The Assassin

TWENTY-NINE

Supervisory Special Agent H. Charles Larkin, Chief Inspector (retired) Augustus Wohl, and Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin were seated around Coughlin's dining-room table when Inspector Peter Wohl came into the apartment a few minutes before ten P.M.

On the table were two telephones, a bottle of Scotch, a bottle of bourbon, and clear evidence that the ordinance of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that prohibited gaming, such as poker, was being violated.

"Who's winning?"

"Your father, of course," Charley Larkin replied.

"Deal you in, Peter?" Chief Wohl asked.

"Why not?" Wohl said.

"You want a drink, Peter?" Coughlin asked.

"I better not," Wohl said. "I want to go back to the Schoolhouse before I go home. I hate to have whiskey on my breath."

His father ignored him. He made him a drink of Scotch and handed it to him.

"You look like you need this," he said.

"I corrupt easily," Peter said, taking it, and added, "In case anybody's been wondering, we have come up with zilch, zero."

"That include the airport too?" Coughlin asked.

"Yeah. I gave them this number, Chief, in case something does happen."

"What's going on at the airport?" Larkin asked.

Peter Wohl looked at Coughlin.

"I'm afraid we have a dirty cop out there," Coughlin said.

"I'm sorry," Larkin said.

"We're playing seven-card stud," Chief Wohl said. "Put your money on the table, Peter."

Peter had just taken two twenty-dollar bills and four singles from his wallet when one of the telephones rang.

Coughlin grabbed it on the second ring.

"Coughlin," he said. "Yes, just a moment, he's here." He started to hand the telephone to Peter and then changed his mind. "Is this Dickie Lowell? I thought I recognized your voice. This is Denny Coughlin, Dickie. How the hell are you?"

Then he handed the phone to Peter.

"Peter Wohl," he said, and then listened.

"Have you spoken with Captain Olsen?" he asked. There was a brief pause, and then: "Thank you very much. I owe you one."

He hung up.

"Dickie Lowell?" Chief Wohl asked as he dealt cards. "Retired out of Headquarters Division in the Detective Bureau?"

"He got a job running security for Eastern Airlines," Coughlin said. "He's got his people watching our dirty cop. Peter set it up."

"Chief Marchessi set it up," Peter said. "Lowell's people just saw our dirty cop take a suitcase off Eastern Flight 4302. Specifically, remove a suitcase from a baggage trailer after it had been removed from Eastern 4302."

"So what are you going to do, Peter?" Coughlin asked.

Wohl hesitated, and then shrugged.

"Resist the temptation to get on my horse and charge out to the airport," he said. "Where I probably would fuck things up. I sent Sergeant Jerry O'Dowd… you know him?"

His father and Chief Coughlin shook their heads, no.

"He works for Dave Pekach. Good man. He's going to follow our dirty cop when he comes off duty. We already have people watching his house and his girlfriend's apartment."

"Sometimes the smartest thing to do is keep your nose out of the tent," Coughlin said. "I think they call that delegation of authority."

"And I think what we have there is the pot calling the kettle black," Chief Wohl said. "Denny was an inspector before he stopped turning off fire hydrants in the summer."

"Go to hell, Augie!"

"What's in the suitcase?" Larkin asked. "Drugs?"

"What else?" Coughlin said.

"I didn't know you handled drugs, Peter," Larkin said.

"Normally, I don't," Peter replied. "Drugs or dirty cops. Thank God. This was Commissioner Marshall's answer to the feds wanting to send their people out there masquerading as cops. He gave the job to me."

"Because you get along so well with we feds, right?" Larkin asked, chuckling.

"There's an exception to every rule, Charley," Coughlin said. " Just be grateful it's you."

"Are we going to play cards or what?" Chief Wohl asked.

Peter Wohl was surprised to find Detective Matthew M. Payne in the Special Investigations office at Special Operations when he walked in at quarter past midnight. He said nothing, however.

Maybe Jack Malone called him in.

"How are we doing?" he asked.

"Well," Lieutenant Malone said tiredly, "Mr. Wheatley is not registered in any of Philadelphia's many hotels, motels, or flop houses," Malone said. "Nor did anybody in the aforementioned remember seeing anyone who looked like either of the two artists' representations of Mr. Wheatley."

The Philadelphia Police Department had an artist whose ability to make a sketch of an individual from a description was uncanny. The Secret Service had an artist who Mr. H. Charles Larkin announced was the best he had ever seen. In the interest of getting a picture of Mr. Wheatley out on the street as quickly as possible, the Department artist had made a sketch of Wheatley based on his neighbor's, Mr. Crowne's, description of him, while the Secret Service artist had drawn a sketch of Mr. Wheatley based on Mr. Wheatley's boss, Mr. H. Logan Hammersmith's, description of him.

There was only a very vague similarity between the two sketches. Rather than try to come up with a third sketch that would be a compromise, Wohl had ordered that both sketches be distributed.

"Too bad," Wohl said.

"The sonofabitch apparently doesn't have any friends," Malone said. "The neighbor, two houses down, lived there fifteen years, couldn't ever remember seeing him."

"He's got to be somewhere, Jack," Wohl said.

"I sent Tony Harris to Vice," Malone said. "They went to all the fag bars with the pictures."

"We don't know he's homosexual."

"I thought maybe he's a closet queen, who has an apartment somewhere," Malone said.

"Good thought, Jack, I didn't think about that."

'They struck out too," Malone said.

"And how's your batting record, Detective Payne?"

It was intended as a joke. Payne looked very uncomfortable.

"I just thought maybe I could make myself useful, so I came in," Payne said.

That's bullshit.

The telephone rang. Malone grabbed it and handed it to Wohl.

"Jerry O'Dowd, Inspector," his caller said. "I'm calling from the tavern down the corner from our friend's house. He drove straight here, with the suitcase, and took it into the house."

"Good man," Wohl said.

"Oooops, there he comes."

"With the suitcase?"

"No. He doesn't have it. He's changed out of his uniform."

"You're going to stay there, right?"

"Right. He's walking back to his car. But Captain Olsen can see him. No problem."

"Olsen is on him?" Wohl asked, surprised.

"Yes, sir. Olsen won't lose him."

"If anything happens, call this number, they'll know where to get me."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm going to send somebody to back you up," Wohl said. "In case somebody interesting comes to pick up the suitcase."

"Yes, sir."

"Good job, Jerry," Wohl said, and hung up.

If Olsen can work this job himself, why can't I? I'd love to catch Ricco Baltazari or one of his pals walking down Ritner Street with that suitcase in his hand.

Dangerous thought. No!

"Jack, can we get our hands on Tony Harris?"

"Yes, sir."

"Get on the horn to him and tell him to go back up O'Dowd."

"Yes, sir."

"And then turn this over to the duty lieutenant and go home and get some sleep."

"Yes, sir."

"That applies to you too, Detective Payne. With all the jumping from roof to roof, and through windows, you've done today, I'm sure you're worn out. Go home and go to bed. I want you here at eight A.M., bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."

That, to judge by the kicked puppy look in your eyes, was another failed attempt to be jocular.

"Yes, sir."

Or is there something else wrong with him? Something is wrong.

"Jack, you want to go somewhere for a nightcap?" Wohl asked. "The reason I am being so generous is that I just took forty bucks from my father and Chief Coughlin, who don't play poker nearly as well as they think they do."

"I accept, Inspector. Thank you."

"The invitation includes you, Detective Payne, if you promise not to jump through a window or otherwise embarrass Lieutenant Malone and me."

"Thank you, I'll try to behave."

The look of gratitude in your eyes now, Matt, is almost pathetic. What the hell is wrong with you?

Jack Malone had two drinks, the second reluctantly, and then said he had to get to bed before he went to sleep at the bar.

"I'm going to call the Schoolhouse, and see what happened to Lanza," Wohl said. "And then I'm going home. Order one more, please, Matt."

Two minutes later, Wohl got back on the bar stool beside Payne.

"Lanza went to the Schermer woman's apartment. The lights went out, and Olsen figures he's in for the night," he reported.

"And you're hoping that somebody will show up at his house for the suitcase?" Payne asked.

Wohl nodded. "We may get lucky."

"Why didn't he take it with him? Isn't that woman involved?"

"I don't know how much she's involved, and I don't know why he left the suitcase at his house. These people are very careful."

Payne nodded.

"And now that Malone has gone home, and I don't have to be officially outraged-as opposed to personally admiring-at your roofjumping escapade, are you going to tell me what's bothering you?"

"Jesus, does it show?"

"Yeah, it shows."

Matt looked at him for a moment, and then at his drink for a longer moment, before finally saying, "Penny Detweiler is in the psycho ward at University Hospital."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Wohl said.

But not surprised. A junkie is a junkie is a junkie.

"I put her there," Matt said.

"What do you mean, you put her there?"

"You really don't want to hear this."

You 're right. I really don't want to hear this.

"I'm not trying to pry, Matt. But, hell, sometimes if you talk things over, when you're finished, they don't seem to be as bad."

It was quarter to two when Inspector Wohl, not without misgivings, installed Detective Payne behind the wheel of the unmarked Ford and sent him home with the admonition to try not to run any stoplights or into a station wagon full of nuns.

I believed what I told him, that if it hadn't been the other woman showing up at his apartment, that it would have been something else. That being turned loose from a drug addiction program does not mean the addiction is cured, just that, so far as they can tell, it's on hold.

But clearly, if the horny little bastard wasn't fucking every woman in town, it would not have happened. Taking the Detweiler girl to bed was idiotic. He has earned every ounce of the weight of shameful regret he's carrying.

But his wallowing in guilt isn't going to do anybody any good.

Sometimes, Peter Wohl, you are so smart, so Solomon-like, I want to throw up.

He started home to Chestnut Hill, then suddenly changed his mind, got on first Roosevelt Boulevard and then the Schuylkill Expressway and headed for Ritner Street.

I don't want to go to bed. I don't want to delegate authority. I want to put that dirty cop and the Mafioso he's running around with away. And right now there's nobody who can tell me to butt out.

Wohl drove slowly down Ritner Street, saw where Sergeant O'Dowd was parked, and made a left at the next corner and parked the car.

O'Dowd had been alone when he had driven past, but as he walked up to the car now, he first saw another head, and then recognized it as that of Detective Tony Harris, sitting beside O'Dowd.

Wohl opened the rear door and got in.

"I thought that was you driving by," O'Dowd said. "Something come up?"

"I got curious, is all," Wohl said. "I just happened to be in the neighborhood."

"There's somebody in the house," Tony Harris said. "I was out in back. You know how these houses are laid out, Inspector? With the bathroom at the back of the house?"

"Yeah, sure."

"First a dull light, which means a light on in one of the bedrooms, shining into the hall. Then a bright light. Somebody's in the bathroom. I figure it's his mother, taking a piss. Then the bright light goes out, and then the dim light, and I figure she's back in bed."

"Okay. So what?"

"So nothing. So that's what's been going on here."

'There's more, Tony. What are you thinking?"

"I don't think Paulo Cassandro or Ricco Baltazari or any other Mafioso is going to come waltzing down Ritner Street tonight to pick up that suitcase. Those bastards aren't stupid. There's been half a dozen cars come by here, any one of who could have been taking a look, and if they were, they saw us."

"Oh, ye of little faith!" Wohl said.

Why did you say that? Jesus, that was dumb! Three drinks and your mouth gallops away with you!

"You're the boss. You say sit on the house, we'll sit on the house."

"Tell me what you think is going to happen, Tony," Wohl said.

"I'll tell you what Idon't think is going to happen," Harris said.

"Okay. Tell me what's not going to happen."

"I don't think we're going to catch anybody but this dirty cop. The Mob is going to come up with some pretty clever way to get their hands on that suitcase without us catching them at it."

"Okay. So what would you do if you were me?"

"Let's say we catch Lanza actually handling the suitcase to, say, Ricco Baltazari. We arrest them. They have the best lawyers around. They say we set them up. They ask all kinds of questions of how come we were watching Lanza in the first place. The guy has a spotless record, et cetera. And Lanza is not, I'll bet my ass on it, going to pass the suitcase to anybody. If they send somebody for it, or they tell Lanza to carry it someplace and give it to somebody, we arrest him, it will be some jerk we can't tie to Baltazari or anybody else. And Lanza pleads the Fifth and won't help either. He takes the fall. He pleads guilty to stealing a suitcase. He doesn't know anything about drugs, he just stole a suitcase. First offense, what'll he get?"

"What I asked, Tony, is what you would do if you were in charge?"

"You really want to know, or are we just sitting here killing time bullshitting?"

"I really want to know."

"I go up to the door, I say 'Sorry to bother you this time of night, Mrs. Lanza, but Vito brought my suitcase here, and I'm here to collect it.' She gives me the suitcase, while you and O'Dowd watch, and O'Dowd takes pictures, and then we bust her for possession of cocaine, or whatever shit is in the suitcase. And then we go get Vito out of his girlfriend's bed and tell him he better go down to Central lockup and see what he can do for his mother, who's charged with possession with the intent to distribute. And the Mob is out however much shit they was trying to ship in."

There was a long silence.

"Not you, Tony," Wohl said, finally. "Martinez. In uniform."

"Martinez, the little Spic? What's he got to do with this?"

"DetectiveMartinez, Detective Harris, has been working undercover at the airport, trying to catch whoever has been smuggling drugs."

"No shit?"

"If Mrs. Lanza asked him questions about the airport, he would know the answers," Wohl said.

"Yeah," Harris said thoughtfully.

"That saloon is closed," Wohl said, after looking out the rear window. "Where can I find a telephone around here?"

"There's a pay station on Broad Street. If somebody hasn't ripped it off the wall."

"Hello?"

"You awake, Matt?"

"Yes, sir. What's up?"

"You know Martinez's home phone and where he lives?"

"Yes, sir."

"Call him up. Tell him to put his uniform on, then pick him up, and meet me at Moyamensing and South Broad."

"Right now?"

"Right now."

The door to the apartment of Mrs. Antoinette Marie Wolinski Schermer opened just a crack. It was evident that she had the chain in place.

"What is it?" Mrs. Schermer asked, her tone mingled annoyance and concern.

"It's the police, Mrs. Schermer," Captain Swede Olsen said. "We're here to talk to Corporal Lanza."

When there was no immediate response, Captain Olsen added, "We know he's here, Tony. Open the door."

The door closed. It remained closed for about a minute, but it seemed much longer than that. And then it opened.

Vito, wearing a sleeveless undershirt and trousers, his hair mussed, stood inside the door.

"Corporal Lanza," Olsen said, "I'm Captain Olsen of Internal Affairs. These are Detectives Martinez and Payne. I think you can guess why we're here."

Vito looked at Martinez and Payne. His surprise registered in his eyes, but then they grew cold and wary.

"What's going on?"

"We want you to get dressed and come with us, Corporal," Olsen said conversationally.

"What for?"

"You know what for, Lanza," Olsen said.

"You got a warrant?"

"No. We don't have a warrant. We don't need a warrant."

"What's the charge?"

"That's going to depend in large part on you, Lanza. For the moment, you can consider yourself under arrest for theft of luggage from Eastern Airlines."

Lanza's face whitened.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lanza said.

"Detective Martinez," Olsen said, "will you go with Corporal Lanza while he puts his clothes on? Take his pistol."

"Yes, sir."

"This is some kind of mistake," Vito Lanza said.

"Get your clothes on, Lanza," Olsen said.

"You're a detective?" Lanza asked Martinez.

"Yeah, I'm a detective."

"Get your clothes on," Captain Olsen repeated. "It's over, Lanza."

Lanza turned and went into the apartment. Martinez followed him.

"Mrs. Schermer," Captain Olsen said. "Detectives are going to want to talk to you later today. They will call you either here, or at work, and set up a time."

"I don't know what this is all about," Tony said.

"You can talk about that with the detectives," Captain Olsen said.

The three stood at the door for the two or three minutes it took Vito to put his shoes and socks and a shirt on.

Finally he came back to the door, followed by Jesus Martinez, who carried Vito's off-duty snub-nosed revolver and its holster in his hand.

"Give the pistol to Detective Payne," Captain Olsen ordered. "And put handcuffs on Corporal Lanza."

They walked down the corridor to the elevator, where Vito saw that the door was being held open by a Highway Patrolman. There was another Highway Patrolman in the lobby, and when they got to the street, there were two Highway RPCs, the lights on their bubble gum machines flashing. There were two unmarked cars on the street, their behindthe-grills blue lights flashing, and three or four people in plainclothes Vito had been a cop long enough to know were fellow police officers.

Vito Lanza, for a moment, thought he was going to throw up, then he felt hands on his arms, and a Highway Patrolman put his hand on the top of Vito's head, and pushed down, so that Vito wouldn't bang his head on the door as he got into the back seat of one of the Highway RPCs.

"Watch your fucking head, scumbag," the Highway officer said.

Ricco Baltazari's voice, when he answered the telephone, was sleepy and annoyed. "Yeah?" he snarled.

"Ricco?" Tony asked.

He recognized the voice. His tone changed to concern and anger.

"What are you doing, calling here?"

"Who is it?" Mrs. Baltazari asked, rolling over on her back.

"Ricco, the cops were just here. They arrested Vito."

"What?"

"A guy who said he was a captain, and two detectives, and they told him to get dressed, and they took his gun away and put handcuffs on him, and when I looked out the window, there was cop cars all over the street."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!"

"Whatis it, honey?" Mrs. Baltazari asked. "Who is that?"

"Go back to sleep, for Christ's sake," Ricco said. "Okay. I'll take care of it. You just keep your mouth shut, Tony, you understand?"

"Ricco, I'm scared!"

"Just keep your goddamned mouth shut!" Ricco said, and hung up.

He got out of bed, and found a cigarette, but no matches.

He walked to the bedroom door.

"Where are yougoing!" Mrs. Baltazari demanded.

"Just, goddammit, go back to sleep."

Mr. Baltazari then went downstairs and into the kitchen and found a match for his cigarette, and lit it, and then banged his fist on the sink and said, "Shit!"

He then picked up the handset of the wall telephone and started to dial a number, but then hung up angrily.

If the cops have the cop, they maybe have this line tapped. I can' t call from here. I'm going to have to go to a pay phone.

But shit, if the cops have the cop, they're as likely to have Gian-Carlo's phone tapped as they are to have this one tapped.

I'm going to have to go to Gian-Carlo's house and wake him up and tell him the cops have the cop. And that means they have the shipment for the people in Baltimore!

Jesus Christ! He's not going to like this worth a fuck! And Mr. Savarese!

It's not my fucking fault! I don't know what happened, but it's not my fucking fault!

But they 're not going to believe that!

Oh, Jesus Christ!

Salvatore J. Riccuito, Esq., a slightly built, olive-skinned thirty-two-year-old, was a recent addition to the district attorney's staff. Prior to his admission to the bar, he had spent eleven years as a police officer, mostly in the 6^th District, passing up opportunities to take examinations for promotion in order to find time to graduate from LaSalle College and then the Temple University School of Law, both at night.

Understandably, because he knew how cops thought and behaved, if he was available, he was assigned cases involving the prosecution of police officers. When this case had come up, via a 3:15 A.M. telephone call from Thomas J. "Tommy" Callis, the district attorney himself, Sal had pleaded unavailability. Callis has been unsympathetic.

"We'll rearrange your schedule. Get down to Narcotics and see Inspector Peter Wohl."

Sal knew there was no point in arguing. Wohl had been the investigator in the case that resulted in Judge Findermann taking a long-term lease in the Pennsylvania Penal System. Callis had prosecuted himself. The publicity would probably help him get reelected.

In a way, Sal thought as he drove to the Narcotics Unit, it was flattering. Wohl almost certainly had not asked for "an assistant DA." He had either asked for "a good assistant DA" or possibly even for him by name.

"Let me tell you how things are, Vito," Sal, who had grown up six blocks from Vito, but didn't know him personally, said.

Vito was sitting handcuffed to a steel captain's chair in one of the interview rooms in the headquarters of the Narcotics unit. He was slightly mussed, as it had been necessary to physically restrain him on his arrival at Narcotics, when he had seen his mother similarly handcuffed to a steel captain's chair.

"Tell me how things are," Vito said with a bluster that was almost pathetically transparent.

"You're dead. That's how things are. They saw you steal the suitcase. They saw you sneak it out to the parking lot. They havephotographs."

"The sonsofbitches, fucking cocksuckers, had no right to do that to my mother!"

"Let's talk about your mother," Sal said. "She gave the suitcase to Detective Martinez. They have photographs. They have witnesses, a detective, a sergeant,a staff inspector. The chain of evidence, with your mother, is intact. The suitcase contained about twenty pounds of cocaine. Nine Ks. They just got the lab report. It's good stuff. If they decide to prosecute, she's going down. Simple possession is all it takes for a conviction."

"She didn't know anything about it," Lanza said. "They tricked her. Can they do that?"

"The little Mexican said, quote, Can I have the suitcase Vito brought? end quote, and she gave it to him. No illegal search and seizure, if that's what you're asking."

"Sonsofbitches!"

"They will not prosecute your mother if you cooperate."

"Fuck 'em!"

"You want your mother to ride downtown to Central Detention? You got the money to make her bail? You got ten thousand dollars to pay a bondsman? And that's what the bail will be for that much cocaine. Or do you want her to spend the next six months waiting for her trial in the House of Detention?"

"Why the fuck should I trust them after what they did to my mother?"

"You're not trusting them. You're trusting me.I'm the assistant DA. You cooperate, and I'll have your mother out of here in ten minutes. I'll even see she gets home safe."

"Okay, okay," Vito said. He tried to put his right hand to his eyes to stem the tears that were starting, but it was held fast by handcuffs. He put his left hand to his eyes.

Sal handed Vito a handkerchief.

"Take a minute," Sal said. "Then we'll get a steno in here."

At 8:45 A.M. Marion Claude Wheatley finished his breakfast of poached eggs on toast and milk, left a fifty-cent tip under his plate in the dining room of the Divine Lorraine Hotel, and rode the elevator up to his room.

He unlocked the closet, and took AWOL bag #4 of the three remaining AWOL bags-another one withSouvenir of Asbury Park, N.J. airbrushed on its sides-from the closet and locked the closet door again.

He was pleased that he had had the foresight to prepare all of the AWOL bags at once. Now all he had to do was take them from the closet as he began the delivery process.

He looked around the room, and, although he really didn't think it would do any good, walked to the Bible on the desk and read Haggai 2:17 again, seeking insight.

"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," made no more sense now than it ever had.

Marion picked up AWOL bag #4 and left his room, carefully locking the door after him, and went down in the elevator to the lobby.

He left his key with the colored lady behind the desk. He had learned that her name was Sister Fortitude, and he used it now.

"It looks, praise the Lord, as if we're going to have another fine day, doesn't it, Sister Fortitude?"

"Yes, it does," Sister Fortitude said.

She doesn't seem very friendly, Marion thought. I wonder if that is because I'm not colored? Or am I just imagining it?

Marion walked out onto North Broad Street and crossed it, and walked up half a block to the little fast-food place he'd found where he could get a cup of coffee and a Danish pastry to begin the day, and went in.

Sister Fortitude walked from behind the desk and went and stood by the door beside the revolving door and watched as Marion took a seat at the counter and ordered his coffee.

I knew there was something about that man, she thought.

She watched until Marion had finished a second cup of coffee and left the restaurant and walked, north, out of sight.

Then she went to the elevator and went up to Marion's room and unlocked the door and went inside. She knew what the room should contain, in terms of hotel property, and a quick look showed nothing missing.

But Sister Fortitude, who had read several magazine articles about how professional hotel thieves operated, knew that did not mean that he hadn't stolen whatever he was stealing from another room.

There was nothing in the closet that the white man could steal but wire hangers, but Sister Fortitude decided to check it anyway. When she found that it was locked, her suspicions grew. She went into the adjacent room, took the key from that closet door, and carried it back to Marion's room. It didn't work.

Sister Fortitude had to get, and try, four different closet keys from four different rooms before one operated the lock in the white man's room.

Two minutes later, Sister Fortitude ran out onto North Broad Street, looking for a policeman.

You never could find one when you needed one, she thought.

And then she saw one, in the coffee shop where the white man had gone to get the coffee he couldn't get in the Divine Lorraine Hotel Restaurant.

She walked quickly across Broad Street.

"I want you to come with me," Sister Fortitude said to the policeman. "I got something to show you."

At ten minutes past nine A.M., Sergeant Jerry O'Dowd and Detective Matt Payne were driving up North Broad Street in O'Dowd's unmarked car. They had finally been released at Internal Affairs, and although Matt thought he was about to fall asleep on his feet, he knew he had to go back to Northwest Detectives and get his Bug before all sorts of questions he didn't want to answer would be asked.

There was considerable police activity at the intersection of Broad and Ridge; Broad Street was blocked off, and a white cap was directing traffic in a detour.

When they finally got to the white cap, Jerry rolled the window down in idle curiosity to ask him what was going on.

And then he saw, at the same moment Matt Payne saw, the large blue and white Ordnance Disposal van, with the Explosive Containment trailer hitched to the rear of it.

Without exchanging a word, they both got out of the car and ran toward the Divine Lorraine Hotel.

"You can't just leave your car here!" the white cap called after them.

There was a uniformed lieutenant standing with a large black woman at the desk.

"What's going on here?" O'Dowd asked as he pinned his badge to his jacket.

"And who the hell are you, Sergeant?"

"Watch your mouth, we don't tolerate that sort of talk in here," Sister Fortitude said.

"I'm Sergeant O'Dowd, sir, of Special Operations. We're working on the bomb threat."

Matt took the artists' drawings of Marion Claude Wheatley from his pocket and gave them to Sister Fortitude.

"Ma'am, do you recognize these?"

Sister Fortitude studied both pictures carefully, and then held one out.

"This one, I do. I never saw the other one."

"This is the man who… what, rented a room?" Matt asked.

"Said he was about the Lord's work. Satan's work is more like it."

"Where is the bomb?" O'Dowd asked.

"Six-eighteen," Sister Fortitude said.

The elevators were not running. The hotel's electric service had been shut off to make sure no stray electric current would trigger the bomb's detonators.

Matt and O'Dowd were panting when they reached the sixth floor. O' Dowd pulled open the fire door on the landing, and they entered the dark corridor, now lit only by police portable floodlights and what natural light there was.

Halfway down the corridor Matt saw two Bomb Squad men in their distinctive, almost black coveralls. He remembered hearing at the Academy that they were made of special material that did not generate static electricity.

O'Dowd shook hands with one of the Bomb Squad men.

"Hey, Bill. What have we got?"

"Enough C-4, wrapped with chain, to do a lot of damage."

"Bill Raybold, Matt Payne," O'Dowd said.

"Yeah, I know who you are," Raybold said, shaking Matt's hand.

He knows me by reputation. Is that reputation that of the brave and heroic police officer who won the shootout in the alley, or that of the poor sonofabitch who's got a junkie for a girlfriend?

"The lady at the desk downstairs says the guy who rented 618 is the guy we're looking for," Matt said. "I showed her the police artist's drawing."

"This guy knows what he's doing with explosives," Raybold replied. "The explosive is Composition C-4. It's military, and as safe as it gets. Your man may be crazy, but he's not stupid. He's got them all ready to go except for the detonators. It would take him no more than ten seconds to hook them up."

"Detonators?" O'Dowd asked.

"Not close to here. Jimmy Samuels was in here with his dog, and the only time the dog got happy was when he sniffed the closet. After we get the hotel cleared, we'll take a really good look."

"Bill," O'Dowd said. "If our guy sees the dog and pony show outside, he'll disappear again."

Raybold considered that for a moment.

"Yeah," he said, after a moment. "I don't see why we couldn't leave this stuff here for a while. It's safe. But that don't mean the district captain would go along. And it's his call."

"Sergeant, I don't know who you think you are," the district captain said, "But nobody tells me to throw the book away. We got a crime scene here, and we're going to work it."

"Captain," Detective Payne said, "sir, I've got Chief Coughlin on the line. He'd like to talk to you."

At fifteen minutes to eleven A.M., Marion Claude Wheatley got off the bus and walked across Ridge Avenue and into the lobby of the Divine Lorraine Hotel.

He smiled at Sister Fortitude but she didn't smile back, just nodded.

I wonder if I have done, or said, something that has offended her?

Marion got on the elevator and rode to his floor. He had bought a newspaper in 30^th Street Station, and he planned to read it as he tried to move his bowels. He was suffering from constipation, and had decided it was a combination of his usual bowel movement schedule being disrupted and the food in the Divine Lorraine Hotel Restaurant. He had decided he would take the next several meals elsewhere to see if that would clear his elimination tract.

There was a man sitting in the upholstered chair in the room. He smiled.

"Hello, Marion," he said. "We've been waiting for you."

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"The Lord sent us, Marion. I'm Brother Jerome, and that is Brother Matthew," the man said.

Marion turned and saw another man, a younger one, almost a boy, nicely dressed, standing behind him, just inside the door.

"The Lord sent you?"

"Yes, He did," Brother Jerome said.

"Why?"

"You misunderstood the Lord's message, Marion," Brother Jerome said. "You have the Lord's method out of sequence."

"I don't understand," Marion said.

O'Dowd picked up the Bible from the desk and read aloud: "'I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me.'"

"Haggai 2:17," Marion said.

"Precisely," Brother Jerome said, adding kindly, "First mildew, Marion. Then hail, and onlyfinally blasting."

"Oh," Marion said."Oh! Now I understand."

"Marion, could I see your newspaper, please?" the younger man asked.

"Certainly," Marion said and gave it to him. Then he turned back to Brother Jerome. "I knew the Lord wanted to tell me something," he said.

Brother Matthew patted the newspaper as if he expected to find something in it. Brother Jerome gave him a dirty look. Brother Matthew shook his head, no, and shrugged.

"Well, the Lord understands, Marion," Brother Jerome said. "You were trying, and the Lord knows that."

"Marion, where's the transmitter?" Brother Matthew asked.

Brother Jerome closed his eyes.

"It's in the 30^th Street Station," Marion said. "Why do you want to know?"

'The Lord wants us to take over from here, Marion," Brother Jerome said. "He knows how hard you've been working. Where's the transmitter in 30^th Street Station?"

"In a locker," Marion said, and reached in his watch pocket and took out several keys. "I really can't tell you which of these keys…"

"It's all right, Marion," Brother Jerome said, taking the keys from him. "We'll find it."

At 7:45 P.M., Detective Matthew M. Payne got off the elevator in the Psychiatric Wing of the University of Pennsylvania Hospital.

One of the nurses at the Nursing Station, a formidable red-haired harridan, told him that Miss Detweiler was in 9023, but he couldn't see her because his name wasn't on the list, and anyway, her doctor was in there.

"Dr. Payne is expecting me," Matt said. "Ninety twenty-three, you said?"

Penny was sitting in a chrome, vinyl-upholstered chair by the window. She was wearing a hospital gown and, he could not help but notice, absolutely nothing else. Amelia Payne, M.D., was sitting on the bed.

"What are you doing here?" Dr. Payne snapped.

"I heard this is where the action is," Matt said.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Amy said. "I think you had better leave."

"Please, Amy!" Penny said.

"Take a walk, Amy," Matt said.

Dr. Payne considered that for a long moment, and then pushed herself off the bed and walked to the door, where she turned.

"Five minutes," she said, and left.

Matt walked over to Penny and handed her a grease-stained paper bag.

"Ribs," he said. "They're cold by now, but I'll bet they'll be better than what they serve in here."

"I don't suppose I could have eaten roses, but candy would have been nice," Penny said. "Matt, are you disgusted with me?"

"I was," he blurted. "Until just now. When I saw you."

"My parents blame you for the whole thing, you know," she said.

"I figured that would happen."

"Amy says it was my fault."

"Amy's right," Matt said. "If you had thrown something at me, even taken a shot at me, that would have been my fault. But what you did to yourself…"

Penny suddenly pushed herself out of the chair. She threw the bag of ribs at the garbage can and missed. She turned to the window. Matt could see her backbone and the crack of her buttocks. He looked away, then headed for the door.

"Amy's right. I shouldn't have come here."

Penny turned.

"Matt!"

He looked at her.

"Matt, don't leave me!"

After a long moment, he said, his voice on the edge of breaking, " Penny, I don't know what to do with you!"

"Give me a chance," she said. "Giveus a chance!"

Then she walked, almost ran to him, stopped and looked up at him.

"Please, Matt," she said, and then his arms went around her.

I love her.

A junkie is a junkie is a junkie.

Oh,shit!

District Attorney Thomas J. Callis, after a psychiatric examination of Marion Claude Wheatley, petitioned the court for Mr. Wheatley's involuntary commitment to a psychiatric institution for the criminally insane. The petition was granted.

District Attorney Callis, after studying the available evidence, decided that it was insufficient to bring Mr. Paulo Cassandro, Mr. Ricco Baltazari, Mr. Gian-Carlo Rosselli, or any of the others mentioned in Mr. Vito Lanza's sworn statements to trial.

Mr. Vito Lanza, on a plea of guilty to charges of possession of controlled substances with the intention to distribute, was sentenced to two years imprisonment. At Mr. Callis's recommendation, no charges were brought against Mrs. Magdelana Lanza.

Inspector Peter Wohl retained command of the Special Operations Division of the Philadelphia Police Department.

Detective Matthew M. Payne was led to believe by Supervisory Special Agent H. Charles Larkin of the Secret Service that his application for appointment to the Secret Service would be favorably received. Detective Payne declined to make such an application.

Mr. Ricco Baltazari was found shot to death in a drainage ditch in the Tinnicum Swamps near Philadelphia International Airport. No arrests have been made to date in the case.