The Murderers

SEVENTEEN

Matt Payne rolled over in bed, grabbed the telephone on the bedside table, and snarled, “Hello.”

“Good morning,” Amanda Spencer said, a chuckle in her voice. “Somehow I thought you’d be in a better mood than you sound like.”

Still half asleep, Matt turned and looked in confusion at where he expected Amanda to be, lying beside him. He was obviously alone in his bed.

“Where are you?”

“Thirtieth Street Station,” she said.

“Why?”

“You have to come here to get on a train.”

“Jesus H. Christ!”

“I have a job, Matt.”

“Call in and tell them you were run over by a truck.”

“It was something like that, wasn’t it? How do you feel this morning?”

“Right now, desolate.”

She chuckled again.

“Don’t call me, Matt. I’ll call you.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“This is what I think they call the cold, cruel light of day,” Amanda said. “I need some time to think.”

“Second thoughts, you mean? Morning-after regrets?”

“I said I need some time to think. But no regrets.”

“Me either,” he said.

He was now fully awake. He picked his watch up from the bedside table. It was ten past eight.

“You could have said something,” he said, somewhat petulantly.

“I’m saying it now,” Amanda said. “I have a job, I have to go to work, and I need some time to think.”

“Damn!”

“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t really want to leave. But it was the sensible thing to do.”

“Screw sensible.”

“Have you got any morning-after regrets?”

“I’m still in shock, but no regrets.”

“We both got a little carried away last night.”

“Anything wrong with that?”

“That’s what I want to think about,” Amanda said. “I’ll call you, Matt. Don’t call me.”

The phone went dead in his ear.

“Damn!”

“Push the damned button, Matt,” Inspector Peter Wohl said into the microphone beside Detective Payne’s doorbell. “The Wachenhut guy told me he knows you’re up there.”

A moment later the solenoid buzzed, and Wohl pushed the door open and started up the narrow flight of stairs.

“I didn’t know who it was,” Matt said from the head of the stairs. He was wearing khaki trousers, a gray, battered University of Pennsylvania sweatshirt, and was obviously fresh from the shower.

He looks more than a little sleepy, Peter thought. Probably still feeling the pill Amy gave him.

“How are you doing?”

“I was just about to go out and get some breakfast.”

“Not necessary,” Wohl said, handing him a large kraft paper bag. “Never let it be said that I do not take care of my underlings.”

Matt sniffed it.

“Smells great. What is it?”

“Western omelet, bagels, orange juice, and coffee.”

“Thank you, Peter,” Matt said.

“I expected to find you still in bed,” Wohl said.

“Huh?”

“Amy said that the pill she gave you…” Wohl stopped. He had followed Matt into the kitchen and seen the stack of Forms 75–49. “What’s this?”

“75-49s on the Inferno job,” Matt said. “Milham told me to read them.”

“When did you see Milham?”

“Last night. Early this morning. I went over there-”

“You didn’t take Amy’s pill?” Wohl asked, but it was a statement rather than a question.

“No, I didn’t,” Matt confessed. “I had a couple of drinks here, decided going to the FOP was a good idea, started out for there, changed my mind, and went to Homicide.”

“Why?” Wohl asked, a tone of exasperation in his voice.

“At the time it seemed like a good idea,” Matt said.

Wohl reached into his jacket pocket and came out with an interoffice memorandum. He handed it to Matt.

“One of the reasons I came here was to show you this. I guess you’ve seen it.”

Matt glanced at it.

“Yeah. Milham had a copy.”

“Lowenstein sent me one,” Wohl said, taking the memorandum back and then crumpling it in his fist. He looked around, remembered the garbage can was under the sink, and went to it and dropped the memorandum in it.

“For some reason, I’m not sore at you,” Wohl said. “I think I should be.”

“I didn’t want that damned pill,” Matt said.

“That, I understand. But you shouldn’t have gone to Homicide until I sent you.”

“Sorry,” Matt said.

“Oh, hell, I’d have probably done the same thing myself,” Wohl said. “Unwrap the omelets.”

“Lieutenant Natali was very nice to me,” Matt said.

“Natali’s a nice fellow,” Wohl said. “Where’s your cups? I hate coffee in a paper cup.”

“In the cabinet.”

“Are you really all right? Amy thinks you’re still in what she calls a condition called ‘grief shock.’”

“Amy’s a nice girl,” Matt said, gently mocking. “But what I’m in is a condition called ‘Oh, what a sonofabitch you are, Matt Payne.’”

“I told you, what Penny did to herself wasn’t your fault.”

“Somebody came to see me last night,” Matt said. “To comfort me in my condition of grief shock.”

“Somebody, I gather from the tone of your voice, female. And?”

“She comforted me,” Matt said.

Wohl looked at him to make sure he had correctly interpreted what he had said.

“Who?”

“I don’t think I want to tell you.”

“Nice kind of girl, or the other?”

“Very nice kind of girl.”

“Good for you,” Wohl said. “But I don’t think I’d tell Amy.”

“I’ve been trying to wallow in guilt, but I don’t seem to be able to.”

“What’s in it for the girl?”

“I just think she was being nice. Maybe a little more.”

“The one from New York? Amanda, something like that?”

“Jesus Christ!”

“I saw her looking at you at Martha Peebles’s.”

“I didn’t see her at Martha Peebles’s.”

“I repeat, good for you, Matt. Don’t wallow in guilt.”

The door buzzer sounded.

Matt looked surprised.

“Detective McFadden, I’ll bet,” Wohl said. “Here to comfort you in your condition of grief shock, with firm orders to keep you off the sauce.”

“You really do take care of me, don’t you?” Matt asked.

“Somebody has to, or the first thing you know, you’re crawling around on a ledge like an orangutan.”

“Thank you, Peter,” Matt said, pushing the button to open the door, and walked to the head of the stairs.

It was, instead of Detective McFadden, Detective Milham.

“You’re up, I hope?” Milham asked. “I know I said ten…”

“Having breakfast. Come on up.”

“I’ve got somebody with me. Is that all right?”

“Sure.”

Milham took a step backward and a woman Matt had never seen before, but who he intuited was the Widow Kellog, appeared in the doorway and started up the stairs.

“I know we’re intruding,” she said as she reached Matt.

“Not at all.”

“I’m Helene Kellog,” she said.

“Matt Payne,” Matt said. “How do you do? Come on in.”

He led her to the kitchen.

“Mrs. Kellog, this is Inspector Wohl.”

“Oh, God,” Helene said.

“How do you do, Mrs. Kellog?” Wohl said politely, standing up.

Milham appeared.

It’s a toss-up, Matt thought, which of them looks unhappier at finding Wohl up here.

“Hello, Wally,” Wohl said. “How are you?”

“Wally, we should leave,” Helene said.

“Not on my account, I hope,” Wohl said.

“Inspector-” Milham began, and then stopped. Wohl looked at him curiously. “Inspector, Mrs. Kellog got a death threat last night.”

“Damn you, Wally,” Helene said.

“Did you really?” Wohl asked. “Please sit down, Mrs. Kellog. Let me get you a cup of coffee.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but…”

“Helene, honey, we just can’t pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Please, sit down,” Wohl repeated.

She reluctantly did so.

“Mrs. Kellog, you’re with friends,” Wohl said.

The door buzzer sounded again. Helene glanced toward the stairway with fright in her eyes.

“That has to be McFadden,” Wohl said. “You want to let him in, Matt?”

It was McFadden, laden with a kraft paper bag.

“I stopped by McDonald’s and got some Egg Mc-Muffins,” he said, handing Matt the bag as he reached the top of the stairs. “I thought maybe you hadn’t eaten.”

“I really want to go,” Helene said, getting up from the table.

“Who’s that?” McFadden asked.

“Charley, this is Mrs. Helene Ke1log,” Wohl said. “Mrs. Kellog, this is Detective McFadden.”

“Please, Wally,” Helene said.

“I’m going to have to be firm about this,” Wohl said. “If you’ve had a death threat, I want to know about it. If you won’t tell me about it, Mrs. Kellog, Wally will have to.”

“I knew we shouldn’t have come here,” Helene said, but, with resignation, she sat back down.

“At least we have enough food,” Wohl said. “Have you had any breakfast, Mrs. Kellog?”

“No,” she said softly.

“Have an Egg McMuffin and a cup of coffee,” Wohl said. “Wally will tell me what’s happened, and then you can fill in any blanks.”

Milham looked as if he was torn between regret that he had to tell Wohl and relief.

“Helene called me at the Roundhouse last night,” he said. “She told me there had been a telephone call.”

“Where was she?”

“At my mother’s,” Helene said. “I mean, I got the call at my mother’s. I called Wally from the Red Robin Diner.”

“And what exactly did your caller say?”

“He told me that unless I kept my mouth shut, I’d get the same thing that happened to Jerry,” Helene said.

“In just about those exact words?”

“He used dirty words,” she said.

“You didn’t happen to recognize the voice?” Wohl asked. She shook her head.

“I can certainly understand why you’re upset,” Wohl said.

“Upset? I’m scared to death. Not only for me. I’m afraid for my mother and father.”

“Well, I was about to say, you’re safe now. We’re friends, Mrs. Kellog. You think this call came from somebody on the Narcotics Five Squad?”

“Of course it did,” Helene snapped. “Who else? What I’d like to know…”

Wohl waited a moment for her to continue, and when she did not, he asked, gently: “What would you like to know?”

“Nothing, forget it.”

“She’d like to know how that damned Five Squad heard she’d talked to Washington,” Wally Milham said. “And so would I.”

“And so would I,” Wohl said. “We’ll find out. And until we do, until we get to the bottom of this, you won’t be alone, Mrs. Kellog. You’re living with your mother for the time being?”

“I was. Not now. I don’t want them involved in this.”

“So where will you be staying?”

“Helene stayed in a motel last night,” Milham said.

“That can get kind of expensive,” Wohl thought aloud. “Isn’t there some place you can stay?”

Helene and Wally looked at each other helplessly. “She could stay here,” Matt heard himself say. The others looked at him in what was more confusion than surprise. “My mother’s been on my back for me to stay with her for a couple of days.”

“I couldn’t do that,’ Helene said.

“I know it’s not much,” Matt said. “But if anybody was looking for you, they wouldn’t look for you here. And there’s a rent-a-cop downstairs twenty-four hours a day. And it’s just going to sit here, empty.”

“Jesus, Payne,” Milham said. “That’s very nice of you, but…”

“Why not?” Matt said. “I mean, really, why not?”

“I told you you were among friends, Mrs. Kellog,” Wohl said. “I think it’s a good idea.”

“I just don’t know,” she said, and started to sniffle.

“I think you should, honey,” Milham said.

“OK. It’s settled,” Matt said.

“Thank you very much,” Helene said, formally. “Just for a few days.”

“Wally, you take her to get her things, and then come back here,” Wohl ordered.

“Right,” Milham said, and then, quickly, as if he was afraid she would change her mind, “Come on, honey. Let’s go.”

“If I’m not here when you get back, I’ll leave a key with the rent-a-cop,” Matt said.

Helene looked at him.

“Wally was right,” she said. “He said you were a very nice guy.”

When they had gone down the stairs, and heard the door close after them, Wohl said, “That was nice of you, Matt.”

“Christ, they can’t afford living in a motel,” Matt said.

“And won’t your mother be pleasantly surprised to have you at home?” Wohl asked drolly. He stood up and went to the telephone and dialed a number.

“Inspector Wohl for the Chief,” he said a moment later, and then: “Chief, I promised to let you know if anything interesting happened. The Widow Kellog got a death threat-specifically, ‘Keep your mouth shut, or you’ll get the same thing as your husband,’ or words to that effect embroidered with obscenity-last night.”

The outraged, familiar voice of Chief Inspector Lowenstein could be heard all over the kitchen: “I’ll be goddamned! Where is she?”

“With Detective Milham. He took her to fetch some clothing. Matt Payne offered her his apartment to stay in.”

“That really burns me up,” Lowenstein said, unnecessarily adding, “what happened to her. That was nice of Payne. What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going, first of all, to have someone sit on her. Discreetly.”

“Your people?”

“My people, and since we’re going to have to do this around the clock, I’d like to borrow one of yours for as long as this lasts.”

“Who?”

“McFadden. He was here, at Payne’s apartment, when this came up.”

“Northwest Detectives? That McFadden? The one who took down Dutch Moffitt’s murderer?”

“That McFadden.”

“OK. He’s yours. I’ll call Northwest Detectives.”

“Thank you. And then I’m going to give this to Weisbach and Washington. What I would like to know is who told Narcotics Five Squad that she’d talked to Washington.”

“You don’t know for sure that they know that,” Lowenstein said.

“No. But it strikes me as highly probable.”

Lowenstein grunted, and then said: “Peter, if you need anything else, let me know. Keep me posted. And thank you for the call.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

He hung up the telephone, then leaned against the wall.

“It’s time, I think,” he said thoughtfully, “that we practice a little psychology. That woman is frightened. I think she knows more about what’s going on dirty with that Five Squad than she’s told anybody, including Milham, and right now, he’s the only cop she really trusts. She trusts Matt a little, because Milham likes him, and because he offered the apartment. And she thinks that Washington is straight, otherwise she would never have gone to him. So we’ll try to build a little trust by association.”

He turned back to the telephone and dialed a number.

“Jason, is Weisbach there?” he asked, and when the reply was that he wasn’t, added: “Put out the arm for him, please, and ask him to meet me at Payne’s apartment right away. I want you here, too, Jason. Right away.”

They could not hear what Washington replied.

“The Widow Kellog got a death threat telephone call this morning, telling her to keep her mouth shut or get the same thing that happened to her husband. Matt offered his apartment as a place for her to stay. Milham just took her to pick up some clothes. When they come back here, I want her to feel she’s surrounded by cops she can trust.”

And again, Washington made a reply they couldn’t hear.

“Oh, sure, we’re going to sit on her. I’m taking that threat very seriously. Be prepared, when you get here, to assign, in her hearing, everybody but Tiny a duty schedule to sit on her. I borrowed McFadden from Lowenstein. If you can find Martinez and Tiny, I’d like them here, too. Once she sees that she’s surrounded by cops, I want to leave her alone with you and Weisbach. Maybe you can get her to talk now.”

Washington made another inaudible reply, to which Wohl responded, “Yeah.”

Then: “Jason, switch me to Captain Pekach, will you?”

“David? Are you in uniform?”

Now Matt and Charley McFadden could hear Pekach’s reply: “Yes, I am.”

“OK. Good. I want you, in a Highway car, to be parked on the sidewalk in front of Matt Payne’s apartment in twenty minutes. You come up. And I think it would be a good idea to have another Highway car parked with you. Tell them to get out of the car and be standing conspicuously on the sidewalk. I’ll explain it all to you when you get here.”

He hung up and turned to face Matt and McFadden again.

“In her presence, I will order the Commanding Officer of Highway to have a Highway car pass her parents’ home not less than once each half hour,” he said. “and to check on any car, or person, who looks halfway suspicious.”

“You’re really taking that threat seriously, aren’t you’?” Matt asked.

“Somebody shot her husband,” Wohl said. “If they’re willing to do that once…”

“If somebody is watching her parents’ house, they’ll probably make the Highway drive-bys.”

“Good, let’s make them nervous,” Wohl said. He paused, almost visibly having another thought. “If I was wondering what Mrs. Kellog told Washington, I think I’d also be worrying what she told Milham. So I think you’d better stick with him, Matt, instead of sitting on her.”

“OK.”

“I think it would also make her feel better to know he’s not walking around alone. Question: Should Milham be here when she talks to Washington or not?”

“She seems to listen to him,” McFadden said.

“Yeah,” Matt said.

“OK. So you pack your bag, Matt, and be ready to get out when I tell you. Take McFadden with you. Go to Homicide and let him read the 75-49s on Kellog. I’ll call Quaire and fix it with him. If anything has come up that looks like it has a connection with this, call me.”

“Right.”

When Matt returned to the kitchen after getting dressed, and carrying a small suitcase into which he had put his toilet kit and a spare pair of shoes, Charley McFadden was at the kitchen table, reading the 75-49s on the Inferno job. Wohl was in the living room, studiously writing in his notebook.

“Interesting,” Charley said. “I’ve never seen Homicide 75-49s before.”

“That’s because God doesn’t love you,” Matt said piously.

McFadden looked at him curiously.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Fine,” Matt said, cheerfully and immediately, and then, chagrined, remembered he was supposed to be grief-stricken.

“Yeah?” Charley asked suspiciously. “Are you on something? Wohl…” He quickly corrected himself, remembering that Inspector Wohl was ten feet away: “…Inspector Wohl said your sister gave you a pill.”

Matt didn’t want to get into the subject of the pill, and he didn’t want to lie to McFadden. He avoided a direct reply.

“I’m OK, Charley.” he said, and leaned over McFadden’s shoulder hoping he could find something in the 75-49s that would allow him to change the subject.

He found something, on the page Charley was just about to turn facedown.

“Bingo!”

McFadden looked up at him.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Look here,” Matt said, and pointed toward the bottom of the page. “We had a tip that the doer was somebody named Frankie. Milham and I, starting from zilch, were out looking for him early this morning. We think we found him, on 2320 South Eighteenth Street. And here’s a Frankie who was in the Inferno, and there’s a description.”

“I know that neighborhood,” McFadden said, and then was interrupted when the door buzzer sounded.

“This is Captain Pekach,” a metallic voice announced.

“Push the button, Charley,” Matt said. “I’ll stack this stuff together.”

He read again the page Charley had been reading:

“Well, what do we do now? Go back to your place?” Detective McFadden inquired of Detective Payne as they came out of the Detective Bureau in the Roundhouse and waited for the elevator.

There had been nothing in the 75-49s on the Kellog job that Matt thought Wohl would be interested in, and nothing much new on the Inferno job that Matt found in Milham’s box.

“I don’t think so,” Matt said. “I think he’ll get on the radio when whatever is going to happen at the apartment has happened.”

“So where shall we go in that spanking-new unmarked car? You all have cars like that’?”

“God loves us.”

“Knock that shit off, will you, Matt? It’s blasphemous.”

“Sorry,” Matt said, meaning it. He had trouble remembering that Charley was almost, if not quite, as devoutly Roman Catholic as Mother Moffitt, his grandmother, and took sincere offense at what he had not thought of as anything approaching blasphemy.

“What are you going to do about that name you picked up on in the 75–49?”

“Frankie, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Wait for Milham, I guess.”

“That’s my neighborhood, Matt. And I think I know a guy who could probably give us a good line on him. Or are you afraid of spooking him?”

Matt remembered what Milham had said when they had come out of the bar after Milham had told the bartender he was Frankie’s cousin from Conshohocken, that he hoped the bartender would tell Frankie a cop had been looking for him, that it would make Frankie nervous.

“No. I get the feeling that Milham would like it if Frankie got a little nervous.”

“OK. Let’s do that.”

“Who are we going to see?”

“Sonny Boyle, we went to St. Monica’s at Sixteenth and Porter.”

Timothy Francis “Sonny” Boyle, who was twenty-seven years of age, weighed 195 pounds, and stood six feet one inch tall, had not known for the past year or so what to think about Charles Thomas McFadden.

Sonny had decided early on that the world was populated by two kinds of people: those that had to work hard for a living because they weren’t too smart, and a small group of the other kind, who didn’t have to work hard because they used their heads.

He had been in maybe the second year at Bishop Neuman High School when he had decided he was a member of the small group of the other kind, the kind who lived well by their wits, figuring out the system, and putting it to work for them.

He had known Charley since the second grade at St. Monica’s, and liked him, really liked him. But that hadn’t stopped him from concluding that Charley was just one more none-too-bright Irish Catholic guy from South Philly who would spend his life doing what other people told him to do, and doing it for peanuts.

He had not been surprised when Charley had gone on the cops. For people like Charley, it was either going into the service, or going on the cops, or becoming a fireman, or maybe in Charley’s case, since his father worked in the sewers, getting on with U.G.I., the gas company.

Charley, Sonny had decided when he had heard that Charley had gone on the cops, would spend his life riding around in a prowl car, or standing in the middle of the street up to his ass in snow and carbon monoxide, directing traffic. With a little bit of luck, and the proper connections, he might make sergeant by the time he retired. And in the meantime, he would do what other people told him to do, and for peanuts.

Charley, Sonny had decided, wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to make a little extra money as a cop, and if he tried to be smart, he wouldn’t be smart enough and would get caught at it.

He had really been surprised to hear that Charley had become a detective. It took him a lot of thought to realize that what it probably was was dumb luck. As asshole named Gerry Gallagher had got himself hooked on drugs, desperately needed money, and had tried to stick up the Waikiki Diner on Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philly.

Tough luck for the both of them, the Commanding Officer of the Highway Patrol, a big mean sonofabitch named Captain “Dutch” Moffitt, had been having his dinner in the Waikiki. He tried to be a hero, and Gallagher was dumb enough to shoot him for trying. Killed him. With a little fucking. 22-caliber pistol.

Now the one thing you don’t want to do, ever, is shoot a cop, any cop. And Moffitt was a captain, and the Commanding Officer of Highway Patrol. There were eight-thousand-plus cops in Philadelphia, and every last fucking one of them had a hard-on for Gallagher.

If you were white and between sixteen and forty and looked anything like the description the cops put out on the radio, you could count on being stopped by a cop and asked could you prove you weren’t at the Waikiki Diner when the Highway Captain got himself shot.

Every cop in Philly was looking for Gallagher. Charley McFadden and his partner, a little Spic named Gonzales or Martinez or one of them Spic names like that, had caught him. They chased him down the subway tracks, near the Frankford-Pratt Station in Northeast Philly where the train is elevated. The dumb sonofabitch slipped and got himself cut in little pieces by a train that had come along at the wrong time.

Now the cops certainly knew, Sonny had reasoned at the time, that McFadden wasn’t Sherlock Holmes, and if he had found Gallagher it had to be dumb luck. That didn’t matter. Charley was a fucking hero. He was the cop who got the guy who shot Captain Dutch Moffitt. Got his picture in the newspapers with Mayor Carlucci and everything.

The next thing Sonny heard was that Charley was now a Highway Patrolman. Highway Patrolmen, everybody knew, were the sharp cops. They could find their asses with only one hand. What the hell, Sonny had reasoned, it was a payback. Even if Charley wasn’t too smart, he had done what he did, and Highway would make an exception for the guy who had caught the guy who shot the Highway commander.

The next thing Sonny heard about Charley after that was that he was now a detective. That was surprising. Sonny knew that you had to take a test to be a detective, and unless Charley had changed a whole hell of a lot since Bishop Neuman High School, taking tests was not his strong point.

Then Sonny figured that out, too. Charley hadn’t been able to cut it as a Highway Patrolman. You couldn’t be a dummy and be a Highway Patrolman, and Highway had probably found out about Charley in two or three days.

So what to do with him? Make him a detective. It sounded good, and despite what you saw on the TV and in the movies, all detectives weren’t out solving murders and catching big-money drug dealers. A lot of them did things that didn’t take too much brains, like looking for stolen cars, and checking pawnshops with a list of what had been heisted lately, things like that.

And then Sonny had heard that there were some Police Department big shots, chief inspectors and the like, who got to have a chauffeur for their cars and to answer their phones, and that sometimes these gofers were detectives.

That’s what Charley McFadden was probably doing, Sonny Boyle reasoned. It fit. The Police Department figured they owed him for catching Gallagher, and there was nothing wrong with being a detective, and he could be useful doing something, like driving some big shot around, that other cops would rather not do themselves.

All of this ran through Timothy Francis Boyle’s mind when he saw Charles Thomas McFadden walk into Lou’s Crab House at Eleventh and Moyaminsing.

What surprised him now was how Charley was dressed. He looked nice. Not as classy as the young guy with him-the other guy was not a cop; you don’t buy threads like he’s wearing on what they pay cops but nice. Nice jacket, nice white shirt, nice slacks, even a nice necktie.

And he was also surprised when McFadden headed for the booth where Sonny was waiting for his runners to bring the cash and numbers to him.

Did he just spot me? Or was he looking for me?

“Well, aren’t we in luck?” Charley McFadden said as he slid into the booth beside Sonny. “Timothy Francis Boyle himself, in the flesh!”

“How are you, Charley?” Sonny asked, and smilingly offered his hand. “Nice threads.”

“Thanks,” Charley said. “Sonny, say hello to my friend Matt Payne.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Sonny said. He gave the other guy his hand, and was surprised that he wasn’t able to give it a real squeeze the way he wanted to. This Payne guy was stronger than he looked like.

“How do you do, Mr. Boyle?” Matt said.

Main Line, Sonny decided. If he talks like that-like he keeps his teeth together when he talks-and dresses like that, he’s from some place like Merion or Bala Cynwyd. I wonder what the fuck he’s doing with McFadden.

“Long time no see,” Sonny said. “What brings you down this way?”

Charley put two fingers in his mouth, causing a shrill whistle which attracted the waitress’s attention. “Two coffees, darling,” he called out. “Put them on Sonny’s bill.”

“On my bill, my ass,” Sonny said.

“For old times’ sake, Sonny, right? Besides, I’ve told Matt you’re a successful businessman.”

“You did?”

“I told him you are one of the neighborhood’s most successful numbers runners and part-time bookies.”

“Jesus Christ, Charley, that’s not funny.”

“Don’t be bashful,” McFadden said. “He’s always been a little bashful, Matt.”

“Has he really?” Matt said.

“Yeah. What do you expect, with a name like Francis? That’s a girl’s name.”

“When its a girl, they spell it with an e,” Sonny said. “Damn it, you know that.” He looked at Matt Payne. “Charley and me go back a long ways. He’s always pulling my leg.”

Who the fuck is this guy? What the hell is this all about?

One of Sonny’s runners-Pat O’Hallihan, a bright, red-headed eighteen-year-old who worked hard, was honest, and for whom Sonny saw a bright future came into Lou’s Crab House, carrying a small canvas zipper bag with his morning’s receipts. He stopped when he saw that Sonny was not alone in the booth. Sonny made what he hoped was a discreet gesture telling him to cool it.

It was not discreet enough.

“Turn around, Matthew,” McFadden said. “The kid in the red hair? Three to five he’s one of Sonny’s runners.”

Matt turned and looked.

“Is he really?” he asked.

“Charley, you are not funny,” Sonny said.

“Who’s trying to be funny?” McFadden said. “I was just filling Detective Payne in on the local scumbags.”

“ Detective” Payne? Is he telling me this Main Line asshole in the three-hundred-fifty-dollar jacket and the fifty-dollar tie is a cop?

“You’re a cop?” Sonny’s mouth ran away with him.

“Show him your badge, Matthew,” McFadden said. “Sonny-I suppose in his line of work, it’s natural-don’t trust anybody.”

The Main Line asshole reached into the inside breast pocket of his three-hundred-fifty-dollar Harris tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows and came out with a small folder. He opened it and extended it to Sonny, which afforded Sonny the opportunity to see a Philadelphia Police Department detective’s badge and accompanying photo identification.

“You don’t look like a cop,” Sonny said.

“Don’t I really?” Matt asked.

“Detective Payne is with Special Operations,” Charley said. “You familiar with Special Operations, Sonny?”

“Sure.”

What the fuck is Special Operations? Oh, yeah. That new hotshot outfit. They’re over Highway Patrol.

“You know what Detective Payne said when I told him what line of work you’re in, Sonny?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Detective Payne said, Bookmaking and numbers running is a violation of the law. I think we should find your friend and throw his ass in jail.’ Isn’t that what you said, Matt?”

“Hmmmm,” Matt said thoughtfully. “Yes, that is essentially what I said.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No,” Matt said. “I was not speaking in jest.”

“I’m getting out of here,” Sonny said. “And just for the hell of it, wiseass, you can’t search me without a reason, and even if you did, you wouldn’t find a thing on me.”

“You’re not going anywhere, Sonny,” McFadden said, and his voice was no longer pleasant. “Until I tell you you can.”

“I’ll bet, Charles,” Matt said, “that if I was to show that young man with the red hair my badge, and ask if he would be kind enough to open his bag for me…” He interrupted himself, jumped to his feet, and walked quickly to the redhead.

“I want you to put that bag on that table,” he said, showing him his badge. “In sight. And I want you to sit in that booth with your hands flat on the table until I tell you to move. You understand me?”

The redhead followed Matt’s pointing, to the last booth in the line.

“Am I busted?” the redhead asked, very nervously.

“If you mean arrested,’ not yet. And perhaps that can be avoided. It depends on Mr. Boyle.”

He waited until the redhead had done what he had ordered him to do, then walked back to the booth and sat down.

“Excuse me, Detective McFadden,” he said politely. “Please continue.”

“So you bust him, so what?” Sonny said.

“I hope that won’t be necessary,” Matt said. “But in that unhappy happenstance, you would lose the morning’s receipts. That would provide sufficient justification, I would think, Mr. Boyle, for Special Operations to assign whatever police personnel proved to be necessary to save the innocent citizens of this area from gambling czars such as yourself. And I think there is a good possibility that after we have his mother and his parish priest talk to that young man in Central Lockup, he might be willing, to save his soul from eternal damnation, ninety days in prison, and the first entry on his criminal record, to tell us who had given him his present employment, and precisely where and with whom he plied his trade.”

“Speaking of which,” Charley McFadden said. “The minute the word gets out that the cops have your receipts, you’re going to have a lot of winners, Sonny. They’re not too smart, but they’re smart enough to know if they claim they won, you’re either going to have to have a receipt proving they didn’t, or pay off. That could be very expensive, Sonny.”

“Interesting thought, Detective McFadden,” Matt said.

“Thank you, Detective Payne”

Sonny, now visibly nervous, looked between Matt and Charley.

“OK, McFadden,” Sonny said. “What do you want?”

“Now that we have you in the right frame of mind, Mr. Boyle,” Matt said, “Detective McFadden wishes to probe your presumably extensive knowledge of Philadelphia’s criminal community.”

“Huh?”

“Tell us about Frankie Foley, Sonny,” Charley said.

Oh, shit! I didn’t even think about him. What the fuck has Foley done now? Christ, did he hit the Narcotics cop?

“Never heard of him,” Sonny said.

“Think hard,” Charley said. Sonny shrugged helplessly.

“Never heard of him, Charley,” Sonny said. “I swear to God!”

“You were apparently wrong, Charles,” Matt said. “Mr. Boyle will not be cooperative. Mr. Boyle, you are under arrest for violating the laws of the City of Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vis-a-vis gambling and participating in an organized gambling enterprise. You have the right to an attorney…”

“Jesus Christ, Charley!” Sonny said. “Now wait a minute.”

“Remember who he is now, Sonny?” Charley asked.

“…and if you cannot afford an attorney,” Matt went on, “one will be appointed for you.” He paused. “I don’t seem to have my handcuffs, Charles. Might I borrow yours?”

“Charley, can we talk? Private?” Sonny asked.

“I have other things on my agenda, Mr. Boyle. I don’t have time to waste on you,” Matt said.

“Matt, Sonny and I go back a long way,” Charley said. “Be a good guy. Give me a minute alone with him.”

Matt gave this some thought. He looked impatiently at his wristwatch.

“Very well,” Matt said. “I will have a word with his accomplice.”

He got up and walked to the booth where Pat O’Hallihan sat with his hands obediently on the table.

“I don’t like your friend, Charley,” Sonny said.

“I don’t think he likes you, either. Too bad for you. He’s a mean sonofabitch sometimes. You don’t know who he is?”

Sonny shook his head.

“He’s the guy who popped the Northwest Serial Rapist in the head. Blew his brains out.”

“No shit, that’s him?”

“That’s him.”

“Charley, you’re going to get me killed,” Sonny said. “I’m not shitting you.”

“How am I going to get you killed?”

“Frankie Foley’s a hit man for the mob. If he finds out I’ve been talking to you, I’m a dead man.”

“An Irish hit man for the mob? Come on, Sonny.”

“I’m telling you. He does hits they don’t want to do themselves.”

Sonny looked over at Pat O’Hallihan. Matt Payne had the zipper bag open and was searching through its contents.

“How do you know?” Charley asked.

“I know. I know. Trust me.”

“‘How do you know?’ I asked.”

“He…uh, Jesus, Charley, you’re going to get me killed.”

“Think about it, Sonny,” Charley said. “When the word gets out that two cops were in here asking you about Frankie Foley, and then hauled you off, Frankie’s going to think you told on him anyway.”

Sonny Boyle felt sick to his stomach.

“He’s come to me a couple times and told me he needed alibis. Usually right after somebody hit one of the Guineas.”

“Lately?”

“I ain’t seen him, I swear to God, in a month.”

“Where does he usually hang out?”

“Meagan’s Bar.”

“He’s in the deep shit now, Sonny.”

“You think he hit the narc?”

“You tell me, Sonny.”

“I ain’t heard nothing, Charley, I swear to God.”

“Payne wants to lock you up, Sonny. You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“Christ, I don’t know any more than I told you. And that’s enough to get me killed. Those Dagos don’t fuck around.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” Charley repeated.

“I can ask around,” Sonny said. “I hear things sometimes.”

“I’ll bet you do,” Charley said.

“I swear to God, if I hear anything, I’ll call you.”

“I believe you, Sonny,” Charley said. “But I don’t know about Payne. He wants this guy. He’ll do anything to get him.”

“You lock me up, all you get is what I already told you,” Sonny argued. “Let me ask around, Charley. It makes sense.”

Charley considered that for a moment.

“I’ll try, Sonny,” he said. “I don’t know…”

“Talk to him, Charley. I’ll make it worth your while.”

Charley shrugged and walked over to the booth where Matt was now counting thick, rubber-band-bound stacks of one-dollar bills.

Matt got up and walked with Charley to a corner of the room. Charley began to talk to him. Sonny did not think Payne looked at all happy with what Charley was saying.

But finally, after flashing Sonny Boyle a look of utter contempt, he shrugged and walked out of the restaurant. Charley went back to Boyle’s booth.

“That took some doing,” he said. “My ass is now on the line. Don’t fuck with me about this, Sonny. If that mean sonofabitch comes down on me, I’ll really come down on you. You understand?”

“Charley, I understand. The first thing I hear-”

“And you better hear something, and soon,” Charley interrupted. He laid a calling card on the table, took out a pen, and wrote another number on it. “My home phone is on there. The one I wrote is Special Operations. Call me there, not at Northwest Detectives.”

“You’re in Special Operations now?”

“I expect to hear from you soon, Sonny,” Charley said, and walked out of the restaurant.

Sonny looked out the window and watched him get into a new Ford unmarked car and drive away.

He walked over to where Pat O’Hallihan sat.

“Jesus Christ, what was that all about?” Pat asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sonny said. “Charley McFadden and I are old pals. We were in the same class at Bishop Neuman High School.”

“What about the one with me?”

“You were in pretty fancy company. That was Payne. You remember when a detective shot that sicko in the Northwest who was carving up women?”

“That was him?”

“That was him.”

“What was this all about?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Everything’s under control. Now, order me a cup of coffee. I got to make a telephone call.”

“Right.”

Sonny Boyle went to the pay phone by the door to the men’s room and called Frankie Foley’s house. Frankie’s mother said he was at work, and gave him the number of the warehouse at Wanamaker’s where Frankie worked.

It took some time to get Frankie on the phone-his boss obviously didn’t like him getting personal calls at work-but finally he came on the line and Sonny told him that two Special Operations detectives were asking questions about him, that one of the detectives was a real hotshot, the cop that shot the Northwest Serial Rapist in the head, and that they seemed to think Frankie had something to do with the Narcotics cop who got himself hit.

He assured Frankie that of course he hadn’t told them a fucking thing.