“I wonder what she has in mind to do to Officer Payne?” Lomax asked, teeth clenched. “Something frightfully naughty, wouldn’t you say?”
“We gonna stick a .45 down your throat, motherfucker, and blow your fucking brains out your ass!”
“On the whole, I think I prefer the lady’s offer,” Wohl said.
“Yeah,” Lomax said.
“Her voice,” Wohl thought aloud, “sounds vaguely familiar.”
“If he who has gone out again, thank God,” Lomax said, in a credible mimicry, “finds out, Payne is going to have a bullet in both legs.”
“We gonna cut your cock off and shove it down your throat, motherfucker!”
“I think that’s more or less what the lady has in mind,” Wohl said. “Except that she wants to bite it off and shove it down her own throat.”
“Peter, you’re a dirty old man.”
“Shut it off, I’ve heard enough,” Wohl said. “I’m on my way to ‘counsel’ Detective Harris. I shouldn’t have a mind full of lewd images.”
“I don’t think you missed anything. I’ll play the whole thing to be sure. But that’s about what the first one had on it.”
“Why do you think they’re doing this, Warren?”
“I don’t know,” Lomax said thoughtfully. “Just to be a pain in the ass, maybe. Or they get their jollies talking nasty to a cop.”
“Wouldn’t that get dull after a while? How many times can you say ‘fuck you’?”
“I had the feeling too, that it’s organized. Some of them sound like they’re reading it.”
“That brings us back to why?”
“It could be, playing a psychiatrist, that they’re getting a little worried, and calling Payne and Goldblatt’s makes them think they’re doing something useful for the revolution.”
“You think they’re really revolutionaries?”
“They don’t sound like bomb throwers. Christ, I’ve listened to enough of them. They sound either really bananas, or very calm, as if they’re going about God’s work. These clowns don’t even sound particularly angry.”
“Yeah,” Wohl said. “Well, thanks, Warren. It was good to see you.”
“I got some really dirty tapes back there, Peter,” Lomax said, gesturing toward a row of file tapes, “and some blue movies, now that we know you react to them. Come back anytime.”
Martha Peebles woke thinking that she was—to her joyous surprise; four months before she would have given eight to five that she would end her life as a virginal spinster—not only a woman in love, but a betrothed woman.
David—sweet, shy David—had never actually proposed, of course, getting down on his knees and asking her to be his bride, giving her an engagement ring. But that didn’t matter. He knew in his heart as she knew in hers that they were meant for each other, that it was ordained, perhaps by God, that they share life’s joys and pains together, that they be man and wife.
Getting down on his knees wasn’t David’s style. She could not, now that she had time to think about it, imagine her father getting down on his knees either. And she already had an engagement ring. It had been her mother’s. And it looked so good on her finger!
She got out of bed and put on a robe and went into the bath and watched David shave and then get dressed, and, hanging on his arm, her head against his shoulder, walked with him downstairs for breakfast.
Evans gave her, she thought, a knowing look.
Well, have I got a surprise for you! It’s not what you think at all.
Evans disappeared into the kitchen, and then returned a moment later with the coffee service.
“Good morning, Miss Martha, Captain,” he said. “It’s cold out, but nice and clear. I hope you slept well?”
“Splendidly, thank you,” Martha said. “Evans, Captain Pekach and I have a little announcement.”
David looked uncomfortable.
“I saw the ring when you came in, Miss Martha,” Evans said. “Your mother and dad would be happy for you.”
He held out his hand to David.
“May I offer my congratulations, Captain?”
“Thank you,” David said, getting to his feet, visibly torn between embarrassment and pleasure.
Harriet Evans came through the swinging door to the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Martha.
“Oh, honey baby, I’m so happy for you,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “I knew the first time I saw you with the captain that he’d be the one.”
“I knew the first time I saw him that he was the one,” Martha said.
Harriet touched Martha’s face and then went to Pekach and hugged him.
David’s embarrassment passed. He was now smiling broadly.
I will never be as happy ever again as I am at this moment, Martha thought.
She waited until Evans and Harriet had gone to fetch the rest of breakfast, and then asked, “Precious, would you do something for me?”
“Name it,” he said, after a just perceptible hesitation.
“I know how you feel about people and parties, precious. But I do want to share this with someone.”
“Who?” David asked suspiciously.
“I was thinking we could have a very few people, Peter Wohl, for example, in for cocktails and dinner. Nothing elaborate—”
“Wohl?”
“Well, he is your boss, and he was the first one who knew.”
“Yeah, I guess he was.”
“And he’s not married, and I suspect that he’s under terrible pressure—”
“You can say that again.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Would you ask him?”
“For when?”
“For tonight.”
“I’ll ask him.”
“And maybe Captain and Mrs. Sabara?”
“I can ask.”
And I will think of one more couple. Somebody who can do David some good. I would like to ask Brewster and Patricia Payne, but with their boy in the condition he is, that probably isn’t a good idea. I’ll think of someone. Since my husband-to-be wants to be a policeman, it is clearly the duty of his wife-to-be to do everything in her power to see that he becomes commissioner.
“You ask the minute you get to work, and call me and tell me what they said.”
“That sounds like a wifely order.”
“Yes, I guess it does. Do you want to change your mind about anything?”
Smiling broadly, he shook his head no.
She got up and went to his end of the table and stood behind his chair and put her arms around him.
And so it was that when Assistant District Attorney Farnsworth Stillwell finally managed to get Staff Inspector Peter Wohl on the telephone at half past one that afternoon, Wohl was able to make the absolutely truthful statement, “Well, that’s very kind of you, Farnsworth, but I have previous plans.”
He was to take cocktails and dinner with Miss Martha Peebles and her fiancé at Miss Peebles’s residence, primarily because when Dave Pekach asked him, Pekach took him by surprise, and he could think of no excuse not to accept that would not hurt Pekach’s feelings.
Until Stillwell had called, he had taken some consolation by thinking that the food would probably be good, and even if that didn’t happen, he would be able to satisfy his curiosity about what the inside of the mansion behind the walls at 606 Glengarry Lane looked like.
Now he was extremely grateful to have been the recipient of Miss Peebles’s kind invitation.
I may even carry her flowers.
“Can’t you get out of it?” Stillwell insisted. “Peter, this is important. Possibly to both of us.”
You for sure, and me possibly. Fuck you, Stillwell.
“I just can’t. One of my men is having a little party to celebrate his engagement. I have to be there. You understand.”
“Which one of your men?”
You are a persistent bastard, aren’t you?
“Captain David Pekach, as a
matter of fact.”
Farnsworth Stillwell laughed, which surprised Wohl.
“I wondered what the hell that was all about. I’ll see you there, Peter,” he said, and hung up.
What the hell does he mean by that?
Farnsworth Stillwell broke the connection with his finger and dialed his home. “Helene, call the Peebles woman back, tell her that I was able to rearrange my schedule and that we’ll be able to come after all.”
Margaret McCarthy, trailed by Lari Matsi, came up the narrow staircase into Matt Payne’s apartment. Both of them were wearing heavy quilted three-quarter length jackets and earmuffs.
“I could have come and picked you up,” Charley McFadden said.
“Next time, take him up on it,” Lari said. “It’s cold out there.”
Jesus Martinez came up the stairs.
“Hay-zus, you don’t know Lari, do you?” Margaret said. “Hay-zus Martinez, Lari Matsi.”
“How are you?” Martinez said.
“I didn’t catch the name?” Lari replied.
“It’s ‘Jesus’ in Spanish,” Charley offered.
“Oh,” Lari said, and smiled.
“I don’t think we’ve met,” Margaret said, smiling, to the third young man in the room. “And Charley’s not too good about introducing people.”
He was wearing a mixed sweat suit, gray trousers and a yellow sweatshirt, on which was painted, STOLEN FROM THE SING SING PRISON ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT. There was little doubt in her mind that he was a cop; a shoulder holster with a large revolver in it was hanging from the chair that he was straddling backward. He stood up and put out his hand.
“Jack Matthews,” he said.
“Where’s Matt?”
“In his bedroom with a woman,” Charley said.
“He thought you’d never ask,” Jack Matthews said.
“What are you talking about?” Margaret said, not quite sure her leg was being pulled.
“You asked where Matt was, and I told you. He’s in his bedroom with a woman.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Probably with his pants off,” Charley added, exchanging a pleased smile with Jack Matthews. Jesus Martinez shook his head in disgust.
Amy Payne came out of Matt’s bedroom, saw the women in the living room, and smiled.
“Hi! I’m Amy,” she said. “Matt’ll be out in a minute, presuming he can get his pants on by himself.”
Officer McFadden and Special Agent Matthews for reasons that baffled all three women found this announcement convulsively hilarious. Even Jesus smiled.
“Just what’s going on around here, Charley?” Margaret demanded.
“Let me take it from the beginning,” Amy said. “I’m Amy Payne. Matt’s sister. I happen to be a doctor. And knowing my idiot brother as I do, I felt reasonably sure that he would not change his dressings, and that’s what I’ve been doing.”
“Not very funny at all, Charley,” Margaret said, but she could not keep herself from smiling.
Lari dipped into an enormous purse and held up a plastic bag full of bandages and antiseptic.
“I don’t know him as well as you do, Doctor,” she said. “But that’s why I’m here too. He is that category of patient best described as a pain-in-the-you-know-what. I was filling in on the surgical floor at Frankford when they brought him in.”
“Well, that was certainly nice of you,” Amy said. “Apparently, you don’t know my brother very well. If you did, you would encourage gangrene.”
“No,” Lari said. “That would put him back in the hospital. Anything to prevent that.”
They smiled at each other.
Matt came into the room, supporting himself on a cane.
“Oh, good!” he said. “Everybody’s here. Choir practice can begin.”
“I promised Mother I would see that you were eating,” Amy said. “What are your plans for that?”
“We’re going out for the worst food in Philadelphia,” Matt said. “You’re welcome to join us, Amy.”
“I know I shouldn’t ask, but curiosity overwhelms me. Where are you going to get the worst food in Philadelphia?”
“At the FOP,” Matt replied. “As a special dispensation, because I have been a very good boy, I have permission to go there, providing I don’t drink too much and I come directly home afterward.”
“Actually, I’m looking forward to it,” Jack Matthews said. “I’ve never been there.”
“I think I’ll pass, thank you just the same,” Amy said.
“You’re a cop, and you’ve never been to the FOP?” Lari Matsi asked.
“Oh, come on, Amy,” Matt said. “I’ll even buy you a chili dog.”
“I haven’t had supper,” Amy said. “For some perverse reason, a chili dog has a certain appeal to me.”
“How is it,” Lari pursued, “that you’ve never been to the FOP?”
“He’s not a real cop,” Charley said. “More like a Junior G-man.”
“In deference to the ladies, Officer McFadden,” Jack Matthews said. “I will not suggest that you attempt a physiologically impossible act of self-impregnation.”
Matt laughed. After a moment, Amy did too, and then Lari.
“Then what’s the gun for?” Lari asked.
“I work for the Justice Department,” Jack replied.
“He’s an FBI agent, Lari,” Matt said.
“Oh, really?”
Matt saw the way Lari was looking at Jack Matthews, and knew that whatever chance there might have been for him to know Lari Matsi in the biblical sense had just gone up in smoke.
“Are you here officially?” Amy asked. “I mean, are you part of Matt’s bodyguard, or whatever it’s called?”
“Actually, I came to play chess,” Jack said. “But these evil people pressed intoxicants on me. Have I shattered your faith in the FBI?”
“Yeah,” Amy said, smiling.
Yeah, you are here officially, Matt thought, or at least quasi-officially. You came here, under cover of playing chess, to tell me that yes, indeed, the rumors are true. I am to be investigated by the FBI regarding formal charges made that I violated the civil rights of Charles David Stevens, Esq., by shooting the murderous sonofabitch.
“Has any thought been given to how we’re going to get Matt—I guess I mean all of us—from here to the FOP?” Amy asked. “I don’t have my car.”
“No problem,” Charley said. “We—Hay-zus and me—have an unmarked car downstairs. We’ll take Matt in that. The rest of you can ride with Jack in his G-man wagon.”
“That should work,” Lari Matsi said.
And I will bet twenty dollars to a doughnut that when the convoy gets under way, Lari will be in the front seat of same with J. Edgar Hoover, Junior, both of them wondering how they can get rid of Amy and Margaret.
Oh, what the hell. There’s always Helene.
Staff Inspector Peter F. Wohl left his office at Bustleton and Bowler Streets a few minutes after half past five.
On the way to his apartment in the 800 block of Norwood Street in Chestnut Hill, Wohl decided that tonight was a good opportunity to give the Jag a little exercise. He hadn’t had it out of the garage since the lousy weather had started.
Among its many not-so-charming idiosyncrasies, the Jag frequently expressed its annoyance at being ignored for more than forty-eight hours at a time by absolutely refusing to start when the person privileged to have the responsibility for its care and feeding finally came to take it out.
Driving it back and forth to Martha Peebles’s house—plus maybe a run past Monahan’s house on the way home, just to check—would be just long enough a trip to give it a good warm-up, get the oil circulating, and get the flat spots out of the tires.
He thought again that if there was only room to safely park a car like the Jag at Bustleton and Bowler, he could drive it to work every other day or so. He made a mental note to tell Payne, when he came back on duty, and could devote some attention to the “new” school building at F
rankford and Castor, to make sure that, as a prerogative of his exalted rank and position, the commanding officer of Special Operations have reserved for him a parking place that was at once convenient and would provide a certain protection against getting its fenders dinged.
When he reached the garages behind the mansion he put his city-owned car in the garage, and then took a shovel and started to clear the ice and snow away from the doors of the Jag’s garage. He finally got the doors open, but it was even more difficult than he thought it would be. The snow had melted and frozen into ice and thawed and refrozen. He had, he thought, actually chiseled his way through the ice into the garage, rather than shoveled his way through the snow.
He got behind the wheel and put the key in the ignition. To his delighted surprise, the engine caught immediately. It ran a little roughly, but it ran. It would not, as he had worst-scenario predicted, refuse to start until he had run the battery down and then recharged it.
“Good girl,” he said.
He sat there, running the engine just above idle until the engine temperature gauge needle finally moved off the peg. He shut the engine off, opened the hood and checked the oil and brake fluid, looked at the tires, and then closed the doors, locked them, and went up the stairs at the end of the building to his apartment.
He showered and shaved, put on a glen plaid suit, and wondered—he had little experience in this sort of thing—if he was expected to bring a gift to the affair, and if so, what?
To hell with it.
He put on his overcoat, which had a collar of some unidentified fur, and a green felt snap-brim hat.
There were no messages on his answering machine, which surprised him. He called Special Operations and told the lieutenant on duty that he would be at the residence of Miss Martha Peebles in Chestnut Hill from fifteen minutes from now until he advised differently.
Then he went down and got back in the Jaguar. It started immediately. All was right with the world, he told himself, until he glanced at his watch and saw that he was not due at Glengarry Lane for almost an hour.
What the hell, I’ll check on the people sitting on Monahan now, instead of later.
When he reached the neighborhood, he drove slowly east on Bridge Street, looking up Sylvester Street at the intersection. There was an unmarked car parked at the curb. He could see the heads of two men in the car, one of them wearing a regular uniform cap, the other what he thought of as a Renfrew of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police cap.
The Witness Page 40
