“Who are we going to—” Weisbach started to ask.
“Indulge me, Mike,” Wohl interrupted. “I’ll explain everything in a minute. Right now, I want two undercover vehicles at Special Operations, two more within a couple of hours, and a total of six by morning. You two decide between you where they’re coming from.”
“You’re just asking for vehicles, right? You don’t want any of my detectives?” Captain Calmon asked.
“Just the vehicles. We’ll use Special Operations and Homicide detectives for surveillance until we run out of people.”
“Inspector,” Captain Mikkles said. “I don’t have any undercover cars to spare. The only way I could give you vehicles is to take them off jobs.”
“Then that’s the way it’ll have to be,” Wohl said, “unless Inspector Weisbach can give me two right now.”
Weisbach took out his cellular and punched an autodial number.
“This is Weisbach,” he announced. “How many covert cars—anything suitable for surveillance in a project—can I get out of the warehouse right now?”
The Internal Affairs Division, which is engaged primarily in investigating policemen, had a fairly large fleet of bona fide “civilian” cars and other vehicles because very few policemen cannot spot an unmarked car in the first glance. The vehicles— many of them forfeitures in drug cases—were kept in a warehouse several blocks from the IAD offices on Dungan Road.
He waited and listened, and then turned to Wohl.
“I’ve got two pretty beat-up vans and a Chrysler, almost new, you can have right now. Maybe tomorrow we can do better.”
“They’re in the warehouse?” Wohl asked. Weisbach nodded. “Then we have to figure a way to get them out to Special Operations.”
“I’m here in my car,” Weisbach said. “I could run a couple of people by the warehouse.”
The IAD warehouse had no identifying signs on it, and IAD tried to preserve its anonymity by never going near it in marked or unmarked cars.
“Can you carry four people?” Wohl asked.
Weisbach nodded.
“Then we’ll do that,” Wohl said.
“Do I get an explanation of what’s going on?” Weisbach asked. “I’d kind of like to know.”
“Well, if you’re going to be difficult,” Wohl said, and turned to Captain Mikkles. “Mick, I’m going to have to have two more cars in, say, two hours. If that means you have to call off a surveillance, so be it.”
“Yes, sir,” Mikkles said. It was obvious he did not like the order.
“Okay,” Wohl said. “Then let’s go out there, and I’ll explain, for what I really hope is the last time, what’s going on.”
Just about everybody in the outer office stopped talking and directed their attention toward Captain Quaire’s office as Wohl and the others filed out of it.
[SIX]
“For you, Inspector,” Captain Michael J. Sabara said, handing Wohl one of the phones on Captain Quaire’s desk. “It’s Mickey O’Hara.”
Sabara was sitting in Quaire’s chair. Peter Wohl and Jason Washington were sitting on wooden chairs—Washington with his legs sprawled in front of him, Wohl sitting in his chair backward. Quaire had left five minutes earlier, at Wohl’s pointed suggestion that since everybody had a lot to do in the morning, and he could think of nothing else they could do tonight, it might be a good idea to get some rest, it was already almost eleven.
Sabara, Wohl had just told him, was going to be responsible for providing what detectives Washington—to whom Wohl had given responsibility for the Paschall Homes Housing Project—decided he needed, and to make sure there were Highway Patrol cars always no farther than five minutes away from the surveillance site.
“And how is my all-time favorite journalist?” Wohl said into the phone.
“Pissed is how I am,” O’Hara said. “Suspecting, as I do, that I am about to get another runaround.”
“Another? Implying you have already been run around? By whom?”
“The Master Chef,” O’Hara said. “You were there, Peter. Denny Coughlin promised to keep me informed. He didn’t. And when I called him just now, he told me to call you, and you’d fill me in.”
“Fill you in about what?” Wohl said, innocently.
“I knew it, I knew it. Be advised, Inspector, that my promise to have seen and heard nothing is now null and void.”
“Where are you, Mick?”
“Liberties.”
“Washington and I will be there in five minutes. We’re just finishing up here.”
“I’ll trust you that far, Peter. But not sixty seconds longer.”
“We’ll be there in about five minutes. We’re leaving right now. Okay?”
“You have ten minutes, Old Pal of Mine,” O’Hara said, and the line went dead.
Washington’s cellular buzzed as he and Inspector Peter Wohl walked out of the Roundhouse into the parking lot.
“Joe D’Amata, Lieutenant.”
“Don’t tell me, please, Joseph, that you have encountered a problem at the warehouse. I want that car in the project right now.”
“It’s an old Chevy van, not a car. And I don’t know if it’s a problem or not, but I thought I should tell you.”
“Please do. The suspense is too much for my tired old heart.”
“When I came out of the warehouse just now, there was a Ford parked halfway up the street. Lights out but people in it. When I got closer, I saw Payne was sitting in it.”
“You refer to our Sergeant Payne?” Washington asked.
The question caught Wohl’s attention.
“Yeah. And sitting beside him was either Stan Colt or somebody who looks a hell of a lot like Stan Colt. Is there something I don’t know?”
“What were they doing?” Washington asked.
“Looking at the warehouse,” D’Amata said.
“With their lights out?”
“With their lights out.”
“Joseph,” Washington said, looking at Wohl, “I have no explanation whatever for Sergeant Payne and Stan Colt being outside the IAD warehouse in an unmarked car with the lights out, but I will make inquiries and advise you. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”
Washington pushed the End button and looked at Wohl. Wohl took out his cellular and pushed an autodial number.
“Matt, is Mr. Colt with you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Meet me at Liberties. Now. Do not go inside.”
“Yes, sir.”
Inspector Wohl, Lieutenant Washington, and Sergeant Payne arrived at Liberties within thirty seconds of one another.
Lieutenant Washington went inside Liberties.
Mr. Michael J. O’Hara was sitting alone at the bar.
“You better be about to tell me that Peter’s right on your heels,” O’Hara greeted him.
“Peter’s right on my heels.”
“You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“We’ve identified one of the miscreants in the Roy Rogers job, and have a good idea who the other one is.”
“I heard that much at Augie Wohl’s.”
“Mrs. Solomon is very concerned that, unless we exercise great care, the malefactors may slip through the cracks in the floor of the criminal justice system.”
“Which means what, exactly?”
“That an arrest will not be made until such time as Mrs. Solomon feels there is a stronger case than what we have now, which is identification of one of them by fingerprints. ”
Inspector Wohl went to Matt’s unmarked Crown Victoria and got in the backseat.
“Mr. Colt, I’m Inspector Wohl,” Wohl said.
Stan Colt reached over the back of the seat and enthusiastically shook Wohl’s hand.
“Hey! Great! How are you? Matt’s been telling me all about you!”
“You were seen outside the IAD warehouse, Sergeant Payne,” Wohl said. “You want to tell me what that was all about?”
“Mr. Colt wanted to see it, so I showed it to him
.”
“Okay. Is there anything else Mr. Colt wants to see tonight? ”
“We’re going to D’Allesandro’s for a cheese steak,” Matt said.
“And we’d love to have you come along,” Stan Colt said.
“That’s very kind, but it’s been a long day, and what I’m going to do is have a nightcap with Lieutenant Washington and go home.”
“Tell you what, Inspector,” Colt said. “Why don’t we all go in there and have a nightcap, then Matt and I will go to D’Allesandro’s, and then we’ll all go home.”
Mr. Colt put action to his words by getting out of the car, walking quickly to the door of Liberties, motioning cheerfully for Matt and Wohl to follow him, and disappearing inside.
“Jesus Christ!” Wohl said. “Mickey’s in there, waiting for me to tell him what’s going on.”
“I saw the pressmobile,” Matt said.
“This isn’t funny, goddamn it!”
“What are you going to do?” Matt asked.
“Goddamn movie actor!”
“Actually, he’s not really such a bad sort,” Matt said. “He sort of grows on you.”
FIFTEEN
[ONE]
I may have had more of these than I remember,” Mickey O’Hara said, interrupting Washington, and holding up his Old Bushmills on the rocks, "because the guy in the door looks just like Stan Colt.”
“Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” Washington agreed.
Mr. Colt, smiling, his hand extended, marched up to them.
“Hi,” he said. “You’re Matt’s boss, aren’t you? Lieutenant Washington?”
“Yes, I am,” Washington said. “And unless I err, you are Mr. Stan Colt?”
“Right!”
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Colt,” Washington said, adding: “This is Mr. Michael J. O’Hara, of the Bulletin.”
“No shit!” Mr. Colt exclaimed. “You’re Mickey O’Hara? Goddamn! You’re a goddamn legend!”
He enthusiastically pumped Mickey’s hand.
“Mr. O’Hara is indeed one of our more prominent journalists, ” Washington said, as Wohl, trailed by Matt, came into the bar.
“When you and Bull Bolinski got caught running numbers for Frankie the Gut, you took the fall for him, got expelled, and the Bull got to graduate, got to be All-American . . . you know. The Bull told me all about you.”
“You know Casimir?” Mickey asked.
“Hell, yeah, I know the Bull. We West Catholic guys got to stick together, you know. He always stays with me when he’s on the Coast.”
“I’ll be damned,” Mickey said. “I heard you were in town, raising money for West Catholic, but I didn’t know you went there.”
“You probably wouldn’t remember me. I used to be Stanley Coleman, I was a freshman and you and the Bull were juniors when you got shit-canned, but I sure remember you.”
“I’ll be damned,” Mickey said, and now returned Mr. Colt’s enthusiastic hand-pumping.
Wohl walked up, smiling a little lamely.
“Well, I see you’ve met Mr. O’Hara, Mr. Colt,” he said.
“Met him, shit! We go way back; we both got kicked out of West Catholic. Jesus, I’m glad you brought me in here!”
“Me, too,” Mickey said.
“Hey, bartender,” Mr. Colt called, and when he had his attention, made a circling motion with his hand, which the bartender correctly interpreted to mean that he should bring liquid refreshment to one and all.
“The usual, Inspector?” the bartender asked.
Wohl nodded.
“Detective?”
“Hey, he’s a sergeant,” Mr. Colt corrected him. “Give us both one of those Irish martinis.”
“And if I don’t want an Irish martini?” Matt asked, smiling.
“Drink it anyway, you’re an outnumbered WASP,” Colt said, and then frowned, remembering. “Hey, I still don’t have any money. I’ll pay you back.”
“Sure.”
“The Bulletin will pay,” Mickey announced. “Why don’t we get a table?”
They took a table. The bartender delivered a round of drinks.
“You hang out with these guys, right, Mickey?” Mr. Colt inquired.
“Yeah. What I want to know is what you’re doing with them.”
“Matt’s showing me around the police department, and doing a goddamn good job of it.”
“For a WASP,” Mickey said, “Matty’s a pretty good cop. I owe him big time.”
“How come?”
“A couple of years back, we were in an alley, and a really bad guy comes down it shooting at us with a .45—”
“Jesus, Mickey!” Matt protested.
“—and Matty put him down,” O’Hara went on. “Took a bullet in the leg, but the bottom line was one dead bad guy.”
“No shit?”
“We call him the Wyatt Earp of the Main Line.”
“My friends don’t call me that,” Matt said, coldly.
“Or sometimes the Casanova of Center City,” O’Hara went blithely on.
“Yeah, I like his taste in women,” Mr. Colt said. “You should have seen the one he had with him tonight.”
“Curiosity overwhelms me,” Washington said. “To whom does Mr. Colt refer, Matthew?”
“Captain Quaire assigned Detective Lassiter to explain the Williamson job to him,” Matt said.
“You got something going with her, Matty?” O’Hara asked.
“No, I don’t.”
Mr. Colt winked broadly, held up his balled first with the thumb extended, and said, “Right.”
Washington and Wohl smiled.
“So what’s going on in here?” Mr. Colt inquired. “You’re just hanging out, or what?”
O’Hara looked at Wohl.
“You tell him, Peter,” he said.
Wohl’s smile vanished. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged.
“Mr. Colt . . .” he began.
“I can’t get you to call me ‘Stan’?”
“Stan, just about everybody in the department trusts Mickey to keep his mouth shut when he knows something we don’t want to be public knowledge,” Wohl said.
“There’s usually a little you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch -yours in the deal, Stan,” Mickey said. “You asked before if what we’re doing here is hanging out. No. What I’m doing is waiting to see if, or how well, the inspector is going to scratch my back.”
“Under the circumstances, Stan, I’m going to have to ask you not to repeat, to anyone, what I’m about to tell Mickey and you.”
“You got it. My lips are sealed,” Mr. Colt said. He looked at Matt, held up his right hand with the three center fingers extended, and added, “Boy Scout’s Honor.”
“Tony Harris went to Harrisburg,” Wohl said. “The State Police were able to get a hit from the print on the visor cap using the AFIS.”
“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, old sport,” Mr. Colt interrupted in his British accent, “but I haven’t the foggiest fucking idea what you are talking about.”
Wohl turned his head to look at Colt, and for a moment Matt thought Colt was about to be either frozen with a Wohl glance, or perhaps even treated to an example of Wohl sarcasm, but Wohl surprised him by smiling.
“Well, dear boy, we certainly can’t have that, now can we?” Wohl said, in a British accent very nearly as good as the actor’s. Then he dropped the accent and added, “There was a double homicide in connection with an armed robbery of a Roy Rogers restaurant on South Broad, the guys who did it got away, and we just found out, using a fingerprint we previously thought was useless, who they are.”
“You got a match?” Mickey asked. “I thought the lab— Candelle himself—said there wasn’t enough?”
“We’ve identified one of them. The fat guy. And in Known Associates on his sheet is a guy who lives two doors away from him in the Paschall Homes Project in Southwest Philly who fits the description of the other one.”
He stopped and looked at Was
hington.
“You brought the pictures for Mick?”
Washington nodded and went into his suit jacket, coming out with two Philadelphia Police mug shots. He handed them to O’Hara.
“Can you make either of them, Mick?” Wohl asked.
O’Hara looked carefully at both and then shook his head.
“As much as I’d like to, no,” O’Hara said. “It was dark, and as you may recall, the bastards took a shot at me.”
“No shit?” Mr. Colt inquired, awe in his voice.
“Anyway, the D.A. doesn’t think what we have is enough to convict them for sure. We need more—the weapon, for example. So we’re not going to arrest them right now.”
“Instead?”
“We’re going to keep them under surveillance until we can develop more. That’s the reason that Jason and I were still in Homicide when you called. We had everybody and his brother in there, setting up the surveillance. . . .”
“And that’s why I was ever so politely booted out of there, right?” Mr. Colt inquired.
“Excuse me?” Wohl asked.
“When that captain sent Matt’s girlfriend to explain that other job to me . . .” He paused and made a pumping motion with his fist. “That was to get me out of Homicide, right?”
“I think one could reasonably draw that assumption, Mr. Colt,” Washington said.
“I would have been in the way, right?”
“And been privy to things we would rather not be known to the public,” Washington replied.
“Well, what the hell, we had a nice dinner, right?” Mr. Colt said.
“Very nice,” Matt said.
“Can I ask you a question, Mickey?” Mr. Colt inquired, and then went on without waiting for an answer. “How come you were at this Roy Rogers? Just a coincidence? You went there for a hamburger or whatever?”
“No. I responded to a possible armed-robbery-in-progress call, and I got there just as these bastards were leaving.”
“Explain that? You’ve got a police scanner? Right?”
“He has a battery of police scanners,” Washington said. “With which he eavesdrops on police communications in the tristate area. You may have noticed all the antennae.”
“That Buick Whatchamacallit outside is yours? I saw all the antennas.”
Final Justice Page 37
