"Bengal," the secretary said. "That's a Bengal tiger."
"Very impressive," Wohl said.
He examined the tiger, idly curious about how they actually mounted and stuffed something like this.
What's inside? A wooden frame? A wire one? A plaster casting? Is that red tongue the real thing, preserved somehow? Or what?
Then he walked across the room and looked through the curtained windows. He could see the roof of Thirtieth Street Station, its classic Greek lines from that angle diluted somewhat by airconditioning machinery and a surprising forest of radio antennae. He could see the Schuylkill River, with the expressway on this side and the boat houses on the far bank.
The left of the paneled double doors to Arthur J. Nelson's office opened, and four men filed out. They all seemed determined to smile, Wohl thought idly, and then he thought they had probably just had their asses eaten out.
A handsome man wearing a blue blazer and gray trousers appeared in the door. He was much older, of course, than the young man in the tiger photograph, and heavier, and there was now a perfectly trimmed, snow-white mustache on his lip, but Wohl had no doubt that it was Arthur J. Nelson.
Formidable, Wohl thought.
Arthur J. Nelson studied Wohl for a moment, carefully.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Inspector," he said. "Won't you please come in?"
He waited at the door for Wohl and put out his hand. It was firm.
"Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Nelson," Wohl said. "May I offer my condolences?"
"Yes, you can, and that's very kind of you," Nelson said, as he led Wohl into his office. "But frankly, what I would prefer is a report that you found proof positive who the animal was who killed my son, and that he resisted arrest and is no longer among the living."
Wohl was taken momentarily aback.
What the hell. Any father would feel that way. This man is accustomed to saying exactly what he's thinking.
"I'm about to have a drink," Nelson said. "Will you join me? Or is that against the rules?"
"I'd like a drink," Peter said. "Thank you."
"I drink single-malt scotch with a touch of water," Nelson said. "But there is, of course, anything else."
"That would be fine, sir," Peter said.
Nelson went to a bar set into the bookcases lining one wall of his office. Peter looked around the room. A second wall was glass, offering the same view of the Schuylkill he had seen outside. The other walls were covered with mounted animal heads and photographs of Arthur J. Nelson with various distinguished and/or famous people, including the sitting president of the United States. There was one of Nelson with the governor of Pennsylvania, but not, Peter noticed, one of His Honor the Mayor Carlucci.
Nelson crossed the room to where Peter stood and handed him a squat, octagonal crystal glass. There was no ice.
"Some people don't like it," Nelson said. "Take a sip. If you don't like it, say so."
Wohl sipped. It was heavy, but pleasant.
"Very nice," he said. "I like it. Thank you."
"I was shooting stag in Scotland, what, ten years ago. The gillie drank it. I asked him, and he told me about it. Now I have them ship it to me. All the scotch you get here, you know, is a blend."
"It's nice," Peter said.
"Here's to vigilante justice, Inspector," Nelson said.
"I'm not sure I can drink to that, sir," Peter said.
"You can't, but I can," Nelson said. "I didn't mean to put you on a spot."
"If I wasn't here officially," Peter said, "maybe I would."
"If you had lost your only son, Inspector, like I lost mine, youcertainly would. When something like this happens, terms like ' justice' and 'due process' seem abstract. What you want is vengeance."
"I was about to say I know how you feel," Peter said. "But of course, I don't. I can't. All I can say is that we'll do everything humanly possible to find whoever took your son's life."
"If I ask a straight question, will I get a straight answer?"
"I'll try, sir."
"How do you cops handle it psychologically when you do catch somebody youknow is guilty of doing something horrible, obscene, unhuman like this, only to see him walk out of a courtroom a free man because of some minor point of law, or some bleeding heart on the bench?"
"The whole thing is a system, sir," Peter said, after a moment. "The police, catching the doer, the perpetrator, are only part of the system. We do the best we can. It's not our fault when another part of the system fails to do what it should."
"I have every confidence that you.'11 find whoever it was who hacked my son to death," Nelson said. "And then we both know what will happen. It will, after a long while, get into a courtroom, where some asshole of a lawyer will try every trick in the business to get him off. And if he doesn't, if the jury finds him guilty, and the judge has the balls to sentence him to the electric chair, he'll appeal, for ten years or so, and the odds are some yellow-livered sonofabitch of a governor will commute his sentence to life. I'm sure you know what it costs to keep a man in jail. About twice what it costs to send a kid to an Ivy League college. The taxpayers will provide this animal with three meals a day, and a warm place to sleep for the rest of his life."
Wohl didn't reply. Nelson drained his drink and walked to the bar to make another, then returned.
"Have you ever been involved in the arrest of someone who did something really terrible, something like what happened to my son?"
"Yes, sir."
"And were you tempted to put a.38 between his eyes right then and there, to save the taxpayers the cost of a trial, and/or lifelong imprisonment?"
"No, sir."
"Why not?"
"Straight answer?" Peter asked. Nelson nodded. "I could say because you realize that you would lower yourself to his level," Peter said, " but the truth is that you don't do it because it would cost you. They investigate all shootings, and-"
"Vigilante justice," Nelson interrupted, raising his glass. "Right now, it seems like a splendid idea to me."
He is not suggesting that I go out and shoot whoever killed his son. He is in shock, as well as grief, and as a newspaperman, he knows the way the system works, and now that he!$ going to be involved with the system himself, doesn't like it at all.
"It gets out of hand almost immediately," Peter said.
"Yes, of course," Nelson said. "Please excuse me, Inspector, for subjecting you to this. I probably should not have come to work, in my mental condition. But the alternative was sitting at home, looking out the window…"
"I understand perfectly, sir," Peter said.
"Have there been any developments?" Nelson asked.
"I came here directly from Stockton Place," Peter said, "where I spoke to the detective to whom the case has been assigned-"
"I thought it had been assigned to you," Nelson interrupted.
"No, sir," Peter said. "Detective Harris of the Homicide Division has been assigned to the case."
"Then what's your role in this? Ted Czernick led me to believe that you would be in charge."
"Commissioner Czernick has asked me to keep him advised, to keep you advised, and to make sure that Detective Harris has all the assistance he asks for," Wohl said.
"I was pleased," Nelson interrupted again. "I checked you out. You're in Internal Security, that sounds important whatever it means, and you're the man who caught the Honorable Mr. Housing Director Weaver and that Friend of Labor, J. Francis Donleavy, with both of their hands in the municipal cookie jar. And now you're telling me you're not on the case…"