncle would turn out all right.

It also made him feel like a fool for slipping that bimbo in Vegas two hundred dollars. He didn't really have to pay for it, and now he couldn't understand why he had. Except, of course, that he was on a high from what had happened at the tables.

Antoinette had told him her uncle's car lot was one of those in the "Auto Mall" at 67^th Street and Essington Avenue. Just past the ballpark on South Broad, he decided that it wouldn't hurt to just drive past the uncle's car lot, it wasn't far, to see what he had. If he was some sleaze-ball with a dozen cars or so, that would mean that Antoinette was trying to push some business his way, and when he saw her after work, he would tell her he had made other arrangements. Tell her nice. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was piss her off. She was really much better in the sack than the bimbo in Vegas he'd given the two hundred dollars to.

Fierello's Fine Cars, on Essington Avenue, was no sleaze operation. Vito thought there must be a hundred, maybe a hundred fifty cars on the lot, which was paved and had lights and everything and even a little office building that was a real building, not just a trailer. And there were at least twenty Caddys, and they all looked like nearly new.

He drove past it twice, and then started back to the airport. He didn't get the real lunch he started out to get-he stopped at Oregon Steaks at Oregon Avenue and Juniper Street and had a sausage and peppers sandwich and a beer-but he was in a good mood and it didn't bother him. Not only was he probably going to drive home tonight in a new Caddy, but on the way, the odds were that he might spend some time in Antoinette's apartment.

He was still on a roll, no question about it.

Marion Claude Wheatley, the Hon. Jerry Carlucci, and Detective M. M. Payne all had lunch at the Union League Club on South Broad Street, but not together.

Mr. Wheatley was the guest of Mr. D. Logan Hammersmith, Jr., who was a vice president and senior trust officer of the First Pennsylvania Bank amp; Trust Company and who, like Mr. Wheatley, held an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Hammersmith did not really know what to think of Mr. Wheatley beyond the obvious, which was that he was one hell of an analyst; not only was his knowledge of the petrochemical industry encyclopedic, but he had demonstrated over the years a remarkable ability to predict upturns and downturns. Acting on Mr. Wheatley's recommendations, Mr. Hammersmith had been able to make a lot of money for the trusts under his control, and he was perfectly willing to admit that this success had been a factor, indeed a major factor, in his recent promotion to senior trust officer, which carried with it the titular promotion to vice president.

(While he was willing to concede that it was true that First Philadelphia dispensed titular promotions instead of salary increases, it was, nevertheless, rather nice to have the bronze name plate reading D. LOGAN HAMMERSMITH, JR. VICE PRESIDENT sitting on his desk.)

Logan Hammersmith was not the only one around First Philadelphia who had noticed that M. C. Wheatley had never married. But there never had been any talk that he was perhaps light on his feet. For one thing, the contents of his personnel file, although they were supposed to be confidential, were well known. One is not prone to jump to the conclusion that someone who has served, with great distinction, was twice wounded and three times decorated, as an Army officer in Vietnam is a fag simply because he has not marched to the marriage altar.

And he didn't have effeminate mannerisms, either. He drank his whiskey straight and sometimes smoked cigars. Hammersmith's final, best guess was that Wheatley was either very shy, and incapable of pursuing women, or, more likely, asexual.

And, of course, for all that anybody reallyknew, Marion Claude Wheatley might be carrying on, discreetly, with a married woman, or for that matter with a belly dancer in Atlantic City. He had a country place, a farm, or what had years before been a farm, acquired by inheritance, in that area of New Jersey known as the Pine Barrens. He spent many of his weekends there, and presumably his summer vacations.

Hammersmith, over the years, had had Marion C. Wheatley out to the house in Bryn Mawr a number of times for dinner. His behavior had been impeccable. He'd brought the right sort of wine as a gift, and he didn't get plastered, or try to grope some shapely knee under the table. But he was not a brilliant, or even mediocre, conversationalist. He was, as Bootsie (Mrs. D. Logan, Jr.) Hammersmith had put it, a crashing bore.

It had been, Hammersmith thought, as he handed the menu back and told the waiter he'd have the Boston scrod, well over a year since Wheatley had been out to the house. He would have to do something about that.

"I think the same for me, please," Marion C. Wheatley said.

"Do you think the building would fall down if we walked back in reeking of gin?" Hammersmith asked.

Employees of First Philadelphia were expected not to take alcohol at lunch.Officers were under no such unwritten proscription.

"I think a martini would be a splendid idea," Marion said with a smile.

Hammersmith held up two fingers to the waiter, and then his eyes fell on a familiar face.

"We are in the presence of the mayor," he said, and discreetly nodded his head in the mayor's direction.

After a moment Marion C. Wheatley looked,

"Is he a member, do you think?"

"I think ex-officio," Hammersmith said. "For the obvious reasons. Speaking of the upper crust, Bootsie and I were invited to the Peebles wedding."

Marion C. Wheatley looked at him curiously.

"Peebles," Hammersmith repeated. "As in Tamaqua Mining."

"Oh," Wheatley said.

That rang a bell, Hammersmith thought. I thought it would. Tamaqua Mining owned somewhere between ten and twelve percent of the known anthracite reserves of the United States. Anthracite coal was still an important part of petrochemicals, and according to Marion Claude Wheatley it would grow in financial importance. Miss Martha Peebles owned all of the outstanding shares of Tamaqua Mining, and Wheatley would know that.

After a moment Marion Claude Wheatley asked, "Is that in a trust?"

"No. She manages it herself. With Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo amp; Lester's assistance of course."

"You know her, then?" Wheatley asked.

Hammersmith was pleased they had found something to talk about. Making conversation with Wheatley was often difficult. Or impossible.

"No. I know the brother. Alexander Peebles, Jr."

Wheatley's face showed that he didn't understand.

"When the old man died, he, in the classic phrase, cut the boy off without a dime. There is an unpleasant story that the son, how should I phrase this delicately?"

"He's a fairy," Marion Claude Wheatley said. "Now that you mention it, I've heard that."

I don't think he would have used that word if he was queer himself.

"Not from me," Hammersmith said. "Anyway, he left everything to the daughter. There was a nasty law suit but he was up against Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo amp; Lester, and he lost. Then the sister set up a trust fund for him. With us. Specifically with me. We couldn't have Alexander Peebles, Jr., sleeping in the subway."

"And he invited you?"

"I don't know. I guess he's been told to show up and behave at the wedding. Brewster Payne's going to give her away, and I suspect he was responsible for the invitation."

"Who is she marrying?"

"The story gets curiouser and curiouser," Hammersmith said. "A cop."

"A cop?"

"Well, a captain. A fellow named Pekach. He's the head of Highway Patrol."

"Where did she meet him?"

"The story as I understand it is that her place in Chestnut Hill kept getting burglarized. She complained to the mayor, or Payne complained to the mayor for her, and the mayor sent the Highway Patrol:"

"Carlucci's Commandos," Wheatley interrupted. "That's what theLedger calls the Highway Patrol."

"Right. So, as the story goes, His Honor the Mayor sent the head commando, this Captain Pekach, to calm the lady down, and it was love at first sight."

"What does this lady look like?"

"Actually, she's rather attractive."

"Then why didn't you arrange for me to meet her?"

"You don't have a motorcycle and a large pistol. The lady probably wouldn't have been interested in you."

"I could have gone out and bought them," Marion Claude Wheatley said. "In a good cause."

He smiled at Hammersmith and Hammersmith smiled back. He was pleased that he had decided to take Wheatley to lunch. There was no longer a gnawing suspicion that Wheatley was queer. It could have been awkward at First Philadelphia if that had come out. Everyone knew that he relied heavily on Wheatley's advice, and there would have been talk if something embarrassing had developed.