Malone looked at him for a moment, and then picked up his glass.
"Whoopee!" he said, waving it around. "Ain't we having fun!"
****
"What do you say, kiddo?" Mickey O'Hara asked as he stuck his head into Matt Payne's room. "Feel up to a couple of visitors?"
"Come on in, Mickey," Matt said. He had been watching an especially dull program on public television hoping that it would put him to sleep; it hadn't. He now knew more of the water problems of Los Angeles than he really wanted to know.
Mickey O'Hara and Eleanor Neal came into the room. O'Hara had a brown bag in his hand, and Eleanor carried a potted plant.
"I hope we're not intruding," Eleanor said, "but Mickey said it would be all right if I came, and I wanted to thank you for saving his life."
"Matt, say hello to Eleanor Neal," Mickey said.
"How do you do?" Matt said, a reflex response, and then: "I didn't save his life."
"Yeah, you did," Mickey said. "But for a moment, in the alley, I thought you had changed your mind."
Matt had a sudden, very clear mental picture of the fear on Mickey's face and in his eyes, right after it had happened, when he had, startled by the flash from Mickey's camera, turned from the man he had shot and pointed his revolver at Mickey O'Hara.
"What does that mean?"
"Not important," Mickey said. He pulled a bottle of John Jameson Irish whiskey from the brown paper bag. "Down payment on what I owe you, Matt."
"Hey, I didn't save your life, okay? You don't owe me a damned thing."
Mickey ignored him. He bent over and took two paper cups from the bedside table, opened the bottle, poured whiskey in each cup, and then looked at Matt.
"You want it straight, or should I pour some water in it?"
"I'm not sure you should be giving him that," Eleanor said.
"He's an Irishman," Mickey said. "It'll do him more good than whatever else they've been giving him in here."
"Put a little water in it, please, Mickey," Matt said.
Mickey poured water from the insulated water carafe into the paper cup and handed it to Matt.
"Here's to you, Matt," he said, raising his glass.
"Cheers," Matt said, and took a swallow.
Maybe the booze will make me sleepy, or at least take the edge off the pain in the goddamn leg.
And then: Does he really think I saved his life, or is that bullshit? Blarney.
"How do you feel, Matt?" Mickey asked.
"I'm all right," Matt said. "I get out of here tomorrow."
"So soon?" Eleanor asked, surprised.
"Current medical wisdom is that the sooner they get you moving around, the better," Matt said.
"You going home?" Mickey said.
"If by 'home,' you mean my apartment, yes, of course."
"I was thinking of-where do your parents live, Wallingford?"
"My apartment."
"You know getting in to see you is like getting to see the gold at Fort Knox?" Mickey asked. Matt nodded. "So you know what these people have been up to?"
Matt nodded again.
"The Molotov cocktail, the press release, the second one? All of it?"
Matt nodded again.
"What do you think, Mickey?" he asked.
"I know a lot of black guys, and a lot of Muslims," Mickey said. " Ordinarily, I can get what I want to know out of at least a couple of them. So far, all I get is shrugs when I ask about the Islamic Liberation Army. That could mean they really don't know, or it could mean that they think I 'm just one more goddamn honky. I'd watch myself, if I were you."
"I was thinking-with what they have on television, there's been a lot of time for that-about what the hell they're after."
"And?"
"In the thirties, during the Depression, when Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde were running around robbing banks, killing people, there was supposed to be some support for them; people thought they were Robin Hood."
"From what I've heard about Bonnie, she was no Maid Marion," Mickey said.
"What does that mean?" Eleanor asked.
"Not important," Mickey said. "For that matter, Clyde wasn't exactly Errol Flynn, either. What is it you're saying, Matty, that they're after public support?"
Matt nodded.
"A political agenda?"
"Why else the press releases?"
"That's pretty sophisticated thinking for a bunch of stickup guys who have to have somebody read the Exit sign to them."
"Somebody wrote those press releases," Matt argued. "For their purpose-getting themselves in the newspapers and on TV-they were, by definition, effective. At least one of them can write. And plan things, like the gasoline bomb."
"What do you mean, 'plan the gasoline bomb'? Anybody knows how to make one of those.That I would expect from these people."
"When and where to throw it," Matt said. "They had to be watching Goldbatt's. One man, just standing around, would have been suspicious. So they had a half a dozen of them, plus of course the guy on the roof who threw it."
O'Hara grunted.
"Unless, of course, Matty, they have somebody inside the cops, inside Special Operations, who just called them and told them when Washington was going to pick up Monahan.That suggests an operation run by people who know what they're doing."
"You really think that's possible?" Matt asked, genuinely shocked. " That they have somebody inside?"
O'Hara never got the chance to reply. The door opened again and Mr. and Mrs. Brewster C. Payne walked in.
"Hi!" Matt said.
"How are you, honey?" Patricia Payne asked.
"Just fine," Matt said. "Mother, you didn't have to come back. I'm getting out of here tomorrow."
She held up her arm, around which was folded a hang-up bag.
"In your underwear?"
"It's the cocktail hour, I see," Brewster C. Payne said.
"Dad, do you know Mickey O'Hara?"
"Only by reputation. How are you, Mr. O'Hara?"
"Are you allowed to have that?" Patricia Payne asked.
"Probably not, but I can't see where it will do any harm," Brewster Payne said. He smiled at Eleanor. "I'm Brewster Payne, and this is my wife."
"I'm Eleanor Neal."
"How do you do?" Patricia Payne said.
"Can I offer you a little taste, Mr. Payne?" Mickey asked.
"Is there a glass?"
"How do you know they aren't giving you some medicine that will react with that?" Patricia Payne asked.
"All I'm taking is aspirin," Matt replied.
Mickey made drinks for the Paynes.
Patricia Payne nodded her thanks, sipped hers, and said, "I have this terrible premonition that some two-hundred-pound nurse is going to storm in here, find the party in progress, yell for the guards, and I will win the Terrible Mother of the Year award."
"I thought bringing Matt a little taste was the least I could do for what he did, saving my life, for me."
Thank you, Mickey O'Hara.
"It was very kind of you, Mr. O'Hara," Brewster Payne said.
And thank you, Dad, for cutting off the colorful story of my courage in the face of death.
"Call me Mickey, please."
"Mickey."
"Mickey, we should be going," Eleanor said. "We've been here long enough."
"You're right," Mickey said. He tossed his drink down, shook hands all around, and opened the door for Eleanor.
"Interesting man," Brewster Payne said as the door closed after them.
"He's supposed to be the best police reporter on the Eastern Seaboard."
"He has a Pulitzer, I believe," Brewster Payne said, and then changed the subject. "Denny Coughlin tells me you insist on going to your apartment when they turn you loose?"
"Yes, sir."
"How much do you know of what else has happened?"
"I know about the threats, and the firebomb. Is there something else?"
"No. I just didn't know how much you knew. Ju
st before we came here, Dick Detweiler phoned. They wanted to come see you-he called earlier, as soon as he heard what had happened-but I told him you were getting out in the morning."
"Thank you."
"He also volunteered to send out to Wallingford as many of the Nesfoods plant security people as would be necessary for as long as would be necessary. The point of this is that if the reason you don't want to come home is because of your concern for your mother and me, that won't be a problem. Dick would really like to help."
"I'm a cop," Matt said. "I'm not about to let these scumbags run me out of town."
"I told you that's what he would say," Patricia Payne said.
"And I'll have people with me," Matt said.
"That was explained to us in great detail by Denny Coughlin. Having said that, I think Denny would be more comfortable if you were in Wallingford."
"I'm going to the apartment, Dad," Matt said.
"The police are taking these threats seriously, honey," Patricia Payne said. "Getting in to see you is like trying to walk into the White House."
"I suspect Uncle Denny had a lot to do with whatever security there is here," Matt said. "In his godfather, as opposed to chief inspector of police, role."
"I think that probably has a lot to do with it," Brewster Payne agreed, smiling. "Okay. You change your mind-I suspect you'll get claustrophobia in your apartment-and we'll get you out to the house."
The door opened again, and a nurse came in. She was well under two hundred pounds, but she was every bit as formidable and outraged as the two-hundred-pounder Patricia Payne had imagined.
"Liquor is absolutely forbidden," she announced. "I should think you would have known that."
"I tried to tell my wife that," Brewster C. Payne said, straightfaced, "but she wouldn't listen to me."
Matt laughed heartily, and even more heartily when he saw the look on his mother's face. Each time his stomach contracted in laughter his leg hurt.
****
Jason Washington was waiting for Peter Wohl when he walked into the building at Bustleton and Bowler at five minutes to eight the next morning.
"Morning, Jason."
"Can I have a minute, Inspector?"
"Sure. Come on in the office. With a little bit of luck, there will be hot coffee."
"How about here? This will only take a yes or a no."
"Okay. What's on your mind?"
"Captain Sabara told me he wants Tiny Lewis-you know who I mean?"
"Sure."
"-on the security detail for Matt Payne. I'd rather he got somebody else."
"You have something for Lewis to do?"
Washington nodded.
"You got him. You discuss this with Sabara?"
"No."
"I'm sure he would have let you have Lewis."
"He would have asked why."
"You're losing me."
"I didn't know if he knew Tony Harris has been at the bottle."
"What's that got to do with Lewis?"
"Harris is sober. If we can keep him that way for the next seventytwo hours, I think we can keep him that way more or less indefinitely. Lewis will be with Harris all day, with orders to call me if Tony even looks at a liquor store."
"And at night?"
"Martha likes him. We have room at the apartment. He can stay with us for a while."
"Martha is a saint," Wohl said.
"No," Washington said, "it's just-"
"Yeah,"Wohl interrupted coldly. "Only a saint or a fool can stand a dedicated drunk, and Martha's not a fool."
"He's a good cop, Inspector."
"That's what I've been thinking, with one part of my mind, for the last three or four days. Theother part of my mind keeps repeating, ' He's a drunk, he's a drunk, he's a drunk.' "
"I think it's under control," Washington said.
"It better be, Jason."
"Thanks, Inspector," Washington said.
"You got something going now? I'd like you to sit in on what Malone has set up for Matt and Monahan. They're supposed to be waiting for me in my office."
"I can make time for that," Washington said.
Wohl led the way to his office. Sabara was standing by his desk, a telephone to his ear.
"He just walked in, Commissioner," Sabara said. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. "This is the third time he called."
Wohl nodded and took the telephone from him.
"Good morning, Commissioner. Sorry you had to call back."
The others in the room could hear only Wohl's end of the conversation:
"I'm sure Mr. Stillwell has his reasons…
"I checked with the hospital fifteen minutes ago. We're planning on taking him out of there at about half past ten…
"Yes, sir…
"I can stop by your office as soon as the interview is over, Commissioner…
"I'm sure everyone else-No. I don't know about O'Hara, come to think of it. But every one involved but O'Hara has given a statement, sir. I'll check on O'Hara right away and let you know, sir…
"Yes, sir. I'll see you in your office as soon as they've finished with Payne. Good-bye, sir."
He put the telephone in its cradle, but, deep in thought, did not take his hand off it.
He finally shrugged and looked at the others.
"Stillwell wants to run Matt Payne, the shooting, past the Grand Jury. It probably makes sense, if you think about it-"
He paused, thinking, I wonder why that sonofabitch didn't tell me "-they will decline to indict, and then Giacomo can't start making noise about a police cover-up."
"It was a good shooting," Sabara said. "Stevens-what does he call himself?"
"Abu Ben Mohammed," Wohl furnished.
"-came out shooting. It wasn't even justifiable force, it was selfdefense."
"I guess that's what Stillwell figures," Wohl said, and then changed the subject. "Jack has polished my rough plan to protect Matt and Monahan. I'd like to hear what you think of it. Jack?"
Malone took the protection plan, which he had just had typed up and duplicated, from his jacket pocket.
Is he trying to give me credit for this to be a nice guy, Malone wondered, or trying to lay the responsibility on me in case something goes wrong!
TWENTY
Matt had been told "The Doctor" would be in to see him before he would be discharged, and therefore not to get dressed.
"The Doctor" turned out to be three doctors, accompanied, to Matt's pleasant surprise, by Lari Matsi, R.N.
No one acted as if there was a live human being in the bed. He was nothing more than a specimen.
"Remove the dressing on the leg, please," a plump doctor with a pencil-line mustache Matt could not remember ever having seen before ordered, "let's have a look at it."
Lari folded the sheet and blanket back, put her fingers to the adhesive tape, and gave a quick jerk.
"Shit!" Matt yelped, and then, a moment later, added, "Sorry."
Lari didn't seem to notice either the expletive or the apology.
The three doctors solemnly bent over and peered at the leg. Matt looked. His entire calf was a massive bruise, the purple-black of the bruise color coordinated with the circus orange antiseptic with which the area had apparently been painted.
There was a three-inch slash, closed with eight or ten black sutures. A bloody goo seemed to be leaking out.
"Healing nicely," one doctor opined.
"Not much suppuration," the second observed.
Pencil-line mustache asked, "What do I have him on?"
Lari checked an aluminum clipboard, announced something ending in "mycin, one hundred thousand, every four hours," and handed Pencil-line mustache the clipboard. He took a gold pen from his white jacket and wrote something on it.
"Have that filled before he leaves the hospital," he ordered.
"Yes, Doctor," Lari said.
Pencil-line mustache pointed at Matt.
Lari reached over and snatched the bandage on Matt'
s forehead off.
He didn't utter an expletive this time, but it took a good deal of effort.
Pencil-line mustache grunted.
"Nice job," Doctor Two opined. "Who did it?"
"Who else?" Doctor One answered, just a trifle smugly.
Pencil-line mustache looked from one to the other. Both shook their heads no.
Pencil-line mustache finally acknowledged that a human being was in the bed.
"You will be given a medication before leaving-"
" 'Medication'?" Matt interrupted. "Is that something like medicine?"
"-which should take care of the possibility of infection," Pencilline went on. "The dressing should be changed daily. Your personal physician can handle that. Your only problem that I can see is your personal hygiene, in other words, bathing. Until that suppuration, in other words that oozing, stops, I don't think you should immerse that leg, in other words, get it wet."
"I see," Matt said solemnly.
"The best way to handle the problem, in my experience, is with Saran Wrap. In other words, you wrap the leg with Saran Wrap, holding it in place with Scotch tape, and when you get in the bathtub, you keep the leg out of the water."
"Do I take the bandage off, or do I wrap the Saran Wrap over the bandage?"
"Leave the dressing-that's adressing, not a bandage-on."
"Yes, sir."
"In a week or so, in his good judgment, whatever he thinks is appropriate, your personal physician will remove the sutures, in other words those stitches."
"In other words, whatever he decides, right?"
"Right," Pencil-line said. A suspicion that he was being mocked had just been born.
"Got it," Matt said.
"Nurse, you may replace the dressing," Pencil-line said.
"Yes, Doctor," Lari said.
Pencil-line nodded at Matt. His lips bent in what could have been a smile, and he marched out of the room. Doctors One and Two followed him.
"You're a wise guy, aren't you?" Lari said, when they were alone.
"No. I'm a cop. A wise-guy is a gangster. Who wasthat guy, in other words, Pencil-line, anyway?"
"Chief of Surgery. He's a very good surgeon."
"In other words, he cuts good, right?"
She looked at him and smiled.
"You told me you weren't coming back," Matt said.
"I go where the money is. They were shorthanded, probably because of the lousy weather, so they called me."
The Witness boh-4 Page 32
