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

by The Witness(lit)

  "Who were they?"

  "College kids. Wiseasses."

  "The judge ought to make them clean it off with a tooth-brush," Carlucci said. "But that's wishful thinking."

  "Mike Sabara told me when I called him just before I came here that there's 'ILA' painted all over North Philadelphia," Wohl said. "I don't think that's college kids, and I would like to know who did that."

  "What do you mean?"

  "How much of it is spontaneous, and how much was painted by the people who issued those press releases."

  "Let's talk about the ILA," Carlucci said. "Now that it just happened to come up. What do we know today about them that we didn't know yesterday?"

  "Not a goddamn thing," Coughlin said. "I was over at Intelligence yesterday. They don't have a damned thing, and it's not for want of trying."

  "They're harassing Monahan. And for that matter, Payne, too. Telephone calls to Goldblatt's from the time they open the doors until they close."

  "What about at his house?" Carlucci asked.

  "Telephone calls. The same kind they're making to Matt Payne's apartment."

  "Driving by Monahan's house? Anything like that?"

  "Nothing that we've been able to get a handle on. Nobody hanging around, driving by more than once."

  "What have you got on Monahan, at his house?"

  "Three uniformed officers in an unmarked car. One of the three is always walking around."

  "Supervised by who?"

  "A lieutenant named Jack Malone. He came to Special Op-erations from Major Crimes."

  "Where he got the nutty idea that Bob Holland is a car thief," the mayor said. "I know all about Malone. Is he the man for the job, Peter? This whole thing would go down the toilet if we lose Monahan as a witness, or lose him, period. Christ, what that bastard Nelson and his Ledger would do to me if that happened."

  "Malone strikes me, Mr. Mayor, as a pretty good cop who unfortunately has had some personal problems."

  The mayor looked at Wohl for a moment and then said. "Okay. If you say so. You say they're harassing Payne? How? What's going on with him?"

  "He has an apartment on the top floor of the Delaware Val-ley Cancer Society Building on Rittenhouse Square. There's an underground garage with a Holmes rent-a-cop at the entrance, and, during the day, there's a Holmes rent-a-cop in the lobby. There's a pretty good burglar alarm system. We have an officer wearing a Holmes uniform, replacing the Holmes guy, in the garage at night."

  "That's all?"

  "And we have somebody with Payne all the time."

  "Two of them are those kids from Narcotics who ran down the punk who shot Dutch Moffitt," Chief Inspector Coughlin said. "McFadden and Martinez. They're friends, and in regular clothes. We don't want to give the impression that we're-"

  "Baby-sitting a cop, huh?" the mayor interrupted. "I get the point."

  "They call him, these sleaze-bags," Wohl said, "every fif-teen minutes or so. Say something dirty, and hang up. No time to trace the call."

  He took a tape cassette from his pocket and held it up.

  "What's that?"

  "A recording of the calls," Wohl said. "I'm going to take it to the lab."

  "That sounds as if we're chasing our tails," the mayor said. "What do they hope to find?"

  "We're trying everything we can think of, Mr. Mayor," Wohl said.

  "Sometime yesterday afternoon, they got to his car," Coughlin said. "Slashed the tires, and did a job with a knife or a key, or something on the paint job."

  "And nobody saw anything?" the mayor said, unpleasantly.

  "All we can do is guess," Wohl said.

  "So guess."

  "Somebody came in the front door during business hours, rode the elevator down to the garage, slashed the tires, etcet-era-the car is parked right by the elevator, it wouldn't have taken more than thirty seconds, a minute, tops-got back on the elevator, rode back to the lobby floor and walked out."

  "The rent-a-cop in the garage didn't see anything?"

  "He can't see where the car is parked."

  "I don't suppose anybody bothered to check the car for prints, call the lab people?"

  "I did, Mr. Mayor," Wohl said. "They took some pictures, too. Should I have them send you a set?"

  "No, Peter, thank you. They would just make me sick to my stomach. I don't like these people thumbing their noses at the cops."

  They all knew Jerry Carlucci well enough to recognize the signals of an impending eruption, and they all waited for it to come. It was less violent, however, than any of them expected.

  "Okay. Now I'll tell you what's going to happen," he said, and pointed his finger at Dennis V. Coughlin. "You, Denny-and this should in no way be construed as a suggestion that Wohl isn't doing the job right, but he's a Staff Inspector and you're a Chief-are going to go to Intelligence and Organized Crime and light a fire under them. I said before and I'm saying now that these clowns didn't wake up one morning and say, 'Okay, today we're the Islamic Liberation Army, we're going to go out and make fools of the police and incidentally stick up a furniture store.' They came from somewhere, and I want to know where, and I want to know who the other ones of them are, the ones issuing these goddamned press releases."

  "Yes, sir," Coughlin said.

  The mayor turned to Matt Lowenstein. "You're the Chief Inspector of Detectives. Get out there and detect. Whatever you're doing now isn't working."

  Lowenstein's face flushed, but he didn't reply.

  "And you, Peter: I won't start telling you how to run Special Operations. If you're comfortable having a guy who beats up on his wife and has paranoid ideas about Bob Holland in charge of protecting the only goddamned witness we have, okay. I'm sure you're smart enough to understand that it's your ass if this goes wrong."

  "Yes, sir, I understand."

  "And you will, all three of you, keep Commissioner Czernick up to date on what's going on. I'm sick and tired of calling him up and having him tell me, 'I don't know, Jerry. I haven't talked to Wohl, or Lowenstein or Coughlin today.' "

  "Yes, sir," the three of them replied almost in unison.

  The mayor ground out his cigar in the ashtray in front of him, stood up, and walked out of the room without another word.

  "When the police department looks bad," Commissioner Czernick said, "it makes all of us, but especially the mayor, look bad. I think we should all keep that in mind."

  "You're right, Tad," Matt Lowenstein said. "You're abso-lutely right."

  He turned his face so Czernick couldn't see him and winked at Coughlin and Wohl.

  ***

  At just about the same time, Officer Charles McFadden looked over Officer Matthew Payne's shoulder at what was being stirred in a small stainless steel pot and offered:

  "I always wondered how they made that shit."

  "I gather that creamed beef is not a regular part of your diet?"

  "I eat in restaurants all the time, but I never had it in a house before."

  "But then, until you met me, you never knew that people had indoor toilets, did you?"

  "Fuck you."

  "What's his name?" Matt asked, softly, nodding toward the living room, where a large, muscular young man with a crew cut sat facing the television.

  "Hartzog," Charley furnished quietly.

  "You sure you don't want some of this, Hartzog?" Matt called, raising his voice. "There's more than enough."

  "It's okay. I ate just before I came over," Hartzog replied.

  Matt began to swirl the boiling water in another stainless steel pot.

  "What the hell are you doing now?"

  "I am about to poach eggs. Eggs are these unborn chickens in the obloid white containers you see in my hand."

  "In there?" Charley asked, genuinely surprised as Matt skillfully cracked eggs with one hand into the swirling water.

  "As you see," Matt said.

  "My mother uses a little pan. It's got little cups you put the eggs in."

  "Is that so?"

&n
bsp; "I'll be damned," Charley said, peering into the pan. "That works, don't it?"

  "Just about every time," Matt said. "Now, if you will be so good as to take the English muffins from the toaster-"

  Matt split the English muffins, laid a half on each of two plates, ladled creamed beef on top of them, and then added, using a pierced spoon, two poached eggs on top.

  "Maybe you are good for something," Charley said, taking the plates and carrying them into the living room.

  Matt, using a cane, hobbled after him. He lowered himself into the arm chair and Charley handed him his plate.

  "Oh, good!" Matt said. "We're in time for today's episode of Mary Trueheart, Girl Nymphomaniac."

  Officer Hartzog looked at him without comprehension.

  "I got the Today Show on there. Is that all right?"

  "Fine," Matt said.

  "Is there really such a thing?" Charley asked.

  "As what?"

  "As a nymphomaniac."

  "Yeah, sure."

  "How come I never met one?"

  "They only go after men whose dicks are longer than two inches," Matt said.

  "Then I guess you never met one, either, huh?"

  In point of fact, I have. Or at least it could be argued that Helene's peculiar sexual appetites might, using the term loosely, qualify her as a nymphomaniac. But somehow, Charley, I don't think you would approve if I told you about her.

  "One works downstairs," Matt said. "Brunette. Name of Jasmine."

  "No shit?" Charley asked, fascinated, and then saw the look on Matt's face. "Bullshit."

  "There was one when I was in junior high school," Officer Hartzog said. "They caught her fucking the janitor. They ar-rested him and sent her off to a girl's home someplace."

  The door buzzer sounded.

  "Who the hell can that be?" Charley wondered aloud.

  Hartzog got up and went to get his shotgun, which he had leaned against the wall at the head of the stairs. Charley went to the intercom in the kitchen.

  "Who's there?"

  "My name is Young."

  "What can we do for you?"

  "I'd like to see Matt Payne."

  "What for?"

  "Am I speaking with a police officer?"

  "What kind of a question is that?"

  "This is Special Agent Frank F. Young of the FBI. Would you let us in please?"

  "I know him, Charley," Matt called. "Let him in."

  Hartzog went down the stairs, two at a time, carrying his shotgun.

  There was the sound of multiple footsteps on the stairs, and then Young appeared, followed by another neatly dressed, hat wearing, clean-cut man who didn't look any older than Matt or Charley.

  "Hello, Matt," Young said with a smile. "I see you're in good hands."

  "How are you, Mr. Young?"

  What the fuck do you want?

  "I apologize for the hour, but we had to be in this neck of the woods, and I thought we'd take the opportunity to drop by."

  "Can we offer you coffee?"

  "Love a cup. It's bitter cold out there. This is Special Agent Matthews."

  Matthews walked up to Matt, offered his hand, and said, "Jack Matthews. I've wanted to meet you."

  "How are you?" Matt said. "The large one is Officer Char-ley McFadden. The other's Officer Hartzog."

  They shook hands. Hartzog put the shotgun back and sat down where he had been sitting watching television.

  "Charley, will you get the FBI some coffee?"

  "Yeah, sure."

  "You've wanted to meet him, too, Jack," Young said. "Of-ficer McFadden is the man who located, and ran to earth, the individual who shot Captain Moffitt."

  "Yes, I have," Matthews said. "I'm one of your fans, McFadden. That was good work."

  Charley looked uncomfortable.

  "You want something in your coffee, or black?" he re-sponded.

  "Black for me, please."

  "A little sugar for me, if you have it, please," Young said.

  "You want some more, Matt? Hartzog?"

  "Please," Matt said.

  "Not now, thanks," Hartzog said.

  "How do you feel, Matt?" Young asked.

  "I feel all right."

  "No pain in the leg?"

  "Only when I forget and step on it."

  "It'll take a while," Young said. "It could have been a lot worse..45, wasn't it?"

  "Apparently a ricochet," Matt said.

  Charley passed out the coffee.

  "They must be taking this ILA threat pretty seriously," Young said. "Judging by the fact that you have two men on you."

  "I'm off duty," McFadden said. "Hartzog came on at eight. Just one."

  "Matt, is there somewhere we could have a word?" Young asked.

  What the hell is this all about?

  "We can go in my bedroom."

  "Please," Young said, smiling. "You need any help?"

  "No. I just move a little slowly."

  He pushed himself out of the chair and, using a cane, made his way to his bedroom.

  Young followed and closed the door after them.

  "Nice apartment."

  "It gets a little crowded with more than me in it."

  Young smiled dutifully, then said, seriously, "Matt, I won't ask you if I can trust your discretion, but you didn't get this from me, all right?"

  "All right."

  "I heard yesterday that a charge has been brought that you have violated the civil rights of Charles David Stevens, and that Justice will ask us to conduct an investigation."

  "What?" Matt asked, incredulously.

  "It's becoming a fairly standard tactic. All it does as far as we're concerned-in cases like yours-is waste manpower. From their standpoint, the only thing I can imagine is that they hope the very charge will sow a seed of doubt in some potential juror's mind. If the FBI is investigating, the police, the police officer, must have done something wrong."

  "Who brought the charges?" Matt asked, angrily.

  "One of the civil rights groups, I don't remember which one. But it's more than safe to say that Armando C. Giacomo is behind it."

  "What, exactly, am I being charged with?"

  "Violating the civil rights of Stevens by taking his life un-lawfully, or excessive force, something like that."

  "That sonofabitch was trying to kill me when I shot him!"

  "Don't get all excited. The investigation will bring all that out. There's also a story that they're going to take you before the Grand Jury. Is that right?"

  Why don't I want to tell him?

  "I've heard they are."

  "Well, that may-more than likely will-take the wind out of their sails. I can't imagine a Grand Jury returning a true bill under the circumstances. As I say, what I really think they're after is sowing that seed of doubt. Where there's smoke, there must be fire, so to speak."

  "I will be Goddamned!"

  "As well as I can, there's an ethical question here, of course, I will keep you advised. More specifically, when I hear some-thing I think you ought to know, I'll have Matthews pass the word to you. He's one of the good guys."

  "Jesus!" Matt said. "That's absolute bullshit! He tries to kill me. I defend myself, and I'm accused of violating his civil rights."

  "It's a crazy world. But don't worry too much about it. Remember, you didn't do anything wrong."

  "Yeah."

  "Do you play chess?"

  What the hell has that got to do with anything?

  "Yes, I play chess."

  "So does Matthews. That would give him an excuse to come here."

  Why is he doing this?

  "I very much appreciate your telling me this, Mr. Young."

  "Frank, please. What the hell, we have different badges, but we're both cops, right?"