A waiter appeared.
“I’m drinking a very nice California cabernet sauvignon,” Giacomo said. “But don’t let that influence you.”
“A little wine would be very nice,” Wohl said.
“Me, too, thank you,” Weisbach said.
“The word has reached these hallowed precincts of the tragic event in Chestnut Hill this morning,” Giacomo said. “What a pity.”
“Yes, it was,” Wohl agreed.
“If I don’t have the opportunity before you see him, Peter, would you extend my sympathies to young Payne?”
“Yes, of course.”
“He must be devastated.”
“He is,” Wohl said.
“And her mother and father…” Giacomo said, shaking his head sadly.
A waiter in a gray cotton jacket served the wine.
“I think we’ll need another bottle of that over lunch, please,” Giacomo said. He waited for the waiter to leave, and then said, “I hope you like that. What shall we drink to?”
Wohl shrugged.
“How about good friends?” Giacomo suggested.
“All right,” Peter said, raising his glass. “Good friends.”
“Better yet, Mike’s new job.”
“Better yet, Mike’s new job,” Wohl parroted. He sipped the wine. “Very nice.”
“I’d send you a case, if I didn’t know you would think I was trying to bribe you,” Giacomo said.
“All gifts between friends are not bribes,” Wohl said. “Send me a case, and I’ll give Mike half. You can’t bribe him, either.”
“I’ll send the both of you a case,” Giacomo said, and then added: “Would you prefer to hear what I’d like to say now, or over lunch?”
“Now, please, Armando,” Wohl said. “I would really hate to have my lunch in these hallowed precincts ruined.”
“I suspected you’d feel that way. They do a very nice mixed grill here, did you know that?”
“Yes, I do. And also a very nice rack of lamb.”
“I represent a gentleman named Paulo Cassandro.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Weisbach asked.
“Because you are both astute and perceptive, Michael. May I go on?”
“By all means.”
“Mr. Cassandro was arrested this morning. I have assured Mr. Cassandro that once I bring the circumstances surrounding his arrest…Constitutionally illegal wiretaps head a long list of irregularities…”
“Come on, Armando,” Weisbach said, laughing.
“…to the attention of the proper judicial authorities,” Giacomo went on, undaunted, “it is highly unlikely that he will ever be brought to trial. And I have further assured him that, in the highly unlikely event he is brought to trial, I have little doubt in my mind that no fair-minded jury would ever convict him.”
“He’s going away, Armando,” Wohl said. “You know that and I know that.”
“You tend to underestimate me, Peter. I don’t hold it against you; most people do.”
“I never underestimate you, Counselor. But that clanging noise you hear in the background is the sound of a jail door slamming,” Peter said. “The choir you hear is singing, ‘Bye, Bye, Paulo.’”
“If I may continue?”
“Certainly.”
“However, this unfortunate business, this travesty of justice, comes at a very awkward time for Mr. Cassandro. It will force him to devote a certain amount of time to it, time he feels he must devote to his business interests.”
“Freely translated, Peter,” Weisbach said, “what Armando is telling us is that Paulo doesn’t want to go to jail.”
“I wondered what he was trying to say,” Wohl said.
“What he wants to do is get this unfortunate business behind him as soon as possible.”
“Tell him probably ten to fifteen years, depending on the judge. If he gets Hanging Harriet, probably fifteen to twenty,” Weisbach said.
The Hon. Harriet M. McCandless, a black jurist who passionately believed that civilized society was based on a civil service whose honesty was above question, was famous for her severe sentences.
“You’re not listening to me, Michael,” Giacomo said. “I am quite confident that, upon hearing how the police department has so outrageously violated the rights of Mr. Cassandro, Judge McCandless, or any other judge, will throw this case out of court.”
“God, you’re wonderful,” Peter said.
“As I was saying, with an eye to putting this unfortunate business behind him as soon as possible, my client would be…”
“Armando,” Weisbach said, “even if I wanted to, we couldn’t deal on this. You want to deal, try the District Attorney. But I’ll bet you he’ll tell you Cassandro has nothing to deal with. We have him cold and he’s going to jail.”
“I will, of course, discuss this matter with Mr. Callis. But frankly, it will be a good deal easier for me, when I do speak with him, if I could tell him that I had spoken to you and Peter, and that you share my belief that what I propose would serve the ends of justice.”
“Armando,” Wohl said, laughing, “not only do I like you, but you are about to not only send me a case of wine, but also buy me a very expensive lunch. What that entitles you to is this: If you will tell me what you want, and how Paulo Cassandro wishes to pay for it, I will give you my honest opinion of how hard Mr. Callis is going to laugh at you before he throws you out of his office.”
“Mr. Cassandro, as a public-spirited citizen, is willing to testify against Captain Cazerra, Lieutenant Meyer, and the two police officers. All he asks in exchange is immunity from prosecution.”
“Loudly,” Weisbach said. “Mr. Callis is going to laugh very loudly when you go to him with that.”
“He may even become hysterical,” Wohl said.
“ And against the lady,” Giacomo went on. “The madam, what the hell is her name?”
I will be damned, Wohl thought. He’s flustered. Have we really gotten through to Armando C. Giacomo, shattered his famous rocklike confidence?
“Her name is Osadchy, Armando,” Wohl said. “If you have trouble remembering her last name, why don’t you associate it with Hanging Harriet? Same Christian name.”
“Very funny, Peter.”
“By now, Armando, with the egg they have on their face about Mrs. Osadchy,” Weisbach said, “I’ll bet Vice is paying her a lot of attention. They’ll find something, I’m sure, that they can take to the DA.”
“Let’s talk about that,” Giacomo said. “The egg on the face.”
“OK,” Peter said. “The egg on whose face?”
“The Police Department’s.”
“Because we had a couple of dirty cops? There might be some egg on our face because of that, but I think we wiped off most of it this morning,” Weisbach said.
“Not in a public relations sense, maybe. Let me put that another way. The egg you wiped off this morning is going to reappear when you try Captain Cazerra. The trial will last at least two weeks, and there will be a story in every newspaper in Philadelphia every day of the trial. People will forget that he was arrested by good cops; what they’ll remember is that the Department had a dirty captain. And when his trial is over, we will have the trial of Lieutenant Meyer.”
“I reluctantly grant the point,” Peter said.
“On the other hand, for the sake of friendly argument, if Captain Cazerra were to plead guilty and throw himself upon the mercy of the court because he became aware that Mr. Cassandro’s public-spirited testimony was going to see him convicted…”
Or if the mob struck a deal with him, Peter thought. “ Take the fall and we’ll take care of your family.” Which is not such an unlikely idea. I wonder why it’s so important that they keep Paulo out of jail. Has he moved up in the mob hierarchy? I’ll pass this on to Intelligence and Organized Crime, anyway.
“…there would only be, on one day only,” Giacomo went on, “a short story, buried in the back pages, that a dishonest policeman had admitt
ed his guilt and had been sentenced. There are people who are wise in public relations, and I would include our beloved mayor among them, who would think that alternative would be preferable to a long and sordid public trial.”
I’m agreeing with him again, which means that I am getting in over my head. I am now going to swim for shore before I drown.
“Before we go in for lunch, Armando, and apropos of nothing whatever, I would suggest that if Mr. Cassandro wants any kind of consideration at all from anybody you know, he’s going to have to come up with more than a possible solution to a public relations problem.”
“I understand, Peter,” Armando said smoothly. “Such as what?”
“You’ve heard about the murder of Officer Jerry Kellog?” Wohl asked.
Giacomo nodded. “Tragic. Shot down in cold blood in his own house, according to the Ledger.”
“The Ledger also implied that a Homicide detective was involved,” Wohl said. “My bet is that it’s related to Narcotics. I would be grateful for any information that would lead the Department down that path.”
“And then there’s the double murder at the Inferno Lounge,” Weisbach said. “Some people think that looks like a contract hit. I think the Department might be grateful for information that would help them there.”
From the look on his face, Peter Wohl thought, he thinks there is a mob connection.
Confirmation came immediately.
“Those people, and you two know this as well as I do, have a code of honor…”
“Call it a code, if you like, but the word ‘honor’ is inappropriate,” Peter said.
“Whatever you want to call it, turning in one of their own violates it,” Giacomo said.
“They also don’t fool around with each other’s wives, either, do they?” Weisbach said. “And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they give a percentage of their earnings from prostitution and drugs to worthy causes and the church. Despite what you may have heard, they’re really not bad people, are they, Armando?”
Giacomo looked very uncomfortable.
“A top-level decision would have to be made,” Peter interrupted. “Who goes to jail? Who is more valuable? Paulo Cassandro or a hit man? Who goes directly to jail without passing ‘go’?”
What the hell am I doing? Bargaining with the mob? Making a deal to have the mob do something the Police Department should be doing itself? Cassandro bribed some dirty cops. We caught them. They should all go to jail, not just the cops. Paulo Cassandro should not walk because it will increase Jerry Carlucci’s chances of getting re-elected.
Wohl stood up.
“Is something wrong?” Giacomo asked.
“I’m not sure I want to eat lunch,” he said. “And I know I have enough of this conversation.”
Weisbach stood up. Giacomo looked up at them, and then stood up himself.
“I thank you for your indulgence,” he said. “I would be deeply pained if this conversation affected our friendship.”
Oddly enough, I believe him. Which probably proves I was right about getting in over my head.
“Please, let’s not let this ruin a lunch with friends. Come and break bread with me, please,” Giacomo said.
Wohl didn’t reply for a moment.
“I was about to say, only if I can pay. But I can’t pay in here, can I?”
“No. And it is an expulsable offense for a member to let a guest reimburse him. If that’s important to you, Peter, would you like to go somewhere else?”
Wohl met his eyes for a moment.
“No,” he said finally. “I think we understand each other, Armando. We can eat here.”
South Rittenhouse Square-on the south side of Rittenhouse Square in Center City Philadelphia-is no wider than it was when it was laid out at the time of the American Revolution. There are a half-dozen NO PARKING AT ANY TIME-TOW AWAY ZONE signs, warning citizens that if they park there at any time, it is virtually certain that to reclaim their car, it will be necessary for them to somehow make their way halfway across Philadelphia to the Parking Authority impoundment lot at Delaware Avenue and Spring Garden Street and there both pay a hefty fine for illegal parking and generously compensate the City of Brotherly Love for the services of the Parking Authority tow truck that hauled their car away.
Despite this, when Amelia Payne, M.D., drove past the building housing the Delaware Valley Cancer Society, there were seven automobiles parked in front of it, all of them with their right-side wheels on the sidewalk. There was a new Oldsmobile sedan, a battered Volkswagen, a ten-year-old, gleaming Jaguar XK 120, a new Mercedes convertible, a new Buick sedan, and two new sedans, a Ford and a Chevrolet.
There’s not even room enough for me, Dr. Payne thought somewhat indignantly. Like most of her fellow practitioners of the healing arts, she was in the habit of interpreting rather loosely the privilege granted to physicians of ignoring NO PARKING AT ANY TIME signs when making emergency calls.
And she had intended to do so now, by placing her official PHYSICIAN MAKING CALL card on the dashboard of the Buick station wagon, because the basement garage of the Cancer Society Building, to which she had access, had a very narrow entrance passage that she had difficulty negotiating.
She continued past the Delaware Valley Cancer Society Building, noticing with annoyance the beat cop on the corner, his arms folded on his chest, calmly surveying his domain and oblivious to the multiple violations of parking laws.
Professional courtesy, she thought. Damn the cops!
She had recognized four of the cars-the Oldsmobile, the Volkswagen, the Jaguar, and the Mercedes-as belonging respectively to Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, Detective Charles McFadden, Inspector Peter Wohl, and Captain David Pekach, and had drawn, as the cop obviously had, the natural and correct conclusion that the rest of the cars were also the official or personal automobiles of other policemen (or in the case of Pekach, belonged to his fiancee, Miss Martha Peebles, which was just about the same thing) who regarded parking regulations as applying only to civilians.
She drove to South Nineteenth Street, where she turned right, and then made the next right, and ultimately reached the entrance of the underground garage, which, surprising her not at all, she failed to maneuver through unscathed. This time she scraped the right fender against a wall.
This served to further lower her morale. In addition to the early-morning horror at the Detweilers’, she had just come from University Hospital, where a patient of hers, an attractive young woman whom she had originally diagnosed as suffering from routine postpartum depression, was manifesting symptoms of more serious mental illness that Amy simply could not fathom, nor could anyone else she had consulted.
She was not surprised, either, to find both of the reserved parking places she intended to use already occupied. One of them held a silver Porsche 911, and the other a Buick wagon identical to hers, save it was two years younger and unscratched and undented.
The Buick belonged to her father, who could be expected to offer some clever witticism about the dents in her Buick, and the Porsche to her brother. The Delaware Valley Cancer Society Building was owned by her father, and her brother occupied a tiny apartment in what had been the garret before the 1850s building had been gutted and converted into offices behind the original facade.
She parked the Buick-neatly straddling a marking line between spaces-and got out of the car. The elevator did not respond to her summons, and only after a while did she remember that it was late-she consulted her watch and saw that it was well after midnight-and remembered that at this hour, the elevator was locked. It would be necessary to call Matt’s apartment by telephone, whereupon he could push a button activating the elevator.
And he took his damned sweet time answering the telephone, and when he did, it wasn’t him, but a clipped, metallic voice she did not at first recognize.
“Yes?”
“This is Dr. Payne. Would you please push the elevator button?”
There was the sound of male laughter
in the background.
“Just a moment, darlin’,” the voice said. “I’ll ask Matty how to work it.”
She now recognized the voice to be that of Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin. Normally, she did not mind his addressing her as “darlin’,” but now it annoyed her.
The line went dead, and she stood there for a full minute, waiting for the sound of a buzzer, or whatever, which would bring the elevator to life. It gave her time to consider that what was going on upstairs was really an Irish wake, the males of the clan gathering to console one of their number who had suffered a loss.
She reached for the telephone again, then changed her mind and pushed the elevator button again. This time she was rewarded with the sound of the elevator moving.
It took her to the third floor. A closed door led to the narrow flight of stairs to Matt’s apartment. She pushed the button, and in a moment, a solenoid buzzed and she was able to push the door open.
She was greeted again with the sound of male laughter, which for some reason annoyed her, although another part of her mind said that it was probably therapeutic.
She walked up the stairs.
The tiny apartment was jammed. In the living room, she saw Martha Peebles sitting on a small couch with Mary-Margaret McCarthy-Detective Charley McFadden’s girlfriend-and a tall young man she recognized as Matt’s friend Jack Matthews, an FBI agent. The small table in front of the couch was covered with jackets. It was hot in the apartment, and most of the men had taken off their jackets and pulled down their ties and rolled up their sleeves.
Which also served to reveal that most of them were armed. There were shoulder holsters and waist holsters, most of them carrying snub-nosed. 38-caliber revolvers.
The tribal insignia, Amy thought, like that little purse or whatever Scots wear hanging down over their kilts.
Matt’s two small armchairs held Captain David Pekach and Lieutenant Jack Malone, having what seemed to be a serious conversation; they didn’t look at her.
Martha Peebles smiled and stood up when she saw her, and stepped over Mary-Margaret McCarthy and the FBI agent to come to her. Mary-Margaret and the FBI agent smiled at her.
“How’s Grace?” Martha Peebles asked softly as she put her cheek next to Amy’s.
The Murderers boh-6 Page 26
