Matt saw the pistol-at first glance in the dark, it looked like a Browning. 380-and keeping his eye on the man, bent over, carefully picked it up with two fingers on the grips, and then put it in his hip pocket.
“You got anything else?” he asked, and patted the writhing man down to make sure he didn’t.
Then he went back and picked up the shotgun on the ground near the body, and turned and walked quickly toward the Porsche and the victims.
The first thing he saw was that only one headlight was working. And then he saw the pellet holes in the hood and door and windshield frame, and what was left of the windshield. Then he first smelled and then saw gasoline running from under the Porsche.
“Jesus,” he said. He laid the shotgun on the roof and jerked Terry’s door open.
She looked at him without comprehension.
And then he saw that her face was bleeding.
“Are you all right?”
“All right?” she parroted.
He unfastened her seat belt, reached into her lap, reclaimed his cellular, and then pulled her out of the car.
There was blood on her dress, but when he put his hand to it, she pushed him away, as if he was taking liberties with her person. He led her around the corner and sort of leaned her against a Ford van.
Then he went to the victims.
“It’s over,” he said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“All right? All right?” the woman snapped at him. “What the hell is the matter with you? Are you drunk, or what? Can’t you hear that screaming?”
“I’m calling for assistance,” Matt said. “Help will be here soon.”
He punched in 911 on his cellular as he walked back to Terry.
“Police Radio.” Mrs. Angelina Carracelli, who had been on the job for twenty-two years, answered his call on the second ring.
“This is Sergeant Payne, 471. Shots fired. Officer needs assistance.”
Mrs. Carracelli waited for the sergeant to provide greater details. When none were forthcoming, she said, “Sergeant?”
“Radio,” Sergeant Payne said, a little distantly. “That’s not exactly accurate. I’m doing fine. I don’t need assistance. But there are people here who do.”
“You said ‘shots fired,’ Sergeant?”
“Oh, yes. Lots of shots fired.”
“What is your location, Sergeant?”
“I’m going to need two ambulances-no, three. And the fire department. There’s spilled gas.”
“What is your location, Sergeant?”
“I’m in the parking lot next to La Famiglia Restaurant on South Front Street.”
“Are you injured?”
“No, I’m fine, thank you.”
“Are you in uniform, Sergeant?”
“Oh, no, I’m not in uniform,” Matt chuckled.
Mrs. Carracelli made several quick decisions. First, that the call was legitimate, not someone’s idea of a joke. That there was something wrong with the sergeant. His voice was strange, and he sounded a little disoriented. He might be injured, or even wounded.
She muted the telephone line and pushed the appropriate switches.
Every police radio in Philadelphia heard three shrill beeps, and then the calclass="underline"
“Assist the Officer, South Front Street, parking lot by La Famiglia Restaurant unit block South Front Street. Shots fired. Assist the Officer, parking lot by La Famiglia Restaurant unit block South Front Street. Shots fired. All officers use caution, plainclothes police on the scene.”
The three shrill beeps and the call were also heard in the Buick Rendezvous, which was carrying Mr. and Mrs. Casimir Bolinski up Market Street toward the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
“Shit,” Mr. Michael J. O’Hara said, as he put the Rendezvous into a screeching U-turn. “That’s where Matty is!” As they followed the black Suburban up Market Street in their unmarked Crown Victoria, Lieutenant Gerry McGuire and Sergeant Al Nevins heard the same call.
McGuire found the microphone.
“Dan Seven-four and Dan Seven-five, stay with the assignment,” he said into it, and then he tossed the microphone to Nevins as he desperately looked for a hole in the oncoming traffic on Market Street in which he could make a U-turn.
“Radio,” Sergeant Nevins said to the microphone, “Dan Seven-one in on the Assist Officer on Front Street. Be advised there is probably an officer in plainclothes on the scene.”
Mrs. Carracelli opened the telephone line.
“Sergeant, identify your unit and give conditions.”
“My name is Payne. Homicide,” Matt said. “There was an armed robbery, two black males, one pistol, one shotgun.”
“Are there any injuries?” Mrs. Carracelli asked, trying to keep her voice calm.
“One of the doers looks dead; the other’s alive. He’ll need Fire Rescue. At least one of the victims is going to need an ambulance. Maybe three victims. And I’m going to need the fire department. There’s gas on the ground.”
“Are you injured?”
“No, I’m fine. They missed me.”
“Help is on the way.”
“I can hear the sirens. Tell them I’m deep inside the parking lot.”
“Help is on the way,” Mrs. Carracelli said, and muted the telephone line again.
Three more shrill beeps went out over Police Radio.
“All units responding to the Assist Officer on the unit block of South Front Street, be advised shots have been fired at police and there are plainclothes police officers on the scene. One is inside the parking lot. All units be advised, the unit block of South Front Street, shots have been fired at police and there are plainclothes officers on the scene. One is inside the parking lot. Suspects in the shooting are two black males. Both have been shot and are still at the location.”
Matt looked down at Terry.
She looked up at him with horror in her eyes.
“Help is on the way,” he said. “You can hear it…”
“What about the… man who’s screaming? Can’t you do something for him?”
“I’d like to put another round in the sonofabitch, is what I’d like to do.”
“My God, I can’t believe you said that. You really are a cold-blooded sonofabitch, aren’t you?”
Matt decided there was no point in arguing with her.
“There will be help in a minute,” he said, and started walking back toward where he’d put the two men down.
Halfway there, he pulled his bow tie loose and opened his collar.
He was sweat-soaked.
He looked at the cellular and punched in an autodial number.
Detective Payne’s call was answered by Inspector Peter F. Wohl in his residence in the 800 Block of Norwood Street in Chestnut Hill, in Northwest Philadelphia.
When Wohl’s cell phone-in a charging cradle on his bedside table-chirped, he was not wearing any clothing at all, and was engaged in chasing a twenty-eight-year-old female around his bedroom with the announced intention of divesting her of her sole remaining article of clothing, black nylon underpants.
When the cell phone tinkled, Wohl said “Shit” and the young woman-having only moments before decided to let Peter work his wicked way with her-softly said, “Amen.”
Amelia Alice Payne, M.D., knew Inspector Peter Wohl well enough to know that not only was he going to answer the phone, but that the odds were that it was something that would keep them from ending what had been a delightful evening in what she had thought was going to be a delightful way.
The look on Peter’s face as he listened to what the caller was saying confirmed her worst fears, as did his almost conversational response to what the caller had said:
“Was it a good shooting?”
Amy had been Peter Wohl’s on-and-off girlfriend, lover, and the next-thing-to-fiancee long enough to have acquired an easy familiarity with police department cant.
She knew, in other words, that “a good shooting” was one in which the police shooter was not only fully justified in having used deadly force in the execution of his duties, but in circumstances such that his justification would be obvious to those who would investigate the incident, which was officially the Internal Affairs Division of the police department and the Office of the District Attorney, and unofficially Philadelphia’s newspapers, radio and television stations, and more than a dozen civil rights organizations.