"Anybody else?"
"No, sir."
"Just the three of you, huh? Your own private detective squad within the Department, huh?"
Marchessi looked between them until it was clear that neither dared reply to that, and then went on.
"You have any trouble getting in this place, Payne?"
"No, sir."
"It's open to the public?"
"I believe it's operated as a club, sir. I was with someone who belonged."
"That could be interpreted to mean that you are associating with known criminals."
"Not in this case, sir," Matt said quickly.
But that's bullshit. Penny is a known narcotics addict, as well as someone known to associate with known criminals. Jesus!
"And this Corporal Lanza was there?"
"Yes, sir."
"Associating with known criminals?"
"I don't know, sir."
"The truth of the matter, Payne," Wohl said, "is that, with the possible exception of somebody like Vincenzo Savarese, you wouldn't recognize a known criminal if you fell over one. Isn't that so?"
"Yes, sir."
"Tell me about the two-thousand-dollar marker," Marchessi said.
"Sir, as I was cashing out, I saw Lanza sign a marker for two thousand dollars' worth of chips. He was in the line ahead of me."
"I thought you said you didn't follow him up there."
"I didn't. He was there."
"You knew him by sight? That would suggest he knows you by sight."
"Yes, sir. But not the way that sounds, sir."
"Clarify it for me."
"I didn't know who he was. But I made him as a cop. He was carrying."
"People, other than policemen, sometimes go about armed."
"I had a gut feeling he was a cop, sir, and then he spoke to me."
"What did he say?"
"I had apparently run into him in Las Vegas, sir. And on the airplane from Las Vegas home. He recognized me. Not as a cop."
"You made him, is that what you're saying, as a cop, but he didn't make you as a cop?"
"I'm sure I could have told if he had, sir."
"I admire your confidence in your own judgment, Payne," Marchessi said. "And then what did you do?"
"I came back to Philadelphia and called Off…DetectiveMartinez and told him (a) that Lanza had been in the Oaks and Pines and (b) had signed a marker for two thousand dollars."
"And then I went to see you, sir," Martinez said to Wohl.
"Tell me, Martinez," Marchessi said. "Have you anyevidence to connect Corporal Lanza with the smuggling of narcotics, or, for that matter, of anything else, or any other criminal activity, at the airport?"
"No evidence, sir. But it has to be him."
"'Has'to be him?" Marchessi replied, softly sarcastic.
He looked at Wohl, who shrugged his shoulders.
"You two wait outside. In the corridor," Marchessi said.
Matt and Martinez turned around and left his office.
"You want some coffee, Peter?" Marchessi asked.
"What I would like is a stiff drink."
"At this hour of the morning?"
"Figure of speech," Wohl said.
"Both of them talked about 'gut feelings,' or implied it," Marchessi said. "My gut feeling is that they've found who we're looking for."
"But have they blown it?" Wohl asked. "Dammit, I asked him to give me a name."
"Give him the benefit of the doubt. He didn't want to point a finger until he was sure."
"And while he was making sure, there was a good chance this guy would smell that he was being watched. And breaking into his car was absolute stupidity."
Marchessi chuckled.
"There was a story going around that one of my staff inspectors, carried away with enthusiasm, tapped the line of a Superior Court judge without getting the necessary warrant."
"Ouch!" Peter said.
"I didn't believe it, of course," Marchessi said. "I don't know what I would have done if somebody had discovered the tap."
"What, to change the subject, Chief, do we do about this?"
"Well, I think we've already been shifted into high gear, whether or not we like it," Marchessi said.
He pushed one of the buttons on his telephone, then picked up the receiver.
"Ollie, can you come in here a minute?" he said, and hung up.
Less than a minute later, Captain Richard Olsen, a large, blondhaired man of forty, wearing a blue blazer and a striped necktie, opened Marchessi's door without knocking.
"Sir?"
"Come in and close the door, Ollie. You remember Peter, of course?"
"What brings you slumming, Inspector?"
Captain Olsen, whose exact title Wohl could not remember, provided administrative services to the fourteen staff inspectors assigned to the Internal Investigations Bureau. The staff inspectors, from whose ranks Wohl had been transferred to command of Special Operations, handled sensitive investigations, most often involving governmental corruption. Wohl liked and respected him.
"How are you, Ollie?"
"Ollie," Marchessi asked, "if I wanted around-the-clock, moving surveillance of an off-duty Airport Unit corporal, starting right now, what kind of problems would that cause?"
Olsen thought that over for a minute.
"What squad is he assigned to?"
"Three squad, four to midnight," Wohl furnished.
"I can handle the next twenty-four hours, forty-eight, with no trouble. After that, I'll need some bodies. What are we looking for?"
"For openers, association with known criminals. Ultimately, to catch him smuggling drugs out of the airport."
"Watching him on the job would be difficult."
"I'm wondering if I can strike a deal with the feds. I know goddamned well they have people undercover out there. If I told them I'll give them a name, if they let us have the arrest…"
"And if they won't go along?" Wohl asked.
"That would bring us back to Hay-zus, wouldn't it, Peter?" Marchessi said thoughtfully.
"Yeah," Wohl said.
"You call it, Peter, you know him better than I do."
"We'd be betting that Lanza has accepted the story that Martinez is out there because he failed the detective's examination," Wohl thought aloud. "And I would have to impress on Martinez that all, absolutely all, that he's to do is watch him on the job…Screw the feds. I don't like the idea of having the feds catch one of our cops dirty. Let's go with Martinez."
"I have no idea," Olsen said, "who or what either of you are talking about."
"I think we should bring Martinez back in here," Marchessi said. " I don't think we need Payne. Except to tell him to keep his nose out of this."
"I'll handle Payne," Wohl said. "I don't think you need me, either, do you, Chief?"
"No. And you're on the mad bomber too, aren't you? How're you doing?"
"We don't have a clue who he is," Wohl said, getting off the couch. "Thank you very much, Chief. You've been very understanding."
"I have some experience, Peter, with bright young men who sometimes get carried away. Every once in a while, they even catch the bad guys. You might keep that in mind."
"Just between you, me, and the Swede here, I'm not nearly as angry with those two as I hope they think I am," Wohl said.
"You could have fooled me," Marchessi said. "Send in Martinez, will you, Peter?"
"I guess I'll be seeing you, Peter?" Olsen said, extending his hand.
"More than you'll want to, Ollie," Wohl said.
****
At 9:24, Mr. Pietro Cassandro pulled up before Ristorante Alfredo' s entrance at the wheel of a Lincoln that had been delivered to Classic Livery only the day before. On the way from his home, Mr. Vincenzo Savarese had been concerned that there was something wrong with the car. It smelled of something burning.
Mr. Cassandro had assured Mr. S. that there was no cause for concern, that he had personally checked the car out himself,
that it was absolutely okay, and that what Mr. S. was smelling was the preservatives and paint and stuff that comes with a new car, and burns off after a few miles. Like stickers and oil, for example, on the muffler.
Mr. S. had seemed only partially satisfied with Pietro's explanation, and Pietro had decided that maybe he'd made a mistake in picking up Mr. S. in the car before he'd put some miles on it. He would never do so again. The next time Mr. S. was sent a new car, it would have, say, two hundred miles on it, and wouldn't smell of burning anything.
Mr. Gian-Carlo Rosselli got out of the passenger seat and walked quickly to the door. Ristorante Alfredo didn't open until half-past eleven, and Pietro hoped that Ricco Baltazari had enough brains to have somebody waiting to open the door when Rosselli knocked on it. Mr. S. did not like to be kept waiting in a car when he wanted to go someplace, especially when the people knew he was coming.
Mr. Cassandro's concerns were put to rest when the door was opened by Ricco Baltazari himself before Rosselli reached it. Rosselli turned and looked up and down the street, and then nodded to Pietro, who got quickly out from behind the wheel and opened the door for Mr. S.
Mr. S. didn't say "thank you" the way he usually did, or even nod his head, but just walked quickly across the sidewalk and into the restaurant. Pietro was almost sure that was because he had business on his mind, and not because he was pissed that the car smelled, but he wasn't positive.
He wondered, as he got back behind the wheel, if he raced the engine, would that speed up the burn-the-crap-off process, so that the car wouldn't smell when Mr. S. came out.
He decided against doing so. What was likely to happen was that, sitting still, the smoke would just get more in the car than it would if he just let things take their natural way.
But then he decided that he could take a couple of laps around the block and burn it off that way. Mr. S. probably wasn't going to come out in the next couple of minutes, and if Rosselli looked out and saw the car wasn't there, he would think the cop on the beat had made him move the car.
Sometimes, the cops would leave you alone, let you sit at the curb, if there was somebody behind the wheel, but other times, they would be a pain in the ass and tell you to move on.
Pietro put the Lincoln in gear and drove off. At the first red light, he raced the engine. A cop gave him a strange look. Fuck him!
****
"Good morning, Mr. S.," Ricco Baltazari said as he carefully shook Mr. S.'s hand. "I got some nice fresh coffee, and I sent out for a little pastry."
"Just the coffee, thank you, Ricco," Mr. S. said, and then changed his mind. "What kind of pastry?"
"I sent out to the French place. I got croissants, and eclairs, and…"
"Maybe an eclair. Thank you very much," Mr. S. said.
"Would you like to go to the office? Or maybe a table?"
"This will do nicely," Mr. S. said and sat down at a table along the wall.
Gian-Carlo Rosselli looked as if he didn't know what he should do, and Mr. S. saw this.
"Sit down, Gian-Carlo, and have a pastry and some coffee. I want you to hear this."
"I'll get the stuff," Ricco said.
When he came back, Mr. S. asked after his family.
"Everybody's doing just fine, Mr. S."
Mr. Savarese nodded, then leaned forward and added cream and sugar to the cup of coffee Ricco had poured for him.
"There's a little business problem, Ricco," Mr. S. said.
"With the restaurant?" Ricco asked, concern evident in his voice. He glanced nervously at Gian-Carlo.
Mr. S. looked at him for a moment, expressionless, before replying and when he did it was not directly.
"I had a telephone call yesterday from a business associate in Baltimore," he said. "A man who has always been willing to help me, when I asked for a favor. Now he wants a favor from me."
"How can I help, Mr. S.?"
"His problem, he tells me, is that the feds, the Customs people, and the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs people have been making a nuisance of themselves at Friendship. You know Friendship? The airport in Baltimore?"
"I know it, Mr. S."
"He says that he don't think it will last, that what they're doing is fishing, not looking for something specific, but he has decided that it would be best if he didn't try to bring anything through Friendship for the next week or ten days. As a precaution, you understand."
"Certainly."
"And he asked me, would I do him the favor of handling his merchandise through Philadelphia. The point of origin is San Juan, Puerto Rico."
"We don't have anybody at the airport…"
"There are two reasons I told this man that I would be happy to help him," Mr. S. said. "The first being that I owe him, and when he asks: And the second being that I did not want it to get around, and it would if I told him, that at this moment, I don't have anybody at the airport."
"I understand."
"So what I want to know from you, Ricco, how are things going with your friend who works at the airport?"
"I had a telephone call at eight this morning, Mr. S. Our friend was up there last night and he had bad luck, and he signed four thousand dollars' worth of markers."
"You ever think, Ricco, that somebody's bad luck is almost always somebody else's good luck?"
"That's very true, Mr. S."
"So you have these markers?"
"No, sir. They're going to have a truck coming to Philadelphia today, this afternoon, and they'll bring the markers with them then."
"I think I would like to have them sooner than that. Do you think you could call them up and ask them, as a favor to you, if they could maybe put somebody in a car and get them down here right away?"
"Or we could send a car up there, Mr. S.," Gian-Carlo suggested.
"Let them, as a favor to Ricco, bring the markers here to the restaurant. Then, when they come, Ricco can call me, at the house, and say that he has the papers you were looking for, and you'll come pick them up, and take them, and also those photographs Joe Fierello took at the car lot, over to Paulo, and then Paulo can go have a talk with this cop."
"Right, Mr. S."
"Where would you say this cop would be, Ricco, in, say, three hours?"
"I don't know, Mr. S., to tell you the truth."
"You know where he is now? I thought I asked you to have that girl keep an eye on him."
"He's at her apartment now, Mr. S. But what you asked is where he' ll be at about noon. He may be there. He may go by his house, Tony told me he had to have new pipes put in, or he may just stay at Tony's apartment until it's time for him to go to work. I just have no way of telling."
"I understand. All right. The first thing you do is you get on the phone and ask them to please send the markers right away to here. Then, can you do this, you call this girl, and you tell her if she can to keep the cop in her apartment as long as she can, and if she can't, she's to call you the minute he leaves, and tell you where he's going. And I think it would be best if you made the calls from a pay phone someplace."
"I'll have to leave the keys to the restaurant with Gian-Carlo, otherwise you'd be locked in."
"There's nobody else here?"
"The fewer people around the better, I always say."
"And you're right. But I'll tell you what. We'll leave, and then you go find a pay phone and make the call, and when you find out something, you call the house and all you have to say is 'yes' or ' no.' You understand?"
"That would work nicely."
"And besides, if I stayed here, I'd eat all this pastry, it's very good, but it's not good for me, too much of it."
"I understand, Mr. S."
Gian-Carlo got up and walked to the door and pushed the curtain aside and looked for Pietro.
"He's not out there, Mr. S."
"He probably had to drive around the block," Mr. S. said. "He'll be there in a minute."
For the next three minutes, Gian-Carlo, at fifteen-second intervals, pushed the curta
in aside and looked out to see if Pietro and the Lincoln had returned.
Finally he had.
"He's out there, Mr. S.," Gian-Carlo said.
Mr. Savarese stood up.
"Thank you for the pastry, even if it wasn't good for me," he said, and shook Ricco's hand.
Then he walked out of the restaurant and quickly across the sidewalk and got into the Lincoln. As soon as Gian-Carlo had got in beside him in the front seat, Pietro drove off.
"I'll tell you, Pietro, if anything, it smells worse than before."
"As soon as I get a chance, Mr. S., I'll take it to the garage and swap it."
"Why don't you do that?" Mr. S. replied.
****
"Anthony, something has come up," Mr. Ricco Baltazari, proprietor of Ristorante Alfredo, said to Mr. Anthony Clark (formerly Cagliari), resident manager of the Oaks and Pines Lodge, over the telephone. Mr. Clark was in his office overlooking the third tee of the Oaks and Pines Championship Golf Course. Mr. Baltazari was in a pay telephone booth in the lower lobby of the First Philadelphia Bank amp; Trust Building on South Broad Street.
"What's that?"
"The financial documents you're going to send me…"
"They're on their way, Ricco, relax. The van just left, not more than a couple minutes ago."
"That's not good enough. It'll take him for fucking ever to get to Philly."
"What do you want me to do, get in my car and bring them my fucking self?" Mr. Clark said, a slight tone of petulance creeping into his voice.
"It's not what I want, Anthony. It's what you know who, our mutual friend, wants," Mr. Baltazari said. "He wants those financial documents right fucking now."
There was a moment's silence.
"The only thing I could do, Ricco," Mr. Clark said, "is put somebody in my car and send him after the van, see if he could catch it, you understand?"
"Do it, Anthony. Our mutual friend is very anxious to get his hands on those financial documents just as soon as he can."
"If I had known he wanted those documents in a hurry, I would have brought them myself, you understand that?"
"If I had known he wanted them, I would have come up and got the fuckers myself," Mr. Baltazari replied. "I just left him. He said I should tell you he wants them, as a special favor, right now."
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