W E B Griffin - Badge of Honor 04 - The Witness

by The Witness(lit)

  "What won't?"

  "Getting Matt another line. I think I know who to call."

  "What I was saying, Brewster, is that I would like to leave that line as it is, and record what calls come in."

  "Oh, I see what you mean."

  "Have you got a spare tape for the machine, Matty?"

  Matt considered that a minute, then replied, "No. I don't think so."

  "Let's take it apart and see what we need," Coughlin said.

  Matt opened the telephone recorder and removed the tape cassette and handed it to Coughlin.

  Brewster C. Payne reached for the telephone and dialed a number.

  "Mr. Arnold, please," he said. "Brewster Payne call-ing." There was a brief pause, and then he went on: "Jack, for reasons I would rather not get into, I need another tele-phone line installed in my son's apartment, in the Delaware Valley Cancer Society Building on Rittenhouse Square, right away." There was another pause. "No, I don't mean first thing tomorrow. In the next hour or so is what I had in mind."

  Matt saw Denny Coughlin smiling.

  "No, I am not kidding," Brewster Payne went on. "You told me, Jack, to call you if I ever needed something. This is that call." There was one last pause. "Two hours would be fine, Jack. His name is Matthew M. Payne and it's the apart-ment in the attic. Thank you very much."

  He turned somewhat triumphantly from the telephone.

  "Two hours, Denny."

  "You are an amazing man," Coughlin said.

  "How kind of you to recognize that," Payne said smugly.

  Patricia Payne groaned.

  "I wonder where we can get one of these?" Coughlin said, examining the tape cassette.

  "I bought that in the electronics store on Walnut and 15th," Matt said.

  "Okay. We'll take Officer Martinez with us when we go, and he can bring it back. Until we get another tape in there, just don't answer the phone. Better yet, take it off the hook."

  He picked up his drink and drained it.

  "Patty, Brewster," he said. "Matt's in good hands. You have nothing to worry about."

  "Good try, Denny," Patricia Payne said. "But not a very successful one."

  "Let's go," Coughlin said. He looked at Matt Payne. "I'll check in with you later, Matty."

  "Thank you, Uncle Denny."

  "Have you got any special orders for me, Chief?" Sergeant Carter said.

  "No. You know what to do. Do it."

  "Carter, why don't you and I take a run past Mr. Monahan's house?" Malone said.

  "He's at Goldblatt's, sir. I checked."

  "I want to check the arrangements at his house," Malone said tartly. "I know where he is."

  "Yes, sir."

  "It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Payne," Malone said. "Mr. Payne."

  "It was nice to meet you, Lieutenant," Patricia Payne said, "and you too, Sergeant Carter. Thank you."

  "Yes, ma'am," Carter said.

  In a few moments everyone but the Paynes and Charley McFadden had gone down the steep stairway.

  "Are you hungry, Matt?"

  "I think there's some ribs in the refrigerator," Matt said.

  "There's more ribs in the refrigerator than you know," she said. "I stopped off at Ribs Unlimited-I know how you like their ribs-on my way here and got you some."

  "Then take yours home with you or give them to Amy."

  "Why don't I heat them all up, and we can have lunch? I haven't had anything to eat, either."

  "I've got to get back to the office," Brewster Payne said.

  "Can you drop me at Hahneman, Dad?" Amy asked.

  He nodded.

  At the head of the stairs, Amy turned and pointed her finger at Matt.

  "For once in your life, Matt, do what people tell you."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Well, then, the three of us can eat the ribs," Patricia Payne said with forced cheerfulness.

  "Four," Charley McFadden said. "Hay-zus will be back in a couple of minutes."

  "The four of us, then," she agreed.

  The telephone rang. Matt reached to pick it up, then stopped.

  They all watched it wordlessly until, after seven rings, it stopped.

  I have the strangest feeling that was Helene, Matt thought.

  Charley McFadden suddenly got up from his chair and started down the stairs.

  "Where are you going?"

  "From now on," Charley called, "I think we should keep that door locked."

  Matt glanced at his mother. She looked very sad. When she sensed his eyes on her, she smiled.

  "He really is large, isn't he?"

  ***

  Jesus Martinez came back to the apartment almost an hour later, as Matt's mother was cleaning up the kitchen.

  "They don't make that model anymore," he said. "I have been in every electronics store in Center City trying to find these."

  He held up three tape cassettes.

  The telephone had rung twice more while they had been eating. They hadn't answered it.

  It rang again almost immediately after Matt had installed a new tape.

  "What are we supposed to do?" McFadden asked. "Answer it? Or let the machine answer it?"

  "Let the machine do it," Martinez said. "I think the chief wants the recording."

  With the machine reconnected, it was possible to hear the caller's message.

  It was a variation of the previous calls, no more scatologically obscene than the others, but enough, because of Patricia Payne-whom McFadden thought of as Matt's Mother-to cause McFadden to blush with embarrassment and his face to tighten in anger.

  "I can rig that thing so we don't have to listen to that crap-sorry, Mrs. Payne," he said.

  "That might be a good idea," she said. "But I'm leaving anyway, if that's what's bothering you."

  "I'd like to get my hands on that guy," McFadden said.

  "So would I," she said. "But don't you see, Charley, that's what they're trying to do, make us angry?"

  "They're succeeding," Charley said.

  She put her hat and coat on, and then went and stood before Matt, who was sprawled in an overstuffed leather armchair, his bad leg resting on a pillow sitting on the matching ottoman.

  "After I leave, maybe you can get Charley to hang your art work," she said.

  "What?" Matt asked, and then understood. "Oh, that. How did it get here?"

  "Your dad and I brought it from the hospital," she said.

  "Thank you."

  "Now, there's plenty of food there for breakfast and sand-wiches, and I'll bring more when I come tomorrow. But for dinner, your father called the Rittenhouse Club, and they'll bring you anything you want to eat."

  "I don't like Rittenhouse Club food in the Rittenhouse Club," Matt said. "Why should I have them haul it over here?"

  He saw the hurt look in her eyes and added, "I'm in a lousy mood, sorry, Mother."

  "Are you in pain?"

  He shook his head no.

  "They do a very nice mixed grill, and you like their London broil, I know you do, and besides, beggars can't be choosers." She leaned over and kissed him.

  "Ignore him," Patricia Payne said to Charley and Jesus. "Make him feed you."

  "Yes, ma'am," Charley said. "I will."

  When he came back up the stairs after locking the door after her, McFadden asked, "What art work is she talking about?"

  "There's a great big picture of a naked woman in his bed-room," Jesus said.

  "No shit?"

  "It was a gift from Mrs. Washington," Matt said. "Mrs. Washington and I think of it as a splendid example of Victorian art."

  "I gotta see this," Charley said, and went into the bedroom.

  He returned carrying the oil painting.

  "Over the fireplace, right?"

  "Why not?" Charley said.

  McFadden went to the fireplace, leaned the picture against it, and then took something from the mantelpiece. He walked to Matt with a snub-nosed revolver in the palm of each hand.

  "Maybe you'd
better keep these-one of them, anyway- with you. What are you doing with two?"

  "One of them belongs to Wohl. He loaned it to me in the hospital. The shooting team took mine away from me. I just got it back."

  McFadden sniffed the barrel of one of the revolvers and then the other.

  "This must be yours," he said. "I'll clean it for you, if you have the stuff. Otherwise, you'll fuck up the barrel."

  "There's cleaning stuff in one of the drawers in the kitchen," Matt said.

  "You got any bullets? There's none in this."

  "Cartridges, Charley. Bullets are the little lead things that come out the end. There's a box with the cleaning stuff."

  "Fuck you, clean your own pistol," Charley said, laid both pistols beside the answering machine, and returned to the oil painting. He picked it up and held it in place over the fireplace, turning his head for approval.

  "Great," Matt said.

  "What are you going to do when your mother comes back?"

  "Mother will modestly avert her eyes," Matt said.

  "You got a brick nail?"

  "What's a brick nail?"

  "A nail you can drive in bricks. You can't do that with regular nails, asshole, they bend."

  "No."

  There was a knock at the door at the foot of the stairs.

  Jesus erupted from his chair and went to the closet and took the shotgun from it.

  "It's probably Wohl or Washington," Matt said.

  "Who's there?" Jesus called.

  "Telephone company."

  Jesus went down the stairs. In a moment, he returned, fol-lowed by two telephone company technicians, one of whom was visibly curious and made more than a little uncomfortable by Jesus's shotgun.

  "Where do you want your phone?" one of them asked.

  "One here and one in the bedroom, please," Matt said.

  "Is something going on around here?" the other one asked, curiosity having overwhelmed him.

  "Like what?" Charley asked.

  "Hey, you're the cop who shot the Liberation Army guy, aren't you?" the first one asked.

  "Just put the goddamn phone in," Jesus snapped.

  "What the hell is wrong with you? I just asked, is all."

  It took forty-five minutes to install the two telephones. The installers refused a drink, but accepted Matt's offer of coffee.

  "It's cold as a bitch out there," one said.

  When they were gone, Martinez said, "That's not going to work."

  "What's not going to work?"

  "Having people knock on the door, and we ask who is it, and then go down and open the door."

  "Why not?" Charley asked.

  "What we need is an intercom," Jesus said. "They ring the bell, we ask the intercom who's there. I saw one in the store where I bought the tapes."

  "Who would put it in?" Charley asked.

  "I would."

  "Do you really think it's necessary?" Matt said. "More to the point, do you think that anybody's really going to try to come up here?"

  "They threw the firebomb at Monahan," Charley said.

  "Jesus," Matt said.

  "Save your money, if you want to," Jesus said. "They cost twenty-four ninety-five."

  "You can install it?" Matt asked.

  "You got a screwdriver, a drill, and a staple machine, I can install it."

  "I think I've got a screwdriver, but I don't have a drill or a staple machine."

  "You don't have a drill?" McFadden asked, surprised.

  "No."

  "How about a hammer? You're going to need a hammer for the brick nails."

  "No hammer, either."

  "Hay-zus can get a hammer and the brick nails and the drill and the staple machine when he gets the intercom," Charley said.

  "Don't forget the screwdriver," Matt said, and shifted on the couch and took out his wallet.

  "What the fuck, Payne, if they don't kill you, it'll come in handy later," Jesus said as he took three twenties. "If you've got some broad up here, and some other broad comes to see you, you could tell her you're busy on the intercom."

  "I could also just not answer her knock," Matt said.

  "You want the intercom or not? You're not doing me any favors."

  "I want the intercom, Hay-zus, thank you."

  Martinez returned in a little over half an hour, his arms full of kraft paper bags.

  "Goddamn sidewalks are all ice," he said. "I almost busted my ass, twice."

  "How would you like to be walking a foot beat in this weather?" McFadden asked.

  "How about standing at Broad and Vine in a white cap, directing traffic?" Martinez said as he put the packages on the coffee table.

  In one of the bags was a Philadelphia Daily News. He tossed it on Matt's lap.

  "In case you don't know where you are," he said. "This is an 'undisclosed location.' "

  "What?"

  "You're on the front page," Jesus said.

  Matt unfolded the newspaper. There was a photograph of him being carried to Coughlin's car at Frankford Hospital. Be-neath it was the caption:

  COP UNDER DEATH THREAT-As heavily armed police stand by, Officer Matthew M. Payne, whose life has been threatened by the Islamic Liberation Army is carried from Frankford Hospital to a police car that took him to an undisclosed location. Payne was wounded in the gun battle in which he shot to death ILA member Abu Ben Mo-hammed. (See ILA, Page 5)

  Charley leaned over Matt's shoulder and read the caption.

  "Well, the bastards got what they wanted, didn't they?" he asked. "The front page of the News, and we sure look like we're scared of them."

  "I don't know about you being scared, white boy," Matt heard himself say, "but we are."

  McFadden looked at him curiously, and after a moment said seriously, "You'll be all right, buddy. You can take that to the bank."

  There was a moment's awkward silence, which Jesus finally broke.

  "The first thing you have to decide is where you want this end of the intercom."

  "How about on the kitchen wall?"

  "Why not?"

  Matt was impressed with the skill with which Jesus in-stalled the intercom. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing. It reminded him of Charley's mechanical draw-ing skill, and that made him consider his own practical in-eptitude.

  Matthew Mark Payne, B.A., Cum Laude, University of Pennsylvania, you don't have one salable skill, something you could find a paying job doing, except being a cop, and, truth to tell, you ain't too good at that.

  By half past five, the intercom was installed and tested.

  "Anybody else getting hungry?" Matt asked as Jesus-workmanlike, Matt thought-neatly coiled the leftover wire and put the tools back in their boxes.

  "I could eat something," Jesus said.

  "I'm going to finish hanging your naked lady picture," Charley said, "and then leave. I'm going to have supper with Margaret. I'll be back at midnight and relieve Hay-zus."

  "Bring her back here, and her friend Lari too, and we'll send out for food."

  "No," Charley said. "For one thing, I wouldn't bring a nice girl like her anyplace where there's a naked lady hanging on the wall."

  "You're kidding!"

  "Her uncle and aunt are feeding us," Charley said. "We have to go there."

  "Don't break your ass on the way to the subway," Jesus said.

  "You don't have your car, do you?" Matt asked, and, when Charley shook his head, asked, "where is it, Bustleton and Bowler?"

  "Yeah."

  "Why don't you leave it there and take the Porsche?"

  "I don't know, Matt. I'd hate to tear it up."

  "You can't leave a Porsche sit," Matt said. "And I damned sure can't drive it. Where'd you put the keys?"

  "Jesus, I forgot!" Charley said, and pulled them from his trouser pocket.