ELEVEN


When Matt rang the bell at Number 9 Stockton Place, it was opened by a muscular man in his late thirties. Matt was startled, not so much by the man opening the door instead of Daffy herself, or one of the ever-changing parade of maids, but because the man smelled of cop. That instant reaction was immediately confirmed when Matt saw the unmistakable bulge of a pistol in a shoulder holster.

"Who are you?" Matt blurted.

"Who are you, sir?" the man said with exaggerated courtesy that rubbed Matt the wrong way.

"Are you on the job?" Matt demanded.

"Who was that at the door?" Chad Nesbitt called down from the second floor.

"The gentleman was just about to give me his name, sir," the man said, offering Matt a patently insincere smile. That was enough to tell Matt that he was facing a rent-a-cop.

"Household Finance, Mr. Nesbitt," Matt called, raising his voice. "We want our money or the television."

"Shit." Chad chuckled. "Let him in."

"Yes, sir," the rent-a-cop said, and stood back to let Matt pass.

"Let him in anytime," Chad added. "He's safe. As a matter of fact, he's a cop. Forgive me, a detective. Which probably means, come to think of it, that we'll have to count the silver after he leaves."

"You can go up, sir."

"Wachenhut?" Matt asked the man.

The Wachenhut Security Corporation provided the rent-a — cops for the Stockton Place complex.

"Nesfoods Security, sir," the man said.

"You've got a permit to carry, concealed?"

"Of course, sir."

Matt started up the stairs.

"Your name, sir?" the security man asked, and before Matt could reply, explained, "For your next visit, sir."

"Payne," Matt said. "Matt Payne."

"Did I understand Mr. Nesbitt to say you are a police officer, sir?"

"Yes, he did, and yes, I am," Matt said.

"Thank you, sir."

Matt went up the stairs.

Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV, in a sweat suit, was holding Penelope Alice Nesbitt in his arms.

"I have trouble believing you are responsible for that," Matt said.

"For what?"

"That beautiful child," Matt said. He leaned close to the baby and touched her cheek with his finger. "Fear not, sweet child, your godfather will protect you from these terrible people."

"Fuck you," Chad said. "To what do we owe the honor?"

"I thought I would take you out and buy you dinner," Matt said. "I had La Bochabella in mind."

La Bochabella was an upscale Italian restaurant in the 1100 block of South Front Street, not far from Stockton Place.

"What did you do, get into it with Daffy again?" Chad asked suspiciously.

"Her, too, if she wants to go," Matt said.

Chad laughed.

"If she wants to go where?" Daffy said, walking into the room. She was also wearing a gray sweat suit.

"He wants to take us to La Bochabella," Chad said.

"By way of making up for what?" Daffy said, taking the baby from her husband.

"Actually, I hoped that by the time they came around with the check, your husband would figure, after what you did to me, Daffy, with the virgin's mother, that the least he could do was buy me dinner."

"For all you know, wiseass, Susan may be a virgin," Daffy said. "Why not? I'll need to shower first, of course."

"I can't imagine why," Matt said. "What's with the sweat suits?"

"She's trying to get her figure back," Chad said.

"Where did it go?" Matt asked, innocently.

"… so we put in a little exercise room," Daffy said.

"You know, to keep in shape," Chad said. "You want to see it?"

"No. Not really. But while you're sharing all the sordid secrets of your married life with me, what's with the rent-a — cop?"

"He's not a rent-a-cop. He's from the company."

"What's he doing?"

"The Old Broads got together," Chad said. "The grandmothers. They went to the Old Man."

"I don't understand."

"They're worried about Penny's safety," Daffy said. "And mine, too."

"Did something happen?" Matt asked, now concerned.

"You ever hear, 'an ounce of prevention,' et cetera?" Chad said.

"You're really worried?" Matt asked. "In here?"

"Daffy's alone a lot," Chad said, a bit defensively. "With the baby."

"And a nanny, and at least one maid," Matt said. "Not to mention the rent-a-cop at the gate keeping the riffraff out."

"And now a security guy from the company," Chad said. "All right? It makes the Old Broads feel better and it makes me feel better, too, okay?"

"That guy's going to be here around the clock?" Matt asked.

"Not that guy," Chad said. "He's a supervisor. He's a retired Jersey state trooper. He used to bodyguard the governor. What he's doing is seeing what has to be done. But yeah, there will be security people here around the clock."

"You should know better than most people, Matt," Daffy said, "what goes on in the city. And that the police can't stop things from happening."

"There's only so many cops, Daffy," Matt said, now defensively. "They can't be everywhere at once."

"My point exactly," Chad said.

"I like the idea of La Bochabella," Daffy said. "Exercise makes me hungry."

She handed the baby back to her husband.

"I'll shower first," she said.

"Give me the urchin," Matt said mischievously, "and you can shower together."

Chad took him seriously.

"Yeah," Chad said, and handed him the baby. "Good thinking. One of the perks of married life. You should try it, buddy."

"Don't drop her, Matt!" Daffy said.

"She will be a good deal safer with me, madam, than she would be in her mother's arms," Matt said solemnly.

"You're up to something, Matt," Daffy said. "I don't trust you."

"I have no idea, madam, of what you're accusing me."

"Fix yourself a drink," Chad said. "You know where it is."

"Yeah."

Fixing himself a drink proved more difficult than he thought it would be. When he went to the bar, holding the baby, it became immediately apparent that he could not easily, one-handed, either open a scotch bottle or get ice from the refrigerator.

He walked to the couch and, with infinite tenderness, laid his goddaughter down on it, far enough away from the edge so there was no chance of her falling off.

He was halfway back to the bar when Penelope Alice Nesbitt expressed her displeasure at being laid down by howling with surprising volume for someone her size.

She stopped howling the moment she was picked up again, and he carried her back to the bar, where, with great difficulty, he made himself a drink. Then he carried the baby back to the couch and sat down.

After a moment, he propped the baby up at the junction of the back and arm of the chair, and watched to see if she would start to howl again. She didn't. She liked that. She smiled and made a gurgling noise.

"Would Penny and I have made something like you, sweetheart?" Matt asked softly as he extended his finger to the baby. She took his finger in her hand.

Matt became aware that his eyes were tearing and his throat was very tight.

"Shit!" he said, and took a deep swallow of his scotch on the rocks. The emotional moment passed.

Surprising him, Daffy returned first, dressed to go out.

"You should have gotten yourself a date," she said. "It would be like old times."

"You mean, you and Chad in the backseat of the car, making elephants-in-rut-type noises?"

"Screw you, you know what I mean," Daffy said. "Are you seeing much of Amanda these days?"

He shook his head, "no."

"Why not? She's a really nice girl."

"We never seem to be free at the same time," Matt said.

"Yeah," Daffy said, and changed the subject: "Well, since we all can't fit in your car, I'd better see about ours."

"Either this child has terminal B.O., or it needs a diaper change," Matt said.

Daffy picked up her baby and walked out of the room with her. Chad appeared a moment later, walked to the bar, poured whiskey in a glass and tossed it down, then held his finger in front of his lips in a signal that Daffy was not to know he had a little predinner drink.

Daffy reappeared, and they went down the stairs. The rent-a-cop was not in sight, and Matt wondered where he was.

When they went outside, the rent-a-cop was standing beside an Oldsmobile 98 sedan, the doors of which were open.

Daffy and Chad got in the backseat, the rent-a-cop got behind the wheel, and Matt got in the front passenger seat beside him.

"You know the La Bochabella restaurant?" Chad asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Where'd you get this?" Matt asked when they were inside. "It's new, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Chad said. "Tell him, Mr. Frazier."

"The statistics show," Frazier announced, very seriously, "that there are far fewer incidents involving Oldsmobiles and Buicks than there are involving Cadillacs and Lincolns. Presumably, they don't attract the same kind of attention from the wrong kind of people."

"You're telling me your old man is going to turn in his Rolls Royce on an Olds?" Matt asked. "To avoid an incident?"

"No." Chad laughed. "But he's stopped going anywhere in it alone."

"You seem to feel this is funny, Matt," Daffy said. "I don't. We don't."

"Straight answer, Daffy?"

"If you can come up with one."

"As a cop, I'm a little embarrassed that Chad's father, and your mothers, and you really feel it's necessary."

"That brings us back to my ounce of prevention," Chad said.

Matt confessed to the maоtre d' of La Bochabella that he didn't have a reservation, and asked how much of a problem that was going to be.

The maоtre d' consulted his reservations list at length, frowning, and shaking his head.

If this son of a bitch is waiting for me to slip him money, we'll be here all night.

"I'm afraid, sir…" the maиtre d' began.

A chubby, splendidly tailored man in his late twenties walked up to the maоtre d's stand.

"Ricardo," he announced, "Mr. Brewer just phoned and canceled his reservation." He looked at Matt. "If you're willing to wait just a few minutes, sir, we'll be happy to accommodate you."

"Thank you," Matt said.

"And your name, sir?"

"Payne," Matt said. The maоtre d' wrote that at the head of his list of reservations.

"Initial?" the splendidly tailored chubby fellow said.

"M," Matt said.

"Perhaps you'd like to wait at the bar," the splendidly tailored chubby fellow suggested. "It will be a few minutes."

"Thank you," Matt said, and led the way to the bar, which occupied most of the left side of the corridor leading from the door to the dining room. When he had slid onto a stool, he saw Frazier sitting at the end of the bar, near the door.

He wondered, idly, what Frazier was drinking.

Can you sit at the bar of an expensive place like this and drink soda? Or does a rent-a-cop on duty order a scotch straight up with soda on the side, and not drink the scotch? Or pour it on the floor, when no one's looking?

The bartender appeared.

"I'll have what that gentlemen is drinking," Matt said, indicating Frazier.

"The gentleman is drinking soda with a lemon slice, sir," the bartender said.

"In that case, I think I'd better take a look at the wine list," Matt said. "We can take a bottle to the table later, right?"

"Of course, sir."

"What are we celebrating, Matt?" Daffy asked.

"Nothing, so far as I know. Why?"

"I don't trust you when you are charming. You asking for the wine list?"

"Then screw you, baby! You don't get no wine."

She smiled.

"Better. That's the old Matt, the one I have always loathed and despised."

Chad chuckled.

The chubby, splendidly tailored man in his late twenties, whose name was Anthony Joseph Desidiro, waited until he saw that Mr. Payne and party had taken seats at the bar, and then he walked to the rear of the dining room. Against the rear wall was a table shielded by a light green silk screen. The screen's weave was such that people seated at the table could see the dining room but people in the dining room could not see who was sitting at the table.

There were two men at the table. One was Mr. Desidiro 's cousin, a large, well-muscled, equally splendidly tailored gentleman whose name appeared on the liquor and restaurant licenses of La Bochabella as the owner. His name was Paulo Cassandro. His mother and Mr. Desidiro 's mother were sisters. Mr. Cassandro had provided his cousin Tony with both his tuition at the Cornell School of Hotel amp; Restaurant Administration, and a generous allowance while he was there so he would be able to devote his full time to learning the hotel and restaurant administration profession.

On his graduation, Mr. Desidiro spent two years working-he thought of it as an internship-at the Ristorante Alfredo, another of Philadelphia's more elegant Italian restaurants, on whose liquor and restaurant licenses Mr. Cassandro was also listed as owner.

Two months before, Mr. Desidiro had been named manager of La Bochabella. He had told his cousin Paulo that it was his plan that La Bochabella would become known as the best Northern Italian restaurant in Philadelphia, catering to the social and economic upper crust of Philadelphia.

He wanted to raise prices sufficiently to discourage the patronage of those who thought Italian cuisine was primarily sausage and peppers and spaghetti and meatballs, and that fine Italian wine began and ended with Chianti in raffia-wrapped bottles.

"You got eighteen months, Tony," Cousin Paulo had told him. "Mr. S. thinks maybe you got a good idea. You got eighteen months to make it work."

Mr. S. was what his intimates called Mr. Vincenzo Savarese, and Mr. Desidiro was aware that Cousin Paulo's name on the licenses notwithstanding, Mr. Savarese had the controlling interest in both La Bochabella and Ristorante Alfredo.

Mr. Desidiro thought it was fortuitous that Mr. Savarese had chosen tonight to have dinner in La Bochabella with Cousin Paulo-he came in only every couple of weeks, and then mostly for lunch, not dinner-and he would thus have the opportunity to prove to Mr. Savarese that his philosophy for the successful operation of the restaurant was bearing fruit.

He stepped behind the curtain. Both Cousin Paulo and Mr. Savarese interrupted their meal to look at him.

"Is everything all right?" Mr. Desidiro asked. "Do you like the lamb, Mr. Savarese?"

"Very much," Mr. Savarese said. "The garlic-how do I say this? — is delicate."

"We throw garlic buds, crushed but in their skins, directly on the coals when the leg is still raw," Mr. Desidiro said. "It delicately infuses the meat with the flavor, I think. I'm pleased that you like it."

"Very nice," Mr. Savarese said.

"Yeah, Tony," Cassandro said.

"You know who we have outside, waiting for a table?" Mr. Desidiro said, and went on before a reply could be made. "Mr. and Mrs. Nesbitt the Fourth, of Nesfoods International. "

"Yes," Mr. Savarese said. "I saw them. I was going to have a word with you about them."

Mr. Desidiro tried not to show his surprise that Mr. Savarese recognized the heir to Nesfoods International and his wife.

"Yes, Mr. Savarese."

"They have a friend with them," Mr. Savarese said.

"A Mr. Payne," Mr. Desidiro said.

"Yes, I know," Mr. Savarese said. "You should be very careful around him, Tony."

"Yes, sir?"

"He is not only a policeman, but he shoots people in the head," Mr. Savarese said. "Isn't that so, Paulo?"

"That's right, Mr. S.," Paulo agreed.

"You remember that crazy man, Tony, who was kidnapping and then doing sexual things to women in Northwest Philadelphia?" Mr. Savarese asked.

"Yes, I do. A policeman shot him?"

"That policeman," Mr. Savarese said.

"Right in the head, Tony," Cassandro said, miming someone shooting a pistol. "Ka-pow! Ka-pow!"

"Very interesting," Mr. Desidiro said, wondering what a cop was doing having dinner-Mr. S. had said "a friend"-with the guy whose father owned Nesfoods International.

"If Mr. Payne should ask for the check, Tony," Mr. Savarese said, "please tell him that it has been taken care of by a friend-make that 'an admirer.' "

"Right, Mr. Savarese. 'An admirer.' "

"Please have the courtesy to let me finish, Tony," Mr. Savarese said.

"Excuse me, Mr. Savarese," Mr. Desidiro said. "I beg your pardon."

"You should learn to listen, Tony," Mr. Savarese said.

"Jesus Christ, Tony!" Cassandro snapped.

"If young Mr. Payne asks for the check, please tell him that it has been taken care of by an admirer of his father," Mr. Savarese said.

"Of his father," Mr. Desidiro said. "Right, Mr. Savarese. "

And then he had a question, which, after a moment, he spoke aloud.

"And if Mr. Nesbitt should ask for the check, Mr. Savarese? "

"Then give it to him," Mr. Savarese said. "I am not indebted to his father."

"Right, Mr. Savarese."

"You understand, Tony," Cassandro said. "You don't mention Mr. S.'s name?"

"Right. Of course not."

"I'm going to Harrisburg," Matt Payne announced after they had all ordered, at the suggestion of the waiter, roast lamb with roasted potatoes, a spinach salad, and were waiting for the shrimp cocktail they had ordered for an appetizer.

"I didn't know anyone went there on purpose," Chad said.

"I am being sent to Harrisburg," Matt corrected himself.

"Susan lives outside Harrisburg," Daffy said.

"You do something wrong?" Chad said, reaching for the bottle of Merlot.

"Of course not," Matt said. "I am known in the department as Detective Perfect. Yeah, that's right, isn't it? She told me that."

"Shit!" Chad said. "Who told you what?"

"Susan Whatsername told me she lived in Harrisburg."

"Camp Hill," Daffy corrected him. "Outside Harrisburg. "

"What are you being sent to Harrisburg for?" Chad asked.

"They are having a crime wave, and require the services of a big-city detective to solve it."

"Bullshit."

"You remember reading about the lieutenant the Department threw in the slammer for protecting the call girl ring?"

"Yeah."

"Not for publication, I'm tying up some loose ends on that," Matt said.

"A call girl ring?" Daffy said. "Right down your alley. You should love that."

"I'm looking forward to it."

"You really should call her," Daffy said.

"Call who? Any call girl? Or do you have a specific one in mind?"

"Susan, you ass."

"Your pal Susan shot me down in flames, you will recall. "

"If at first you don't succeed," Daffy said.

"I have her phone number," Matt said. "You gave it to me."

"Call her. If nothing else, it'll keep you out of trouble with the call girls," Daffy said.

"I don't know," Matt said doubtfully.

"Call her, damn you. She's a very nice girl."

A very nice girl, Matt thought, who is aiding and abetting four murdering lunatics.

"Are you going to be talking to her?" Matt asked.

"I don't know," Daffy replied. "I can. Why?"

"I don't suppose you would be willing to tell her you were only kidding when you told her what an all-around son of a bitch I am?"

"I wasn't kidding. But, okay, I'll call her and put in a good word for you. If you promise to call her when you're there."

"If I can find the time," Matt said.

"Find the time," Chad said.

"She's really a very nice girl," Daffy said.

Now, if you call our Susan and tell her, or let surmise, that my calling her was your and Chad's idea, and I'm not thrilled about it, that just may allay her suspicions that I might have a professional interest in her activities, and this charade will not have been in vain.

"Ah," Matt said. "Here comes the shrimp. Can we change the subject, please?"

"Take her to the Hotel Hershey," Daffy said. "That's romantic as hell."

"All I want to do with her, Daffy," Matt said, sounding serious, "is get her in bed. I didn't say a word about…"

"You bastard!" Daffy said, smiling at him. "Now I will call her. Susan may be just the girl to bring you under control."

Philip Chason, a slightly built fifty-five-year-old who walked with a limp, turned his three-year-old Ford sedan off Essington Avenue-sometimes called "Automobile Row"-and onto the lot of Fiorello's Fine Cars.

It was one of the larger lots; Chason figured there must be 150 cars on display, ranging from year-old Cadillacs and Buicks down to junkers one step away from the crusher.

Chason was not in the market for a car. And if he was going shopping for one, he wouldn't have come here. Joe Fiorello was somehow tied to the mob. Chason didn't know exactly what the connection was, but he knew there was one. And Chason had a thing about the mob; he didn't like the idea of them getting any of his money.

Chason had spent twenty-six years of his life as a Philadelphia policeman, and eighteen of the twenty-six years as a detective, before a drunk had run a red light and slammed into the side of his unmarked car. That had put him in the hospital for six weeks, given him a gimp leg that hurt whenever it rained, and gotten him a line-of-duty-injury pension.

After sitting around for four months watching the grass grow, Phil Chason had got himself a private investigator's license, made a little office in the basement of his house, put in another telephone and an answering machine, and took out an ad in the phone book's yellow pages: "Philip Chason, Confidential Investigations. (Retired Detective, Philadelphia P.D.)."

It was not a quick way to get rich in any case, and it had been tough getting started at all. But gradually jobs started coming his way. Too many of them were sleaze, like following some guy whose wife suspected he was getting a little on the side, or some dame whose husband figured she was.

He got some seasonal work, like at Christmas at John Wanamaker's Department Store, helping their security people keep an eye on shoplifters and seasonal employees. And Wachenhut called him every once in a while to work, for example, ritzy parties at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, or a big reception at one of the hotels, keeping scumbags from ripping people off.

Both Wanamaker's and Wachenhut had offered him a full-time job, but the money was anything but great, and he didn't want to get tied down to having to go to work every day, especially when the leg was giving him trouble.

He got some work from the sleazebags who hung around the courts and called themselves "The Criminal Bar," but there were two things wrong with that: he didn't like helping some scumbag lawyer keep some scumbag from going to jail, and they paid slow.

And he'd done a couple of jobs for Joe Fiorello before this one. Fiorello had called him out of the blue about a year ago, said he'd seen the ad in the yellow pages, and needed a job done.

Chason had told Joey his "initial consultation fee" was fifty bucks, whether or not he took the job. He knew who Fiorello was and he had no intention of doing something illegal. Joey had told him no problem, that he should come by the used-car lot and he'd tell him what he wanted done, and Chason could decide whether or not he wanted to do it.

What Joey wanted the first time was for Chason to check out a guy he was thinking of hiring as a salesman. The guy had a great reputation as a salesman, Joey said, but there was something about him that didn't smell kosher, and before he took him on, he wanted to be sure about him, and how much would that cost?

Chason had told him it would probably take about ten hours of his time, at twenty-five dollars an hour, plus expenses, like getting a credit report, and mileage, at a dime a mile, and Joey thought it over a minute and then said go ahead, how long will it take, the sooner the better.

That time, Chason had found out the guy was what he said he was, what his reputation said he was, a hard-working guy with a family, who paid his bills, didn't drink a hell of a lot, went to church, and even, as far as Chason could find out, slept with his own wife.

Chason couldn't figure why a guy like that, who already had a good job as sales manager for the used-car department of the Pontiac dealer in Willow Grove, would want to work in the city for Fiorello. The answer to that was that he didn't. The second time Joey Fiorello called Chason, to do the same kind of a job on another guy Joey was thinking of hiring, Chason asked him what happened to the first guy, and Joey told him he'd made the guy an offer that wasn't good enough-the guy wanted an arm and a leg, Joey said-and that hadn't worked out.

The second time had been like the first job. Only this time the guy was selling furniture on Market Street, and thought he might like selling cars. Another Mr. Straight Citizen. Wife, kids, church, the whole nine yards. And he either came to his senses about what a good job he already had, or somebody whispered in his ear that Joey Fiorello wasn't the absolutely respectable businessman he wanted everybody to think he was. Anyway, he didn't go to work for Fiorello Fine Cars, either.

This last job was something else. This one was a young guy, from Bala Cynwyd, who was a stockbroker. Chason thought there was something fishy about a stockbroker wanting to be a used-car salesman right from the start. Usually, it would be a used-car salesman trying to get into something more classy, like being a stockbroker, not the other way around.

Once he started nosing around, Chason thought he understood why. This guy was a real sleaze, too sleazy even to work for a sleazy greaseball like Joey Fiorello.

One of Joey's salesmen, a young guy wearing an open-collared yellow sport shirt with a gold chain around his neck and a phony Rolex on his wrist, came out of the office with a toothy 'Hello, sucker!' smile on his face.

"Can I be of some assistance, sir?"

"Mr. Fiorello around?"

"Yes, sir," the salesman said. "But I believe he may be tied up at the moment. Is there something I can do for you?"

"No, thanks," Chason said, and walked around the guy and into the office.

Joey's secretary, a peroxide blonde with great breasts who Chason had learned wasn't as dumb as she looked, smiled at him, then picked up her telephone.

"Mr. Chason is here, Mr. Fiorello," she announced, listened a minute, and then hung up.

"Mr. Fiorello said he'll be right with you, Mr. Chason, " she said. "How have you been?"

"Can't complain," Chason said. "How about yourself? "

"Well, you know," the blonde said. "A little of this, a little of that."

A moment later, the door to Joey's office opened and a guy who looked like another salesman came out. Then Joey appeared in the door.

"Hey, Phil, how's the boy? Come on in. You want a cup of coffee, or a Coke or something?"

"I could take some coffee," Chason said.

"Helene, how about getting Mr. Chason and me some coffee. How do you take yours, Phil?"

"Black would be fine," Chason said as he shook Joey's extended hand and walked into the office.

He had to admit it, Joey had a classy office. Nice furniture, all red leather, and a great big desk that must have cost a fortune. The walls were just about covered with pictures of classy cars and of Joey and his family on his sailboat. There was a model of the sailboat, sails and everything, in a glass case.

The blonde delivered two mugs of coffee. The mugs said, "Fiorello Fine Cars. We sell to sell again!"

Joey waited until the blonde had closed the door behind her, then asked, "You got something for me, Phil?"

"I don't think you're going to like it, Joey."

"I pay you to find things out. Who said anything about me having to like it?"

"Mr. Ronald R. Ketcham is a sleazeball, Joey," Chason said.

"How is he a sleazeball?"

"You understand I can't prove anything, Joey. I mean, if I was still a cop, I don't have anything I could take to the district attorney."

"Tell me what you found out," Joey Fiorello said. "That's good enough for me."

"Okay. The truth is, he is a stockbroker. For Wendell, Wilson and Company, in Bala Cynwyd. Before that, he was a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch, here in the city. He told Wendell, Wilson he wanted to leave Merrill Lynch so he wouldn't have to come into the city every day. The truth is, he resigned from Merrill Lynch about five minutes before they were going to fire him."

"Fire him for what?"

"For one thing, he didn't go to work very often, and for another, there was talk that when he did show up for work, he did a lot of business his customers didn't know about. You know what I mean?"

Joey shook his head, "no."

"Stockbrokers work on commission. The more stocks and bonds and stuff they buy and sell, the more money they make. So, if they aren't too ethical, they call their customers up and suggest they sell something he hears is going to go down, and buy something else he hears is going to go up, and maybe his information isn't so kosher. He did a lot of that at Merrill Lynch, but that isn't all. If they have customers that are buying and selling a lot, so their monthly statements are pretty complicated, what some of those guys do-what Ketcham got caught doing-is making trades their customers didn't order."

"Explain that to me," Joey said.

"Like you own five thousand shares of, say, General Motors. Ketcham would sell, say, a thousand shares one day, and buy it back the next. And get a commission selling it, and another commission buying it back."

"The customers don't notice?"

"A lot of the customers don't keep good records," Chason explained. "They get their statement, it says they sold a thousand shares at fifty bucks, and then, a day later, they bought a thousand shares at forty-seven-fifty, which means they picked up twenty-five hundred bucks less the commissions, why ask questions?"

"What if they sold the stock at forty-seven-fifty, and then bought it back at fifty, and they lost twenty-five hundred? Don't that ring bells that something ain't kosher?"

"From what I hear, believe it or not, most people don't catch on right away. The company itself catches more salesmen doing stuff like that than the customers do. And that's what happened to Mr. Ketcham at Merrill Lynch. The company-they call the people who do it 'internal auditors'-caught him."

"But they didn't fire him?" Joey asked. "You said he resigned, right?"

"Like I said, I can't prove this happened to him at Merrill Lynch, but this is the way something like this works, all right? The internal auditors catch a guy doing something like this, what can they do? If they fire the guy because he's been making unauthorized trades for his customer, and they tell the customer, the customer is going to be pissed, right? And take his business some other place, and tell all his friends what Merrill Lynch, or whoever, has done to him. "

"Yeah," Joey said, considering that. "So what do they do?"

"They call the guy in, tell him that they have enough on him to get him kicked out of the stockbroker business for life, and that the smart thing for him to do is have his desk cleaned out by five o'clock, keep his mouth shut, and if he gets another job, to straighten up and fly right. You get the picture."

"Jesus, you just can't trust anybody these days, can you?" Joey said.

"There's more crooks out of jail than in," Chason said.

"So he went to this company in Bala Cynwyd, you're telling me, and started this shit all over?"

"No. Not exactly. He's about to get canned from Wendell, Wilson for not producing. That means not selling or buying enough for his customers. The reason he's not producing enough is that he comes to work late, leaves early, or doesn't come to work at all. You can only get away with telling the boss you were 'developing business' on the golf course, which is why you weren't at work, if you actually produce the business."

"If he's not 'producing business,' what's he living on, if he's working on commission?"

"That's what I wondered," Chason said. "He lives good. He pays a lot of money for his apartment, drives a fancy car, dresses good, and he's got a girlfriend who probably costs him a lot of money."

"You mean a hooker?"

"No, I mean one of those Main Line beauties, who expect to be taken to expensive restaurants, and weekends at the shore. Like that."

"How do you know about the girlfriend?" Tony asked.

Chason took a small notebook from his pocket.

"Her name is Cynthia Longwood," he said. "Her father is Randolph Longwood, the builder."

"I heard the name," Joey said.

"Anyway, they have been running around for some time. So I wondered how he was paying for all this, and started asking some questions around. I got to tell you again, Joey, that I can't prove any of this, it's just…"

Joey Fiorello indicated with his hands that he understood the caveat.

"If I was a betting man, Joey, which I don't happen to be, I'd give odds that this sleazeball is into drugs. Maybe not big time, but not small time, either."

"No shit?"

"It all fits, if you think about it."

"You tell me."

"If somebody has an armful of that shit, everything is rosy. You don't give a shit about anything. You don't feel like going to work, you don't go to work. Everything will be all right. And if you do go to work, you put some shit up your nose, it turns you into a fucking genius. You're too smart to get caught buying and selling stocks and bonds nobody told you to. You understand?"

"I'm getting the picture."

"You get your hands on, say, twenty thousand dollars' worth of heroin, or cocaine, any of the high-class stuff, if you know where to get it and where to sell it, you keep out what you need to shove in your own arm, or up your own, and your girlfriend's, nose-"

"You think his girlfriend is a junkie?"

"I didn't hear anything like that. But I would be surprised if she didn't do some 'recreational drugs.' That's pretty common among people like that. You heard what happened to the Detweiler girl, her father owns half of Nesfoods?"

Joey Fiorello shook his head, "no."

"I know who they are," Joey said. "What about the girl?"

"She stuck a needle in her arm in Chestnut Hill and was dead before she could take it out."

"No shit?"

"Killed her like that," Chason said, snapping his fingers. "Anyway, after you put aside whatever shit you need for yourself and your girlfriend, you sell the rest. You put away enough money to buy another twenty thousand worth later on, and you live good on what's left over."

"And you think Ketcham is doing this?"

"Like I said, I can't prove it, but yeah, Joey, I'd bet on it."

"Can I ask you a personal question, Phil?"

"You can ask," Chason said. "But I won't promise to answer."

"You're a retired police officer," Joey said. "You get this feeling about somebody like this, dealing drugs, doing what you think he's doing with the stockbroker business, you feel you got to tell the cops?"

"No," Chason said. "For one thing, like I said, I can't prove any of this. And for another, if I did, they'd probably tell me to mind my own business."

"What do you think his chances are of getting caught dealing drugs?"

"He'll get caught eventually," Chason said. "If he don't get killed first, in some drug deal gone bad, or kill himself, the way that Detweiler girl did."

"Well, one thing for sure," Joey said. "We don't want this son of a bitch walking around the lot, do we?"

"I wouldn't if I was you, Joey," Chason said.

"Phil, I don't want anybody to know I was even thinking of giving this son of a bitch a job. It would be embarrassing, if you know what I mean."

"What I do, Joey, like it says in the phone book, is confidential investigations. What I told you, you paid for. It's yours. I just forgot everything I told you."

"I appreciate that, Phil," Joey said.

Chason nodded his head.

"How long did it take you to come up with all this, Phil?"

"No longer than usual. I'm going to bill you for ten hours, plus, I think, about sixty bucks in expenses."

"Two things, Phil. First of all, I think it took you like twenty hours," Joey said. "And I figure you had maybe two hundred in expenses."

"You don't have to do that, Joey."

"Don't tell me what I have to do, Phil, please, as a favor to me. Second thing, how would you feel about being paid in cash, instead of with a check? Are you in love with the IRS?"

"I don't have a thing in the world against cash, Joey."

"That's good, because I just happen to have some cash the IRS don't know about, either," Joey said.

He got up from his desk and went into what looked to Phil Chason like a closet. He returned in a minute with an envelope.

"You want to check it, to make sure it's all right?" Joey asked.

"I'm sure it is, Joey," Chason said, and put the envelope in his suit jacket pocket.

Joey offered him his hand.

"We'll be in touch," Joey said.

Chason started out of the office.

"Phil, you want to get out of that piece of shit you're driving, I'll make you a deal on something better."

"Not right now, Joey, but I'll consider that an open offer."

"It's an open offer," Joey said.

Chason left the office. Joey went to the venetian blinds and watched through them until Chason had left the lot.

Then he left his office.

"I've got to see a man about a dog, Helene," he said.

He went out and got into a red Cadillac Eldorado convertible and drove off the lot. Six blocks away, he pulled into an Amoco station and stopped the car by an outside pay phone.

He dropped a coin in the slot and dialed a number from memory.

"This is Joey. I need to talk to him," he said.

"Yes?" a new voice responded a minute later.

"This is Joey, Mr. S.," Joey said. "I just left the retired cop. I think we had better talk, if you have time."

"Come right now, Joey," Vincenzo Savarese said.

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