“Is he going to be trouble?”
“Probably,” Wohl said, “but Payne looked so down in the mouth about it that I didn’t have the heart to jump all over him. You may find this hard to believe, David, but when I was young, I ran off at the mouth once or twice myself.”
“No!” Pekach said in mock shock.
“True.” Wohl chuckled. “How was your evening? How was Ristorante Alfredo? You go there?”
“Yeah. I want to talk to you about that,” Pekach said, and handed Wohl the matchbook he had been given in the restaurant.
“There’s a name inside. Marvin Lanier. Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“I got that from Vincenzo Savarese,” Dave replied.
Wohl looked at him with interest in his eyes.
“Not from Savarese himself,” Pekach went on carefully, “but from the greaseball, Baltazari, who runs it for him. But he made it plain it had come from Savarese.”
“Ricco Baltazari gave you this?” Wohl asked.
There was a rap on the doorjamb.
“Busy?” Captain Mike Sabara asked when he had Wohl’s attention.
“Come on in, Mike, I want you to hear this,” Wohl said. As Sabara entered the office Wohl tossed the matchbook to him. “Dave got that from Vincenzo Savarese at the Ristorante Alfredo.” When Sabara, after examining it, looked at him curiously, Wohl pointed to Pekach.
“Okay,” Pekach said. “From the top. Almost as soon as we got in the place, the headwaiter came to the table and said Baltazari would like a word with me. He was sitting at a table across the room with Savarese.”
“They knew you were going to be there, didn’t they?” Wohl said thoughtfully. “You made a reservation, right?”
“I had a reservation,” Pekach said. “So I went to the table, and as soon as I got there, Baltazari left me alone with Savarese. Savarese told me he wanted to thank me for something I did for his granddaughter.”
“Huh?” Sabara asked.
“A couple of months ago, when I was still in Narcotics, I was coming home late one night and stopped when I thought I saw a drug bust. Big bust. Four kids caught buying some marijuana. But they ran and there was a chase, and the kid wrecked his old man’s car, so they were headed for Central Lockup. I looked at them, felt sorry for the girls, didn’t want them to have to go through Central Lockup, and sent them home in a cab.”
“And one of the girls was Savarese’s granddaughter?” Sabara asked. “We got any unsolved broken arms, legs, and head assaults on the books? We could probably pin that on Savarese. You don’t give grass to his granddaughter unless you’ve got a death wish.”
Wohl chuckled. “He’d beat it. Temporary insanity.”
“I didn’t know who she was and had forgotten about it until Savarese brought it up.”
Pekach nodded and went on. “He gave me some bullshit about my graciousness and understanding—”
“I always thought you were gracious and understanding, Dave,” Wohl said.
“—and said he would never forget it, et cetera, and said if there was ever anything he could do for me—”
“And he probably meant it too,” Sabara said. “Anybody you want knocked off, Dave? Your neighbors playing their TV too late at night, anything like that?”
“Shit, Mike!” Pekach exploded.
“Sorry,” Sabara said, not sounding overwhelmed with remorse.
“What I thought he was doing was letting me know he’d grab the tab for dinner. But on my way back to the table Baltazari handed me that matchbook and said I dropped them, and I said no, and he said he was sure, so I kept them.”
“You see the name inside?” Wohl asked.
“Yeah. It didn’t mean anything to me. Baltazari gave me the same line of greaser bullshit, something about ‘Mr. Savarese’s friends always being grateful when somebody does him a favor.’ What I think he said was ‘him or his family a courtesy.’ By then I was beginning to wish I’d tossed the little bitch in the can.”
“No you didn’t.” Wohl chuckled. “You really are gracious and understanding, Dave.”
Pekach glared at him.
“That wasn’t a knife,” Wohl said.
“So, anyway, when I got home, I called Records and got a make on this guy. Sort of a make. Black male. He’s supposed to be a gambler, but what he really is, is a pimp. He runs an escort service.”
“Marvin P. Lanier,” Sabara said, reading the name inside the matchbook. “I never heard of him.”
“Misterioso,” Wohl said.
“I figured I better tell you about it,” Pekach said.
“Yeah,” Wohl said thoughtfully. “Neither of them gave any hint why they gave you this guy’s name?”
“Nope,” Pekach said.
One of the phones on Wohl’s desk rang. Wohl was in his customary position, on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table. Pekach, who was leaning on Wohl’s desk, looked at him questioningly. Wohl nodded. Pekach picked up the phone.
“Captain Pekach,” he said, and listened, and then covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “There’s a Homicide detective out there. Wants to see you, me, or Dave. You want me to take it?”
“Bring him in,” Wohl said.
“Send him in, Sergeant,” Pekach said to the phone, and put it back in its cradle. He went to the door and pulled it open.
Detective Joseph D’Amata walked in.
“Hey, D’Amata,” Wohl called. “How are you?”
“Good morning, Inspector,” D’Amata said. “Am I interrupting anything?”
“Captain Pekach was just telling Captain Sabara and me about his dinner last night,” Wohl said. “What can we do for Homicide?”
“You hear about the pimp who got himself blown away last night?”
“I haven’t read the overnights,” Wohl said.
“Black guy,” D’Amata said. “Lived on 48th near Haverford.”
“His name wouldn’t be Marvin P. Lanier, would it?” Wohl asked.
“Yes, sir, that’s it,” D’Amata said, obviously pleased. “I sort of hoped there’d be something for me here.”
“I don’t think I follow that,” Wohl said.
“I got the idea, Inspector, that you—that is, Highway-knows something about this guy.”
“Why would you think that?”
“You knew the name,” D’Amata said, just a little defensively.
“That’s all?”
“Sir, an hour before somebody shot this guy there was a Highway car in front of his house. With him. Outside the crime scene, I mean.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yes, sir. Half a dozen people in the neighborhood saw it.”
“Dave?” Wohl asked.
Pekach threw up his hands in a helpless gesture, making it clear that he knew nothing about a Highway involvement.
“Fascinating,” Wohl said. “More misterioso.”
“Sir?” D’Amata asked, confused.
“Detective D’Amata,” Wohl said, “why don’t you help yourself to a cup of coffee and then have a chair while Captain Pekach goes and finds out what Highway had to do with Mr. Lanier last night?”
“Inspector, this is the first I’ve heard anything about this,” Pekach said.
“So I gathered,” Wohl said sarcastically.
Pekach left the office.
“How did Mr. Lanier meet his untimely demise, D’Amata?”
“Somebody popped him five times with a .38,” D’Amata said. “In his bed.”
“That would suggest that somebody didn’t like him very much,” Wohl said. “Any ideas who that might be?”
D’Amata shook his head.
“Have you learned anything that might suggest Mr. Lanier was connected with the mob?”
“He was a pimp, Inspector,” D’Amata said.
“Then let me ask you this: Off the top of your head, would you say that Mr. Lanier was popped, in a crime of passion, so to speak, by one of his ladies, or by somebody who knew what h
e was doing?”
D’Amata thought that over briefly. “He took two in the head and three in the chest.”
“Suggesting?”
“I don’t know. Some of those whores are tough enough. A whore could have done it.”
“Have you any particular lady in mind?”
“I asked Vice”—he paused and chuckled—“to round up the usual suspects. Actually for a list of girls who worked for him, or did.”
Wohl chuckled and then asked, “Whose gun?”
“We don’t have that yet,” D’Amata said. “Those are interesting questions you’re asking, Inspector.”
“Just letting my mind wander,” Wohl said. “Try this one: Can you think of any reason that Mr. Lanier’s name would be known to Mr. Vincenzo Savarese?”
“Jesus!” D’Amata said. “Was it?”
“Let your mind wander,” Wohl said.
“He could have owed the mob some money,” D’Amata said. “He liked to pass himself off as a gambler. The mob likes to get paid.”
“That would get him a broken leg, not five well-placed shots, and from someone with whom Mr. Savarese would be only faintly acquainted,” Wohl said.
“Yeah,” D’Amata said thoughtfully.
“What would that leave? Drugs?” Wohl asked.
There was not time for D’Amata to consider that, much less offer an answer. Pekach came back in the office.
“There’s nothing in the records about a Highway car being anywhere near 48th and Haverford last night,” he said.
“You sure?” D’Amata challenged, surprised.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Pekach said sharply. “Are you?”
“Captain,” D’Amata said, “I got the same story from four different people. There was a Highway car there.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Not now!” Wohl called.
There came another knock.
“Open the door, Dave,” Wohl said coldly.
Pekach opened the door.
Officers Jesus Martinez and Charles McFadden stood there, looking more than a little uncomfortable.
“Didn’t you hear me say not now?” Wohl said. “How many times do I have to—”
“Inspector,” Charley McFadden blurted, “we heard Captain Pekach asking—”
“Goddammit, we’re busy,” Pekach flared. “The Inspector said not now. And whatever’s on your mind, go through your sergeant!”
“That was us,” Charley said. “At 48th and Haverford. With Marvin Lanier.” He looked at Pekach. “That’s what we wanted to see you about, Captain.”
“Officer McFadden,” Wohl said, “please come in, and bring Officer Martinez with you.”
They came into the office.
“You have heard, I gather, that Mr. Lanier was shot to death last night?” Wohl asked.
“Just now, sir,” Hay-zus said.
“Before we get started, this is Detective D’Amata of Homicide,” Wohl said. “Joe, these two are Jesus Martinez and Charley McFadden, who before they became probationary Highway Patrolmen worked for Captain Pekach when they were all in Narcotics.”
“I know who they are,” D’Amata said.
“What is your connection with Mr. Lanier?” Wohl asked.
Charley McFadden looked at Hay-zus, then at Wohl, then at Pekach.
“What we wanted to tell Captain Pekach was that Marvin told us another guinea shot Tony the Zee,” he blurted.
“Fascinating,” Wohl said.
“What I want to know is what you were doing with Lanier when you were supposed to be patrolling the Schuylkill Expressway,” Captain Pekach said.
“Isn’t that fairly obvious, Dave?” Wohl said sarcastically. “Officers McFadden and Martinez decided that since no one else has any idea who shot Mr. DeZego and Miss Detweiler, it was clearly their duty to solve those crimes themselves, even if that meant leaving their assigned patrol area, which we, not having the proper respect for their ability as supercops—they are, after all, former undercover Narcs—had so foolishly given them.”
I said that, he thought, because I’m pissed at what they did and wanted to both let them know I’m pissed, and tohumiliate them. Having done that, I now realize that I am very likely to be humiliated myself. I have a gut feeling these two are at least going to be part of the solution.
“I used to be a Homicide detective,” Wohl said. “Let me see if I still remember how. McFadden—first of all, what was your relationship to Marvin Lanier?”
“He was one of our snitches. When we were in Narcotics.”
“Then I think we’ll start with that,” Wohl said. “Let me begin this by telling you I want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Leave nothing out. You are already so deeply in trouble that nothing you admit can get you in any deeper. You understand that?”
The two mumbled “Yes, sir.”
“Okay. Martinez, tell me how you turned Marvin Lanier into a snitch.”
Wohl was convinced that the story was related truthfully and in whole. He didn’t particularly like hearing that they had turned Lanier loose with a kilogram of cocaine—and could tell from the look on his face that Dave Pekach, who had been their lieutenant, was very embarrassed by it—but it convinced him both that McFadden and Martinez were going to tell the whole truth and that they had turned Lanier into a good snitch, defined as one that was more terrified of the cops who were using him than of the people on whom he was snitching.
He noticed, too, that neither Sabara, Pekach, or D’Amata had added their questions to his. On the part of D’Amata, that might have been the deference of a detective to a staff inspector—he didn’t think so—but on the parts of Sabara and Pekach, who were not awed by his rank, it very well could be that they could think of nothing to ask that he hadn’t asked.
Christ, maybe what I should have done was just stay in Homicide. I’m not all that bad at being a detective. And by now I probably would have made a pretty good Homicide detective. And all I would have to do is worry about bagging people, not about how pissed the mayor is going to be because one of my people ran off at the mouth.
“So when Marvin wanted to put his jack in the backseat instead of his trunk,” Hay-zus said, “we knew there was something in the trunk he didn’t want us to see. So there was. A shotgun.”
“A shotgun?” Joe D’Amata asked. It was the first time he had spoken. “A Remington 12 Model 1100, 12-gauge?”
“A Model 870,” Martinez said. “Not the 1100. A pump gun.”
“Is there an 1100 involved?” Wohl asked.
“There was an 1100 under his bed,” D’Amata said. “I’ve got it out in my car.”
“And you say there was an 870 in his trunk?” Wohl asked Martinez.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where is it?”
“Outside in my car.”
“You took it away from him? Why?”
“On what authority?” Pekach demanded. Wohl made a calm-down sign to him with his hand.
“He didn’t know it was legal,” McFadden said.
“So you just decided to take it away from him? That’s theft,” Wohl said.
“We wanted something on him,” McFadden protested. “We was going to turn it in.”
Bullshit!
“That’s when he told us another guinea shot Tony DeZego,” Hay-zus said. “I don’t know if that’s so or not, but Marvin believed it.”
“He didn’t offer a name?” Wohl asked.
“We told him to come up with one by four this afternoon,” McFadden said.
“And you think he would have come up with a name?”
“If he could have, he would have. Yes, sir.”
Wohl looked at Mike Sabara.
“Do you know where Washington is?”
“No, sir. But Payne’s outside. They’re working together, aren’t they?”
“See if either of them is still there,” Wohl ordered.
Pekach went to the door and a moment later returned with Matt Payne.
“Do you know where Washington is?”
“No, sir. He told me he would either see me here or phone.”
“Find him,” Wohl ordered. “Tell him I want to see him as soon as I can.”
“Yes, sir,” Matt said, and left the room.
Wohl looked at Joe D’Amata.
“You know where this is going, don’t you?” he asked.
“Sir, you’re thinking there’s a connection to the DeZego shooting?”
“Right. And since Special Operations has that job, I’ve got to call Chief Lowenstein and tell him I want the Lanier job—and that means you, too, Joe, of course—as part of that.”
“He’s not going to like that,” Sabara said.
“If you’re sure about that, Mike, you call him,” Wohl said, and let Sabara wait ten seconds before he reached for the telephone himself.
To Peter Wohl’s genuine surprise Chief Lowenstein agreed to have D’Amata work the Lanier job under Special Operations supervision with absolutely no argument.
“I don’t believe that,” he said when he hung up. “All he said was that you’re a good man, D’Amata, and if there is anything else I need, all I have to do is ask for it.”
“Well, how do you want me to handle it?” D’Amata asked.
“Very simply, ask Washington how he wants it handled. Aside from one wild one, I am about out of ideas.”
“Wild idea?”
“I want to send the two shotguns to the lab. I have a wild idea that one of them is the one that popped DeZego.”
“Yeah,” D’Amata said thoughtfully, “could be.”
“Do you two clowns think you could take the shotguns to the lab and tell them I need to know, as soon as possible, if the shells we have were ejected from either of them, without getting in any more trouble?”
“Yes, sir,” Martinez and McFadden said in unison, and then McFadden asked, “You want us to come back here, sir?”
“No,” Wohl said. “You’re working four to twelve, right?”
“Yes, sir. Twelve to twelve with the overtime.”
“I haven’t made up my mind what to do with you,” Wohl said. “Let your sergeant know where you’re going to be, in case Washington or somebody wants to talk to you, and then report for duty at four. Maybe by then Captain Pekach can find somebody to sit on the both of you. Separately, I mean. Together you’re dangerous.”
The Victim Page 28
