The Investigators

by W. E. B Griffin

  “I’m telling you to ease off, goddamn it!”

  “With that damned Rolex watch shoved up his ass!” Martinez went on, undaunted.

  “Charley, unless I get to go to the toilet, I’m going to crap in my pants!” Calhoun said plaintively.

  “I don’t give a shit!”

  Two minutes later, Martinez turned off 222 into a Cities Service complex, a large service station with two rows of pumps, a store offering tires and other automotive accessories, and a restaurant.

  He pulled the unmarked Plymouth up in front of the restaurant and jumped out of the driver’s seat. He took his identification folder from his pocket and opened it so the shield was visible, then pushed his jacket aside so that his holstered pistol was visible. He waved his badge around at shoulder height.

  “Nothing to worry about, folks. We are police officers!”

  That, of course, caught the attention of everyone within fifty feet, including several people seated at tables inside the restaurant.

  “Let him out, McFadden!” Martinez ordered.

  Charley reached over Calhoun and opened the door.

  Calhoun made his way awkwardly out of the backseat.

  Charley slid across the seat and got out after him.

  “You go set things up in the restaurant,” Martinez ordered.

  “I’m not going to leave you alone with him,” McFadden said.

  “You don’t think I’d shoot him right here, do you?”

  “I’m not going to leave him alone with you, Martinez,” Charley repeated.

  “Suit yourself,” Martinez said, and walked into the restaurant, where, from the door, he repeated the “Nothing to worry about folks, we’re police officers” routine.

  By the time Charley marched the handcuffed former police officer Timothy J. Calhoun through the door of the restaurant, the eyes of everyone in the restaurant were on them, and Calhoun was so humiliated Charley thought he might actually cry.

  Charley marched Calhoun past the fascinated restaurant customers to the men’s room. Martinez preceded them, and ran a frightened-looking civilian out of the place before he would permit Charley to lead Calhoun inside.

  Charley marched him up to a stall and turned him around.

  “Aren’t you going to take the cuffs off?” Calhoun asked.

  “Timmy, I just can’t take the chance,” Charley said, sounding genuinely sorry.

  He unfastened Calhoun’s belt, unbuttoned the flap, pulled down his zipper, and pulled first his trousers and then his shorts down over his hips.

  “Back in there,” he ordered.

  Calhoun, his trousers at his ankles, backed into the stall and finally managed to lower himself onto the toilet.

  “How am I supposed to wipe myself?” Calhoun asked.

  “When you’re finished, I’ll uncuff you to do that,” Charley said.

  It became evident to Officer Calhoun that Detective McFadden had no intention of closing the door, but instead was leaning on the frame, obviously intending to watch him.

  “You’re not even going to close the door?”

  “Timmy, I just can’t take the chance,” Charley said. “If I was in your shoes, I think I’d eat my gun.”

  “Maybe that’s what I should have done when I saw the cars outside.”

  “Too late for that, now, Timmy. You’re going down.”

  “Shit!”

  In Detective McFadden’s professional judgment, Officer Calhoun was about to cry. Which meant that he had swallowed the good cop-bad cop routine hook, line, and sinker. He hadn’t thought it would be this easy, but on the other hand, Calhoun had never had a reputation for being very smart, just a good guy.

  “What are you going to do, Timmy?” Charley asked sympathetically.

  Calhoun looked up at McFadden. There were tears in his eyes.

  “What the hell can I do?”

  “Timmy, how the hell did you ever get into this mess?” Charley asked. “Didn’t you even think what would happen to Monica when you were caught?”

  “We weren’t supposed to get caught!” Calhoun said indignantly. “That fucking Phebus said there was no way in the fucking world we were going to get caught!”

  Bingo! Former Sergeant Anton C. Phebus! I’ll be damned!

  “You’re going to have to give them Phebus, Timmy. Before somebody else does. It’s not like you’d be ratting on another cop. He’s not a cop anymore, he’s a lawyer, an assistant D.A., for Christ’s sake! And he got you into this.”

  “We weren’t supposed to get caught,” Calhoun said. “Shit!”

  “What we’re going to do now, Timmy, is get on the phone to Sergeant Washington, who is my boss, and a good guy. You’re going to tell him that as soon as we get to Philadelphia you’re going to give him Phebus. He already knows about Phebus, of course, but with a little luck, you’ll be giving him Phebus before anybody else on the Five Squad does. That should help you.”

  Calhoun nodded.

  “I’ll be right back, Timmy,” Charley said.

  “Where are you going?”

  Charley didn’t reply.

  Detective Martinez was leaning on the wall just outside the men’s room.

  “Anything?”

  “You remember good old Sergeant Anton C. Phebus?”

  “Yeah. What about him?”

  “He’s the brains behind the whole thing.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit,” Charley said. “See if you can borrow an office with a phone. I want to get Calhoun on the phone, talking to Washington, before he changes his mind.”

  Although he scanned the lobby for her carefully, Matt Payne did not see Susan Reynolds when he returned to the Penn-Harris Hotel a few minutes after twelve.

  As he got on the elevator, he decided he would call her at the Department of Social Services. Even with her line tapped, it would raise no suspicions on the FBI’s part if he telephoned and asked her if she was free for lunch.

  As he put the key in the door of Suite 612, he sensed movement, and glanced down the corridor. Susan was trotting toward him, obviously distraught.

  “Hi!” he said. “I was just about to call you.”

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  “Calm down,” he said, opened the door, and waved her inside ahead of him.

  He closed the door and put his arms around her.

  “Where the hell were you?” she asked, her voice muffled against her chest.

  “I was out arresting a dirty cop,” he said. “My boss just told me I was at the head of his good-guy list.”

  She pushed away from him and looked up into his face.

  “Say what you’re thinking,” she said.

  “I’m not thinking anything,” he said.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “There was a certain irony in that, wouldn’t you think?”

  “In other words, what you’re going to do for Jennie makes you feel dirty?”

  “Whatever I wind up doing, honey, it’s not going to be for your pal Jennie.”

  “I could meet her by myself, Matt, and try to reason with her. I really hate what this is going to do to you.”

  “That’s very tempting, but for several reasons, it wouldn’t work,” Matt said. “And I’m a big boy. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Why wouldn’t it work?”

  “Well, I think it’s entirely possible that the FBI has got somebody on you—besides that woman in your office, I mean. If they see you leaving town, they’ll follow you—keeping track of a Porsche isn’t hard. And the minute you meet poor Jennie, surprise, surprise! Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred bucks. I don’t want you to go to jail, honey.”

  “You don’t know the FBI is watching me. Watching me that close, I mean.”

  “They’re tapping your phones twenty-four hours a day. Your pal keeps calling—it doesn’t matter what name she gives, I told you that, they know who it is. They’re under pressure to put the arm on Chenowith and Co
mpany. They may not have the manpower to do it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, but whenever they can find the people, they’re on you, Susan. Believe me.”

  “Jennie called,” Susan said. “This morning.”

  “And?”

  “I told her I would meet her.”

  “She called you at your office?” Matt asked. Susan nodded. “And you went to some pay phone and called her back? Or she called you at a pay-phone number you gave her?”

  “At a number I gave her.”

  “Okay. So the minute you left your office, we can count on your friendly coworker listening to what you and Jennie had to say to each other. We can also count on her reporting that, right then, to the Terrorist Unit. If they had somebody available, you might have been followed to the phone booth. Hell, they might have followed you here.”

  “And there’s a microphone in the light fixture?” Susan said, pointing at the ceiling. “And they are listening to everything we’re saying now?”

  “I don’t think so. They think I’m on their side. But there’s no telling, really. I should have thought of that. I’m used to planting mikes, not having them planted on me.”

  “I was kidding,” Susan said. “You really think they could have a microphone in here?”

  “Well, if they do, we’re all going to jail,” Matt said.

  “I never know when you’re serious,” Susan said.

  “Tell me about poor Jennie,” Matt said. “Softly. The FBI may be listening.”

  “She really wants to give me whatever it is she wants me to keep for her.”

  “The translation of that is that, to cover his ass, Chenowith wants to get rid of the bank loot,” Matt said. “And what did you tell her?”

  “That I would meet her the same place I met her last time,” Susan said.

  “The restaurant in Doylestown?” Matt asked. Susan nodded. “When?”

  “I told her I couldn’t take off from work without questions being asked,” Susan said. “I told her I’d try to get there by seven.”

  “Speaking of work, you’re on your lunch hour, right?”

  She shook her head, “no.”

  “After I talked to Jennie, I didn’t go back to work.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was afraid to,” Susan said.

  “Did something happen? What were you afraid of?”

  “I didn’t like the way Veronica was looking at me.”

  “So, what did you do?”

  “I came here, looking for you, and you weren’t here, so I walked around the block, and came back, and walked around the block. . . . The last time I came in the hotel, I saw you getting on the elevator.”

  “By now, Veronica is wondering where the hell you are. You didn’t call up and say you were sick or anything?”

  Susan shook her head, “no.”

  “Do it now. Tell her you felt dizzy and got sick to your stomach.”

  “I don’t work for Veronica. I’d have to call my supervisor.”

  “Whoever. Tell whoever that you got sick and felt dizzy, and are going to see your doctor at half past three, and that you’ll probably be in after that.”

  “You want me to go back to work?”

  “No. But that may stall them a little. They may—just may—decide to wait until after you don’t show up at four, or four-thirty, before deciding that you’ve taken off.”

  “What are we going to do about Jennie?”

  “What is she going to do, just wait for you in the restaurant?”

  “There’s an outside pay phone—actually, there’s three of them—and she’s going to start calling them at seven. When I answer, she’ll know I’m there.”

  “Which one? You said three?”

  “Whichever one rings,” Susan said, and smiled. “I guess she has the numbers of all of them. If one of them is busy, she’ll try another. She’s good at this sort of thing.”

  “Call your supervisor,” Matt said.

  “And then what?”

  “And then we go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Ultimately to Doylestown. But right now, just out of here.”

  “I’m not due in Doylestown until seven.”

  “So we’ll stop at Hershey and shoot a quick eighteen holes,” Matt said.

  “That would be nice, wouldn’t it, if we could do things like that? Play some golf? Are you any good?”

  “I’m very good, thank you for asking,” Matt said. “Call your supervisor, Susan.”

  Armando C. Giacomo, Esq., had more than a little difficulty finding a place to park his Jaguar sedan in the parking lot shared by the 1st District and South Detectives. The three spots reserved for visitors outside the ancient, run-down building were occupied, which was not really surprising. But so were the two spots reserved for inspectors; and the two spots set aside for the two captains of the 1st District and South Detectives.

  He finally figured to hell with it, and parked in an “Ab solutely No Parking at Any Time” slot near the rear door of the old, shabby building. His car was subject to being towed away there, but he suspected that before his shiny new Jaguar was hauled off, inquiries would be made to establish its ownership, and he could then explain to whoever came asking, how hard he had looked for a place to park and how reluctant he was to leave it on the street, where some happy adolescent would write his initials in the shiny green lacquer with a key.

  Most cops, he knew, bore him little ill will for defending individuals alleged to have a connection with organized crime. For one thing—which explained to Manny Giacomo why the cops didn’t climb the walls and pull their hair out when a genuine bad guy walked on a legal technicality—most cops drew a line between what they did and the criminal justice system did.

  They arrested the bad guys. That was their job. What happened with the lawyers and the district attorneys and juries wasn’t their concern.

  There were even a few cops who really believed—as Manny Giacomo did—that even the worst scumbag was entitled to the best defense he could get, that it was on this that Justice with a capital J was really based.

  And just about every cop knew that if they were hauled before the bar of justice, lowercase J, on an excessive-brutality rap or the like, they could expect to hear, “Ar mando C. Giacomo for the defense, your honor,” when they stood up to face the judge.

  Just before he pushed open the door to the building, Manny Giacomo saw a new Buick coupe, bristling with an array of antennas, parked where no civilian vehicle was ever allowed to park, in one of the spots reserved for district radio patrol cars.

  Mr. Michael J. O’Hara of the Bulletin is obviously up and about practicing his profession, Giacomo thought, and wondered if he could somehow put the power of the press to work defending the officers he had come to protect from the unjustified accusations of the police establishment.

  Just inside the door, Lieutenant Daniel Justice of South Detectives, who had probably been waiting for him, stuck out his hand.

  “Good morning, Counselor.”

  “Danny the Judge!” Giacomo said, shaking his hand.

  Danny needed a shave, and looked as if he had been up all night. Giacomo remembered the last time he’d seen him, he’d told him he was working Last Out. He therefore should now be home asleep.

  “I thought you were working Last Out,” Giacomo said.

  “You know what they say, ‘no rest for the virtuous,’ ” Danny said. “Chief Inspector Coughlin would be most grateful if you could spare him a moment of your time.”

  “Before I talk to the unjustly accused police officers, you mean?”

  “Now, is what I mean,” Danny said. “I’ll pass on agreeing that they’re unjustly accused.”

  Danny the Judge guided Giacomo across the room to the office of the district captain and pushed open the door.

  Dennis Coughlin and Michael O’Hara had apparently evicted the district captain from his office. O’Hara was sitting behind his desk. Coughlin was sitting in the one, somew
hat battered, chrome-and-leather armchair.

  “Mr. Giacomo, Chief,” Danny announced. “Should I have his illegally parked car hauled away now, or wait awhile?”

  “Declare it abandoned, have it hauled to the Academy, and tell them I said they should use it for target practice,” Coughlin replied. “Good morning, Counselor.”

  “You heard him, Mickey,” Giacomo said. “Blatantly and shamelessly threatening the desecration of a work of art.”

  O’Hara got up from behind the desk and walked toward the door.

  “Somehow, I get the feeling that Denny would rather talk to you alone, Manny,” he said, touching his shoulder as he walked past him.

  Danny the Judge pulled the door closed.

  “There’s coffee, Manny,” Coughlin said, indicating a coffee machine.

  Giacomo walked to it and helped himself.

  “Being a suspicious character,” he said as he looked with distaste at a bowl full of packets of nondairy creamer and decided he was not going to put that terrifying collection of chemicals into his coffee, “I suspect that there may be more here than meets the eye. Or, more specifically, what I was led to believe by the vice president of the FOP.”

  “What did he lead you to believe?” Coughlin asked.

  “For one thing,” Giacomo said, taking a sip from his coffee mug—which bore the insignia of the Emerald Society, the association of police officers of Irish extraction—and deciding the coffee was going to be just as bad as he was afraid it would be, “the last I heard, Chief Inspector Coughlin was not running Internal Affairs.”

  “What did they tell you at the FOP?” Coughlin repeated.

  “That several all-around scumbags engaged in the controlled-substances distribution industry had made several outrageous allegations against a number of pure-as-freshly-fallen-snow police officers.”

  “Well, they got the ‘scumbags’ part right, at least,” Coughlin said.

  “I am now prepared to listen to—if you are inclined to tell me—the opposing view.”

  He sat down at the district captain’s desk and looked at Coughlin.

  “Off the record, if you’d rather, Denny,” he added.

  “Thank you for off-the-record, Manny,” Coughlin said. “Okay. We have the entire Five Squad of the Narcotics Unit under arrest. The charge right now is misprision in office.”