The Assassin

TWENTY-ONE

Chief Marchessi had ordered surveillance of Corporal Vito Lanza " starting right now." Captain Swede Olsen had done his best to comply with his orders, but Internal Affairs does not have a room full of investigators just sitting around with nothing else to do until summoned to duty, so it was twenty minutes after eleven before a nondescript four-year-old Pontiac turned down the 400 block of Ritner Street in South Philadelphia.

"There it is," Officer Howard Hansen said, pointing to Corporal Lanza's residence. "With the plumber's truck in front."

"Where the hell am I going to park?" Sergeant Bill Sanders responded. "Jesus, South Philly is unbelievable."

Officer Hansen and Sergeant Sanders were in civilian clothing. Hansen, who had been handling complaints from the public about police misbehavior, was wearing a suit and tie, and Sanders, who had been investigating a no-harm-done discharge of firearms involving two police officers and a married lady who had promised absolute fidelity to both of them, was wearing a cotton jacket and a plaid, tieless shirt.

"Go around the block, maybe something'll open up," Hansen said.

"I don't see a new Cadillac, either."

"If you had a new Cadillac, would you want to park it around here?"

"We don't even know if he's here," Sanders said as he drove slowly and carefully down Ritner Street, where cars were parked, half on the sidewalk, along both sides.

Suddenly he stopped.

"Go in the bar," he ordered, pointing. "See if you can get a seat where you can see his house. I'll find someplace to park."

Hansen got quickly out of the car and walked in the bar. He saw that if he sat at the end of the bar by the entrance, he could see over the curtain on the plate-glass window, and would have a view of most of the block, including the doorway to Lanza's house.

He ordered a beer and a piece of pickled sausage.

Sergeant Sanders walked in ten minutes later.

"Well, I'll be damned," he said. "Long time no see!"

They shook hands.

"Let me buy you a beer," Hansen said.

"I accept. Schaefers," he said to the bartender, and then to Hansen: "I got to make a call."

The bartender pointed to a phone, and then drew his beer.

Sanders consulted the inside of a matchbook, then dropped a coin in the slot and dialed a number.

On the fourth ring, a somewhat snappy female voice picked up.

"Hello?"

"Is Vito there, Mrs. Lanza?"

"Who's this?"

"Jerry, Mrs. Lanza. Can I talk to Vito?"

"If you can find him, you can talk to him. I don't know where he is. Nobody is here but me and the plumbers."

"I'll try him later, Mrs. Lanza, thank you."

"You see him, you tell him he's got to come home and talk to these plumbers."

"I'll do that, Mrs. Lanza," Sanders said, and hung up.

He walked back to the bar.

"His mother doesn't know where he is. She's all alone with the plumbers."

Hansen nodded, and took a small sip of his beer.

"Is there anything on the TV?" he called to the bartender.

"What do you want?"

"Anything but the soap opera. I have enough trouble with my own love life; I don't have to watch somebody else's trouble."

The bartender started flipping through the channels.

At five minutes to twelve, Marion Claude Wheatley left his office in the First Pennsylvania Bank amp; Trust Company, rode down in the elevator, and walked north on South Broad Street to the City Hall, and then east on Market Street toward the Delaware River.

He returned to the Super Drugstore on the corner of 1lth Street where he had previously purchased theSouvenir of Asbury Park, N.J. AWOL bag, and bought two more of them, anotherSouvenir of Asbury Park, N.J. and one with the same fish jumping out of the waves, but markedSouvenir of Panama City Beach, Fla. He thought it would be interesting to know just how many different places were stamped on AWOL bags the Super Drugstore had in the back room.

And then he thought that Super Drugstore was really a misnomer. There was a place where one presumably could have a prescription filled, way in the back of the place, and there were rows of patent medicines, but he would have guessed that at least eighty percent of the available space in the Super Drugstore was given over to nonpharmaceutical items.

It was more of a Woolworth's Five and Dime, he thought, than a Super Drugstore. They really should not be allowed to call it a drugstore; it was deceptive, if not downright dishonest.

He had almost reached the entrance when he saw a display of flashlight batteries, under a flamboyantSALE! sign. He knew all that meant, of course, was that the items were available for sale, not on sale at a reduced price. But he headed for the display anyway, and saw that he was wrong.

The Eveready Battery Corporation, as opposed to the Super Drugstore itself, was having a promotional sale. He could tell that, because there were point-of-purchase promotional materials from Eveready, reading "As Advertised On TV!"

The philosophy behind the promotion, rather clever, he thought, wasAre you sureyour batteries are fresh? Be Sure With Eveready! "

This was tied in, Marion noticed, with a pricing policy that reduced the individual price of batteries in a sliding scale tied to how many total batteries one bought.

This triggered another thought. Certainly, there would be nothing suspicious if he acted as if he were someone taken in by Eveready's advertising and bought all the batteries he was going to need.

And then he had a sudden, entirely pleasing insight. There was more to his having come across this display than mere happenstance. The Lord had arranged for him to pass by this display. He had, of course, planned toBe Sure his batteries were fresh. But he had planned to buy four batteries here, and four batteries there, not all twentyfour at once.

The Lord had made it possible for him to buy everything he needed toBe Sure With Eveready at one place, and in such a manner that no one would wonder what he was doing with all those batteries.

He paid for the batteries, and then put them in theSouvenir of Asbury Park, N. J. AWOL bag, and then folded that and put it in theSouvenir of Panama City Beach, Fla. AWOL bag, and then asked the girl at the cashier's counter for a bag to put everything in.

He didn't want to walk back to the office, much less into the office, carrying a bag withSouvenir of Panama City Beach, Fla. painted on it.

When he got back to the office, he got out the telephone book, and a map of Philadelphia, and carefully marked on the map the location of all hardware stores that could reasonably be expected to sell chain, which were located within a reasonable walking distance of the house.

He would, he decided, hurry home after work, leave the lunch-time purchases just inside the door, and see how much chain he could acquire before he really got hungry, and the headaches would come back, and he would have to eat.

At twenty-five minutes past one o'clock, Mrs. Antoinette Marie Wolinski Schermer telephoned to Mr. Ricco Baltazari at the Ristorante Alfredo and informed him that Corporal Vito Lanza had just left her apartment.

"Jesus Christ! I told you to keep him there!"

"Don't snap at me, Ricco, I did everything I could. He said he had to go by his house and see the plumbers."

"I didn't mean to snap at you, baby," Mr. Baltazari said, sounding very contrite. "But this was important. This was business. You sure he went to his house?"

"I'm not sure, that's what he said."

"Okay, I'll get back to you."

Mr. Baltazari was thoughtfully drumming his fingers on his desk, trying to phrase how he could most safely report this latest development to Mr. S. when there was a knock at the door.

"What?"

"Mr. Baltazari, it's Tommy Dolbare."

Mr. Baltazari jumped up and went to the door and jerked it open.

"I got this envelope for you," Tommy said.

Mr. Baltazari snatched the extended envelope from Mr. Dolbare's hand and looked into it.

"Where the fuck have you been, asshole?" he inquired.

"I had a wreck. I got forced off the road," Tommy said, hoping that he sounded sincere and credible.

"Get the fuck out of here," Mr. Baltazari said, and closed the door in Mr. Dolbare's face.

Mr. Baltazari then telephoned Mr. S.'s home. Mr. Gian-Carlo Rosselli answered the telephone.

"I got those financial documents Mr. S. was interested in," Mr. Baltazari reported. "They just this minute got here. Our friend's guy got in a wreck on the way down. Or so he said."

"Fuck!" Mr. Rosselli said.

"I just talked to the broad. She says our other friend just left there to go home, to talk to the plumbers."

"She was supposed to keep him there," Mr. Rosselli said.

"She said she couldn't."

"I'll get back to you, Ricco," Mr. Rosselli said, and hung up.

"That was Ricco," Mr. Rosselli said to Mr. Savarese, who was readingThe Wall Street Journal. He waited until Mr. S. lowered the newspaper. "He's got the markers. That bimbo of his called him and said that the cop left her place; he had to go to his house and talk to the plumbers. What do you want me to do?"

Mr. Savarese, after a moment, asked, "Did he say why it took so long to get the markers?"

"He said something about Anthony Cagliari's guy…"

"Clark,"Mr. Savarese interrupted. "If Anthony wants to call himself Clark, we should respect that."

"…Anthony's guy getting in a wreck on the way down from the Poconos."

"This was important. I told Ricco to tell Anthony it was important. Either Ricco didn't do that, or he didn't make it clear to Anthony. Otherwise Anthony would have brought those markers himself."

"You're right."

"Maybe you had better say something to Ricco," Mr. Savarese said. "When things are important, they're important."

"I'll do that, Mr. S. Right now, if you want."

"What I want you to do right now is go get the markers from Ricco. Take the photographs and give them to Paulo. You know where this cop lives?"

"Yes."

"I don't know what this business with the plumbers is," Mr. Savarese said. "If possible, without attracting attention, you and Paulo try to have a talk with the cop. But I don't want a fuss in the neighborhood, you understand?"

"I understand, Mr. S."

"You tell Paulo I said that. You tell him I said it would have been better if you could have talked to the cop in the girl's apartment. But sometimes things happen. Anthony's driver had a wreck; the cop's toilet is stopped up. It's not the end of the world. If you can't talk to him at his house, it might even bebetter if Paulo and you talked to him at this woman's apartment. Use your best judgment, Gian-Carlo. Just make sure that we get what we're after."

"I'll do my best, Mr. S."

Mr. Savarese nodded and raisedThe Wall Street Journal from his lap and resumed reading it.

"Ricco," Mr. Rosselli said to Mr. Baltazari when he answered the telephone. "What I want you to be doing is standing on the sidewalk in ten minutes with those things in your hand, so I don't have to waste my time coming in there and getting them, you understand?"

"Right," Mr. Baltazari said. "I'll be waiting for you."

"There's a new Cadillac parking," Sergeant Bill Sanders said to Officer Howard Hansen. "Is that our guy?"

Hansen consulted a notebook, stuck into which was a photograph of Corporal Vito Lanza.

"Yeah, that's him."

"If I was dirty, and lived in this neighborhood," Sergeant Sanders said, "I think I would take what that Cadillac cost and move out of this neighborhood."

"But then you wouldn't be able to impress the neighbors with your new Caddy," Hansen said. "Why be dirty if you can't impress your neighbors?"

"Did you hear what this guy is supposed to have done? I mean, anything besides he may be taking stuff out of the airport?"

"Olsen said that Peter Wohl was in the chief's office first thing this morning. He had the kid-he just made detective, by the way-that got himself shot by the Islamic Liberation-Army, Payne, and some little Puerto Rican with him. I worked with Wohl on the job where he put Judge Findermann away. He does not go off half-cocked."

"The little Puerto Rican was a cop?"

"I think he was the guy, one of the guys, who got the junkie who shot Captain Dutch Moffitt."

Sanders nodded.

"You think to bring the camera from the car?"

Hansen nodded, and patted his breast pocket.

"Just in case we lose this guy when he leaves, I think you'd better take his picture."

Hansen nodded again.

"There's nota plumber," Mr. Paulo Cassandro said, looking out the back window of his Jaguar as it moved slowly down the 400 block of Ritner Street, "there's a whole fucking army of them."

"These houses is old; the pipes wear out," Mr. Rosselli replied absently.

On the way here, Mr. Cassandro had given some thought to how he was going to handle the situation if the place was full of plumbers, or Lanza's mother, or whatever. He had what, after some reflection, seemed to be a pretty good idea.

Starting with the bill of sale for the Cadillac, all the paperwork involved in dealing with the cop had been Xeroxed. It was the businesslike thing to do, in case something should get lost, or fucked up, or whatever. Including the bill for the comped room at the Oaks and Pines, and the markers, both the ones he'd paid, and the ones he'd just signed.

The thing they had to do now was make the cop nervous. He thought he had figured out just how to do that.

I will just go in the cop's house, and hand him the markers from last night. And tell him I want to talk to him, and why don't you let me buy you a drink when you get off work, say in the bar in the Warwick. He probably won't come, he wants to bang the broad, but he will wonder all fucking day what getting handed the markers is all about, and what I want to talk about. And if he don't show up at the Warwick by say one o'clock, I know where to find the fucker. Rosselli and I will go to the broad's apartment.

"Let me out of the car, Jimmy," Mr. Cassandro said to his driver, "and then drive around the block until I come out."

"You don't want me to come with you?" Mr. Rosselli asked.

"I want you to drive around the block with Jimmy until I come out."

"You will never believe who I just got a picture of getting out of a Jaguar and walking toward Lanza's house," Officer Howard Hansen said softly as he returned to the bar where Sergeant Bill Sanders was watching a quiz program on the television.

"Who?"

"Paulo Cassandro."

"You sure?" Sergeant Sanders asked.

Hansen nodded.

"And, unless I'm mistaken, the guy driving the Jaguar was Jimmy Gnesci, 'Jimmy the Knees,' and-what the hell is his name?-GianCarloRosselli was in the back seat with Cassandro."

"You get his picture,their pictures too?"

Hansen nodded.

"This is getting interesting," Sanders said.

"I told you, I've been on the job with Wohl. He don't go off halfcocked."

The fucking plumbers had just told Vito Lanza that it would be at least three days until there was cold water to flush the toilets, and probably a day more until there was hot water and he could take a bath and shave, when he heard somebody call, "Yo, Vito! You in here?" upstairs at the front door.

He went up the stairs and there was Paulo Cassandro standing there, just inside the open door. He was smiling.

"What the hell have you got going here, Vito? You really need all these plumbers?"

"Well, hello. How are you?"

Paulo Cassandro was the last person Vito expected to see inside his house, and for a moment there was concern that Paulo was there about the markers he had signed at the Oaks and Pines.

He shook Cassandro's hand.

"You wouldn't believe what they're charging me," Vito said.

"I would believe. There's only two kinds of plumbers, good expensive plumbers and bad expensive plumbers. I've been through this."

"So what can I do for you, Mr. Cassandro?"

"You can call me 'Paulo' for one thing," Cassandro said. "I just happened to be in the neighborhood, I was down by Veteran's Stadium, and I had these, and I thought, what the hell, I'll see if Vito's home and give them to him."

He handed Vito the markers, four thousand dollars' worth of markers, that he had signed early that morning at Oaks and Pines.

"To tell you the truth, Paulo, until I can get to the bank, I can' t cover these."

I don't have anywhere near enough money in the bank to cover those markers. My fucking luck has been really bad!

"Did I ask for money? I know you're good for them. Take care of them at your convenience. But I had them, and I figured, what the hell, why carry them around and maybe lose them. You know what I mean?"

"Absolutely."

"And we know where you live, right?"

"Yeah."

"So I'll see you around, Vito," Paulo said, and started to leave, and then, as if it was a thought that had suddenly occurred to him, turned back to Vito. "What time do you get off?"

"Eleven," Vito said.

What the hell does he want to know that for?

"That's what I thought," Paulo said. "Hey, Vito. We're all going to be at the bar at the Warwick a little after midnight. Why don't you come by, and we'll have a shooter or two?"

"Jees, that's nice, but when I get off work, I'm kind of beat. And I went up to the Poconos last night. I think I'm just going to tuck it in tonight. Let me have a rain check."

"Absolutely. I understand. But if you change your mind, the Warwick Bar. On the house. We like to take care of our good customers."

Paulo punched Vito in a friendly manner on the arm, smiled warmly at him, and walked out of his house.

He stood on the curb for almost five minutes until his Jaguar came around the block and pulled to the curb.

The relationship between the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and local law enforcement agencies has rarely been a glowing example of intergovernmental cooperation.

This is not a new development, but goes back to the earliest days of the Republic when Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton convinced the Congress to pass a tax on distilled spirits. Some of the very first federal revenue officers were tarred and feathered when they tried to collect the tax, more than once as local sheriffs and constables stood by looking in the opposite direction.

In July, 1794, five hundred armed men attacked the home of General John Neville, the regional tax collector for Pennsylvania, and burned it to the ground. Since local law enforcement officers seemed more than reluctant to arrest the arsonists, President George Washington was forced to mobilize the militia in Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania to put the Whiskey Rebellion down.

During Prohibition, the New Jersey Pine Barrens served both as a convenient place to conceal illegally imported intoxicants from the federal government, prior to shipment to Philadelphia and New York, and as a place to manufacture distilled spirits far from prying eyes. And again, local law enforcement officers did not enforce the liquor laws with what the federal government considered appropriate enthusiasm. Part of this was probably because most cops and deputy sheriffs both liked a little nip themselves and thought Prohibition was insane, and part was because, it has been alleged, the makers of illegally distilled intoxicants were prone to make generous gifts, either in cash or in kind, to the law enforcement community as a token of their respect and admiration.

Even with the repeal of Prohibition the problem did not go away. High quality, locally distilled corn whiskey, or grain neutral spirits, it was learned, could be liberally mixed with fully taxed bourbon, blended whiskey, gin, and vodka and most people in Atlantic City bars and saloons could not tell the difference. Except the bartenders and tavern keepers, who could get a gallon or more of untaxed spirits for the price of a quart of the same with a federal tax stamp affixed to the neck of the bottle.

And the illegal distillers still had enough of a profit to be able to comfortably maintain their now traditional generosity toward the local law enforcement community.

While the local law enforcement community did not actively assist the moonshine makers in their illegal enterprise, neither did they drop their other law enforcement obligations to rush to the assistance of what had become the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in their relentless pursuit of illegal stills.

It boiled down to a definition of crime. If they learned that someone was smuggling firearms to Latin America, the locals would be as cooperative as could be desired. And since the illegal movement of cigarettes from North Carolina, where they were made and hardly taxed at all, to Atlantic City, where they were heavily taxed by both the state and city, cut into New Jersey's tax revenues, the locals were again as cooperative as could be expected in helping to stamp out this sort of crime.

And if they happened to walk into a still in the Pine Barrens, the operator, if he could be found, would of course be hauled before the bar of justice. It was simply that other aspects of law enforcement normally precluded a vigorous prosecution of illegal distilling.

Additionally, there was-there is-a certain resentment in the local law enforcement community toward neatly dressed young men who had joined ATF right out of college, at a starting salary that almost invariably greatly exceeded that of, for example, a deputy sheriff who had been on the job ten years.

Whatever else may be said about them, ATF agents are not stupid. They know that they need the support of the local law enforcement community more than it needs theirs. They are taught to be grateful for that support, and made aware that it would be very foolish indeed to make impolitic allegations, much less investigations.

When Special Agent C. V. Glynes, of the Atlantic City office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, making a routine call, just to keep in touch, walked into the Sheriff's Department in the basement of the county courthouse, he knew very well that if he was going to leave with any information he had not previously had, it would be volunteered by either the sheriff himself, or one of his deputies, and not the result of any investigative genius he might demonstrate.

He waved a friendly greeting at the sheriff, behind his glasswalled office, and then bought a Coca-Cola from the machine against the wall.

He studied the bulletin board, which was more devoted to lawn mowers, mixed collie and Labrador puppies, washing machines and other household products for sale, than to criminal matters until the sheriff, having decided he had made the fed wait long enough, waved him into his office.

"Good morning, Sheriff," Special Agent Glynes said.

"How are you, Glynes? I like your suit."

"There was a going-out-of-business sale, Machman's, on the Boardwalk? Fifty percent off. I got two of them for a hundred and twenty bucks each."

The sheriff leaned forward and felt the material.

"That's the real stuff. None of that plastic shit."

"Yeah. And I got some shirts too, one hundred percent cotton Arrow. Fifty percent off."

"Anything special on your mind?"

Glynes shook his head, no.

"Just passing through. I thought I'd stop in and ask about Dan Springs. How is he?"

"He must have really hit his steering wheel. If he hadn't been wearing his seat belt, he'd probably have killed himself. He's got three cracked ribs. He said it doesn't hurt except when he breathes."

Glynes chuckled. "What happened?"

"He was out in the Barrens," the sheriff said, "and he run over something. Blew his right front tire, run off the road, and slammed into a tree."

"Jesus!"

The sheriff raised his voice and called, "Jerry!"

A uniformed deputy put his head in the office.

"Jerry, you know Mr. Glynes?"

The deputy shook his head, no.

"Revenoooooer," the sheriff said. "Don't let him catch you with any homemade beer."

"How do you do, Mr. Glynes? Jerry Resmann."

"Chuck,"Special Agent Glynes said, smiling and shaking Resmann's hand firmly. "Pleased to meet you."

"Jerry, is that piece of scrap metal still on Springs's desk?" the sheriff asked.

Deputy Resmann went to the door and looked into the outer office.

"Yeah, it's there."

"Why don't you go get it, and give our visiting Revenooooer a look?"

"Right."

Resmann went into the outer office and returned and handed the twisted piece of metal to Glynes.

"Can you believe that thing?" the sheriff asked. "They found it in the wheel well, up behind that plastic sheeting, when they hauled Dan' s car in. No wonder he blew his tire."

Jesus Christ! What the hell is this? That's one-eighth, maybe three-sixteenth-inch steel. And it's been in an explosion. One hell of an explosion, otherwise that link of chain wouldn't be stuck in it.

"You have any idea what this is, Sheriff?"

"It's what blew Dan's tire," the sheriff said. "A piece of junk metal. Probably fell off a truck when some asshole was dumping garbage out in the Barrens, and then Dan drove over it."

"You know, it looks as if it's been in an explosion," Glynes said.

"Why do you say that?" Resmann asked.

"Look at this link of chain stuck in it. The only way that could happen is if it struck it with great velocity."

The sheriff took the piece of metal from Glynes.

"There's burned areas too," the sheriff said. "I read one time that in a hurricane, the wind gets blowing so hard, so fast, that it' ll stick pieces of straw three inches deep into a telephone pole."

Glynes took the piece of steel back and lifted it to his nose, and then, carefully, touched the edge of the burned area with his fingertip, and then looked at his fingertip. There was a black smudge. When he touched his finger to it, it smeared.

"The explosion happened recently," he said, handing the steel to the sheriff. "You can smell it, and the burned area is still moist."

The sheriff sniffed. "I'll be damned. I wonder what it is?"

"I'd like to know. I'd like to run it by our laboratory. You think I could have this for a while?"

"Would we get it back?"

"Sure."

"I know Dan would want that for a souvenir."

"I can have it back here before he comes back to work."

"What do you think it is?"

"You tell me. Have there been any industrial explosions, anything like that around here?"

The sheriff considered that for a moment, and then shook his head, no.

"Take it along with you, Chuck, if you want. But I really want it back."

"I understand."

Special Agent Glynes was halfway to Atlantic City when he pulled to the side of the road.

I don't need the goddamned laboratory to tell me that piece of metal has been involved in the detonation of high explosives. What I want to know is where it came from.

It could be nothing. But on the other hand, if somebody is blowing things up around here with high explosives, I damned sure want to know who and why.

He made a U-turn, stopped at the first bar he encountered, bought a get-well bottle of Seagram's 7-Crown for Deputy Springs, and asked for the telephone book.

He found a listing forSprings, Daniel J., which was both unusual and pleased him. Most law enforcement officers, including Special Agent Glynes, did not like to have their telephone numbers in the book. It was an invitation to every wife/mother/girlfriend and male relative/acquaintance of those whom one had met,professionally, so to speak, to call up, usually at two A.M., the sonofabitch who put Poor Harry in jail.

He carefully wrote down Springs's number and address, but he did not telephone to inquire whether it would be convenient for him to call. It was likely that either Dan Springs or his wife would, politely, tell him that it would be inconvenient, and he was now determined to see him. If he showed up at the front door with a smile and a bottle of whiskey, it was unlikely that he would be turned away.

Glynes had been on the job nearly fifteen years. When he saw advertisements in the newspapers of colleges offering credit for practical experience, he often thought of applying. He had enough practical experience to be awarded a Ph.D., summa cum laude, in Practical Psychology.

He found Springs's house without difficulty. There was no car in the carport, which was disappointing. He thought about that a moment, then decided the thing to do was leave the whiskey bottle, with a calling card,"Dan, Hope you 're feeling better. Chuck." That just might put Springs in a charitable frame of mind when he came back in the morning.

But he heard the sound of the television when he walked up to the door, and pushed the doorbell. Chimes sounded inside, and a few moments later a plump, comfortable-looking gray-haired woman wearing an apron opened the door.

"Mrs. Springs, I'm Chuck Glynes. I work sometimes with Dan, and I just heard what happened."

"Oh," she seemed uncomfortable.

Why is she uncomfortable? Ah ha. Dear Old Dan isn't as incapacitated as he would have the sheriff believe.

"I'm not with the Sheriff's Department, Mrs. Springs. I work for the federal government in Atlantic City. I brought something in case Dan needed something stronger than an aspirin."

"Dan went to the store for a minute," Mrs. Springs said. "My arthritis's been acting up, and I didn't think I should be driving."

"Well, maybe I can offer some of this to you."

"Come in," she said, making up her mind. "He shouldn't be long."

Deputy Springs walked into his kitchen twenty minutes later.

He's not carrying any packages. And his nose is glowing. If I were a suspicious man, I might suspect he was down at the VFW, treating his pain with a couple of shooters, not at the Acme Supermarket.

"How are you, Mr. Glynes?"

"The question, Dan, is how are you? And when did you start calling me 'Mr. Glynes'? My name is Chuck."

"Cracked some ribs," Dan said. "But it only hurts when I breathe."

Glynes laughed appreciatively.

"Doris get you something to drink, Chuck?"

"Yes, she did, thank you very much," Glynes said.

"I think I might have one myself," Springs said.

"Well, then, let's open this," Glynes said, and pushed the paper sack with the Seagram's 7-Crown across the table toward him.

"I don't know what happened," Dan Springs said, ten minutes later, as he freshened up Chuck Glynes's drink. "I'm riding down the road one second, and the next second I'm off the road, straddling a tree."

"I know what happened," Glynes said.

"You do?" Springs asked, surprised.

"Let me go out to the car a minute and I'll get it," Glynes said.

Springs walked out to the car with him. Glynes handed him the explosive-torn chunk of metal.

"You ran over that," Glynes said. "It opened your tire like an ax."

"Jesus, I wonder where that came from?"

"Well, they found it in your wheel well, up behind that rubber sheet. But I'd like to know, professionally, where it came from."

"Excuse me?"

"That piece of steel has been in an explosion, Dan. Look at that link of chain stuck in it."

"I'll be damned!"

"I'd really like to see where you had the wreck."

"Out in the Pine Barrens."

"Could you find the spot again?"

"Sure," Springs said. "But not tonight. By the time we got there, it would be dark."

"Would you feel up to going out there tomorrow?"

"I'm on sick leave."

"Well, hell, the sheriff wouldn't have to know."

"Yeah," Springs said, after a moment's thought. "I could take you out there tomorrow, I guess."

"I'd appreciate it, Dan. We like to know who's blowing what up."

"Yeah, and so would I."

Mrs. Springs insisted that Chuck stay for supper. He said he would stay only if she let him buy them dinner.

At dinner, when he said he would have to head back to Atlantic City, Mrs. Springs said there was no reason at all for him to drive all that way just to have to come back in the morning, they had a spare bedroom just going to waste. He said he wouldn't want to put her out, and she said he shouldn't be silly.