Penny Detweiler did not stir.
Charley went into the cell. Matt followed him. Charley looked at Matt, then put out his hand for the handcuffs. When Matt gave them to him, he pulled Penny's wrists behind her, and put the cuffs on her wrists.
The smell in the cell was foul. Matt wondered if he was going to further embarrass himself by being sick. And then he realized that the smell was coming from Penny.
She had lost control of her bowels, and probably her bladder as well.
The proper word for that, Detective Payne thought, is " incontinent."
And then he was swept by nausea, and barely made it to the lidless toilet in the corner of the cell in time.
After a moment, as he became aware that he was soaked in a clammy sweat, he heard Charley ask, "You okay, buddy?"
"Yeah," Matt said, and forced himself to his feet.
He went to the bunk, and the two men pulled Penny erect. She was limp, and surprisingly heavy.
Jesus, she stinks!
They half carried, half dragged her from the detention cell area to the desk.
Officer Peter Dailey appeared with a newspaper.
"What are you driving?" he asked.
"A blue unmarked Ford," Matt said.
Officer Dailey preceded them out of the building and to the car, where he opened the rear door and spread the newspaper over the seat.
"I'll take her shoulders," Charley McFadden said. "You take her feet."
McFadden backed into the rear seat, dragging Penny after him, and then exited the car by the other door.
He came around the back as Matt was closing the opposite door.
"You going to be able to handle her?" Charley asked.
"Yeah," Matt said.
What the hell am I going to do with her? 1 can't take her home in this condition. And I can't take her to the apartment. What would I do with her when I have to go to work?
"I can get off to go with you."
"Charley, what you can do is call my sister. She's not in the book. The number is 928-5923. Call her and tell her I'm on my way."
"Nine Two Eight, Five Nine Two Three," Charley repeated, setting the number in his memory. "Do I tell her why?"
"Tell her I need some help," Matt said. "Tell her to come down into the lobby and wait for me."
"I can go with you, buddy."
"I can handle it," Matt said. "Thank you, Charley."
"Forget it," McFadden said, and touched Matt's arm gently. "I'm sorry, Matt."
Matt walked around the front of the Ford and got behind the wheel.
He had not gone more than four blocks south on North Broad Street before there was the sound of retching and the smell of vomitus was added to the smell of feces and urine.
He rolled down his window so that he would not be sick again.
****
Amelia Payne, M.D., fully dressed, came out of the plate-glass doors leading to the lobby of 2601 Parkway as Matt pulled up.
He got out of the car.
"Where is she, in the back?"
Did Charley tell her what happened? Or did she figure that out herself?
"Yes. She's in pretty bad shape."
"What did she take, do you know? She may have overdosed. You should have taken her to University Hospital."
"I think she's just drunk," Matt said. "I don't know. Can you tell?"
"Just drunk? How fortunate for you," Amy said.
She pulled open the rear door and climbed in. Matt saw the bright light of a flashlight, and when he looked, saw that Amy had pushed Penny's eyes open and was shining the light into her eyes. Then she slapped her, twice, three times.
"What have you taken?" Matt heard Amy ask, several times, but could not hear a reply, if there was one.
Amy backed out of the car.
"Let's get her upstairs," she said. "Can you manage? Should I get the doorman?"
"Just make sure the doors are open," Matt said.
He reached in the car and pulled Penny out, bent and threw her over his shoulder in the fireman's carry, and carried her into the lobby and into the elevator.
Amy followed him in and pushed the button. The door closed and the elevator began to rise. Amy turned to face him.
"You sonofabitch, I told you this was liable to happen!" she said bitterly.
"I don't know what happened. She came to the apartment, we had Chinese, and then I went to work."
"I'll tell you what happened. One of your harem showed up at your apartment. Penny called me about nine-thirty."
He didn't reply.
"Goddamn you, Matt," Amy said as the elevator door opened at her floor. She walked off the elevator and down the corridor and by the time Matt got there had the door open.
"Take her in the bathroom," Amy ordered, and led the way.
She turned on the bathtub faucets, then turned to Matt.
"We're going to have to get those things off her wrists and undress her," Amy said. "How we're going to do that in here, I don't know. Can you lower her to the floor?"
"I can try," Matt said.
He dropped to his knees, and then Amy turned from the tub and helped him lower Penny to the tiles of the bathroom floor. He unlocked the handcuffs.
"Help me undress her," Amy said, and then when she saw the look on his face: "Don't look shocked, dammit, you've seen her naked before. And it's your fault she's like this."
Amy, somewhere in the process, disappeared for a moment and returned with a roll of paper towels, with which she cleaned up most of the mess around Penny's groin. Then Matt lowered Penny into the tub, and Amy finished the cleaning process.
Penny made noises, not quite groans, but much like them, but was not fully conscious. Once, she slipped down in the tub and Amy ordered Matt to slide her back up.
Finally, rather coldly, Matt thought, Amy turned on the shower, and as the water drained, she used it to rinse Penny off, as a hose might be used to clear a sidewalk.
"Get her out of there," she said, finally. "Be careful. She's slippery."
Matt got Penny out of the tub and held her up by locking his hands under her arms and breasts. Amy made a halfhearted effort to dry her with a towel, then bent and picked up her feet, and they carried her into Amy's spare bedroom and put her between the sheets.
"For what the hell it's worth," Matt said. "I'm sorry."
"So am I," Amy said. "And for what the hell it's worth, it just occurred to me that if you were not a cop, this would probably be more of a disaster than it is."
"What happens now?"
"You get out of here. I call the Detweilers, who probably need a padded cell themselves by now, and tell them Penny is here with me. What happens in the morning, God knows."
"From what I understand, the Narcs got her before she could buy any drugs," Matt said.
"You sound as if you actually care," Amy said.
"Fuck you, Amy! God damn you! Of course I care."
"Get out of here, Matt," Amy said.
****
When he got back to the underground garage at his apartment, Matt took the newspaper from the back seat. They had protected the upholstery from Penny's incontinence, but when she had vomited, that had gone onto the floor carpet, where there were no newspapers.
He went up to his apartment and returned with Lysol and everything else in the under the sink cabinet he thought might be helpful in cleaning the carpet and getting rid of the smell.
It still smelled like vomitus, so he went back to the apartment and got the bottle of Lime after-shave Amy had given him for Christmas and sprinkled all that was left over the interior of the car.
It was three when he climbed the stairs for the last time.
The fucking smell has followed me up here!
He then realized that his suit was soiled, probably ruined.
Can you get that shit, accurate word, shit, out of suiting material?
He took his clothing off, down to his skin, put on a bathrobe, and then carried the suit, the shirt, the ne
cktie, and the underwear down to the basement and jammed it into one of the commercial garbage cans.
Then he went back to his apartment and showered and shaved and waited for it to grow light by watching television. He fell asleep in his armchair at four-thirty. At five-thirty, the alarm went off.
****
At ten minutes to six, as Peter Wohl was measuring coffee grounds into the basket of his machine, his out-of-tune "Be It Ever So Humble" door chimes sounded.
He went quickly through the door, wondering who the hell it could be. Usually, a telephone call preceded an early morning call.
Unless, of course, it's my father, who, 1 suspect, really hopes to catch me with some lovely in here.
It was Captain Richard Olsen, of Internal Affairs.
"Good morning, Swede," Wohl said. "What gets you out of bed at this hour?"
"I need to talk to you, and I didn't want it to be over the phone."
Olsen wouldn't do this unless he thought it was necessary.
"Come on in. I'm just making coffee."
"It's been a long time since I've been here. I remember the couch. What was her name?"
"What was whose name?"
"That interior decorator. You really had the hots for her."
"I forget," Wohl said.
"The hell you do," Olsen chuckled.
"You had breakfast?"
"No. But that doesn't mean you have to feed me."
"There's bacon and eggs. That all right?"
"Fine. Can I help?"
"You can make bacon and eggs while I get dressed," Wohl said. "And I'll finish the coffee."
"Lanza is dirty," Olsen said. "Or it goddamned well looks that way."
"I hope it won't require action between seven and nine this morning," Wohl said.
"No."
"Good, then I can get dressed," Wohl said, and went into his bedroom.
When he came out, he said, "What I really am curious about is why you couldn't have told me that on the phone?"
"We have a wiretap of questionable legality," Olsen said.
"How questionable?"
"Absolutely illegal," Olsen said.
"Oh, shit," Wohl said. "And it was found? Are you in trouble, Swede?"
"The tap is gone, and we were not caught."
"Who's we? You knew about this?"
"No, of course not. Can I start at the beginning?"
"The bacon's burning," Wohl said.
Olsen quickly took the pan off the burner and quickly forked bacon strips out of it.
"Well done, not destroyed," he said.
"Thank God for small blessings," Wohl said."I'll make the eggs. Can you handle the toaster?"
"I don't know. I used to think I could fry bacon without a problem."
"Give it a try. Tell me about the tap."
"You remember I told you about Sergeant Framm and Detective Pillare losing Lanza at the airport, and your man Payne saving their ass?"
"Yeah,"
"Yeah, well, Framm was humiliated by that. So he thought he'd make up for it by being Super Cop. He tapped the Schermer woman's line."
"How did you find out?"
"You really want to know?"
"Yeah, I think I better know."
"He told me," Olsen said.
"Oh, Jesus! Now I'm sorry I asked."
"He means well, Peter. I think he just watches too many cop shows on the TV.They don't have to get a warrant for a tap."
"We do. I hope you told him that."
"What do you think?"
"Not that we could use it, but what did he hear?"
"They tailed Lanza from the airport when he went off tour at midnight. He went to the Schermer woman's apartment. At quarter to one, he was visited by Mr. Ricco Baltazari…"
"The Ristorante Alfredo Ricco Baltazari?"
"One and the same. He stayed about ten minutes. While he was there, a male, almost certainly Baltazari, called somebody, no name, but Organized Crime told me the number is the unlisted number of Mr. Gian-Carlo Rosselli."
"You didn't tell Organized Crime why you wanted to know, I hope?"
"No. Just asked if they had a name to go with the number."
Olsen took a notebook from his pocket, and opened it.
"Ricco told the no-name guy he was with quote, our friend, end quote, and that the friend, quote, wants to know what he should do with the basket of fruit, unquote."
"Swede, did you listen to the tape?"
"What tape?"
"Is that how you're going to play it?"
Olsen shrugged helplessly.
"Was there a reply?" Wohl asked.
"No name replied, quote, Ask him if he could take it home, and we' ll arrange to pick it up there, unquote. Then Ricco replied, quote, He says that's fine, unquote."
Wohl grunted.
"That's all?"
"Two more lines: Unnamed, quote, Okay. And everything else is fine too, right? unquote, to which Ricco replies, quote, Everything else is fine too, unquote."
"Being the clever detective that I am, I don't think the basket of fruit is oranges and grapefruit and things of that nature," Wohl said. "Drugs?"
"What else?" Olsen said. "Rosselli is a heavy hitter."
"Lanza is going to somehow get his hands on this 'fruit basket' at the airport, get it away from the airport, and take it home. Where Rosselli will arrange to have it picked up, right?"
"That's how I see it, Peter."
"God, I'd like to bag Rosselli and Baltazari picking it up," Wohl said.
"Maybe we can," Olsen said.
"Don't hold your breath," Wohl said. "They'll send some punk. They don't take risks."
"Maybe we'll get lucky," Olsen said.
"I have the feeling this will happen tonight," Olsen said.
"Then get Sergeant Whatsisname off the job."
"Framm. He's gone. I have a suggestion, or maybe I'm asking for a favor…"
"Either way, what?"
"Sergeant O'Dowd. Can I have him?"
"Sure," Wohl replied after a just perceptible hesitation. "Can I make a suggestion?"
"Of course."
"Have somebody, preferably two men, on both Lanza's house and the girlfriend's apartment, from right now until whatever happens with the fruit basket happens."
"That may take two or three days, longer."
"So what? I don't want this to go wrong. Maybe wecan catch Rosselli or Baltazari too."
"I don't suppose there's anybody else you could let me have?"
"Not until we catch this fruitcake who wants to disintegrate the Vice President."
"How's that going?"
"At eight o'clock, we may or may not take a couple of doors behind which he may or may not be hiding. Not well, in other words."
"I'll handle the Lanza thing myself if it comes down to that. If I haven't forgotten how to surveil somebody."
"I'll send Tony Harris down to you. I'll have him call you. You tell him when and where. I really would like to put one of these Mafiosos in the slam with our dirty cop."
"Thank you," Olsen said.
"I didn't hear anything you said about an illegal tap, Swede. The bacon was burning or something."
"Thank you, Peter."
TWENTY-EIGHT
At 7:25 a.m., as they sat in a nearly new Ford sedan in the 1100 block of Farragut Street, a very large, expensively tailored police officer turned to a somewhat smaller, but equally expensively tailored police officer and smiled.
"You are really quite dapper this morning, Matthew, my boy," Sergeant Jason Washington said approvingly. "I like that suit. Tripler?"
"Brooks Brothers. Just following orders. Sergeant: You told me to dress like a lawyer."
"And so you have. But despite looking like one of the more successful legal counsel to the Mafioso, somehow I suspect that all is not perfect in your world. Is there anything I can do?"
"Things are not, as a matter of fact, getting better and better, every day, in every way," Matt said.
/> "My question, Matthew, my boy, was, 'Is there anything I can do?'"
"I wish there were," Matt said.
"Try me," Washington said. "What is the precise nature of your problem? Anaffaire de coeur, perhaps?"
"A couple of undercover guys from Narcotics arrested Penny Detweiler last night, as she was cruising in the vicinity of Susquehanna and Bouvier."
The joking tone was gone from Washington's voice when he replied, replaced with genuine concern.
"Damn! I'm sorry to hear that. I'd hoped that-what was that place they sent her? In Nevada?-would help her."
"The Lindens. Apparently the fix didn't take."
"What have they charged her with?"
"Nothing. They picked her up for drunk driving before she was able to make her connection. She gave them my name. They couldn't find me, but they knew that Charley McFadden and I are close, so they took her to Northwest Detectives, and he got them to turn her loose to me."
"Aside from trying to make a buy, there is no other reason I can think of that she would be in that area," Washington said.
"No, there's not. She was trying to make a buy. And according to McFadden, if the undercover guys hadn't taken her in, she'd probably have had her throat cut."
"If she was lucky," Washington said. "I'm sorry, Matt. That slipped out. But McFadden is right. Where is she now?"
"I took her to my sister. My sister the shrink."
"Iadmire your sister," Washington said. "That was the thing to do."
"William Seven," the radio went off. "William One."
Matt grabbed the microphone.
"Seven," he said.
"It's that time," Wohl's voice metallically announced.
Matt looked at Washington, who nodded.
"On our way," Matt said into the microphone.
They got out of the Ford. Washington opened the trunk and took out a briefcase, and then a second, and handed one to Matt.
They walked up Farragut Street, hoping they looked like two successful real estate salesmen beginning their day early, crossed the intersection, and walked halfway down the block.
There they climbed the stairs of a house, crossed the porch, and rang the doorbell.
They could hear footsteps inside but it was a long minute before the door was finally opened to them by a woman of maybe thirty-five, obviously caught three quarters of the way through getting dressed for work.
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