The Victim boh-3

by W. E. B Griffin

  McFadden, a large, pleasant-faced young man of twenty-three, had already changed out of his uniform. He was wearing a knit sport shirt, a cotton jacket with a zipper closing, and blue jeans. When McFadden stood up, the jacket fell open, exposing, on his right, his badge, pinned over his belt, and his revolver. Charley carried his off-duty weapon, a.38-caliber five-shot Smith amp; Wesson Undercover Special revolver in a "high-rise pancake," a holster reportedly invented by a special agent of the U.S. Secret Service, which suspended the revolver under his right arm,above the belt, almost as high as a shoulder holster would have placed it.

  Jesus thought Charley looked, except that his hair was combed and he was shaved and the clothes were clean, as he had looked when the two of them were working undercover in Narcotics.

  "You still here, McFadden?" Sergeant DeBenedito asked in greeting.

  "I thought maybe Hay-zus would want to go to the FOP bar and hoist one," Charley said.

  Charley had taken to using the Spanish pronunciation of Martinez's Christian name because of his mother, a devout Irish Catholic who had been made distinctly uncomfortable by having to refer to her son's partner as Jesus.

  "Yeah, why not?" Martinez replied. Actually he did not want to go to the FOP bar with Charley at all. But he didn't see how he could say no after Charley had hung around the station for more than an hour waiting for him. "Give me a minute to change."

  He consoled himself with the thought that it was only the decent thing to do. Charley had, after all, volunteered to drive him to work when he learned that Jesus's Ford was (again) in the muffler shop for squeaking brakes, and then he'd hung around for more than an hour waiting to drive him home. If he wanted to have a beer, they'd go get a beer.

  Five minutes later he emerged from the locker room in civilian clothing. He wore a dark blue shirt, even darker blue trousers, and a light brown leather jacket. There was a fourteen-karat gold-plated chain around his neck, and what the guy in the jewelry store had said was an Inca sun medallion hanging from that. His badge was in his pocket, and although he, too, carried an Undercover Special, he did so in a shoulder holster. He had tried the pancake and it hadn't worked. His hips weren't wide enough or something. It always felt like it was about to fall off.

  Despite the early-morning hour, the parking lot of the FOP Building, just off North Broad Street in Central Philadelphia, was almost full. About a quarter of the Police Department had come off shift at midnight with a thirst. Cops are happiest in the company of other cops, and attracting more customers to the bar at the FOP has never posed a problem for the officers of the FOP.

  Jesus followed Charley down the stairs from the street to the basement bar and was surprised when Charley took a table against the wall. Charley usually liked to sit at the bar, which gave him, he said, a better look at the activity, by which he meant the women.

  "Hold the table," Charley ordered, and went to the bar. He returned with two bottles of Ortlieb's and a huge bowl of popcorn. A year or so before, Jesus Martinez had become interested in nutrition, and was convinced that popcorn, and most of what else Charley put in his mouth, was not good for you.

  "You're going to eat the whole damned bowl?"

  "You can have some," Charley said. "I read in the paper that they just found out that popcorn is just as good for you as wheat germ."

  "Really?" Jesus said, and then realized his chain was being pulled.

  "Yeah, the article said that they found out that popcorn is almost as good for you as french frieswithout catsup. No match, of course, for french frieswith catsup."

  "Bullshit!"

  "Had you going, didn't I?" Charley asked, pleased with himself.

  "Laugh at me all you want. All that garbage you keep putting in your mouth is going to catch up with you sooner or later."

  "Tell me about Payne," McFadden said abruptly.

  "You heard about that, huh?" Jesus said, chuckling.

  "Yeah, I heard about it," McFadden said, on the edge of unpleasantness.

  "Well, it was really sort of funny-"

  "Funny?" McFadden asked. "You think it's funny?"

  "Yeah, Charley, I do. It was sort of funny."

  "Well, I think it was shitty, pal!"

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "What areyou talking about?"

  "I'm talking about DeBenedito putting Payne down on the roof of the parking garage in his fancy clothes."

  "I didn't hear about that," McFadden said.

  "Well, DeBenedito and I went in on the shooting on the roof of the Penn Services Parking Garage. He put me out of the car one floor down, and I went up the stairs. When I got there, he's got your pal Payne down on the floor.'Tell him I'm a cop, Martinez!' Payne yells when he sees me. So I did, and DeBenedito let him up. I thought it was funny. If you don't, go fuck yourself."

  "I didn't hear about that," Charley repeated, sounding a little confused. "I was talking aboutyour pal, Sergeant Dolan, taking Payne and his girlfriend over to Narcotics and searching his car."

  "I don't know anything about that," Jesus said.

  "Bullshit!"

  "I don't. You sure about your facts?"

  "Yeah, I'm sure about my facts."

  "Well, all I know is that Payne was at the scene, where the cop got shot. He came there driving Inspector Wohl's Jaguar, and then Wohl made us take him home. That's one of the reasons we was an hour late. If Dolan had him over at Narcotics, two things: One, I didn't know about it; and two, he would now be in Central Lockup. Dolan doesn't make mistakes."

  "Yeah, I know you think he walks on water."

  "He's a goddamned good cop," Martinez said flatly. "Where'd you hear he had something going with Payne?"

  "Wyatt and I went by Bustleton and Bowler about ten-thirty, and somebody told him, and he told me."

  "You sure he wasn't pulling your chain?"

  "Yeah. It was no joke. Dolan had Payne, his girlfriend, and his car, over at Narcotics."

  "Then Dolan had something," Martinez said.

  "Something he got from you, maybe?" McFadden asked.

  "I told you, I never heard about this," Martinez said, and then the implication of what McFadden had said sank in.

  "Fuck you, Charley!" he said, flaring, and he stood up so quickly that he bumped against the table, knocking over the beer bottles. " Jesus Christ, what a shitty thing to say!"

  "If you didn't do it, then I'm sorry," McFadden said after a moment.

  "That's not good enough. Fuck you!"

  "You cut off his tire valves!" McFadden said. "Tell me that wasn't a shitty thing to do."

  "The son of a bitch was sound asleep on a stakeout," Martinez said. "He deserved that."

  "No he didn't. A pal would have woke him up."

  "Rich Boy is not my pal," Martinez said. "He doesn't take me riding around in his Porsche like some people I know. All he's doing isplaying cop."

  "He put down the Northwest rapist. That'splaying cop?"

  "You know, and I know, that he just stumbled on that scumbag," Martinez said.

  "He put him down! Jesus Christ, Hay-zus!"

  "Okay, so he put him down," Martinez admitted grudgingly. "But it wouldn't surprise me at all to find he's stuffing shit up his nose."

  "You've got no right to say something like that!"

  "You had no right to say what you did about me fingering him to Dolan."

  "I said I was sorry."

  "Yeah, you said you were sorry," Martinez said. "I'm going home. I've had enough of your bullshit for one night."

  "Oh, sit down and drink your beer."

  "Fuck you."

  "Sit down, Hay-zus."

  "Or what?"

  "Or I'll sit onyou."

  Martinez glowered at him angrily for a moment and then smiled.

  "You would, too, you fucking, overgrown Mick."

  "You bet your ass I would," McFadden said.

  ****

  Matt woke up and opened his eyes and saw that Amanda was supporting her head on
her hand and looking down at him.

  "Hi," she said, and bent her head and kissed him.

  "Christ, and some people have alarm clocks!"

  She laughed.

  He looked up at the ceiling, where his bedside clock, a housewarming gift from his sister Amy, projected the time on the ceiling. It was a quarter past five.

  "What were you thinking?" he asked.

  "Wondering, actually."

  "Okay. What were you wondering?"

  "Two things."

  "What two things?"

  "Whether there is anything in your refrigerator besides a jar of olives."

  "No," he said. "I haven't been shopping in a week. And what else were you wondering?"

  "Whether I'm pregnant," Amanda said.

  "Jesus! You're not on the pill?"

  "I stopped taking the pill when I broke my engagement. And something like this wasn't supposed to be on the agenda."

  "I would be delighted to make an honest woman of you," Matt said.

  "Maybe I'll be lucky."

  "Not at all, my pleasure."

  "That's not what I meant." She giggled and jerked one of the hairs curling around his nipple out.

  "Ouch," he said, and reached out for her and pulled her down to him so that she was lying with her face on his chest and her leg thrown over him.

  "This is probably not a very smart thing for us to do," she said.

  "I disagree absolutely," he said.

  "What are the Brownes going to think?" she asked.

  "We could tell them we had car trouble. Do you really care what the Brownes think?"

  "No," she said, after a moment. "Okay. We'll tell them we had car trouble and not give a damn whether or not they believe us."

  He chuckled and tightened his arm around her.

  "Are you going to feed me, or what?" she asked.

  "I'd rather 'or what,' " he said.

  "You're boasting," she said. "Idle promises."

  "See for yourself," Matt said.

  She raised her head an inch off his chest.

  "I'll be damned," she said. "Isn't that amazing?"

  ****

  There were two Highway cops sitting at the counter of the small restaurant in the Marriott Motel on City Line Avenue when Matt and Amanda walked in.

  He didn't recognize either of them and saw nothing like recognition in their eyes, either. Both looked carefully at Amanda and him, however, something Matt ascribed to Amanda's good looks, her lowcut evening dress, and the disparity between that and the tweed sport coat and slacks he had put on to go to work; or all of the above.

  He was wrong. As soon as they had sat down in one of the booths, he saw alarm in Amanda's eyes and looked over his shoulder to see what had caused it. Both Highway cops were marching to the booth.

  And they were, Matt thought, in their breeches and boots, their Sam Browne belts and leather jackets, intimidating.

  "Seen the papers, Payne?" the larger of the two asked.

  "No."

  "Thought maybe not," the cop said.

  How the hell am I going to introduce these guys to Amanda? That's obviously what they want, and I have absolutely no idea what either of their names are.

  He was wrong about that too. The second Highway cop carefully laid slightly mussed copies of theBulletin, theLedger, and theDaily News on the table and then nodded to Amanda.

  "Ma'am," he said. By then the first cop was halfway to the door.

  "Hey!" Matt called. Both cops looked at him, "Thank you."

  Both waved and then left the diner.

  "For a moment there I thought we were going to be arrested again," Amanda said.

  "We weren't."

  "Call it what you like," she said. "Are they all like that?"

  "Like what?"

  "So, what's a word? Those two looked like an American version of the Gestapo."

  "They're Highway," Matt said. "They're sort of special. Sort of the elite."

  "That's what they said about the Gestapo," Amanda said.

  "Hey, they're the good guys," Matt said.

  "How is it they knew you?"

  "I guess they know I work for Inspector Wohl."

  "What does Peter Wohl have to do with them?"

  "He's their boss, one step removed. He commands Special Operations. Highway is under Special Operations."

  A waitress appeared with menus.

  "Isn't that awful?" she said, pointing at the front page of theDaily News.

  Matt looked at it for the first time. Above the headline there was a half-page photo of Anthony J. DeZego slumped against the concrete blocks of the stairwell at the Penn Services Parking Garage.

  MAFIA FIGURE MURDERED SOCIALITE WOUNDED IN CENTER CITY SHOOTING

  "Let me see," Amanda said, and he slid the tabloid across the table to her and turned to theLedger. The story was at the lower right corner of the front page, under a two-column picture of Miss Penelope Detweiler:

  NESFOODS HEIRESS SHOT IN CENTER CITY POLICE BAFFLED BY EARLY EVE SHOOTING

  By Charles E.Whaley,

  Ledger Staff Writer

  Phila-Miss Penelope Detweiler, 23, of Chestnut Hill, was seriously wounded, apparently by a shotgun blast, in the Penn Services Parking Garage, on South 15th Street early last evening. She was taken to Hahneman Hospital where she is reported by a hospital spokesperson to be in "serious but stable" condition.

  Miss Detweiler, whose father, H. Richard Detweiler, is president of Nesfoods International, was en route to the Union League Club on South Broad Street for a social event when the shooting occurred. A family spokesperson theorized that Miss Detweiler had just parked her car when she found herself in the middle of a "gangland Shootout."

  Police Captain Henry Quaire refused to comment on the shooting, saying the case is under investigation, but he did confirm that Miss Detweiler had been found lying on the floor of the roof of the garage by Miss Amanda Chase Spencer, of Scarsdale, N.Y., and her escort, as they parked their car. The couple were also guests of Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick T. Nesbitt III at the Union League dinner to honor out-oftown guests for the wedding (tonight) of Miss Daphne Browne of Merion and Lieutenant C. T. Nesbitt IV, USMCR.

  "It is absurd to think that Miss Detweiler was anything more than an innocent bystander," the Detweiler family spokesperson said. "It is a sad commentary on life in Philadelphia that something like this could happen."

  Matt slid theLedger across the table to Amanda and then became aware that the waitress was still standing there.

  "Amanda, would you like to order?"

  "I think I lost my appetite," she said.

  "You have to eat."

  "Can I get a breakfast steak?" she asked.

  "Honey, anything your heart desires, we got it," the waitress said.

  "They're running a special on me," Matt said. "I'm specially marked down for the occasion."

  "Breakfast steak, medium-rare, eggs sunny-side up, toast, tomato juice, and coffee," Amanda said.

  "Twice," Matt said. "Thank you."

  Matt turned to theBulletin. It used two photographs on the front, placed side by side. One was the same photo theLedger had used of Amanda. The other was of Anthony J. DeZego scowling at the camera from above a board that read PHILA POLICE DEPT and carried his name and the date. Under these the caption gave their names and read, "shooting victims."

  MAFIOSO KILLED: SOCIALITE WOUNDED IN CENTER CITY POLICE SEEKING CLUES IN EARLY EVENING SHOOTING

  By Michael J. O'Hara

  A shotgun blast to the head killed Anthony J. "Tony the Zee" DeZego, a Philadelphia underworld figure, and a second blast critically wounded Penelope Detweiler, socialite daughter of H. Richard Detweiler, president of Nesfoods International, shortly after seven last night on the roof level of the Penn Services Parking Garage on South 15th Street in downtown Philadelphia.

  Miss Detweiler is in "critical but stable" condition at Hahneman Hospital. She was struck by "many" pellets from a shotgun shell, according to a hospital spokesman
.

  Off-duty Police Officer Matthew M. Payne discovered first Miss Detweiler, lying in a pool of blood, and then DeZego's body when he went to park his car. Payne, who is special assistant to Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, commanding officer of the Police Department's Special Operations Division, last month shot to death Warren K. Fletcher, 31, of German-town, endingwhat Mayor Jerry Carlucci termed " the reign of terror of the Northwest serial rapist."

  Miss Detweiler, Payne, and Miss Amanda Spencer, of Scarsdale, N.Y., who was with Payne in his silver Porsche, were en route to the Union League Club on South Broad Street to attend a dinner being given for out-of-town wedding guests by C. T. Nesbitt III,Nesfoods International chairman of the board, whose son is to marry Daphne Browne of Merion at seven-thirty tonight at St. Mark's Church, near the site of the shooting.

  According to senior police officials, it is most likely that Miss Detweiler was an innocent bystander caught in the middle of a mob exchange of gunfire, but this reporter has learned that police are quietly investigating the possibility that Miss Detweiler knew DeZego, and possibly may have gone to the parking garage to meet him.

  In a surprise development last night, Police Commissioner Thaddeus Czernick announced that responsibility for the investigation of the shooting had been assigned to Staff Inspector Peter Wohl and the Special Operations Division. Such an investigation would normally be conducted by the Homicide Division.

  Commissioner Czernick also assigned to Wohl the investigation of the murder of Police Officer Joseph Magnella, who was shot to death last night in North Philadelphia. (See related story, Page 3A.) One theory advanced for this unusual move was the reassignment of ace Homicide Detectives Jason Washington and Anthony J. Harris to Special Operations during the search for the North Philadelphia serial rapist.

  "They've got my name in here," Amanda said, "but not yours."

  "TheLedger never mentions a cop's name unless they can say something nasty about him," Matt said.

  "Really?" Amanda said, not sure if he was serious or not. She put her hand on theBulletin. "What does that one say?"