The Witness

THREE

Officer Matthew M. Payne had just about finished dressing when Wohl called. Like Wohl, he was a bachelor. He lived in a very nice, if rather small, apartment on the top floor of a turn-of-the-century mansion on Rittenhouse Square. The lower floors of the building, owned by his father, now housed the Delaware Valley Cancer Society.

A tall, lithely muscled twenty-two-year-old, Payne had graduated the previous June from the University of Pennsylvania and had almost immediately joined the Police Department. He was assigned as " administrative assistant" to Inspector Wohl, who commanded the Special Operations Division of the Philadelphia Police Department. It was a plainclothes assignment.

He put the telephone back into its cradle and then walked to the fireplace, where he tied his necktie in the mirror over the mantel. He put his jacket on and then went back to the fireplace and took his Smith amp; Wesson "Undercover".38 Special five-shot revolver and its ankle holster from the mantelpiece and strapped it to his ankle.

Then he left the apartment, went down the narrow stairs to the fourth floor, and got on the elevator to the parking garage in the basement.

There he got into a new silver Porsche 911, his graduation present from his father, and drove out of the garage, waving at the Holmes Security Service rent-a-cop as he passed his glassed-in cubicle. For a long time the rent-a-cop, a retired Traffic Division corporal, was the only person in the building who knew that Payne was a policeman.

There had been a lot of guessing by the two dozen young women who worked for the Cancer Society about just who the good-looking young guy who lived in the attic apartment was. He had been reliably reported to be a- stockbroker, a lawyer, in the advertising business, and several other things. No one had suggested that he might be a cop; cops are not expected to dress like an advertisement for Brooks Brothers or to drive new silver Porsche 911s.

But then Officer Payne had shot to death one Warren K. Fletcher, thirty-one, of a Germantown address, whom the newspapers had taken to calling "the Northwest serial rapist" and his photograph, with Mayor Jerry Carlucci's arm around him, had been on the front pages of all the newspapers, and his secret was out.

He was not an overly egotistical young man, but it seemed to him that after the shooting, the looks of invitation in the eyes of the Cancer Society's maidens had seemed to intensify.

There were two or three of them he thought he would like to get to know, in the biblical sense, but he had painful proof when he was at the University of Pennsylvania that"hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" was more than a cleverly turned phrase. A woman scorned who worked where he lived, he had concluded, was too much of a risk to take.

Matt Payne drove to Peter Wohl's apartment via the Schuylkill Expressway, not recklessly, but well over the speed limit. He was aware that he was in little danger of being stopped (much less cited) for speeding. The Schuylkill Expressway was patrolled by officers of the Highway Patrol, all of whom were aware that Inspector Wohl's administrative assistant drove a silver Porsche 911.

Wohl was waiting for him when Payne arrived, leaning against one of the garage doors.

"Funny, you don't look celibate," Wohl said as he got in the car.

"Good morning, sir."

"Let's go somewhere nice, Matt. I know I'm buying, but the condemned man is entitled to a hearty meal."

"I don't think I like the sound of that," Matt replied.

"Not you, me. Condemned, I mean. They want me in the commissioner's office at ten. I'm sure what he wants to know is how the Magnella job is going."

Officer Joseph Magnella, twenty-four, had been found lying in the gutter beside his 22^nd District RPC (radio patrol car) with seven.22 bullets in his body. Mayor Carlucci had given the job to Special Operations. A massive effort, led by two of the best detectives in the department, to find the doers had so far come up with nothing.

"Nothing came up overnight?" Matt asked softly.

"Not a goddamned clue, to coin a phrase," Wohl said bitterly. "I told them to call me if anything at all came up. Nobody called."

Payne braked before turning onto Norwood Street.

"How about The Country Club?" he asked.

The Country Club was a diner with a reputation for good food on Cottman Avenue in the Northeast, along their route to Bustleton and Bowler.

"Fine," Wohl said.

Wohl bought a copy of theLedger from a vending machine as they walked into the restaurant, glanced at the headlines, and then flipped through it until he found what he was looking for.

"Somewhat self-righteously," he said, handing the paper to Matt, " theLedger comments editorially on the incompetence of the Police Department, vis-a-vis the murder of Officer Magnella."

The waitress appeared and handed them menus.

"Breakfast steak, pink in the middle, two fried eggs, sunny side up, home fries, an English muffin, orange juice, milk, and coffee," Payne ordered without looking at the menu.

"If you're what you say you are, where do you get the appetite?" Wohl said, and added, "Toast and coffee, please."

"I have high hopes," Payne replied. "You have to eat, Inspector."

"Who do you think you are, my mother?"

"Think of the starving children in India," Payne said. "Howthey would love a breakfast steak."

"Oh, Jesus," Wohl groaned, but after a moment added, "Okay. Do that twice, please, miss."

Payne read the editorial and handed the newspaper back.

"You didn't expect anything else, did you?" Payne asked.

"I can ignore those bastards when they're wrong. But it smarts when they're right."

"Harris and Washington will come up with something."

"He said, not really believing it."

"I believe it."

"As a matter of fact, the longer they don't come up with something, the greater the odds are that they won't," Wohl said.

The waitress delivered the coffee, milk, and orange juice, sparing Payne having to respond. He was grateful; he hated to sound like a cheerleader.

Wohl ate everything put before him, but absently. He volunteered no further conversation, and Payne decided he should keep his mouth shut.

They were halfway between The Country Club and Special Operations headquarters when Wohl decided to tell Payne about Lieutenant Jack Malone.

"We're getting a new lieutenant this morning," he said. "And Lucci's being transferred out."

"That sounds like bad news-good news."

"Lieutenant Malone used to be Commissioner Cohan's driver. Cohan is behind the transfer."

"Then it's good news-good news?'

"Not necessarily," Wohl said. "Cohan sprung this on me at Commissioner Czernick's reception. Malone's had some personal problems, and in a manner of speaking has been working too hard. Cohan wants to take some of the pressure off him. He's had the Auto Squad in Major Crimes; that's where Lucci's going. It's a good job. Cohan's afraid that Malone will think he's been shanghaied to us. Which means that I have-"

"Has he?" Payne interrupted. "Been shanghaied to us?"

"I used the wrong word.Punished would be better. He's been shanghaied in the sense that he didn't ask for the transfer, and probably doesn't like the idea, but I'm not really sure if he just needs some of the pressure taken off, or whether Cohan is sending him a message. Cohan made it plain that he expects me to put him to work doing something worthy of his talent."

"What did he do?" Payne asked.

Why the hell did I tell him any of this in the first place?

"He caught his wife in bed with a lawyer and beat them up."

"Both of them?"

"Yeah, both of them. But that's not why he's being sent to us, I don' t think. The pressure began to affect his work."

"I don't think I understand."

And aside from that, the problems, personal or professional, of a lieutenant are really none of the business of a police officer. But I started this, didn't I? And Payne is really more than a run-of-themill young cop, isn't he?

"He's got a wild idea that Bob Holland is involved in auto theft," Wohl said.

"Holland Cadillac?" Matt asked, a hint of incredulity in his voice.

"Yeah."

"Is he?"

"I don't know. It strikes me as damned unlikely. If I had to bet, I'd say no. Why should he be? He's got a dealership on every other corner in Philadelphia. Presumably, they're making money. He sold the city the mayor's limousine. Hell, my father bought his Buick from him; he gives a police discount, whatever the hell that is. And Commissioner Cohan obviously doesn't think so; he thinks that the pressure got to Malone and his imagination ran away with him."

"He was at the club yesterday. I saw him in the bar with that congressman I think is light on his feet."

"Holland?" Wohl asked, and when Payne nodded, he went on, "Which club was that?"

"We played at Whitemarsh Valley."

"So Holland has friends in high places, right? Is that what you're driving at?"

"It would explain why the commissioner wants him out of the Auto Squad."

"Yeah," Wohl agreed a moment later. "Well, if Holland is doing hot cars, that's now Lucci's concern, not Malone's."

And I will make sure that Lieutenant Jack Malone clearly understands that.

"What are you going to do with him?" Payne asked.

"We now have a plans and training officer," Wohl said. "His name is Lieutenant John J. Malone."

"What's he going to do?"

"I haven't figured that out yet," Wohl said.

When Payne pulled into the parking lot, it was half past seven. The cars of Captain Mike Sabara, Wohl's deputy, and Captain Dave Pekach, the commanding officer of Highway Patrol, were already there. Payne wondered if Wohl had sent for them-the normal duty day began at eightor whether they had come in early on their own.

Once inside the building, Wohl, Sabara, and Pekach went into Wohl's office and closed the door. Payne understood that his presence was not desired.

He told the sergeant on the desk that if the inspector was looking for him, he had gone to park his car and to get the inspector's car.

When he came back and sat down at his desk, Wohl's phone began to ring.

"Inspector Wohl's office, Officer Payne."

"My name is Special Agent Davis of the FBI," the caller said. " Inspector Wohl, please."

"I'm sorry, sir, the inspector is tied up. May I have him call you back?"

"I wonder if you would please tell him that Special Agent in Charge Davis wants just a moment of time, and see if he'll speak to me?"

There was a tone of authority in Davis's voice that got through to Matt.

"Hold on, please, sir," he said, and walked to the closed door. He knocked and then, without waiting, opened it.

"Sir, there's a Special Agent Davis-'Special Agent in Charge' is actually what he said-on twenty-nine. He said he wants 'just a moment of your time.' You want to talk to him?"

"For your general information, Officer Payne, Special Agent in Charge Davis is the high priest of the FBI in Philadelphia," Wohl said. "Yes, of course, I'll talk to him." He picked up the telephone, pushed one of the buttons on it, and said, "Hello, Walter. How are you?"

Payne closed the door and went back to his desk

When he got out of bed, at quarter past seven, John J. "Jack" Malone almost immediately learned that among a large number of other things that had gone wrong recently in his life he could now count the plumbing system of the St. Charles Hotel, where he resided. Specifically, both the hot and cold taps in his bathroom ran ice-cold.

While he fully understood that the St.Charles was not in the league of the Bellevue-Stratford or the Warwick, neither was it a flea bag, and considering what they were charging him for his "suite" (a bedroom, a tiny sitting room, and an alcove containing a small refrigerator, a two-burner electric stove, and a small table), it seemed to him that the least the bastards could do was make sure the hot water worked.

There was no question that it was not working. That, until he just now had been desperately hoping, it was not just the time required to get hot water up from the basement heater to the tenth floor. The damned water had been running full blast for five minutes and it was just as ice-cold now as it had been when he first turned it on.

A shower, under the circumstances, was clearly out of the question. Shaving was going to be bad enough (he had a beard that, even with a hot-towel preshave soak, wore out a blade every time he sawed it off); he was not going to stand under a torrent of ice water.

At least, he consoled himself, he had nobly kept John Jameson in his bottle last night. He had not so much as sniffed a cork for fortyeight hours, so he would not reek of old booze when he presented himself to Staff Inspector Peter Wohl and announced he was reporting for duty. All he would smell of was twenty-four hours worth of flaking skin plus more than a little nervous sweat. It was possible that a liberal sprinkling of cologne would mask that.

Possible or not, that was his only choice.

He had slept in his underwear, so he took that off, rubbed his underarms briskly with a stiff towel, and then patted himself there and elsewhere with cologne. The cologne, he was painfully aware, had been Little Jack's birthday gift to Daddy. Little Jack was nine, Daddy, thirty-four.

Three weeks before, the Honorable Seymour F. Marshutz of the Family Court had awarded Daddy very limited rights of visitation (one weekend a month, plus no more than three lunch or supper visits per month, with the understanding that Jack would give Mrs. Malone at least three hours notice, preferably longer, of his intention to exercise the lunch/supper privilege) in which to be Daddy.

He tore brown paper from around three bundles from the laundry before he found the one with underwear in it, and then put on a T-shirt and boxer shorts. Then he went to the closet for a uniform.

The uniform was new. The last time he'd worn a uniform, he had been a cop in the 13^th District. He'd worn plainclothes as a detective in South Detectives, and then when he'd made sergeant, he'd been assigned as driver to Chief Inspector Francis J. Cohan, another plainclothes assignment. When Chief Cohan had been made deputy commissionerOperations, as sort of a reward for a job well done, Cohan had arranged for Jack Malone to be assigned to the Major Crimes Division, still in plainclothes. When he'd made lieutenant, four months before, he had gone out and bought a new uniform, knowing, that sooner or later, he would need one. As commanding officer of the Auto Squad, it was up to him whether or not to wear a uniform; he had elected not to.

Sooner had come much quicker than he expected. Captain Charley Gaft, who commanded Major Crimes, had called him up yesterday and told him he was being transferred, immediately, to Special Operations, and suggested he use the holiday to clean out his desk in Major Crimes.

"Can I ask why?"

"Career enhancement," Captain Gaft replied, after a just barely perceptible hesitation.

That was so much bullshit.

"I see."

There had been a tone in his voice that Captain Gaft had picked up on.

"It could be a number of things," Gaft offered.

"Sir?"

"You know Tony Lucci?" Gaft asked.

"Yes, sir."

Tony Lucci, as a sergeant, had been Mayor Jerry Carlucci's driver. When he had made lieutenant (four places under Jack Malone on the list), he had been assigned to Special Operations. The word was that he was the mayor's spy in Special Operations.

"He's taking over for you here, and you're replacing him at Bustleton and Bowler. I was told about both transfers, not asked, but it seems possible to me that the mayor may have been interested in seeing that Tony got an assignment that would enhance his career."

"Oh, it washis career enhancement you were talking about?"

"Maybe Lucci knows when it's best to back off, Jack."

"Are we talking about Holland here?"

"I'm not. I don't know about you."

Malone did not reply.

"You're beingtransferred, Jack," Captain Gaft went on. "You want a little advice, leave it at that. Maybe it was time. Sometimes people, especially people with personal problems, get too tied up with the job. That sometimes gets people in trouble. That didn't happen to you. Maybe if you weren't being transferred, it would have. Am I getting through to you?"

"Yes, sir."

He's really a good guy. What I really did was go over his head. If you go over a captain's head, even if you're right, you'd better expect trouble. I went over his head, and nobody thinks I'm right, and it could be a lot worse. There are a lot of assignments for a lieutenant a lot worse than Lucci's old job in Special Operationswhatever Lucci's job was.

Gaft didn't stick it in me, although everybody would have understood it if he had. Or Cohan took care of me again. Or both. More than likely, both. But there is sort of a "this is your last chance, Malone, to straighten up and fly right" element in this transfer.

"You're expected at Bustleton and Bowler at eight-thirty. In uniform. Maybe it would be a good idea to clear out your desk here today. Any loose ends we can worry about later."

"Yes, sir," Malone had said. "Captain, I enjoyed working for you."

"Most of the time, Jack, I enjoyed having you work for me. When you get settled out there with the hotshots, call me, and we'll have lunch or something."

"I'll do that, sir. Thank you."

"Good luck, Jack."

Malone had bought only one new uniform when he'd made lieutenant. There had not been, thanks to his lawyer's money-up-front business practice, enough money for more than one. Now he would need at least one-and preferably two-more. But that was his problem, not the Police Department's. He would just have to take the one he had to a two-hour dry cleaners, until, by temporarily giving up unimportant things, like eating, he could come up with the money to buy more. EZ-Credit was something else that had gone with Mrs. John J. Malone.

Malone examined himself in the none-too-clear mirror on the chest of drawers. He did not especially like what he saw. Gone was the trim young cop, replaced by a lieutenant who looked like a lieutenant.

Chubby, Malone thought. Hairline retreating. A little pouchy under the eyes. Is that the beginning of a jowl?

He left his suite and walked down the narrow, dimly lit corridor to the elevator, which, after he pushed the button, announced its arrival with an alarming combination of screeches and groans.

He stopped by the desk, which was manned by a cadaverous white male in a soiled maroon sports coat. "There's no hot water."

"I know, they're working on it," the desk clerk said, without raising his eyes from the PhiladelphiaDaily News.

"If it's not fixed by the time I get home from work, I'll blow up the building," Malone said.

The desk clerk raised his eyes from theDaily News.

"I didn't know you were a cop," he said.

"Now you do. Get the hot water fixed."

Malone found his car, on the roof of which someone had left two beer cans and the remains of a slice of pizza. It was a seven-year-old Ford Mustang. There had once been two cars registered in his name, the other a 1972 Ford station wagon. Ellen now had that.

I should have the station wagon. And I should have the house. She was the one fucking around. She should be living in that goddamned hotel and driving this piece of shit.

Look on the bright side. No alimony. And, what the hell, she needed something to carry Little Jack around in.

He knocked the beer cans and pizza off the roof and got in. He went east to North Broad Street, and then out North Broad to Roosevelt Boulevard. Eight blocks down Roosevelt Boulevard he made a lane change that did not meet the standards of a brother police officer.

There was the growl of a siren, and when he looked in the mirror, he saw a cop waving him over.

A Highway Patrol car. Only Highway RPCs had two cops in them.

He nodded his head to show that he understood the order, and as soon as he could safely do so pulled to the side.

The Highway Patrolman swaggered over to the Mustang, only at the last moment noticing that there was a gold bar on the epaulets of Malone's blue jacket.

"Good morning, sir," the Highway Patrolman said.

"Good morning."

"Lieutenant, your turn signal's inoperative. I thought you'd like to know."

"Yes. Thank you very much. I'll have it checked."

The Highway Patrolman saluted and walked back to his car.

Malone moved the turn signal lever.

The goddamn thing really is broken. Did I use the sonofabitch, and it didn't work, or was I just weaving through traffic in this rusty piece of shit, and he stopped me for that?

Moot point, Lieutenant. Either today, or tomorrow, or the day after that, one of those two guys is going to see me at Bustleton and Bowler, and I will become universally known as the New Lieutenant Who Drives Not Only Recklessly But in a Real Piece of Shit of an Ancient Mustang.

Malone hadn't been to Highway Patrol Headquarters, at Bustleton and Bowler Streets, not far from the North Philadelphia Airport, in a long time. It had been busy then, he remembered, because it shared the building with the headquarters of the 7^th District, but it had been nothing like it was now.

There were the cars and vans of the 7^th District; the cars and motorcycles of Highway Patrol; a flock of cars, marked and unmarked, that obviously belonged to Special Operations; and even a stakeout van. His hope of finding a parking space reserved for LIEUTENANTS or even OFFICIAL VISITORS had been wishful thinking. He had trouble just driving through the parking lot. The only empty space he saw was marked RESERVED FOR COMMISSIONER.

He drove around the block and tried again. This time a turnkey (an officer assigned to make himself useful in the parking lot) waved him down and pointed out a parking spot reserved for a sergeant.

It was crowded inside too, but finally he managed to give his name to a sergeant at a desk just inside a door marked HEADQUARTERS, SPECIAL