Glynes had been on the job nearly fifteen years. When he saw advertisements in the newspapers of colleges offering credit for practical experience, he often thought of applying. He had enough practical experience to be awarded a Ph.D., summa cum laude, in Practical Psychology.
He found Springs's house without difficulty. There was no car in the carport, which was disappointing. He thought about that a moment, then decided the thing to do was leave the whiskey bottle, with a calling card,"Dan, Hope you 're feeling better. Chuck." That just might put Springs in a charitable frame of mind when he came back in the morning.
But he heard the sound of the television when he walked up to the door, and pushed the doorbell. Chimes sounded inside, and a few moments later a plump, comfortable-looking gray-haired woman wearing an apron opened the door.
"Mrs. Springs, I'm Chuck Glynes. I work sometimes with Dan, and I just heard what happened."
"Oh," she seemed uncomfortable.
Why is she uncomfortable? Ah ha. Dear Old Dan isn't as incapacitated as he would have the sheriff believe.
"I'm not with the Sheriff's Department, Mrs. Springs. I work for the federal government in Atlantic City. I brought something in case Dan needed something stronger than an aspirin."
"Dan went to the store for a minute," Mrs. Springs said. "My arthritis's been acting up, and I didn't think I should be driving."
"Well, maybe I can offer some of this to you."
"Come in," she said, making up her mind. "He shouldn't be long."
Deputy Springs walked into his kitchen twenty minutes later.
He's not carrying any packages. And his nose is glowing. If I were a suspicious man, I might suspect he was down at the VFW, treating his pain with a couple of shooters, not at the Acme Supermarket.
"How are you, Mr. Glynes?"
"The question, Dan, is how are you? And when did you start calling me 'Mr. Glynes'? My name is Chuck."
"Cracked some ribs," Dan said. "But it only hurts when I breathe."
Glynes laughed appreciatively.
"Doris get you something to drink, Chuck?"
"Yes, she did, thank you very much," Glynes said.
"I think I might have one myself," Springs said.
"Well, then, let's open this," Glynes said, and pushed the paper sack with the Seagram's 7-Crown across the table toward him.
****
"I don't know what happened," Dan Springs said, ten minutes later, as he freshened up Chuck Glynes's drink. "I'm riding down the road one second, and the next second I'm off the road, straddling a tree."
"I know what happened," Glynes said.
"You do?" Springs asked, surprised.
"Let me go out to the car a minute and I'll get it," Glynes said.
Springs walked out to the car with him. Glynes handed him the explosive-torn chunk of metal.
"You ran over that," Glynes said. "It opened your tire like an ax."
"Jesus, I wonder where that came from?"
"Well, they found it in your wheel well, up behind that rubber sheet. But I'd like to know, professionally, where it came from."
"Excuse me?"
"That piece of steel has been in an explosion, Dan. Look at that link of chain stuck in it."
"I'll be damned!"
"I'd really like to see where you had the wreck."
"Out in the Pine Barrens."
"Could you find the spot again?"
"Sure," Springs said. "But not tonight. By the time we got there, it would be dark."
"Would you feel up to going out there tomorrow?"
"I'm on sick leave."
"Well, hell, the sheriff wouldn't have to know."
"Yeah," Springs said, after a moment's thought. "I could take you out there tomorrow, I guess."
"I'd appreciate it, Dan. We like to know who's blowing what up."
"Yeah, and so would I."
****
Mrs. Springs insisted that Chuck stay for supper. He said he would stay only if she let him buy them dinner.
At dinner, when he said he would have to head back to Atlantic City, Mrs. Springs said there was no reason at all for him to drive all that way just to have to come back in the morning, they had a spare bedroom just going to waste. He said he wouldn't want to put her out, and she said he shouldn't be silly.
TWENTY-TWO
"Ihave just had one of my profound thoughts," Officer Howard Hansen said to Sergeant Bill Sanders as they watched Corporal Vito Lanza drive his Cadillac into the area reserved for police officers on duty at the airport.
"And you're going to tell me, right?"
"I'm not saying Lanza is a nuclear physicist, but he's not really a cretin, either…"
"What's a cretin?"
"A high-level moron."
"Really?"
"Take my word for it, a cretin is a high-level moron. You want to hear this or not?"
"I wouldn't miss it for the world."
"So for the sake of argument, let's say Lanza is smart enough to know that people, especially other cops, are going to ask questions about that Cadillac of his. 'Where did he get the money?'"
"So?"
"He doesn't seem to give a damn, does he?"
"Howard, what are you talking about?"
"If I were dirty and had bought a Cadillac with dirty money, I wouldn't drive it to work."
"Maybe you're smarter than Lanza."
"And maybe he inherited the money and isn't dirty, and if somebody asks him, he can say 'I got it from my mother's estate,' or something."
"And what about those Guinea gangsters we saw at his house? What were they doing, selling Girl Scout cookies?"
"If I was dirty, I think I'd be smart enough to tell the Mob to stay away from my house. And the Mob, I think, is smart enough to figure that out themselves."
Sergeant Sanders grunted, but did not reply.
After a moment, Hansen said, "Well, what do you think?"
"I think I'm going to call Swede Olsen and tell him that after Lanza bought Girl Scout cookies from Paulo Cassandro, Jimmy the Knees, and Gian-Carlo Rosselli, he went to work, and does he want us to keep sitting on him or what."
He opened the door of the Pontiac and went looking for a telephone.
****
Officer Paul O'Mara stuck his head in Peter Wohl's office.
"Inspector," he said, "there's a Captain Olsen on 312. You want to talk to him?"
"Paul, for your general fund of useful knowledge," Wohl replied as he reached for his telephone, "unless the commissioner is in my office, or the building's on fire, I always want to talk to Captain Olsen."
He punched the button for 312.
"How are you, Swede? What's up?"
"Inspector, I put Bill Sanders and Howard Hansen on Lanza. You know them?"
"Hansen, I do. Good cop. Smart. What about them?"
"Sanders is a sergeant. Good man. He just called from the airport. Lanza just went to work. They picked him up at his house. Before he went to work, Paulo Cassandro paid him a visit at his house."
"Vincenzo Savarese's Paulo Cassandro?" Wohl asked, and then, before Olsen could reply, went on, "We're sure about that?"
"Sanders said he went in, was inside maybe five minutes, and while he was, Gian-Carlo Rosselli and Jimmy the Knees Gnesci rode around the block in Rosselli's Jaguar."
"I suppose it's too much to hope, Swede, that we have photographs?"
"We have undeveloped film," Olsen said. "But Hansen's pretty good with a camera."
"I know. How soon can we have prints?"
"As soon as I can get it to the lab in the Roundhouse. Our lab is temporarily out of business, which is really why I called. I'm out of people, Inspector, I was hoping maybe you could help me out."
"When are younot going to be out of people?"
"I had the feeling this was special, and that we should have good people on it. I'll be out ofgood people until about eight o'clock tonight:"
"This is special," Wohl interrupted without meaning to.<
br />
"…when I have two good people coming in. What I need between now and then is some way to get Hansen's film to the Roundhouse lab. And if possible to relieve them."
"They don't like overtime?"
"I like to change people. I don't want Lanza to remember seeing them on Ritner Street."
"Yes, of course," Wohl said, feeling more than a little stupid. " Swede, let me get right back to you. Where are you? Give me the number."
He wrote the number down, put the telephone in its cradle, and then sat there for a moment, thinking.
I need one, better two, good men from now until eight. Who's available? Jason Washington won't do. Every cop in the Department knows him. Tony Harris? Jerry O'Dowd?
He pushed himself out of his chair and walked quickly out of his office, stopping at O'Mara's desk.
"Call the duty lieutenant and find out what kind of an unmarked car we have that doesn't look like an unmarked car," he ordered, and then walked out without further explanation.
He walked quickly down the corridor to the door of the Special Investigations Section and pushed it open. Detective Tony Harris was there, and so were Sergeant Jerry O'Dowd, Officer Tiny Lewis, and Detective Matthew M. Payne. Only Lewis was in uniform.
'Tony," Wohl began without preliminaries, "do you know a cop named Vito Lanza, now a corporal at the airport?"
"Yeah, I know him. He's sort of an asshole."
"Damn! Jerry?"
"No," O'Dowd said, after a moment to think it over. "I don't think so."
"What's going on around here?" Wohl asked.
"We're waiting for the phone to ring," Matt Payne said.
"I'm beginning to suspect the mad bomber is not going to call," Tony Harris said.
"Spare me the sarcasm, please," Wohl snapped.
"Sorry," Harris said, sounding more or less contrite.
"I need somebody to surveil Lanza from right now until about eight," Wohl said. "O'Dowd, I think you're elected."
"Yes, sir."
"You know a Sergeant Sanders? Officer Hansen?"
"Both."
"Okay. They're sitting on Lanza, who went on duty at three at the airport. I presume they're parked someplace where they can watch Lanza's car."
"Yes, sir."
"I've got O'Mara looking for an unmarked car for you."
"I've got my car here, Inspector, if that would help."
"No. You might have to follow this guy, and you'd need a radio."
"Let him take mine," Harris said.
You have tried, Detective Harris, and succeeded in making amends, for letting your loose mouth express your dissatisfaction for being here, instead of in Homicide.
"Good idea. Thank you, Tony," Wohl said. "How are you with a camera, O'Dowd?"
"I can work one."
"Take Larsen's camera from him," Wohl ordered. "Payne, you follow him down there. On the way, unless there's some around here, get some film. I'm sure it's 35mm. Sergeant O'Dowd will have the rolls of film Hansen has shot. Take them to the Roundhouse, have them developed and printed. Four copies, five by seven. Right then. If they give you any trouble, call me. Take a look at the pictures. See if you recognize anybody from your trip to the Poconos. If you do, call me. In fact, call me in any case. Then take three copies of the prints to Captain Olsen, in Internal Affairs. Bring the fourth set out here, and leave them on my desk."
"Yes, sir."
"Could I help, sir?" Officer Lewis asked.
"Looking for a little overtime, Tiny? Or are you bored waiting for the phone to ring?"
The moment the words were out of his mouth, Wohl regretted them, and wondered why he had snapped at Lewis.
"More the bored than the overtime, sir," Tiny Lewis said. There was a hurt tone in his voice.
"When do you knock off here?"
"Five, sir."
"When your replacement comes, change into civilian clothing, and then go see if you can make yourself useful to Sergeant O'Dowd. You don't know Corporal Lanza, do you?"
"No, sir."
"Tony, you sit on the phone. I'll have the duty lieutenant send somebody to help you. Or maybe O'Mara?"
"O'Mara would be fine," Harris said.
Wohl had another thought.
"Let me throw some names at you two," he said, nodding at O'Dowd and Lewis. "Do you know Paulo Cassandro, Gian-Carlo Rosselli, or Jimmy the Knees Gnesci?"
Tiny Lewis shook his head, no, and looked embarrassed.
"Cassandro, sure," O'Dowd said. "The other two, no."
"Five sets of prints, Matt," Wohl ordered. "The first three to Captain Olsen, then take a set to the airport and give them to Sergeant O'Dowd, and then bring the last set here. Got it?"
"Yes, sir."
"We have," Wohl explained, "photographs of these three going into Corporal Lanza's house. If he leaves the airport before you're relieved, follow him. See if he sees these guys again."
"And if he does?"
'Try to get a picture of them together. But not if there is any chance he'll see you. Pictures would be nice, but we already have some. Understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Get going, this is important. You think you can find Sergeant Sanders?"
"It would be helpful to know where he is."
"Near where Lanza would park his car. If you can't find him, call me."
"Yes, sir."
****
For some reason, the words to "Sweet Lorraine" had been running through Marion Claude Wheatley's mind all afternoon, to the point of interfering with his concentration.
Something like that rarely happened. He often thought that if there was one personal characteristic responsible for his success, it was his ability to concentrate on the intellectual task before him.
This was true, he had reflected, not only at First Philadelphia Bank amp; Trust, but had also been true earlier on, at the University of Pennsylvania, and even in Officer Candidate School in the Army. When he put his mind to something, he was able to shut everything else out, from the noises and incredibly terrible music in his barracks, to the normal distractions, visual and audible, one encountered in an office environment.
He had been working on a projection of how increasing production costs in the anthracite fields, coupled with decreased demand (which would negatively affect prices to an unknown degree) would, in turn, affect return on capital investment (and thus stock prices) in a range of time frames. (One year, two years, five years, and ten years.)
It was the sort of thing he was not only very good at, but really enjoyed doing, because of the variable factors involved. Normally, working on something like this, nothing short of an earthquake or a nuclear attack could distract him.
But "Sweet Lorraine" kept coming into his mind. For that matter, into his voice. He several times caught himself humming the melody.
He had no particular feelings regarding the melody. He neither actively disliked it, nor regarded it as a classic popular musical work.
That left, of course, the possibility that the Lord was sending him a message. He considered that possibility several times, and could make no sense of it.
He thought he had it once; it might be the name of someone close to the Vice President, but that wasn't it. He called the Free Public Library and a research librarian told him the Vice President's wife's name was Sally. And she couldn't help him when he asked if she happened to know if there was someone on the Vice President's staff named Lorraine, maybe his secretary.
She had the secretary's name, Patricia, and she said, as far as she could tell, everyone else on the Vice President's staff was a male.
That left only one possibility, presuming that it was not simply an aberration, that the Lord was alerting him to something that would happen later, something that, when he saw it, would answer the mystery.
Once he had come to that analysis, he had been able to return toA Projection of Anthracite Production Economic Considerations without having his concentration disrupted. He made good progress, and was very
nearly finished when the sounds of people getting ready to go home broke into his concentration again.
Marion was so close to being finished with theOne-Year Time Frame that he considered staying and finishing it, but finally decided against that. He knew himself well enough to know that if he finished theOne-Year he would be tempted to just keep going.
The priority, of course, was to get the things on the list not yet acquired. The list was just about complete. All he needed now was the chain and two more AWOL bags. He would get the chain today, and the remaining two AWOL bags tomorrow. It would not be wise to return to the Super Drugstore at all, and certainly not so soon.
First the chain and then the AWOL bags. Perhaps, when he went shopping for the chain, he would see another store that had AWOL bags on sale. Perhaps even bags that met the metal zipper and other criteria, but which at least would not haveSouvenir of Someplace painted on them, and with a little bit of luck would be of a different design.
Marion waited, of course, until the office herd had thundered out and ridden the cattle cars down to the lobby before putting theA Projection of Anthracite Production Economic Considerations material back into its folders and then into his desk file.
When he came out onto Broad Street, he had an interesting thought. Instead of looking for a hardware store in the streets down toward the river, he would get on a bus and ride up North Broad Street.
He vaguely remembered seeing a decent-looking hardware store in a row of shops on the west side of North Broad Street, five or six blocks north of the North Philadelphia Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
He started to walk up South Broad Street toward City Hall. As he approached it, he decided he would let the Lord decide, by His timing of the traffic lights that controlled the counterclockwise movement of vehicular traffic around City Hall, whether He wanted him to go to North Broad Street by walking through the City Hall passageways, or if He preferred that Marion turn right at Market Street and walk the long way around, on the sidewalk past John Wanamaker's, et cetera.
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