The Assassin

TWENTY-FIVE

Inspector Peter F. Wohl, of the Philadelphia Police Department, who had, ten minutes before, been Staff Inspector Wohl, came out of Commissioner Czernick's office in the company of Chief Inspector (retired) and Mrs. Augustus Wohl.

They are happy about this, Peter Wohl thought, but they are in the minority. Czernick, despite the warm smile and the hearty handshake, didn't like it at all. And a lot of other people aren't going to like it either, when they hear about it.

Part of this, he felt, was because before he had become a staff inspector, he had been the youngest captain in the Department. And there was the matter of the anomaly in the rank structure of the Philadelphia Police Department: Captains are immediately subordinate to staff inspectors, who are immediately subordinate to Inspectors. The insignia of the ranks parallels that of the Army and Marine Corps. Captains wear two gold bars, "railroad tracks"; staff inspectors wear gold oak leaves, corresponding to military majors; and inspectors wear, like military lieutenant colonels, silver oak leaves.

There were only sixteen staff inspectors in the Department, all of them (with the sole exception of Wohl, Peter F.) assigned to the Staff Inspection Office of the Internal Affairs Division. There they handled "sensitive" investigations, which translated to mean they were a group of really first-rate investigators who went after criminals who were also high governmental officials, elected, appointed, or civil service.

Being a staff inspector is considered both prestigious and a good, interesting job. Many staff inspectors consider it the apex of their police careers.

Consequently, the promotion path from captain to inspector for most officers usually skips staff inspector. A lieutenant is promoted to captain, and spends the next five or six or even ten years commanding a District, or in a special unit, and/or working somewhere in administration until finally he ranks high enough on an inspector's examination-given every two years-to be promoted off it.

Peter Wohl, who everyone was willing to admit was one of the better staff inspectors, had been transferred out of Internal Affairs to command of the newly formed Special Operations Division. Officially, this was a decision of Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernick. Anyone who had been on the job more than six months suspected, correctly, that Wohl's transfer had been made at the " suggestion" of Mayor Jerry Carlucci, whose suggestions carried about as much weight with Czernick as a Papal pronouncement, ex cathedra.

Anyone who had been on the job six months also was aware that Wohl had friends in high places. Chief Inspector Augustus Wohl, retired, it was generally conceded, had been Mayor Carlucci's rabbi as the mayor had climbed through the ranks of the Department. And Peter Wohl was close to Chief Inspectors Lowenstein and Coughlin. It was far easier, and much more satisfying for personal egos, to conclude that Wohl's rapid rise in rank was due to his closeness to the mayor than to give the mayor the benefit of the doubt, and to believe Carlucci had given Wohl Special Operations, and had the expired Inspector's List reopened, because he really believed Wohl was the best man in the Department for the job, and that he deserved the promotion.

When the Wohls came out of the Commissioner's office door into one of the curving corridors of the Roundhouse, and started walking toward the elevators, Captain Richard Olsen of Internal Affairs walked up to them.

"Looking for me, Swede?" Wohl asked.

"Yes, sir."

"I guess you know my dad? What about my mother?"

"Chief," Olsen said. "Good to see you again. How do you do, Mrs. Wohl?"

"I'm doing very well, thank you, after what just happened in there," Olga Wohl said.

"And just what happened in there?"

"Say hello to the newest inspector," Chief Wohl said.

"No kidding?" Olsen said. "Jesus, Peter, congratulations. Well deserved."

He took Wohl's hand and shook it with enthusiasm.

Swede seems genuinely pleased. But my fans are still outnumbered by maybe ten to one.

"Thanks, Swede. It will not be necessary for you to kiss my ring."

"Peter!" Olga Wohl said. "Really!"

"What's up Swede? Youwere looking for me?"

"First of all, don't jump on Mike Sabara for telling me where I could find you. I practically had to get down on my knees and beg."

"That's not good enough," Wohl said. "As my first official act as an inspector, I'll have him shot at sunrise. Did your guys come up with something last night?"

"Yeah. Could you give me a minute?"

"Peter, I understand," Chief Wohl said. "We'll get out of your way."

He hugged his son briefly, but affectionately, and then, after she'd kissed their son, propelled Olga Wohl toward the elevator.

"You want to go get a cup of coffee or something?" Olsen asked.

"I didn't have any breakfast," Wohl said. "So I need some, which I think, under the circumstances, I'll even pay for."

"I know just the place," Olsen said. "If that was an invitation."

Olsen led him, on foot, to The Mall, a bar and restaurant on 9^th Street. It was popular not only with the Internal Affairs people, but also with Homicide detectives. Wohl had spent a lot of time and money in The Mall as both a staff inspector and when he'd been in Homicide. It was just what he wanted now, for it offered a nice menu and comfortable chairs at a table where their conversation would not be overheard.

He ordered Taylor ham and eggs, hash browns and coffee.

"Same for me, please," Olsen said, and waited for the waitress to leave.

"I sent for Sergeant Framm and Detective Pillare first thing this morning…" Olsen began.

"They're the two you had on Lanza?" Wohl interrupted.

Olsen nodded.

"…Framm opened the conversation by saying, 'It couldn't be helped, Captain, he dodged through traffic'"

"Oh, shit, they lost him?"

"They did," Olsen said. "And your Sergeant O'Dowd did…"

"O'Dowd was there too?"

Olsen nodded again. "And he lost him too, but your man Payne stayed with him."

"Detective Payne was there too?"

Goddammit, Lanza knows Matt, and he shouldn't have been anywhere near him. I am going to have to sit on him, and hard.

"And he followed him to an apartment house in Center City, and then arranged for a somewhat chagrined Sergeant Framm, Detective Pillare, and Sergeant O'Dowd to join him."

If O'Dowd was there, and what the hell was he doing there, he knew Payne was there, and should not have been there. Unless, of course, O 'Dowd told Matt to be there. Jesus Christ!

"You lose people. It happens to everybody. It's certainly happened to me," Wohl said.

"Shortly after Lanza got to the apartment building, Mr. Gian-Carlo Rosselliand Mr. Paulo Cassandro entered the premises, stayed approximately twenty minutes, and then left, obviously pleased with themselves, and went to the bar at the Hotel Warwick where they stayed until closing."

"Who did Lanza see in the apartment building?"

"A lady," Olsen said, and handed Wohl a photograph. "Brilliant detective work by myself this morning identified her as Antoinette Marie Wolinski Schermer, believed by Organized Crime to be the girlfriend of Mr. Ricco Baltazari, proprietor of Ristorante Alfredo."

"What's she doing with Lanza? He spend the night there?"

"Yeah, and it's not the first time."

The waitress delivered the coffee.

"I'm going to need another one of these," Wohl said to her.

She nodded and left. Wohl took a sip, then another, then looked at Olsen.

"It would seem he has nice friends, our Corporal Lanza," Wohl said.

"Yeah, doesn't he?" Olsen replied. "So I took this to Chief Marchessi…"

"Right," Wohl said.

"Peter, I didn't mention to him that Framm and Pillare lost Lanza. He's… Framm is, this is not the first time he's lost somebody…and he's already on the chief's shit list."

If Olsen is covering for Framm, he has his reasons, and it's not because Framm's a nice guy.

"He wasn't lost, that's all that counts," Wohl said.

"Thank you," Olsen said. "The chief asked what you thought of all this, and I told him you were unavailable…At this point in time, Mike Sabara was still stonewalling me."

"Good for him," Wohl said.

"So the chief said that what we should do is bring the airline security people in on this. You remember Dickie Lowell?"

"Sure."

Before my time, Wohl thought. But I remember him. H. Dickinson Lowell had been one of the first, if not the first, black staff inspectors. And then he made inspector. Well, dammit, 1 am not the first staff inspector to have the gall to try to get myself promoted.

"Well, they had him running the Headquarters Division in the Detective Bureau and he didn't like it, all the paperwork, so he took retirement. He's chief of security for Eastern at the airport. More important, he and Marchessi are old pals."

"He was a good cop, as I recall," Wohl said.

"Marchessi called him, and explained the situation. Lowell is going to have his people keep an eye on Lanza, and he told Marchessi he has some friends, other airlines security, that he can go to. He will not go to the feds, which is important to Marchessi…"

"And me," Wohl interjected.

"…but he will call Marchessi or me if Lanza does something suspicious. And we'll keep sitting on Lanza when he's not on the job."

"Good," Wohl said. "Very good."

"And then the chief told me to find you and bring you in on this and see if it's all right with you, or if you had anything, a suggestion, or what."

Wohl didn't reply for a moment, then he said, "There's only two loose ends that I can think of. This woman, Schermer, you said?"

Olsen nodded.

"I'd like to know if she was the woman Payne saw with Lanza in the Poconos. And then there's Martinez. I don't want him to go off halfcocked and screw anything up."

"The chief said maybe I should mention Martinez to you."

The waitress appeared with their ham and eggs.

Wohl looked at his plate, and then stood up.

"I think I know how to kill two birds with one stone," he said, and walked to a pay telephone.

Five minutes later he was back.

"That didn't work," he said.

"What didn't work?"

"I called the Schoolhouse. I was going to tell Payne to find Martinez, and bring him here. Payne could have told us whether that was the woman Lanza had with him in the Poconos, and we both could have impressed on both of them that neither of them are to get anywhere near Lanza until we finish this."

"What happened?"

"Payne is in New Jersey with the Secret Service, they may have a lead on the guy who wants to blow up the Vice President, and when I called Martinez, his mother told me he's got the flu, and called in sick."

"You've got Payne working on the screwball?" Olsen asked, surprised.

"Mike sent him," Wohl said. "When I have him shot in the morning, I'll have them pick up the body and shoot him again."

He looked at Olsen.

"And my eggs are probably cold. I think this is going to be one of those days."

At five minutes past one, Marion Claude Wheatley left his room in the Divine Lorraine Hotel, rode the elevator to the lobby, left his key at the desk, and walked out onto North Broad Street.

He turned north, walked three blocks, and then crossed the street. There he waited for a bus, rode it downtown into Center City, got off, and walked to Suburban Station. He went downstairs, picked up a Pennsylvania Railroad Timetable from a rack, and went back out to the street.

He flagged a cab and had himself driven to the airport, giving American Airlines as his destination. Inside the airport, he went to a fast-food restaurant and had a hot dog with sauerkraut and mustard and a medium root beer.

When he was finished, he went to the locker where he had left his things earlier, picked them up, and went to the taxi stand.

He gave the driver an address on Ridge Avenue, and when he got there, carried his luggage into a small office building until he was sure the cab had driven away.

Then he went back to the Divine Lorraine Hotel, sorted everything out on the bed, repacked everything, and put it in the closet. The closet had a key, which he thought was fortuitous, and he removed it and put it in his pocket.

Then he sat down at the desk and looked at the Bible again, and re-read the passage the Lord had directed him to. He could by now practically recite Haggai 2:17 by heart, but he was no closer to understanding what "17. I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the Lord" meant than he had been when the Lord had first directed his attention to it.

Marion decided the only thing to do was pray.

He knelt by the bed, and with the Bible before him, he prayed for understanding.

When Inspector Wohl walked into his office, a few minutes after two, it was immediately apparent to Captain Mike Sabara that he had a hair up his ass about something, and Sabara wondered if he had done the wrong thing in sending Matt Payne off with the man from the Secret Service.

"Do you have any word from Payne, Mike?" Wohl asked.

"No, sir."

"When he gets back, let me know," Wohl said, and went into his office and closed the door.

Twenty minutes later, Officer O'Mara put his head in Wohl's door and said that Mr. Larkin was here, and could the inspector see him?

"Ask him to come in," Wohl said, "and if Payne is out there, don't let him get away."

"Yes, sir," Officer O'Mara replied crisply, and then promptly misinterpreted his instructions. Detective Payne, at Officer O'Mara's bidding, followed Supervisory Special Agent Larkin into Inspector Wohl's office.

"Well, Peter," Larkin asked as they shook hands, "how did the promotion ceremony go?"

Does everybody in Philadelphia know I've been promoted? And what the hell is Matt doing in here?

"I did all right until the Commissioner kissed me."

He stopped.

I'll show Payne the photograph and then throw him out.

"Yes, sir?"

"Excuse me, Charley. This won't take a minute," Wohl said, and handed Matt the photograph. "You ever see this woman before?"

Matt looked at it.

"That's the girl Lanza had in the Poconos."

"Okay. Call Captain Olsen in Internal Affairs and tell him that," Wohl ordered.

"Right now?"

"Right now," Wohl said sharply.

"Peter," Larkin said. "Excuse me, but is that as important as our lunatic?"

No, of course it isn't. I am just having one of my goddamned bad days. What the hell is the matter with me?

"No, of course not," Wohl said. "Sorry. Payne, that will wait."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm reasonably sure, Peter, that we know where our man has been," Larkin said. "But we don't have an idea who he is, or where."

"What happened in New Jersey?"

"A deputy sheriff came across a piece of steel that showed evidence of having been involved in a high-explosive detonation," Larkin said. "Actually, he ran over it. Anyway, an ATF guy out of Atlantic City ran it down, and they called us. What we found, in a garbage dump in the middle of the Pine Barrens, were half a dozen railroad station, airline terminal, bus station rental lockers that had been, recently, blown up. The ATF expert said he was almost sure it was Composition C-4, and that it was set up with GI detonators. This guy knows his way around explosives."

"That's not good news, is it?"

"It may not be all bad. It may give us a line on him. We're already back-checking with the military. And if he knows what he's doing, that would lessen the chance of his explosives going off accidentally."

"But you don't know who he is?"

"That's the bad news. Where we stand is that the FBI is searching records in the county courthouse over there to find out who owns the property. There's a house, more of a cabin, on the property. Someone has been there in the past week or ten days, which coincides with when the ATF explosives guy says the explosions took place. And, for a cabin, the place was out-of-the-ordinary neat and clean. Which ties in with the psychological profile. Both of them. Ours and Dr. Payne's. I have a gut feeling he could be our guy."

"But no name?"

"Not yet. And I could be wrong. Maybe the people who own the property have nothing to do with what happened there. But that's all we have to go on, unless we get a name from the Defense Department, some explosives guy with mental problems."

"How can we help?" Wohl asked.

"If wecome up with a name, we're going to have to move fast. It would help if we had a search warrant that had the important parts left blank."

"Denny Coughlin," Wohl said. "I'll call him. He's good at that. He knows every judge in the city."

"You're not?"

"There's a Superior Court judge named Findermann in the slam," Wohl said. "Since I put him there, I have not been too popular with the bench."

"The only people worse than doctors and Congressmen when it comes to protecting their own are judges," Larkin said, and then went on: " If we get a name and an address,and a search warrant, we'll need some explosives people, maybe even a booby-trap expert."

"I thought of that," Wohl said. "We call it 'Ordnance Disposal.' It's in the Special Patrol Bureau. When I called over there, they told me, 'You tell us where, and we'll be there in ten minutes.'"

"Good. I appreciate your cooperation, Peter."

"You keep saying that."

"I keep saying it because I mean it. We couldn't handle this by ourselves."

"I have the simple solution to this problem," Wohl said. "Tell the Vice President to stay the hell home."

"No way," Larkin chuckled. "What I think I should do now is go back to the office and see if I can lean on the Defense Department to come up with some names. Can Matt take me?"

"Sure. On your way back, go see Hay-zus Martinez. Tell him…" He stopped, and then went on. "Hell, when all else fails, tell the truth. Tell Hay-zus that other people are watching Lanza. If he goes back to work, he is to stay away from Lanza. If he sees him doing something, he is to telephone either Captain Olsen or me. He's not to do anything about it."

"If he goes back to work?" Matt asked.

"His mother said he has the flu. Make sure he understands the message, Matt."

"Yes, sir."

"If he goes off half-cocked, he's liable to blow the whole thing," Wohl went on.

"I'll tell him, sir."

"And then come back here, of course, so Captain Sabara can have his car back."

"Yes, sir."

The red light was blinking on the answering machine when Matt came into his apartment at twenty minutes after five.

I don't want to listen to any goddamned messages. I'm just going to have to bite the goddamned bullet.

He reached down and pushed the ERASE button before he could change his mind. Nothing happened.

You have to play the goddamned messages before you can erase them! Damn!

He pushed the PLAY button and walked into the kitchen and took a beer from the refrigerator. He could hear that there had again been a number of callers who had elected not to leave their names.

Nature called, and he went to the bathroom off his bedroom. He had just begun to void his bladder when there was a familiar voice, somewhat metallically distorted.

Penny! Jesus, I can't understand a word she's saying! I wonder what the hell she wanted?

By the time he had zipped up his fly and returned to the answering machine, all the recorded messages, including the hang-ups, had played.

Do I want to push rewind so that I can hear what Precious Penny wants? No, I do not want to hear what Precious Penny wants.

He pushed the ERASE button, and this time it worked.

Banishing forever into the infinite mystery of rearranged microscopic metallic particles whatever Penny wanted to tell me. Why did I do that?

He went into the kitchen, picked up the beer bottle, returned to the telephone, and dialed Evelyn's number.

It was a brief, but enormously painful conversation, punctuated by long, painful silences.

He told Evelyn the truth. He could not see her tonight because he was on orders to keep himself available. That was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Peter Wohl had even told him to take an unmarked car home with him in case he would need a car with radios and a siren.

Evelyn, her voice made it quite plain, did not believe a word he was saying. Nor did Evelyn believe him when he said he really didn't know about tomorrow, but that he thought the same thing would be true then. That was also the unvarnished truth. Until they found the lunatic who wanted to disintegrate the Vice President, everyone would be either working or keeping themselves available around the clock for a summons.

But he couldn't tell Evelyn that, of course. Not just on general principles, but because Wohl had made it an order. They didn't want the lunatic knowing they were looking for him, which he would if it got into the newspapers or on television.

He told her he would call her when he was free, and Evelyn didn't believe that, either. In this latter incidence, he had not told her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Even as he spoke, he had wondered if maybe Evelyn would take a hint, that her feminine pride would be offended, and if he didn't call, she would give up.

He strongly suspected that Evelyn was crying when she hung up.

"Shit!" he said aloud after he slammed the handset into its cradle.

Then he went into the kitchen and put a cork in the beer bottle and put it back into the refrigerator. He took down a bottle of Scotch and after carefully pouring a dollop into a shot glass, he tossed it down. And then had another.

All it did was make him feel hungry.

And I don't want to be shit-faced if Wohl summons me to singlehandedly place into custody our lunatic. Or more likely, orders me to play taxi driver to Mr. Larkin again.

What I will do is grab a shower, change clothes, call in and say I'm going to supper, and then go either to the Rittenhouse Club or the Ribs Place and have my supper, not washing anything down with wine or anything else.

He was vaguely aware, as he showered, of a noise that could very possibly be the sound of his doorbell, but he wasn't sure, and he wasn't concerned. It could not be Evelyn. There was no way she could have made it into Center City from Upper Darby that quickly. And if Wohl or anybody else at Special Operations wanted him, they would have phoned. It could be Charley McFadden, or Jack Matthews, but in that happenstance, fuck 'em, let 'em wait.

When he turned the shower off, there was no longer a question whether the doorbell was being run. Whoever was pushing it was playing "Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits" on it.

Still dripping, Matt wrapped a towel around his waist and headed for the solenoid button. The doorbell musician played another verse of "Shave and a Haircut" before he got to the button.

"Keep your goddamned pants on!" he called as he looked down the stairwell.

The door opened. Penny came in.

"Tired of me so soon, are you?"

"Jesus! Penny, this is a very bad time."

She stopped halfway up the stairs. She saw that he was dressed in a towel.

"Am I interrupting anything?" she asked, and Matt did not like either her tone of voice or the kicked puppy look in her eyes.

"Come on in," he said. "There's always room for one more in an orgy."

"Is someone with you, Matt?" Penny asked, quite seriously.

"Hell, no. Come on in. You caught me in the shower."

Her face changed. The smile came back on her face and into her voice.

"I knew you were here, the guard told me," she said.

Jesus, she looks good!

"Make yourself at home," Matt said. "Let me get some clothes on."

She was by then at the head of the stairs.

"You called," she said. "And said that if I came into Center City, we could go to the movies."

"Did I?"

"And Daddy, over Mommy's objections, said he thought it would be all right, if I came home right after the movie, if I drove myself."

He looked at her. Their eyes met.

"Are you sore, Matt?" Penny asked softly.

"No, of course not," he said.

And then somehow, his arms went around her, and her face was on his chest, and he could feel her breath and smell her hair.

"I was sort of hoping you'd do that," she said, and then pushed him away. "For God's sake!" she said furiously. "Don't you dry yourself when you get out of your shower? I'm soaked!"

"Sorry," he said.

"Big date tonight?" Penny asked.

"I'm on call," he said.

"Which means?"

"Just what it sounds like. I have to make myself available. They' ll probably call me before long."

"Oh."

"I was just about to go out and get something to eat. Ribs, I thought. Sound interesting?"

"How hungry are you?"

"What?"

"You said they were probably going to call you before long."

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"Think about it, Matthew," Penny said, and then, a naughty look in her eyes, she put her hand to the towel around his waist and snatched it away.

"Jesus!" he said.

"You ever hear of first things first?" she said.

A very large man of about thirty-five who had been sitting with what the General Services Administration called a Chair, Metal, Executive, w/arms FSN 453 232234900 tilted as far back as it would go, and with his feet on what the GSA called a Desk, Metal, Office, w/six drawers, FSN 453 232291330, moved with surprisingly speed and grace when one of the three telephones on the desk rang, snatching the handset from the cradle before the second ring.

"Six Seven Three Nineteen Nineteen," he said.

"Mr. Larkin, please," the caller said.

"May I ask who's calling?" the large man said, then covered the microphone with his large hand. "For you, sir," he called.

Across the room, H. Charles Larkin, who had been lying, in fact half dozing, on what the GSA called a Couch, Office, Upholstered, w/ three cushions, FSN 453 232291009, pushed himself to an erect position. He looked at the clock on the wall. It was 6:52.

"My name is Young, I'm the Criminal A-SAC, FBI, for Philadelphia."

"Young, FBI," the large man said, and took his hand off the microphone. "One moment, please, Mr. Young."

Larkin walked to the desk, grunting, his hand on the small of his back.

I'm getting old, he thought. Too old for that goddamned couch.

He took the phone from the large man.

"Hello, Frank."

"Charley, we have a name," Young said. "Matthews just called. That property is owned by Richard W. and Marianne Wheatley, husband and wife."

"Spell it, please," Larkin said, snatching a ballpoint pen extended in the hand of the large man.

"What about an address?" Larkin asked when he had written the name down.

"No. Just the address of the property."

"Damn!"

"And we've checked the Philadelphia area, plus Camden and Wilmington phone books. No Richard W. Wheatley."

"Maybe the Philadelphia cops can help," Larkin said. "Let me get back to you, Frank. Where are you?"

"I'm in the office about to go home. Let me give you that number. I've told our night guy what's going on."

Larkin wrote down Young's home phone number, and repeated, "Let me get back to you, Frank. And thank you."

He hung up, and turned to the large man.

"Get on the phone to Washington. Have them send somebody over to the Pentagon. Tell them that Richard W. and Marianne might be parents' names. Tell them to get me anything with Wheatley."

"You don't think the FBI will be on that?"

"I think they will, but I don't know they will," Larkin said sharply. "Just do it."

He took out his notebook, found Peter Wohl's home telephone number, and dialed it.

Detective Matthew M. Payne thought that one of the great erotic sights in the world had to be a blonde wearing a man's white shirt, and nothing else, especially when, whenever she leaned forward to help herself to the contents of one of the goldfish boxes from the Chinese Take-out, it fell away from her body and he could see an absolutely perfect breastworks.

"Here," Penny said, putting an egg roll in his mouth. "This is the last one. You can have one bite."

"Your generosity overwhelms me," Matt said.

"I try to please."

"Are you going to tell my sister that you came here and seduced me?"

"Meaning what?"

"You told her what happened in the Poconos."

"She's my shrink," Penny said. "She said I seemed very happy, and wanted to know why, so I told her. I didn't think she'd tell you!"

"She is convinced that I'm taking advantage of you."

"I can't imagine where she got that idea."

"She was pretty goddamned mad," Matt said.

"I'm pretty goddamned mad that she told you I told her."

"She's afraid that… that this won't be good for you."

"That's my problem, not hers. How did we get on this subject?"

"Penny, the last thing I want to do is hurt you."

"Relax. I'm making no demands on you. But that does raise the question I've had in the back of my mind."

"Which is?"

"Have you got someone?"

"No," he said.

"I didn't think so," Penny said. "Otherwise you would have taken her to the Poconos."

She looked at him, and she was close enough to kiss, and he did so, tenderly.

The phone rang.

"Damn!" Penny said.

Please God, don't let that be Evelyn!

"Payne," Matt said to the telephone.

"We have a name," Peter Wohl said, without any preliminaries. " Just a name. Do you know where Tiny Lewis lives?"

"Yes, sir."

"Go pick him up, he'll be waiting, and then come to Chief Lowenstein's office in the Roundhouse."

"Yes, sir."

Wohl hung up.

Matt put the telephone down.

"I've been called."

"So I gathered."

He swung his legs out of the bed and went searching for underwear in his chest of drawers.

Penny watched him get dressed.

"You want to take me to the movies again, sometime?"

"Why not?" he asked.

"Would it be all right with you if I hung around here until the movie would be over?"

"Of course. There's anInquirer in the living room. Go look up what we saw, so we can keep our stories straight."

She got out of bed with what he considered to be a very attractive display of thighs and buttocks and went into the living room.

When he had tied his tie and slipped into a jacket he went after her.

"They're showingCasablanca for the thousandth time. How about us having seen that?"

"'Round up the usual suspects,'" he quoted. "Sure. Why not?"

He went to the mantelpiece and picked up his revolver and slipped it into a holster.

"I suppose that's what cops' wives go through everyday, isn't it?"

"What?"

"Watching their man pick up his gun and go out, God only knows where."

"You are not a cop's wife, and you are very unlikely to become a cop's wife."

"You said it," she said.

He went and bent and kissed her, intending that it be almost casual, but she returned it with a strange fervor that was somehow frightening.

"I'll call you," he said.

"Enjoy the movie," Penny said.

He went down the stairs.

Penny looked at the mantel clock and did the mental calculations. She had an hour and a half to kill, before she went home after an early supper and the movies.

She gave in to feminine curiosity and went around the apartment opening closets and cabinets, and when she had finished, she sat down in Matt's chair and read theInquirer.

The doorbell sounded.

"Damn!" she said aloud. "What do I do about that?"

She went to the solenoid button and pushed it and looked down the stairwell.

A woman came in, and looked up at her in surprise.

"Who are you?" Evelyn asked.

"To judge by the look on your face, I'm the other woman," Penny said. "Come on up, and we'll talk about the lying sonofabitch."