The Victim

SIXTEEN

Matt Payne's bladder woke him with a call to immediate action at half past five. It posed something of a problem. There was only one toilet in Peter Wohl's apartment, off his bedroom. It was either try to use that without waking Wohl or going outside and relieving himself against the wall of the garage, something that struck him as disgusting to do, but he knew he could not make it to the nearest open diner or hamburger joint.

When he stood up, the decision-making process resolved itself. A sharp pain told him he could not wait until he got outside.

On tiptoe he marched past Wohl, who was sleeping on his stomach with his head under a pillow. He carefully closed the door to the bathroom, raised the lid, and tried to accomplish what had to be done as quietly as possible. He had just congratulated himself on his skill doing that and begun to hope that he could tiptoe back out of Wohl's room undiscovered when the toilet, having been flushed, began to refill the tank. It sounded like Niagara Falls.

Finally it stopped, with a groan like a wounded elephant. Matt opened the door and looked. Wohl did not appear to have moved. Matt tiptoed past the foot of Wohl's bed and made it almost to the door.

"Goodmorning, Officer Payne," Wohl said from under his pillow. " You're up with the goddamn roosters, I see."

"Sorry," Matt said.

He closed Wohl's door, dressed quickly, left the apartment as quietly as he could, and drove to Rittenhouse Square. He went directly to the refrigerator, took out a half gallon of milk, and filled a large glass. It was sour.

Holding his nose, he poured it down the drain, then leaned against the sink.

The red light on his telephone answering machine was flashing.

"Why did you leave?" Amanda's voice inquired metallically. Because, after telling me the cruise ship had docked, you went to bed. "I hope I didn't run you off." Perish the thought! "Call me." Now? It' s quarter after six in the morning!

This was followed by electronic beeping noises that indicated that half a dozen callers had declined Matt's recorded invitation to leave their number so he could get back to them. Then a familiar, deep, well-modulated voice: "This is Jason, Matt. I've got to do something first thing in the morning. Don't bother to come to the Roundhouse. I' ll either see you at Bustleton and Bowler around nine, or I'll call you there."

Another series, five this time, of electronic beeping noises, indicating that many callers had not elected to leave a recorded message, and then Amanda's recorded voice, sounding as if she were torn between sorrow and indignation, demanded, "Where the hell are you? I've called you every half hour for hours. Call me!"

Matt looked at his watch.

It is now 6:18a.m. I will shower and shave and see if I can eliminate the source of the rumbling in my belly, and then dress, and by then it will be close to 7:00a.m., and I will call you then, because I really don't want to talk to Mrs. Soames T. Browne at 6:18a.m.

At 7:02 A.M. Matt called the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Soames T. Browne and asked for Miss Spencer. Mrs. Soames T. Browne came on the line. Mrs. Browne told him that five minutes before, Amanda had gotten into her car and driven home, and that if he wanted her opinion, his behavior in the last couple of days had been despicable. She said she had no idea what he'd said or done to Amanda to make her cry that way and didn't want to know, but obviously he was still as cavalier about other people's feelings as he had always been. She told him she had not been surprised that he had thought it amusing to try to get Chad drunk before the wedding, but she really had been surprised to learn that he had been spreading scurrilous stories about poor Penny Detweiler to one and all, with the poor girl lying at death's door in the hospital.

And then she terminated the conversation without the customary closing salutation.

"Oh, shit!" Matt said to a dead telephone.

He put on his necktie, slipped his revolver into his ankle holster, and left the apartment. He went to his favorite restaurant, Archie's, on 16^th Street, where he had thespecialite de la maison, a chili dog with onions and two bottles of root beer, for his breakfast.

Then he got in the Porsche and headed for Bustleton and Bowler. He was almost there when he noticed that a thumb-sized glob of chili had eluded the bun and come to rest on his necktie and shirt.

Jason Washington had been glad when the computer came along, not so much for all the myriad benefits it had brought to industry, academia, and general all-around record-keeping, but rather because it gave him something to sort of explain the workings of the brain.

He had been fascinated for years with the subconscious deductive capabilities of the brain, going way back to his freshman year in high school, where he found, to his delight, that he could solve simple algebraic equations in his head. He had often had no idea why he had written answers to certain examination questions, only that they had been the right answers. He had sailed through freshman algebra with anA. When he got to sophomore algebra, not having taken the time to memorize the various theories offered in freshman algebra, he got in trouble, but he never forgot the joy he had experienced the year before when the brain, without any effort at all on his part, had supplied the answers to problems he didn't really understand.

He had first theorized that the brain was something like a muscle; the more you flexed it, the better it worked. That seemed logical, and he carried that around a long time, even after he became a policeman. He had really wanted to become a detective and had studied hard to prepare for the detective's examination. When he took the examination, he remembered things he was surprised that he had ever learned. That tended to support the-brain-is-a-muscle theory, but he suspected that there was more to it than that.

He saw comptometers on various bureaucrats' desks, watched them in operation, and thought that possibly the brain was sort of a super comptometer, but that (and its predecessor, the abacus) seemed too crude and too slow for a good comparison.

Then came the computer. Not only did the computer never forget anything it was told, but it had the capability to sort through all the data it had been fed, and do so with the speed of light. The computer was a brain, he concluded. More accurately the brain was a computer, a supercomputer, better than anything at MIT, capable of sorting through vast amounts of data and coming up with the answer you were looking for.

Some of its capabilities vis-a-vis police work were immediately apparent. If you fed everyone's license-plate number into it, and the other data about a car, and queried the computer, it would obligingly come up with absolutely correct listings of addresses, names, makes, anything you wanted to know.

Jason Washington had gone to an electronics store and bought a simple computer and, instead of watching television, had learned to program it in BASIC. He had written a program that allowed him to balance his checkbook. There had been a difference of a couple of pennies between what his computer said he had in his account and what the bank's computer said he had. He went over his program and then challenged the bank, not caring about the three cents but curious why two computers would disagree. He didn't get anywhere with the First Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, but a long-haired kid at the electronics store, a fellow customer, had taught him about anomalies.

As the kid explained it, it was a freak, where sometimes two and two added up to four point one, because something in either the data or the equation wasn't quite right.

By then Jason had been a detective for a long time, was already working in Homicide, and had learned that when you were working a tough job, what you looked for was something that didn't add up. An anomaly. That had a more professional ring to it than "something smells."

And he had learned something else, and that was that the brain never stopped working. It was always going through its data bank if you let it, sifting and sifting and sifting, looking through its data for anomalies. And he had learned that sometimes he could, so to speak, turn the computer on. If he went to sleep thinking about a problem, sometimes, even frequently, the brain would go on searching the data bank while he was asleep. When he woke up, rarely was there the solution to the problem. Far more often there was another question. There was no answer, the brain seemed to announce, because something is either missing or wrong. Then, wide awake, all you had to do was think about that and try to determine what was missing and/or what was wrong.

Jason Washington had gone to sleep watching the NBC evening news on television while he was going over in his mind the sequence of events leading to the death, at the hands of person or persons unknown, of Anthony J. DeZego.

Mr. DeZego had spent the day at work, at Gulf Seafood Transport, 2184 Delaware Avenue, which fact was substantiated not only by his brother-in-law, Mr. Salvatore B. Mariano, another guinea gangster scumbag, but by four of his coworkers whom Jason Washington believed were telling the truth.

Mr. DeZego had then driven to the Warwick Hotel in downtown Philadelphia in his nearly new Cadillac. That fact was substantiated by the doorman, whom Washington believed, who said that Mr. DeZego had handed him a ten spot and told him to take care of the car. The car had then been parked in the Penn Services Parking Garage, fourth floor, by Lewis T. Oppen, Jr., a bellboy, who had done the car parking, left the parking stub, as directed, on the dashboard, and then delivered the keys to Mr. DeZego in the hotel cocktail lounge.

Mr. DeZego had later walked to the Penn Services Parking Garage and gone to the roof, where someone had blown the top of his head off, before or after popping Miss Penelope Detweiler, who had more than likely gone there to meet Mr. DeZego.

There was additional confirmation of this sequence of events by Sergeant Dolan and Officer What's-his-name of Narcotics, who had staked out the Warwick. They even had photographs of Mr. DeZego arriving at the Warwick, in the bar at the Warwick, and walking to, and into, the Penn Services Parking Garage.

Mr. DeZego's car had been driven by somebody to the airport. Probably by the doer. Doers. Why?

"Wake up, Jason, dammit!" Mrs. Martha Washington had interrupted the data-sorting function of his subconscious brain. "You toss and turn all night if I let you sleep in that chair!"

"You act like I've done something wrong," Jason said indignantly.

His brain said, There is an anomaly in what Dolan told me.

"Run around the room or something," Martha Washington said. "Just don't lay there like a beached whale. When you snore, you sound like-I don't know what."

Jason went into the kitchen.

I will just go see Sergeant Dolan in the morning. But I can't take the kid with me. Dolan thinks Matt is dealing coke.

He poured coffee in a mug, then dialed Matt's number and told his answering machine not to meet him at the Roundhouse but to go to Bustleton and Bowler instead.

At nine-fifteen he went to bed, at the somewhat pointed suggestion of his wife.

He went to sleep feeding questions to the computer.

Where is the anomaly? I know it's there.

Officers Jesus Martinez and Charles McFadden, in uniform, came to their feet when Captain David Pekach walked into the building at Bustleton and Bowler.

"Good morning," Pekach said.

"Sir, can we talk to you?" McFadden asked.

I know what that's about, I'll bet, Pekach thought. They were not thrilled by their twelve-hour tour yesterday riding up and down the Schuylkill Expressway. They want to do something important, be real cops, and they do not think handing out speeding tickets meets that criteria.

Then he had an unpleasant thought: Do they think that because they caught me speeding, they have an edge?

"Is this important?" he asked somewhat coldly.

"I don't know," McFadden said. "Maybe not."

"Have you spoken to your sergeant about it?"

"We'd really like to talk to you, sir," Jesus Martinez said.

Pekach resisted the urge to tell them to go through their sergeant. They were good cops. They had done a good job for him. He owed them that much.

"I've got to see the inspector," he said. "Hang around, if you like. If I can find a minute, we'll talk."

"Yes, sir," Martinez said.

"Thank you," McFadden said.

Pekach walked to Peter Wohl's door. It was open, and Wohl saw him and waved him in.

"Good morning, Inspector," Pekach said.

"That's open to debate," Wohl said. "Have I ever told you the distilled essence of my police experience, Dave? Never drink with cops."

"You've been drinking with cops?"

"Two cops. My father and Payne."

Pekach chuckled. "What's that, the odd couple?"

"I went to cry on the old man's shoulder, and that led us first to Groverman's Bar and then to my place, and then Payne showed up to cry on my shoulder. I sent the old man home with Sergeant Henderson and made Payne sleep on my couch."

"What was Payne's problem?"

"He let his mouth run away with him, told the Nesbitt kid, the one who was married, the Marine…?"

Pekach nodded.

"… that we know the Detweiler girl was using coke. And he told the bride, and she told her mother, and her mother told H. Richard Detweiler, who is highly pissed that we could suspect his daughter of such a thing, and the last time Payne saw him, he was looking for the mayor to express his outrage."

"Is he going to be trouble?"

"Probably," Wohl said, "but Payne looked so down in the mouth about it that I didn't have the heart to jump all over him. You may find this hard to believe, David, but when I was young, I ran off at the mouth once or twice myself."

"No!" Pekach said in mock shock.

"True." Wohl chuckled. "How was your evening? How was Ristorante Alfredo? You go there?"

"Yeah. I want to talk to you about that," Pekach said, and handed Wohl the matchbook he had been given in the restaurant.

"There's a name inside. Marvin Lanier. Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"I got that from Vincenzo Savarese," Dave replied.

Wohl looked at him with interest in his eyes.

"Not from Savarese himself," Pekach went on carefully, "but from the greaseball, Baltazari, who runs it for him. But he made it plain it had come from Savarese."

"Ricco Baltazari gave you this?" Wohl asked.

There was a rap on the doorjamb.

"Busy?" Captain Mike Sabara asked when he had Wohl's attention.

"Come on in, Mike, I want you to hear this," Wohl said. As Sabara entered the office Wohl tossed the matchbook to him. "Dave got that from Vincenzo Savarese at the Ristorante Alfredo." When Sabara, after examining it, looked at him curiously, Wohl pointed to Pekach.

"Okay," Pekach said. "From the top. Almost as soon as we got in the place, the headwaiter came to the table and said Baltazari would like a word with me. He was sitting at a table across the room with Savarese."

"They knew you were going to be there, didn't they?" Wohl said thoughtfully. "You made a reservation, right?"

"I had a reservation," Pekach said. "So I went to the table, and as soon as I got there, Baltazari left me alone with Savarese. Savarese told me he wanted to thank me for something I did for his granddaughter."

"Huh?" Sabara asked.

"A couple of months ago, when I was still in Narcotics, I was coming home late one night and stopped when I thought I saw a drug bust. Big bust. Four kids caught buying some marijuana. But they ran and there was a chase, and the kid wrecked his old man's car, so they were headed for Central Lockup. I looked at them, felt sorry for the girls, didn't want them to have to go through Central Lockup, and sent them home in a cab."

"And one of the girls wasSavarese's granddaughter?" Sabara asked. "We got any unsolved broken arms, legs, and head assaults on the books? We could probably pin that on Savarese. You don't give grass to his granddaughter unless you've got a death wish."

Wohl chuckled. "He'd beat it. Temporary insanity."

"I didn't know who she was and had forgotten about it until Savarese brought it up."

Pekach nodded and went on. "He gave me some bullshit about my graciousness and understanding-"

"Ialways thought you were gracious and understanding, Dave," Wohl said.

"-and said he would never forget it, etcetera, and said if there was ever anything he could do for me-"

"And he probably meant it too," Sabara said. "Anybody you want knocked off, Dave? Your neighbors playing their TV too late at night, anything like that?"

"Shit, Mike!" Pekach exploded.

"Sorry," Sabara said, not sounding overwhelmed with remorse.

"What I thought he was doing was letting me know he'd grab the tab for dinner. But on my way back to the table Baltazari handed me that matchbook and said I dropped them, and I said no, and he said he was sure, so I kept them."

"You see the name inside?" Wohl asked.

"Yeah. It didn't mean anything to me. Baltazari gave me the same line of greaser bullshit, something about 'Mr. Savarese's friends always being grateful when somebody does him a favor.' What I think he said was 'him or his family a courtesy.' By then I was beginning to wish I'd tossed the little bitch in the can."

"No you didn't." Wohl chuckled. "You really are gracious and understanding, Dave."

Pekach glared at him.

"That wasn't a knife," Wohl said.

"So, anyway, when I got home, I called Records and got a make on this guy. Sort of a make. Black male. He's supposed to be a gambler, but what he really is, is a pimp. He runs an escort service."

"Marvin P. Lanier," Sabara said, reading the name inside the matchbook. "I never heard of him."

"Misterioso," Wohl said.

"I figured I better tell you about it," Pekach said.

"Yeah," Wohl said thoughtfully. "Neither of them gave any hint why they gave you this guy's name?"

"Nope," Pekach said.

One of the phones on Wohl's desk rang. Wohl was in his customary position, on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table. Pekach, who was leaning on Wohl's desk, looked at him questioningly. Wohl nodded. Pekach picked up the phone.

"Captain Pekach," he said, and listened, and then covered the mouthpiece with his hand. "There's a Homicide detective out there. Wants to see you, me, or Dave. You want me to take it?"

"Bring him in," Wohl said.

"Send him in, Sergeant," Pekach said to the phone, and put it back in its cradle. He went to the door and pulled it open.

Detective Joseph D'Amata walked in.

"Hey, D'Amata," Wohl called. "How are you?"

"Good morning, Inspector," D'Amata said. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"Captain Pekach was just telling Captain Sabara and me about his dinner last night," Wohl said. "What can we do for Homicide?"

"You hear about the pimp who got himself blown away last night?"

"I haven't read the overnights," Wohl said.

"Black guy," D'Amata said. "Lived on 48^th near Haverford."

"His name wouldn't be Marvin P. Lanier, would it?" Wohl asked.

"Yes, sir, that's it," D'Amata said, obviously pleased. "I sort of hoped there'd be something for me here."

"I don't think I follow that," Wohl said.

"I got the idea, Inspector, that you-that is, Highway- knows something about this guy."

"Why would you think that?"

"You knew the name," D'Amata said, just a little defensively.

"That's all?"

"Sir, an hour before somebody shot this guy there was a Highway car in front of his house. With him. Outside the crime scene, I mean."

"You're sure about that?"

"Yes, sir. Half a dozen people in the neighborhood saw it."

"Dave?" Wohl asked.

Pekach threw up his hands in a helpless gesture, making it clear that he knew nothing about a Highway involvement.

"Fascinating," Wohl said. "Moremisterioso."

"Sir?" D'Amata asked, confused.

"Detective D'Amata," Wohl said, "why don't you help yourself to a cup of coffee and then have a chair while Captain Pekach goes and finds out what Highway had to do with Mr. Lanier last night?"

"Inspector, this is the first I've heard anything about this," Pekach said.

"So I gathered," Wohl said sarcastically.

Pekach left the office.

"How did Mr. Lanier meet his untimely demise, D'Amata?"

"Somebody popped him five times with a.38," D'Amata said. "In his bed."

"That would suggest that somebody didn't like him very much," Wohl said. "Any ideas who that might be?"

D'Amata shook his head.

"Have you learned anything that might suggest Mr. Lanier was connected with the mob?"

"He wasa pimp, Inspector," D'Amata said.

"Then let me ask you this: Off the top of your head, would you say that Mr. Lanier was popped, in a crime of passion, so to speak, by one of his ladies, or by somebody who knew what he was doing?"

D'Amata thought that over briefly. "He took two in the head and three in the chest."

"Suggesting?"

"I don't know. Some of those whores are tough enough. A whore could have done it."

"Have you any particular lady in mind?"

"I asked Vice"-he paused and chuckled-"to round up the usual suspects. Actually for a list of girls who worked for him, or did."

Wohl chuckled and then asked, "Whose gun?"

"We don't have that yet," D'Amata said. "Those are interesting questions you're asking, Inspector."

"Just letting my mind wander," Wohl said. "Try this one: Can you think of any reason that Mr. Lanier's name would be known to Mr. Vincenzo Savarese?"

"Jesus!" D'Amata said. "Was it?"

"Letyour mind wander," Wohl said.

"He could have owed the mob some money," D'Amata said. "He liked to pass himself off as a gambler. The mob likes to get paid."

"That would get him a broken leg, not five well-placed shots, and from someone with whom Mr. Savarese would be only faintly acquainted," Wohl said.

"Yeah," D'Amata said thoughtfully.

"What would that leave? Drugs?" Wohl asked.

There was not time for D'Amata to consider that, much less offer an answer. Pekach came back in the office.

"There's nothing in the records about a Highway car being anywhere near 48^th and Haverford last night," he said.

"You sure?" D'Amata challenged, surprised.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Pekach said sharply. "Are you?"

"Captain," D'Amata said, "I got the same story from four different people. There was a Highway car there."

There was a knock at the door.

"Not now!" Wohl called.

There came another knock.

"Open the door, Dave," Wohl said coldly.

Pekach opened the door.

Officers Jesus Martinez and Charles McFadden stood there, looking more than a little uncomfortable.

"Didn't you hear me say not now?" Wohl said. "How many times do I have to-"

"Inspector," Charley McFadden blurted, "we heard Captain Pekach asking-"

"Goddammit, we're busy," Pekach flared. "The Inspector said not now. And whatever's on your mind, go through your sergeant!"

"That was us," Charley said. "At 48^th and Haverford. With Marvin Lanier." He looked at Pekach. "That's what we wanted to see you about, Captain."

"Officer McFadden," Wohl said, "please come in, and bring Officer Martinez with you."

They came into the office.

"You have heard, I gather, that Mr. Lanier was shot to death last night?" Wohl asked.

"Just now, sir," Hay-zus said.

"Before we get started, this is Detective D'Amata of Homicide," Wohl said. "Joe, these two are Jesus Martinez and Charley McFadden, who before they became probationary Highway Patrolmen worked for Captain Pekach when they were all in Narcotics."

"I know who they are," D'Amata said.

"What is your connection with Mr. Lanier?" Wohl asked.

Charley McFadden looked at Hay-zus, then at Wohl, then at Pekach.

"What we wanted to tell Captain Pekach was that Marvin told us another guinea shot Tony the Zee," he blurted.

"Fascinating," Wohl said.

"What I want to know is what you were doing with Lanier when you were supposed to be patrolling the Schuylkill Expressway," Captain Pekach said.

"Isn't that fairly obvious, Dave?" Wohl said sarcastically. " Officers McFadden and Martinez decided that since no one else has any idea who shot Mr. DeZego and Miss Detweiler, it was clearly their duty to solve those crimes themselves, even if that meant leaving their assigned patrol area, which we, not having the proper respect for their ability as super-cops-they are, after all, former undercover Narcs-had so foolishly given them."

I said that, he thought, because I'm pissed at what they did and wanted to both let them know I'm pissed, and to humiliate them. Having done that, I now realize that I am very likely to be humiliated myself. I have a gut feeling these two are at least going to be part of the solution.

"I used to be a Homicide detective," Wohl said. "Let me see if I still remember how. McFadden-first of all, what was your relationship to Marvin Lanier?"

"He was one of our snitches. When we were in Narcotics."

"Then I think we'll start with that," Wohl said. "Let me begin this by telling you I want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Leave nothing out. You are already so deeply in trouble that nothing you admit can get you in any deeper. You understand that?"

The two mumbled "Yes, sir."

"Okay. Martinez, tell me how you turned Marvin Lanier into a snitch."

Wohl was convinced that the story was related truthfully and in whole. He didn't particularly like hearing that they had turned Lanier loose with a kilogram of cocaine-and could tell from the look on his face that Dave Pekach, who had been their lieutenant, was very embarrassed by it-but it convinced him both that McFadden and Martinez were going to tell the whole truth and that they had turned Lanier into a good snitch, defined as one that was more terrified of the cops who were using him than of the people on whom he was snitching.

He noticed, too, that neither Sabara, Pekach, or D'Amata had added their questions to his. On the part of D'Amata, that might have been the deference of a detective to a staff inspector-he didn't think sobut on the parts of Sabara and Pekach, who were not awed by his rank, it very well could be that they could think of nothing to ask that he hadn't asked.

Christ, maybe what I should have done was just stay in Homicide. I'm not all that bad at being a detective. And by now I probably would have made a pretty good Homicide detective. And all I would have to do is worry about bagging people, not about how pissed the mayor is going to be because one of my people ran off at the mouth.

"So when Marvin wanted to put his jack in the backseat instead of his trunk," Hay-zus said, "we knew there was something in the trunk he didn't want us to see. So there was. A shotgun."

"A shotgun?" Joe D'Amata asked. It was the first time he had spoken. "A Remington 12 Model 1100, 12-gauge?"

"A Model 870," Martinez said. "Not the 1100. A pump gun."

"Is there an 1100 involved?" Wohl asked.

"There was an 1100 under his bed," D'Amata said. "I've got it out in my car."

"And you say there was an 870 in his trunk?" Wohl asked Martinez.

"Yes, sir."

"Where is it?"

"Outside in my car."

"You took it away from him? Why?"

"On what authority?" Pekach demanded. Wohl made a calm-down sign to him with his hand.

"He didn't know it was legal," McFadden said.

"So you just decided to take it away from him? That's theft," Wohl said.

"We wanted something on him," McFadden protested. "We was going to turn it in."

Bullshit!

"That's when he told us another guinea shot Tony DeZego," Hay-zus said. "I don't know if that's so or not, but Marvin believed it."

"He didn't offer a name?" Wohl asked.

"We told him to come up with one by four this afternoon," McFadden said.

"And you think he would have come up with a name?"

"If he could have, he would have. Yes, sir."

Wohl looked at Mike Sabara.

"Do you know where Washington is?"

"No, sir. But Payne's outside. They're working together, aren't they?"

"See if either of them is still there," Wohl ordered.

Pekach went to the door and a moment later returned with Matt Payne.

"Do you know where Washington is?"

"No, sir. He told me he would either see me here or phone."

"Find him," Wohl ordered. "Tell him I want to see him as soon as I can."

"Yes, sir," Matt said, and left the room.

Wohl looked at Joe D'Amata.

"You know where this is going, don't you?" he asked.

"Sir, you're thinking there's a connection to the DeZego shooting?"

"Right. And since Special Operations has that job, I've got to call Chief Lowenstein and tell him I want the Lanier job-and that means you, too, Joe, of course-as part of that."

"He's not going to like that," Sabara said.

"If you're sure about that, Mike, you call him," Wohl said, and let Sabara wait ten seconds before he reached for the telephone himself.

To Peter Wohl's genuine surprise Chief Lowenstein agreed to have D'Amata work the Lanier job under Special Operations supervision with absolutely no argument.

"I don't believe that," he said when he hung up. "All he said was that you're a good man, D'Amata, and if there is anything else I need, all I have to do is ask for it."

"Well, how do you want me to handle it?" D'Amata asked.

"Very simply, ask Washington howhe wants it handled. Aside from one wild one, I am about out of ideas."

"Wild idea?"

"I want to send the two shotguns to the lab. I have a wild idea that one of them is the one that popped DeZego."

"Yeah," D'Amata said thoughtfully, "could be."

"Do you two clowns think you could take the shotguns to the lab and tell them I need to know, as soon as possible, if the shells we have were ejected from either of them, without getting in any more trouble?"

"Yes, sir," Martinez and McFadden said in unison, and then McFadden asked, "You want us to come back here, sir?"

"No," Wohl said. "You're working four to twelve, right?"

"Yes, sir. Twelve to twelve with the overtime."

"I haven't made up my mind what to do with you," Wohl said. "Let your sergeant know where you're going to be, in case Washington or somebody wants to talk to you, and then report for duty at four. Maybe by then Captain Pekach can find somebody to sit on the both of you. Separately, I mean. Together you're dangerous."

"Yes, sir," they chorused.

"Dave," Wohl said, turning to Pekach, "as soon as D'Amata gets Sherlock Holmes and his partner the shotgun, tell D'Amata what happened in the Ristorante Alfredo," Wohl ordered.

"Yes, sir."

The door opened. Matt Payne put his head in.

"Can't find Washington, sir. He doesn't answer the radio, and he's not at home."

"What I told you to do, Payne, is find him. Not report that you can't. Get in a car and go look for him. The next time I hear from you, I want it to be when you tell me Detective Washington is on his way here."

"Yes, sir," Matt said, and quickly closed the door again.

The telephone rang. Obviously his calls were being held. So the ring indicated that this call was too important to hold.

"Inspector Wohl," he said, answering it himself.

"Dennis Coughlin, Peter."

"Good morning, Chief."

"We're due in the mayor's office at 10:15. You, Matt Lowenstein, and me."

"Yes, sir."

"He's mad, Peter. I guess you know."

"Yes, sir."

The phone went dead.

Well, that explains Chief Lowenstein's inexplicable spirit of enthusiastic cooperation. He knew we were all going to have a little chat with the mayor. He can now go on in there and truthfully say that this very morning, when I asked for it, he gave one more of his brighter detectives and asked if there was anything else he could do for me.