It took the Mayor five minutes to work his way through the entrance foyer to the bar in the sitting room, and another five to find somebody he could leave Angie with and then to reach his destination.
In descending order of importance, he wished to have a word with Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, Chief Inspector Matthew Lowenstein, and Inspector Peter Wohl. It would have been his intention to first find Denny or Matt and then send Fellows to fetch the others, but luck was with him. The three were standing together in a corner of the sitting room- not surprising, birds of a feather, et cetera — and there was a bonus. With them were Chief Inspector (Retired) August Wohl, Detective Matthew M. Payne, and Mr. Michael J. O’Hara of the Bulletin.
Chiefs Coughlin, Lowenstein, and Wohl were in business suits. Inspector Wohl and Detective Payne were in monkey suits. Mr. O’Hara was wearing a plaid sports coat of the type worn by the gentlemen who offer suggestions on the wagers one should make at a racetrack.
Not surprising, the Mayor thought. Dave Pekach works for Peter Wohl, and Peter would have probably rented a monkey suit for this if he didn’t have one, and he probably has his own, because he’s a bachelor, and doesn’t have a family to support and can afford a monkey suit. And Detective Payne not only is also a bachelor with no family to support, but doesn’t have to worry about living on a detective’s pay anyway. His father-what was the way they put it? His adoptive father, he adopted him when he married Patty Moffitt-is Brewster Cortland Payne II.
The Mayor handed Inspector Wohl his champagne glass.
“Get rid of this for me, will you, Mac?” he asked, as if he thought anybody in a monkey suit had to be a waiter. “Get me a weak scotch, and get my friends another round of whatever they’re drinking.”
“Good evening, Mr. Mayor,” Peter Wohl said, as the others laughed.
“My God, my mistake!” the Mayor said in mock horror. “What we have here is a cop in a monkey suit. I would never have recognized him.”
“Two, Jerry,” Chief Wohl said. “Three counting Dave Pekach. The Department’s getting some class.”
As Mayor Carlucci had risen through the ranks of the Police Department he had had Chief Inspector Wohl as his mentor and protector. The phrase used was that “Wohl was Carlucci’s rabbi.” It was said, quietly of course, but quite accurately, that Chief Wohl had not only helped Carlucci’s career prosper, but had on at least two occasions kept it from being terminated.
And Inspector, and then Chief Inspector, and then Deputy Commissioner and ultimately Commissioner Carlucci had been rabbi to Chiefs Coughlin and Lowenstein as they had worked their way up in the hierarchy. Detective Payne, it was universally recognized, had two rabbis, Chief Coughlin and Inspector Wohl.
Payne’s relationship with Wohl was the traditional one. Wohl saw in him a good cop, one who, with guidance and experience, could become a good senior police official. His relationship with Chief Dennis V. Coughlin was something different. Coughlin had been John Francis Xavier Moffitt’s best friend since they had been at the Police Academy. He had been the best man at his wedding, and he had gone to tell Patricia Moffitt, pregnant with Matt, that her husband had been killed. Just about everyone-including Jerry Carlucci-had thought it certain that after a suitable period, the Widow Moffitt would marry her late husband’s best friend. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to tell from the way he looked at her, and talked about her, how he felt about her.
Patty Moffitt had instead met Brewster Cortland Payne II, an archetypical Main Line WASP, in whose father’s law firm she had found work as a typist. He had been widowed four months previously when his wife had died in a traffic accident returning from their summer cottage in the Poconos.
Their marriage had enraged both families. Having lost a mate was not considered sufficient cause to marry hastily, and across a vast chasm of social and religious differences. It was generally agreed that the marriage would not, could not, last, and that was the reason many offered for Denny Coughlin never having married: he was still waiting for Patty Moffitt.
The marriage endured. Payne adopted Matthew Mark Moffitt and gave him his name and his love. Denny Coughlin never married. He and Brewster Payne became friends, and he was Uncle Denny to all the Payne children.
The Mayor shook everybody’s hand. A waiter appeared. The Mayor gave him his champagne glass and asked for a weak scotch. Inspector Wohl and Detective Payne both took champagne from the waiter’s tray.
“How ya doing, Mayor?” Mickey O’Hara asked.
“Take a look at this,” the Mayor said as he took a newspaper clipping from his pocket and handed it to O’Hara, “and make a guess.”
O’Hara read the story, then handed it back to the Mayor, who handed it to Chief Wohl.
“You all better read it,” the Mayor said.
MORE UNSOLVED MURDERS; NO ARRESTS AND ‘NO COMMENT’ BY CHARLES E. WHALEY PHILADELPHIA LEDGER STAFF WRITER
Capt. Henry O. Quaire, commanding officer of the Homicide Unit of the Philadelphia Police Department, refused to comment on rumors circulating through the police department that a homicide detective is under investigation for the brutal murder of Police Officer Jerome H. Kellog. Chief Inspector Matthew Lowenstein, who heads the Detective Bureau of the Police Department, was “out of town on official business” when this reporter attempted to contact him.
Kellog, 33, who was assigned to the Narcotics Unit, was found Friday morning in his home at 300 West Luray Street in the Feltonville section, dead of multiple gunshot wounds to the head. His death has been classified as “a willful death,” which is police parlance for murder.
Rumors began almost immediately to circulate that an unnamed Homicide Unit detective, who is allegedly involved with Officer Kellog’s estranged wife, is a prime suspect in the killing.
Although a large number of his fellow police officers called to pay their last respects to Officer Kellog at the John F. Fluehr amp; Sons Funeral Home this afternoon, including more than a dozen middle-ranking police supervisors, none of the police department’s most senior officers were present.
Their absence fueled another rumor, that Officer Kellog was not to be accorded the elaborate funeral rites, sometimes called an “Inspector’s Funeral,” normally given to a police officer killed in the line of duty.
Capt. Robert F. Talley, Commanding Officer of the Narcotics Unit, who made a brief appearance at the funeral home visitation, accompanying Officer Kellog’s widow, refused comment.
Captain Quaire, when asked if the denial to Officer Kellog of an “Inspector’s Funeral” suggested that his death was not in the line of duty, said that as far as he knew, no decision had been made in the matter. He stated that Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernich was the official who authorized, or denied, an official police funeral, and that all questions on the subject should be referred to him.
Commissioner Czernich’s office, when contacted, said the Commissioner was out of the office, and they had no idea when he would be available to answer questions from the press.
Kellog will be buried tomorrow in Lawnview Cemetery, in Rockledge, following funeral services at the Memorial Presbyterian Church of Fox Chase.
Quaire also said that the Homicide Unit was “actively involved” in the investigation of the murders of Mrs. Alicia Atchison and Anthony J. Marcuzzi in a downtown restaurant shortly after midnight last night, but the police as yet have been unable to identify, much less arrest, the two men who were identified by Gerald N. Atchison, Mrs. Atchison’s husband, and the proprietor of the restaurant, as the murderers.
“Why are you surprised?” O’Hara asked. “You know the Ledger ’s after you.”
“I don’t care if they go after me,” the Mayor said, “but putting in the paper that his widow has been messing around, that’s pretty goddamned low. Did you hear those rumors?”
O’Hara nodded.
“Did you write about them?” the Mayor asked. “Or feel your readers had the right to know that the widow was carrying on with some cop?”
O’Hara shook his head.
“There you go, Mick,” the Mayor said with satisfaction. “In that one goddamn story, that sonofabitch writes that the widow is a tramp…”
“That’s a little strong, Jerry,” Chief Wohl protested.
“What do you call a married woman who sleeps with another man?” the Mayor asked sarcastically. “And while we’re on that subject, Lowenstein, how is it that neither you nor Quaire told Detective Milham to keep his pecker in his pocket?”
Chief Lowenstein’s face colored.
“Jerry, I don’t consider that sort of thing any of my business,” he said.
“Maybe you should,” the Mayor snapped. “I don’t know if I’d want a detective around me whose wife divorced him for carrying on with her sister, and the next thing you know is playing hide-the-salami with a brother officer’s wife. It says something about his character, wouldn’t you say?”
Lowenstein’s face was now red.
Chief Wohl touched Lowenstein’s arm to stop any response. The worst possible course of action when dealing with an angry Jerry Carlucci was to argue with him.
“Take it easy, Jerry,” Chief Wohl said.
Matt Payne glanced at Chief Coughlin. Coughlin made a movement with his head that could have been a signal for him to leave the group. He was considering this possibility when his attention was diverted by the Mayor’s angry voice:
“Who the hell are you to tell me to take it easy?”
“Well, for one thing, I’m bigger than you are,” Chief Wohl said with a smile, “and for another, smarter. And better-looking.”
Carlucci glowered at him.
“Matty,” Chief Coughlin said. “Your girlfriend’s looking daggers at you. Maybe you better go pay some attention to her.”
Matt looked around but could not find Penny Detweiler. He wasn’t surprised. Coughlin was telling him a lowly detective should not be here, where he would be privy to what looked like a major confrontation between senior white-shirts and the Mayor of Philadelphia.
“Excuse me,” he said.
“You’ve been doing some good work, Payne,” the Mayor said. “It hasn’t gone unnoticed.”
Carlucci waited until Matt was out of earshot.
“You know what that young man did? Not for publication, Mickey?”
“No,” O’Hara replied with a chuckle. “What did that young man do, not for publication?”
“Peter here’s been running a surveillance operation,” Carlucci began.
“Surveilling who?” O’Hara interrupted.
“I’ll get to that in a minute. Anyway, they had a microphone mounted on a window, and it got knocked off. The window was on the thirteenth floor, I forgot to say. So what does Payne do? He goes to the room next door to the one where the mike fell off, goes out on a ledge, and puts it back in place. How’s that for balls, Mickey?”
“I hadn’t heard about that,” Chief Coughlin said, looking at Peter Wohl.
“Neither had I,” Peter said.
“He knew what had to be done, and he did it,” the Mayor said approvingly. “That’s the mark of a good cop.”
“Or a damned fool,” O’Hara said. “It was that important?”
“What the hell could be that important? He could have killed himself,” Coughlin said.
“The way it turned out, it was that important,” Carlucci said. “If he hadn’t put the mike back, we wouldn’t have got what we got after he put it back. Tony Harris told me that when he gave me the tapes this morning.”
“Which is what?” Coughlin asked.
“Enough, Tony Callis tells me, to just about guarantee a true bill from the grand jury and an indictment.”
The Hon. Thomas J. “Tony” Callis was the District Attorney for Philadelphia County.
“Of who?” O’Hara asked.
“Not yet, Mickey, but you will be the first to know, trust me. The warrants are being drawn up. Peter, I think you should let Payne go with you when you and Weisbach serve them; he’s entitled.”
When I and Weisbach serve them? Wohl thought. What the hell is that all about?
“Serve them on who?” O’Hara asked.
“I told you, Mickey, you’ll be the first to know, but not right now. For right now, you can have this.” The Mayor reached in his pocket and handed O’Hara a folded sheet of paper. “I understand the first of these will be given out first thing in the morning. You don’t know where you got that,” he said.
O’Hara unfolded the sheet of paper. It was a press release.
POLICE DEPARTMENT CITY OF PHILADELPHIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernich today announced a major reorganization of the self-policing functions of the Police Department, to take effect with the retirement of Chief Inspector Harry Allgood, presently the Commanding Officer of the Internal Affairs Division. Chief Allgood’s retirement will become effective tomorrow.
“The public’s faith in the absolute integrity of its police department is our most important weapon in the war against crime,” Commissioner Czernich declared.
“A new unit, the Ethical Affairs Unit (EAU), has been formed. It will be commanded by Staff Inspector Michael Weisbach, who will report directly to me on matters concerning any violation of the high ethical standards of behavior demanded of our police officers by the public, myself and Mayor Carlucci,” Commissioner Czernich went on.
“I have directed Inspector Peter Wohl, Commanding Officer of the Special Operations Division, to make available to Staff Inspector Weisbach whatever he requires to accomplish his new mission from the assets of Special Operations, which includes the Highway Patrol, the Anti-Crime Teams, and the Special Operations Investigation Section.
“Internal Affairs will continue to deal with complaints from the public regarding inappropriate actions on the part of police officers,” Commissioner Czernich concluded.
“What is that, Jerry?” Chief Wohl asked.
“Show it to him, Mickey,” the Mayor replied. O’Hara handed it to him.
“I can use this now, or am I supposed to sit on it until everybody else gets it?” O’Hara asked.
“You can use what? I didn’t give you anything,” Carlucci said.
“OK,” O’Hara replied. “I would like to be there, Peter, when you and Weisbach serve your warrants.”
“I’m sure Peter can arrange that, Mickey,” the Mayor said. “Can’t you, Peter?”
“Yes, sir,” Wohl said as he took the press release from his father and started to read it.
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you could find Staff Inspector Weisbach at Peter’s office in the morning,” the Mayor said.
“I got to go find a phone,” O’Hara said.
“Matt,” Carlucci said to Chief Lowenstein, “are you having problems with Commissioner Czernich’s reorganization plan?”
“‘ Commissioner Czernich’s reorganization plan’?” Lowenstein quoted mockingly. “Hell no, Jerry. I know where the Commissioner gets his ideas, and I wouldn’t dream of questioning his little inspirations.”
Chief Wohl chuckled.
“But I would like to know what the hell’s going on,” Lowenstein added.
“Well, apparently the Commissioner thought that since Allgood decided to retire, Internal Affairs needed some reorganization.”
“Why?” Lowenstein pursued.
“To put a point on it, Matt, because it wasn’t doing the job it’s supposed to do.”
“You got something specific?”
“Yeah, I got something specific,” Carlucci said unpleasantly. “That surveillance Peter has been running, that tape I got this morning, because Payne climbed out on a ledge and put the microphone back? It recorded a conversation between Lieutenant Seymour Meyer of Central Police Division’s Vice Squad-your friend, Matt-and Paulo Cassandro. You know who Paulo Cassandro is, right?”
“Take it easy, Jerry,” Chief Wohl said.
“I know who Paulo Cassandro is,” Lowenstein said softly.
“What they were talking about, Matt, was that Meyer and his good buddy, Captain Vito Cazerra-you know Cazerra, don’t you, Matt? He commands the Sixth District?”
Lowenstein didn’t reply.
“I asked you if you know Captain Cazerra,” the Mayor said nastily.
“Yeah. I know him,” Lowenstein said.
“As I was saying, we now have a tape of Meyer telling Cassandro that he and Cazerra don’t think they’re getting a big enough payoff from the mob for letting a Polack whore from Hazleton named Harriet Osadchy run a call-girl operation in our better hotels. You know Harriet Osadchy, Matt?”
“No, I don’t know her,” Lowenstein said.
“We also have what must be a couple of miles of tape of your friend Meyer in the sack with a half-dozen of Harriet Osadchy’s whores.”
“Jesus!” Lowenstein said.
“Now, I know and you know and Commissioner Czernich knows how hard it is to catch somebody actually taking money. But the Commissioner was very disappointed to learn that Internal Affairs didn’t take a close look at Meyer even after they got an anonymous call about the sonofabitch screwing Osadchy’s whores in every hotel in Center City.”
“They get all kinds of anonymous-”
“Goddamn it, Matt,” Carlucci flared, “don’t you start to make excuses.”
“-calls,” Lowenstein went on, undaunted. “A lot of them from disgruntled people just trying to make trouble.”
“Yeah, well, this disgruntled person-Peter thinks he’s a retired cop working as hotel security-was so disgruntled that after he called Internal Affairs twice and nothing happened, he wrote me a letter.”
“And you put your own private detective bureau to work on it,” Lowenstein said bitterly.
“My own detective bureau?” Carlucci replied icily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lowenstein. But if you have a problem with Commissioner Czernich asking Special Operations to look into something I gave him that neither your detective bureau nor Internal Affairs seem to even have heard about, why don’t you ask for an appointment with the Commissioner and discuss it with him?”
There was a tense moment when it looked as if Chief Lowenstein, who had locked eyes with the Mayor, was going to reply.
“Jerry, what’s the relationship between EAU and Special Operations-I guess I mean between Peter and Weisbach-going to be under this reorganization?” Chief Wohl asked.
Did he ask that to change the subject to something safer? Peter Wohl wondered. Or does he see it as a threat to my career?
The question clearly distracted Mayor Carlucci. He glanced at Chief Wohl in confusion.
“Just a minute, Augie,” Carlucci said, turning back to lock eyes with Lowenstein again.
“Lowenstein and I were talking about the Commissioner,” he went on. “The Commissioner and I were discussing the Overnights this morning. When he can find the time, he brings them by my office, to keep me abreast of things.”
It was common knowledge that at whatever time in the morning the Mayor of Philadelphia arrived at his office, he could expect to find the Police Commissioner of Philadelphia waiting for him in his outer office. The Police Commissioner’s own day began when the Mayor was through with him.
“And the Commissioner had an idea. You saw the Overnights this morning, Chief Lowenstein?”
Lowenstein nodded.
“Excuse me? I didn’t hear you, Chief.”
“Yes, sir, I saw the Overnights,” Lowenstein said.
“The double murder in the Inferno Lounge on Market Street? Did that catch your eye?”
“I was at the scene.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. Then you know that Detective Payne was the first police officer on the scene?”
“I saw that.”
“Well, the Commissioner saw it too, and he asked me, what did I think of asking Peter, when he could spare him, of course, to send Payne over to Homicide to help Detective Milham on the investigation. Milham has the job, right? Your detective who can’t keep his pecker in his pocket?”
“Detective Milham has the job,” Lowenstein said, flat-voiced.
“Yeah, right. Well, the Commissioner said that maybe if Peter sent Payne over there, Payne might learn something about how a Homicide investigation is conducted. And he’s a bright kid, he might learn some other things, too. About other investigations Homicide is running, for example. Things that would be of interest to Peter and Weisbach in carrying out their new responsibilities.”
“You realize the hell of a spot you’d be putting the kid in, Jerry, sending him into Homicide that way? There’d be a lot of resentment,” Chief Wohl said.
“Augie, I’m sure the Commissioner has considered that,” the Mayor replied. “So anyway, I told the Commissioner that he’s the Police Commissioner, he can run the Department any way he pleases, do what he wants. If the Commissioner does decide to ask Inspector Wohl to send Detective Payne over there, are you going to have any problem with that, Chief Lowenstein?”
Lowenstein now had his temper and voice under control.
“I have no problem, Mr. Mayor, with any decision of Commissioner Czernich,” he said.
“Good,” the Mayor said. “What do they call that? ‘Cheerful, willing obedience’?” He turned to Chief Wohl. “You were asking, Augie, what Peter’s relationship with the Ethical Affairs Unit is going to be?”
“That press release wasn’t very clear about that.”
“I thought it was perfectly clear. Peter and Weisbach have worked together before, and I can’t imagine they’ll have any problems.”
Oh, shit! Peter thought. What that means is that I’ll be in the worst possible position. I’ll have the responsibility, but no authority.
“I thought I taught you years ago, Jerry,” Chief Wohl said, as if he had been reading his son’s mind, “that the worst thing you can do to a supervisor is give him responsibility without the necessary authority.”
The Mayor’s face suggested he didn’t like to be reminded that anyone had ever taught him anything.
“Maybe you’re right, Augie,” Carlucci said. “Maybe that wasn’t clear. I thought it was. Ethical Affairs Unit is under Special Operations. Weisbach reports directly to me, but he works for Peter. You understand that, Peter?”
“Yes, sir.”
Carlucci looked around the room.
“Ah, there’s Angie,” he said. “I better go join her. She doesn’t like it when I stay away too long.”
He walked away from them.
“Jesus Christ!” Chief Lowenstein said when he was out of earshot.
“My sentiments exactly, Chief,” Peter Wohl said.
“That crap about sending Payne to Homicide was a last-minute inspiration of his,” Lowenstein said.
“That was to remind you who runs the Department,” Chief Wohl said. “He thought maybe you’d forgotten.”
“I know who runs the Department,” Lowenstein said.
“You shouldn’t have argued with him,” Chief Wohl said. “First about Seymour Meyer, and then about Wally Milham. He knows that Meyer is dirty, and thinks Milham is. And he’s never wrong, especially when he’s hot under the collar. You know that, Matt.”
“Christ,” Lowenstein said.
“That’s what the whole business of sending Payne to Homicide is all about,” Chief Wohl went on. “He couldn’t think of anything, right then, that would piss you off more, and remind you who runs the Department.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the stocky man in a dinner jacket said with a smile, as he saw two young formally dressed couples coming down the second-floor corridor of the Peebles mansion, “this part of the house has been closed off for the evening.”
“It’s all right,” Matt Payne replied, “I’m a police officer, checking on the firearms collection.”
The reply was clearly not expected by the stocky man.
“I’ll have to see some identification, please,” he said.
“Certainly,” Matt said, showing his badge. “You’re Wachenhut?”
Daffy (Mrs. Chadwick T.) Nesbitt IV giggled.
“Pinkerton,” the stocky man said, stepping out of the way.
“Thank you,” Matt said, putting his badge holder away and reclaiming the hand of Miss Penelope Detweiler. He led her and the Nesbitts almost to the end of the long corridor, and then opened a door to the right.
“You could fight a war with the guns in here,” Matt said as he switched on the lights and signaled for Penny to walk in.
“Jesus,” Chad said. “Look at them!”
“That was disgusting,” Penny said.
“What was disgusting, love of my life?” Matt asked. There was a strain in his voice.
“We’re not supposed to be in here,” Penny said.
“Look,” he said. “Chad wanted to see the guns. If we had gone to Martha-if we had been able to find Martha in that mob downstairs-and asked her if we could look at the guns, she would have said ‘sure,’ and we would have come up here, and the Pinkerton guy wouldn’t have let us in without written authorization, whereupon I would have showed him my badge. OK?”
“You think that damned badge makes you something special,” Penny said.
“Penny, sometimes you’re a pain in the ass,” Matt said.
“Hey!” Daffy said. “Stop it, you two!”
“The cabinets are locked,” Chad said in disappointment.
“They lock up the crown jewels of England, too,” Matt said. “Something about them being valuable.”
“Are these things valuable?” Penny asked.
“Some of the antiques are really worth money,” Matt said. “Museum stuff.”
“But what did he do with all of them?” Penny asked.
“Looked at them,” Matt said. “Just…took pleasure in having them.”
“What the hell is this?” Chad asked, looking down into a glass-topped, felt-lined display case. “It looks like a sniper rifle, without a scope.”
Matt went and looked.
“That one I know,” he said. “The Great White Hunter showed me that one himself. It’s a. 30 caliber-note that I did not say. 30-06-Springfield, Model of 1900. When Roosevelt, the first Roosevelt, came back from Cuba and got himself elected President-”
“What in the world are you talking about?” Penny demanded.
“Turn your mouth off automatic, all right? I’m talking to Chad.”
“Screw you!”
“Before I was so rudely interrupted, Chad: When Roosevelt made the Ordnance Corps pay Mauser for a license to manufacture bolt actions based on the Spanish 7mm they used in Cuba, the Springfield Arsenal made a trial run. Twenty rifles, I think he said. One of them they gave to Roosevelt, who was then President. That’s it. Christ only knows how much it’s worth. Martha’s father told me it took him three years to talk Roosevelt’s daughter into selling it to him once he found out she had it.”
“Are we finished here?” Penny asked.
“Penny!” Daffy said.
“We are not finished here, love of my life,” Matt said, not at all pleasantly. “You may be, but I have just begun to give Chad the tour.”
“I want to go back downstairs. I’m bored up here.”
“And I’m bored down there.”
“You didn’t seem to be bored when you were sucking up to the Mayor.”
“Have a nice time downstairs, Penelope,” Matt said. “Don’t let the doorknob hit you in the ass on your way out.”
Penny extended her right hand, with the center finger in an extended upward position, the others folded, and walked out of the arms room.
“You’re right, Matthew my boy,” Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV said. “On occasion, and this is obviously one of them, our beloved Penny can be a flaming pain in the ass.”
“I suspect it may be that time of the month,” Matt said.
Chad laughed.
“The both of you are disgusting!” Daffy said. “I’m going with Penny.”
“Mind what Matt said about the doorknob, darling,” Chad said.
“You bastard!” Mrs. Nesbitt said, and marched out.
“I am tempted,” Matt said, “to repeat the old saw that there would be a bounty on them, if they didn’t have-”
“Don’t!” Chad interrupted, laughing. “I’m too tired to have to fight to defend the honor of the mother-to-be of my children.”
Ten minutes later, as Matt, having successfully gotten through the lock on one of the pistol cabinets, was showing Chad a mint-condition, low-serial-numbered Colt Model 1911 self-loader, Inspector Peter Wohl came into the gun room, trailed by Mrs. C. T. Nesbitt IV and Miss Penelope Detweiler.
“My God, she called the cops!” Matt said, the wit of which remark getting through only to Mr. Nesbitt.
“I asked Penny if she knew where you were,” Wohl said. “Got a minute, Matt?”
“Yes, sir. Sure. You know Chad, don’t you?”
“Hello, Nesbitt. How are you?”
“Inspector.”
“Could you give us a minute?”
“Certainly,” Chad said. “I’ll be outside.”
Wohl waited until they had gone and had closed the door behind them.
“You ever see one of these?” Matt asked, holding the Model 1911 out to Wohl.
“I just heard about you climbing out on the ledge at the Bellvue, you damned fool,” Wohl said.
After a just-perceptible hesitation, Matt asked, “Who told you? Harris?”
“Actually, it was the Mayor. Harris told the Mayor and the Mayor told me.”
“The Mayor?”
“The Mayor thinks it makes you a cop with great big balls,” Wohl said. “I wanted to make sure you understand that in my book it makes you a goddamned fool.”
Matt didn’t reply for a moment.
“Inspector-”
“Just when I start to think that maybe you’ve started to grow up, you do something like that. Jesus H. Christ, Matt!”
“Are you willing to listen to me telling you that ledge was eighteen inches wide?”
“Be in my office at quarter to seven in the morning,” Wohl said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You and Staff Inspector Mike Weisbach are going to serve a warrant of arrest on Lieutenant Seymour Meyer.”
“We are? All of a sudden? What happened? Who’s Weisbach?”
“This is in the nature of a reward,” Wohl said. “I have been ordered by the Mayor to let you in on the arrest. He thinks your goddamned fool stunt on the ledge entitles you, because at two A.M., Paulo Cassandro and Meyer had an angry discussion, during which they mentioned names and specific sums and Meyer’s oral sexual proclivities, all of which were recorded by the microphone you put back in place.”
“No crap? We got ’em?”
“If it was up to me, tomorrow morning you’d be back on recovered stolen automobiles.”
“Ah, come on, Inspector!”
“If you had fallen off that ledge, Supercop, or if you had been seen up there, all the time and money and effort we spent trying to get Meyer would have gone down the toilet. The conversation we got, or one just as incriminating, would have been repeated in a day or two. Don’t you start patting yourself on the back. You acted like a goddamned fool, not like a detective with enough sense to find his ass with both hands.”
He locked eyes with Matt until Matt gave in and shrugged his shoulders in chagrin.
“Quarter to seven, Detective Payne,” Wohl said. “Have a nice night.”
He walked out of the gun room.
Matt replaced the Colt Model 1911 in its cabinet, and was trying to put the cabinet lock back in place when Chad, Penny, and Daffy came back in the room.
“You are forgiven, Penelope,” Matt said. “Out of the goodness of my heart. It will not be necessary for you to grovel in tears at my feet.”
“What was that business about a ledge at the Bellvue?” Penny asked.
“Does he often call you a goddamned fool?” Chad inquired.
“No comment,” Matt said, chuckling, trying desperately but not quite succeeding in making a joke of it.
“What was that all about?”
“He wants to see me at quarter to seven in his office, that’s all.”
“That’s not what it sounded like, buddy.” Chad chuckled.
“Tomorrow we’re going to play golf!” Penny said. “Tomorrow’s your day off. With Tom and Ginny.”
“Tomorrow, like the man said, I will be in Wohl’s office at quarter to seven. We’ll just have to make our excuses to Tom and Ginny. Are they here?”
“We are going to be at Merion at nine,” Penny said flatly.
“Chad, how do you feel about an early round?” Matt asked.
“Matt, I mean it!” Penny said.
“Or what, Penny? This is out of my control. I’m sorry, but I’m a cop.”
“ You’re sorry? Your precious Inspector Wohl is not the only one who thinks you’re a goddamned fool!” Penny said.
“Would you like the goddamned fool to take you home, Penny? I’ve had about all of you I can stand for one night.”
“I’ll get home by myself, thank you very much,” Penny said.
“Oh, come on, you two,” Daffy said.
“Come on, hell!” Penny said, and walked out of the gun room.
“You better go after her, Matt,” Daffy said.
“Why? To get more of the same crap she’s been giving me all night?”
“She’s really angry with you, Matt.”
“Frankly, my dear,” Matt said, in decent mimicry of Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind, “I don’t give a damn.”