"Where are you?"
"At the scene, sir."
"What scene, the wreck or the kidnapping?"
"The wreck, sir. I sent Sergeant Paster to the kidnapping."
"Get on the radio, and tell Captain Pekach I said for him to handle the wreck, and then tell Sergeant-"
"Paster, sir," Lieutenant Jackson furnished.
"Tell Sergeant Paster to meet me at the scene of the kidnapping," Wohl said.
"Yes, sir."
Wohl hung up without saying anything else. He found the manager and arranged to settle the bill before returning to the table.
"A Highway car hit a civilian," he said, looking at his father. "A little boy is dead."
"Oh, God!" his father said.
"They were going in on a Thirty-fifth District call," Peter said. " Someone reported a woman being forced into a van at knife point. I've got to go."
His father nodded his understanding.
Peter looked at Barbara. "Sorry," he said. "And I don't know how long this will take."
"I understand," she said. "No problem, I've got my car."
"And I'm sorry to have to walk out on your party, Mother."
"Don't be silly, dear," she said. "At least you got to eat your dinner."
"I'll call you," he said, and walked quickly out of the restaurant.
You are a prick, Peter Wohl, he thought, as he walked through the parking lot. A little boy has been killed and a woman has been kidnapped, and your reaction to all this is that you are at least spared the problem of how to handle Barbara.
Until Dutch Moffitt had gotten himself killed, everybody concerned had been under the impression that he and Barbara had anunderstanding, which was a half-step away from a formal engagement to be married. But the witness to the shooting of Captain Moffitt had been a female, specifically a stunning, long-legged, long-haired, twenty-five-yearold blonde named Louise Dutton, who was co-anchor of WCBL-TV'sNine's News.
Less than twenty-four hours after he had met Louise Dutton in the line of duty, they had been making the beast with two backs in his apartment, and Peter had been convinced that he had finally embarked on the Great Romance of his life. And for a little while, the Grand Passion had seemed reciprocal, but then there had been, on Louise's part, a little sober consideration of the situation.
She had asked herself a simple question: "Can a talented, ambitious young television anchor whose father just happens to own a half dozen television stations around the country find lasting happiness in the arms of an underpaid cop in Philadelphia?"
The answer was no. Louise Dutton was now working for a television station in Chicago, one that not coincidentally happened to be owned by her father-who, Peter understood, while he liked Peterpersonally, did not see him as the father of his grandchildren.
There was no question in Peter's mind that Barbara knew about Louise, and not only because he had covered Dutch's ass one last time by telling the Widow Moffitt that Dutch could not have been fooling around with Louise Dutton because she was his, Peter's, squeeze. That he was "involved" with Louise Dutton had been pretty common knowledge around the Department; even Chief Coughlin knew about it. Barbara had two uncles and two brothers in the Department. Peter had known them all his life, and there is no human being more self-righteous than a brother who hears that some sonofabitch is running around on his baby sister. Barbara knew, all right.
But Barbara had decided to forgive him. Her presence at his mother's birthday dinner proved that. He had called her twice, post-Louise, and both times she hadn't "been able" to have dinner or go to a movie with him. He would not have been surprised if she hadn't "been able" to have dinner with him and his parents, but she'd accepted that invitation. And there wasn't much of a mystery about how she planned to handle the problem: she was going to pretend it didn't exist, and never had.
And when her knee found his under the table, he had understood that after they had said good night to his parents, they would go either to his apartment or hers, and get in bed, and things would be back to normal.
The problem was that Peter wasn't sure he wanted to pick things up where they had been, pre-Louise. He told himself that he had either been a fool, or been made a fool of, or both; that Barbara Crowley was not only a fine woman, but just what he needed; that he should be grateful for her tolerance and understanding; that if he had any brains, he would be grateful for the opportunity she was offering; and that he should manifest his gratitude by taking a solemn, if private, vow never to stray again from the boundaries of premarital fidelity.
But when he had looked at Barbara, he had thought of Louise, and that had destroyed ninety percent of his urge to take Barbara to bed.
He got in his car, started the engine, and then thought of Mike Sabara.
"Jesus!" he said.
He reached into the glove compartment and took out the microphone.
"Radio, S-Sam One Oh One," he said. "Have you got a location on S-Sam One Oh Two?"
After a longer than usual pause, Police Radio replied that S-Sam One Oh Two was not in service.
Peter thought that over a moment. If he and Pekach had been informed of the crash, Sabara certainly had. And Sabara was probably still using his old radio call, Highway Two, for the number two man in Highway.
"Radio, how about Highway Two?"
"Highway Two is at Second and Olney Avenue."
"Radio, please contact Highway Two and have him meet S-Sam One Oh One at Front and Godfrey Avenue. Let me know if you get through to him."
"Yes, sir. Stand by, please."
I'm going to have to get another band in here, Peter thought, as he backed out of the parking space. Bands. I'm going to have to get Highway and Detective, too.
Every Police vehicle was equipped with a shortwave radio that permitted communication on two bands: the J-Band and one other, depending on what kind of car it was. Cars assigned to the Detective Bureau, for example, could communicate on the J-Band and on H-Band, the Detective Band. Cars assigned to a District could communicate on the J-Band and on a frequency assigned to that District. Peter's car had the J-Band and the Command Band, limited to the Commissioner, the Chief Inspector, the Inspectors, and the Staff Inspectors.
He was six blocks away from Bookbinder's Restaurant when Radio called him.
"S-Sam One Oh One, Radio."
"Go ahead."
"Highway Two wants to know if you are aware of the traffic accident at Second and Olney Avenue."
"Tell Highway Two I know about it, and ask him to meet me at Front and Godfrey."
"Yes, sir," Radio replied.
Peter put the microphone back in the glove compartment and slammed it shut.
Now Sabara, who had very naturally rushed to a scene of trouble involving "his" Highway Patrol, was going to be pissed.
It can't be helped, Peter thought. Mike's going to have to get it through his head that Highway is now Pekach 's.
When Matthew Payne walked into the kitchen of the house on Providence Road in Wallingford, he was surprised to find his father standing at the stove, watching a slim stream of coffee gradually filling a glass pot under a Krups coffee machine.
"Good morning," his father said. He was wearing a light cotton bathrobe, too short for him, and a pair of leather bedroom slippers. " I heard you in the shower and thought you could probably use some coffee."
"Can I!" Matt replied. He was dressed in a button-down-collar shirt and gray slacks. His necktie was tied, but the collar button was open, and the knot an inch below it. He had a seersucker jacket in his hand. When he laid it on the kitchen table-of substantial, broad-planked pine, recently refinished after nearly a century of service-there was a heavy thump.
"What have you got in there?" Brewster C. Payne asked, surprised.