That was the television program he really hated to miss.
****
Tom O'Mara stopped the car in front of the building that was the headquarters of the Special Operations Division of the Philadelphia Police Department. Over the door there was a legend chiseled in granite: FRANKFORD GRAMMAR SCHOOL A.D. 1892.
Before O'Mara could apply the parking brake and open his door, Supervisory Special Agent H. Charles Larkin said, "This must be the place," and got out of the car.
Matt hurried after him, and managed to beat Larkin to the door and pull it open for him.
"Right this way, Mr. Larkin," he said.
He led him down the corridor to the private door of what had been the principal's office, knocked, and then pushed the door open.
"Mr. Larkin is here, Inspector."
"Fine. Would you ask him to wait just a minute, please, Detective Payne?"
"Yes, sir," Matt said, and turned to Larkin. "The inspector will be with you in just a minute, sir."
"How good of him," Larkin said, expressionless.
Matt knew from checking his watch that Wohl kept Larkin waiting for two minutes, but it seemed like much longer before Wohl pulled his door open.
"Mr. Larkin, I'm Staff Inspector Peter Wohl. Won't you please come in?"
"Thank you."
Wohl gestured for Matt to come in, and then waved Larkin into an armchair.
"Any problems picking you up, sir?"
"None whatever."
"May I offer you a cup of coffee? A soft drink?"
"No, thank you," Larkin said. "But may I use your telephone?"
"Of course," Wohl said, and pushed one of the phones on his desk to Larkin. Larkin consulted a small, leather-bound notebook, and then dialed a number.
Matt could hear the phone ringing.
"Olga? Charley Larkin. How are you, sweetheart?"
Matt saw Wohl looking at him strangely.
"Is that guy you live with around? Sober?"
There was a brief pause.
"How the hell are you, Augie?" Larkin asked.
Staff Inspector Peter Wohl's eyes rolled up toward the ceiling; he shook his head from side to side, smiled faintly, and exhaled audibly.
"I'm in Philadelphia, and I need a favor," Supervisory Special Agent Larkin went on. "I need a good word. For some reason, I got off on the wrong foot with one of your guys, and I'd like to set it right."
"I appreciate it, pal. Hold on a minute."
Larkin handed the telephone to Peter Wohl.
"Chief Wohl would like a word with you, Inspector," he said.
Peter Wohl took the telephone.
"Good morning, Dad," he said.
Larkin, beaming smugly, tapped his fingertips together.
"Yes, I'm afraid Mr. Larkin was talking about me. Obviously, there has been what they call a communications problem, Dad. Nothing that can't be fixed."
Chief Wohl spoke for almost a minute, before Peter Wohl replied, " I'll do what I can, Dad. I don't know his schedule."
He handed the phone back to Larkin.
"Chief Wohl would like to talk to you again, Mr. Larkin."
"I don't know what his plans are for lunch, Augie, but I'm free, and I accept. Okay. Bookbinder's at twelve. Look forward to it."
He reached over and replaced the handset in its cradle.
They looked at each other for a moment, and then Wohl chuckled, and then laughed. Larkin joined in.
"I thought my guy here said 'Wall,'" Larkin said. "I don't know anybody named 'Wall.'"
"Well, while you and my dad have a lobster, that I'll pay for, I' ll have a boiled crow," Wohl said. "Will that set things right?"
"I'm sorry I used that phrase," Larkin said. "Nothing has gone wrong yet, but I'm glad I saw your father's picture on the wall. I think you and I could have crossed swords, and that would have been unfortunate. Can I ask a question?"
"Certainly."
"Have you got a hard-on for the feds generally, or is there someone in particular who's been giving you trouble? One of our guys, maybe?"
Wohl, almost visibly, carefully chose his words.
"I think the bottom line, Mr. Larkin, is that I was being overprotective of my turf. They just gave me Dignitary Protection, and I wanted to make sure it was understood who was running it. I really feel like a fool."
"Don't. The Secret Service is a nasty bureaucracy too. I understand how that works."
"When you're aware of your ignorance, you tend to gather your wagons in a circle," Wohl said.
"Well, I'm not the Indians," Larkin said. "And now that we both know that, could you bring yourself to call me Charley?"
"My dad might decide I was being disrespectful," Wohl said.
"Peter, if you keep calling me 'Mr. Larkin,' your dad will think we still have a communications problem."
"Matt," Wohl said. "Go get Captains Sabara and Pekach. I want them to meet Charley here."
"Yes, sir. Lieutenant Malone?"
"Him too," Wohl said.
As Matt started down the corridor to Sabara's office, where he suspected they would all be, he heard Larkin say, "Nice-looking kid."
"I think he'll make a pretty good cop."
That's very nice. But it's sort of a left-handed compliment. It suggests I will probably be a pretty good cop sometime in the future. So what does that make me now?
****
Wohl made the introductions, and they all shook hands.
"There is a new game plan," Wohl said. "There is something I didn' t know until a few minutes ago about Mr. Larkin. He and my dad are old pals, and that changes his status from one of them to one of us. And I've already told him that we don't know zilch about what's expected of us. So we're all here to learn. The basic rule is what he asks for, he gets. Mr. Larkin?"
"The first thing you have to understand," Larkin said seriously, " is that the Secret Service never makes a mistake. Our people here in Philadelphia told me that the man in charge of this operation was Inspector Wall. Peter has promised to have his birth certificate altered so that our record will not be tarnished."
He got the chuckles he expected.
"The way this usually works," Larkin went on, "is that our special agent in charge here will come up with the protection plan. I'll get a copy of it, to see if he missed anything, then we present it to you guys and ask for your cooperation. Then, a day or so before the actual visit, either me, or one of my guys, will come to town and check everything again, and check in with your people."
He paused, and looked in turn at everyone in the room-including Matt, which Matt found flattering.
"This time," he went on, "there's what I'm afraid may be a potential problem. Which is why I'm here, and so early."
He picked his briefcase up from the floor, laid it on his lap, opened it, and took out a plastic envelope.
"This is the original," he said, handing it to Wohl. "I had some Xeroxes made."
He passed the Xeroxes around to the others. They showed an envelope addressed to the Vice President of the United States, and the letter that envelope had held.
Dear Mr. Vice President:
You have offended the Lord, and He has decided, using me as His instrument, to disintegrate you using high explosives.
It is never too late to ask God's forgiveness, and I respectfully suggest that you make your peace with God as soon as possible.
Yours in Our Lord
A Christian.
"Is this for real?" Mike Sabara asked.
Wohl gave him a disdainful look. Matt was glad that Sabara had spoken before he had a chance to open his mouth. He had been on the verge of asking the same question.
"If you're getting a little long in the tooth," Larkin said, "and you've been in this business awhile, you start to think you can intuit whether a threat is real or not. My gut feeling is that it's real; that this guy is dangerous."
"I don't think I quite follow you," Wohl said.
"The Vice President and, of course, the P
resident get all kinds of threatening letters," Larkin said. "There's a surprisingly large number of lunatics out there who get their kicks just writing letters, people in other words who have no intention of doing what they threaten to do. Then there are the mental incompetents. Then there are those with some kind of gripe, something they blame, in this case, on the Vice President-and want fixed."
Larkin paused long enough for that to sink in.
"Everybody, I suppose, has seenCasablanca!" He looked around as they nodded. "There was a great line, Claude Rains said, 'round up the usual suspects,' or something like that. We have a list of suspects, people we think need to be watched, or in some cases taken out of circulation while the man we're protecting is around. This guy is not on our list."
"How could he be on a list?" Matt blurted. "He didn't sign his name."
He glanced at Wohl, and saw Wohl's eyes chill, but then move to Larkin. It was a valid question, and Larkin immediately confirmed this:
"Good question. If they don't have a name, we give them one. For example, No Pension Check. Jew-Hater. Irish-Hater. Sometimes, it gets to be Jew-Hater, Chicago, Number Seventeen. Understand?"
"I think so," Matt said.
"We keep pretty good files. Cross-referenced. As good as we can make them. This guy doesn't appear anywhere."
"What makes you think he's dangerous?" Dave Pekach asked.
"For one thing, he's in Philadelphia, and the Vice President will be in Philadelphia in eight days, a week from Monday. We don't have much time."
"I meant, why do you think he's dangerous, and not just a guy who writes letters to get his kicks?" Pekach persisted.
"Primarily, because he sees himself as an instrument of the Lord. God is on his side; he's doing God's bidding, and that removes all questions of right and wrong from the equation. If God tells you to quote 'disintegrate' somebody, that's not murder."
"Interesting word," Sabara said thoughtfully, "'disintegrate.'"
Larkin glanced at him. Matt thought he saw approval in his eyes.
"I thought so too," he said.
"So is 'instrument,'" Wohl chimed in. "God using this fellow as his 'instrument.'"
"Yeah," Larkin said. "I sent this off, as a matter of routine, to a psychiatrist for a profile. I'll be interested to hear what he has to say. Incidentally, if you have a good shrink, I'd be interested in what he thinks too."
"Her," Wohl said. "Not a departmental shrink. But she was very helpful when we had a serial rapist, ultimately serial murderer, running around the northwest. When we finally ran him down, it was uncanny to compare what she had to say about him based on almost nothing, and what we learned about him once we had stopped him."
"Interesting," Larkin said.
"Payne's sister. Dr. Amelia Payne. She teaches at the University."
"What's even more interesting, Mr. Larkin…" Pekach said.
"Charley, please," Larkin interrupted.
"…is that Matt, Detective Payne, got this guy. With his next victim already tied up in the back of his van," Pekach concluded.
"Fascinating," Larkin said, looking at Matt.
He already knew that, Matt thought. He's not going to shut Pekach up, but he knew. He really must have some files.
"Okay, Matt," Wohl ordered. "As a first order of business, run this letter past Dr. Payne, will you, please?"
"Yes, sir."
"Mike, how are we fixed for cars?"
"Not good. Worse than not good."
"Matt's going to be doing a lot of running around," Wohl said. " He's going to need a car."
"Let him use mine," Pekach volunteered. "With or without Sergeant O'Dowd. I can get a ride if I need one."
"With your sergeant," Wohl said. "Matt, take the Xerox-before you go, make half a dozen copies-to Amy. Explain what we need, and why we need it yesterday. On the way, explain this to Sergeant O'Dowd, ask him for suggestions. The minute you can get through to him, call Chief Coughlin and ask him if he can meet us, make sure you tell him Mr. Larkin will be there, at Bookbinder's for lunch. I'll see if I can get Chief Lowenstein to come too."
"It's Sunday. There's no telling where Amy might be."
"Find her," Wohl ordered. "And keep me advised, step by step."
"Yes, sir."
FOURTEEN
"There are some other things I think we can safely say about this guy," Larkin said after Matt had gone. "For one thing, he's intelligent, and he's well educated. The two don't always go together. You'll notice that he correctly capitalizes all references to the deity. 'His instrument,' for example, has a capital 'H.'"
Sabara grunted.
"And there are no typos on either the letter or the envelope, which were typed on an IBM typewriter. One of those with the ball. So he both knows how to type and has access to an IBM typewriter. Which means probably in an office. Which would mean that he would also have access to a blank sheet of paper, and probably an envelope. He used instead a sheet of typing paper from one of those pads you buy in Woolworth's or McCrory's. There are traces of an animal-based adhesive on the top edge. Actually the bottom, which just means that after he ripped the sheet free, he put it in the typewriter upside down. And he used an envelope from the Post Office. Which probably means that he knows somebody was going to take a good close look at both the letter and the envelope and didn't want us to be able to find him by tracing the paper or envelope."
"Then why write the letter in the first place? Take that risk?" Sabara asked.
"Because he believes that he is a Christian, and is worried about the Vice President's soul," Larkin said. "Which brings us back to someone who thinks he's doing the Lord's work being a very dangerous character, indeed."
"We keep saying 'he,'" Wohl said, but it was a question.
'Two things. Both unscientific," Larkin replied. "Women don't normally do this sort of thing. And there is, in my judgment, a masculine character to the tone of the letter. It doesn't sound as if it's written by a female. But I could be wrong."
"Yeah," Wohl said thoughtfully.
"One more speculation," Larkin said. "'High explosives.' Technically, there are low-yield explosives and high-yield explosives. Maybe he knows the difference. That could suggest that this guy has some experience with explosives. It could just as easily mean, of course, that he doesn't know the difference, but just heard the term."
"But the whole letter suggests that he isn't thinking of taking a shot at the Vice President," Wohl said.
"Presuming, for the sake of argument, that you're right, that's a mixed blessing. Getting close enough to the Vice President to take a shot at him wouldn't be easy. Using explosives-and I don't think we can dismiss military ordnance, hand grenades, mines, that sort of thing-is something else. And since this guy is doing God's work, I don't think he's worrying about how many other people might have to be 'disintegrated.'"
"I don't suppose there's any chance of having the Vice President put off his visit until we can get our hands on this guy?" Wohl asked.
"No," Larkin said. "Not a chance."
"Has he seen this letter?"
Larkin shook his head, no.
"Well, you tell us, Charley," Wohl said. "How can we help?"
"That's a little delicate…"
"You'd rather discuss that in private, is that what you mean?"
Larkin nodded.
"Charley, anything that you want to say to me, you can say in front of these people," Wohl said.
Larkin hesitated, and then said, "You are like your dad, Peter. He once told me he never had anyone working for him he couldn't trust."
"There are some I trust less than others," Wohl said. "These I trust, period."
"Okay," Larkin said. "The word that gets back to me is that there is some bad feeling between the Police Department and the feds, the FBI in particular, but the feds generally."
"I can't imagine why anyone would think that," Wohl said, lightly sarcastic.
Larkin snorted.
"There's a story going aroun
d that both you, the Department, I mean, and the FBI were going after a big-time car thief. And the first time that either of you knew the other guys were working the job was when your cars ran into each other when you were picking him up."
"Not true," Wohl said.
Larkin looked at him in surprise.
'The real story is that nobody in the Department, except one hardnosed Irishman, believed that the car thief could possibly be a car thief. We were wrong, and the FBI was right."
"One of your guys, the hard-nosed Irishman?"
Wohl pointed at Jack Malone.
"And I didn't believe him, either," Wohl said. "Walter Davis and I had a long talk to see if we couldn't keep something like that from happening again."
Walter Davis was the SAC, the special agent in charge, of the Philadelphia office of the FBI.
"You get along with Davis all right, Peter?"
"As well as any simple local cop can get along with the FBI," Wohl said.
"Did you almost say 'the feds'?"
"No."
"Out of school," Larkin said. "I hear that part of the problem is a Captain Jack Duffy."
"Out of school, did you hear what Captain Duffy is supposed to have done?"
"What he doesn't do is the problem, is what I hear. Phrased delicately, both Walter Davis and our SAC here…Joe Toner, you know him, our supervisory agent in charge?"
Wohl shook his head, no.
"…tell me that in the best of all possible worlds, Captain Duffy would be a bit more enthusiastically cooperative than he is."
"That's delicately phrased," Wohl said. "But I don't think it's Duffy personally. He takes his guidance from the commissioner."
"Okay. Confession time," Larkin said. "Joe Toner found out somehow that Dignitary Protection had been given to something called Special Operations, which was under an Inspector Wall. So, when I began to suspect that this vice presidential visit was going to present serious problems, I decided I was going to bypass Captain Duffy. I called the Dignitary Protection sergeant…you know who I mean, the caretaker sergeant?"
"Henkels," Wohl furnished.
"Sergeant Henkels. And I told him that I wanted to see the supervisor in charge in our office. There, I was going to make sure he found out that Denny Coughlin and I are old pals. The logic being that Henkels and the lieutenant were going to be more impressed with, and more worried about annoying, Chief Coughlin than they would about Duffy. In other words, they would enthusiastically cooperate."
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