Czernick said.
"Yes, sir."
"Keep me informed about the abducted woman, Peter," Czernick said. "I have an unpleasant gut feeling about that."
"Yes, sir, of course."
"Tell your dad I said hello when you see him," Czernick said, and hung up.
Peter put the handset back in its cradle and turned to Mickey O'Hara.
"What can I do for you, Mickey?"
"Don't let the doorknob hit me in the ass?" O'Hara said.
"No. What I said was 'What can I do for you, Mickey?' When I throw you out, I won't be subtle. Is there something special, or do you just want to hang around?"
"I'm interested in the abducted woman," O'Hara said. "I figure when something breaks, this will be the place. So I'll just hang around, if that's okay with you."
"Fine with me," Wohl said. He turned to Mike Sabara. "Mike, get on the phone to the Captain of Northwest Detectives, and the Fourteenth District Commander. Tell them that Commissioner Czernick just ordered me to stroke a woman named Peebles, and that before I send a couple of our people out to see her, I'm going to send them by to look at the paperwork. She's-what the commissioner said was-beingburglarized, and she's unhappy with the service she's been getting, and she has friends in high places."
"Who are you going to send over?"
"Officers Martinez and McFadden," Wohl said.
"Who are they?" Sabara asked, confused.
"Two of the three kids sitting on the folding chairs in the foyer," Wohl said. "I'm doing what I can with what I've got. Then, the next item on the priority list: We need people. I would like to have time to screen them carefully, but we don't have any time. A teletype went out yesterday, asking for volunteers. I don't know if there have been any responses yet, but find out. If there have not been any, or even, come to think of it, if there have-"
"McFadden and Martinez used to work undercover for me in Narcotics," Pekach said to Sabara. "They're the two that found Gerald Vincent Gallagher. They're here?"
"Chief Coughlin sent them over," Wohl said. "To Special Operations, David, not Highway."
"They're good cops. Not much experience in Chestnut Hill…" Pekach said.
"Like I said, I'm doing what I can with what I have," Wohl said. "As I was saying, Mike, get us some people. If you, or Dave, can think of anybody you can talk into volunteering, do it. Then call around, see if there have been volunteers. Check them out. Have them sent here today. Go to the Districts if that's necessary. The only thing: tell them that if they don't work out, they go back where they came from."
"You want to talk to them?" Sabara asked. "Before we have them sent over here?"
"After you've picked them, I want to talk to them, sure," Wohl said. "But you know what we need, Mike."
Peter picked up his telephone and pushed one of the buttons. " Sergeant, would you ask Sergeant Frizell to come in here? And send in the three plainclothes officers waiting in the foyer?" There was a pause, then: "Yeah, all at once."
"Now, I'll be polite," Mickey O'Hara said. "Am I in the way?"
"Not at all," Peter said. "I'll let you know when you are, Mickey."
Sergeant Frizell, trailed by Officers McFadden, Martinez, and Payne, came into the office.
"What do we know about cars?" Wohl asked.
"For the time being," Frizell replied, "we have authority to draw cars, unmarked, from the lot at the Academy on the ratio of one car per three officers assigned."
"And then they'll have to be run by Radio, right, to get the proper radios?"
"Right."
"I want all our cars to have J-Band, Detective, Highway, and ours, whenever we get our own," Peter said.
"I'm not sure that's in the plan, Inspector," Frizell said.
"I don't give a damn about the plan," Peter said. "You call Radio and tell them to be prepared to start installing the radios. And call whoever has the car pool, and tell them we're going to start to draw cars today. Tell them we have fifty-eight officers assigned; in other words that we want twenty cars."
"But we don't have fifty-eight officers assigned. We don't have any."
"We have three at this moment," Wohl said. "And Captain Sabara is working hard on the others."
"Yes, sir," Sergeant Frizell said. "But, Inspector, I really don't think there will be fifteen unmarked cars available at the Academy."
"Then take blue-and-whites," Wohl said. "We can swap them for unmarked Highway cars, if we have to."
"Inspector," Frizell said, nervously, "I don't think you have the authority to do that."
"Do that right now, please, Sergeant," Wohl said, evenly, but aware that he was furious and on the edge of losing his temper.
The last goddamned thing I need here is this Roundhouse paper pusher telling me 1 don't have the authority to do something.
Frizell, sensing Wohl's disapproval, and visibly uncomfortable, left the room.
Wohl looked at the three young policemen.
"You fellows know each other, I guess?"
"Yes, sir," they chorused.
"Okay, this is what I want you to do." He threw car keys at Matt Payne, who was surprised by the gesture, but managed to snag them. " Take my car, and drive McFadden and Martinez to the motor pool at the Police Academy. There, you two guys pick up two unmarked cars. Take one of them to the radio shop and leave it. You take my car to the radio shop, Payne, and stay with it until they put another radio in it. Then bring it back here. Then you take Captain Sabara's car and have them install the extra radios in it. Then you bring that back. Clear?"
"Yes, sir," Matt Payne said.
"You two bring the other car here. I've got a job I want you to do when you get here, and when you finish that, then you'll start shuttling cars between the motor pool and the radio garage and here. You understand what I want?"
"Yes, sir."
Getting cars, and radios for them, and handing out assignments to newly arrived replacements, is a Sergeant's job, Wohl thought, except when the man in charge doesn't really know what he's doing, in which case he is permitted to run in circles, wave and shout, making believe he does. That is known as a prerogative of command.
Lieutenant Teddy Spanner of Northwest Detectives stood up when Peter Wohl walked into his office, and put out his hand.
"How are you, Inspector?" he said. "I guess congratulations are in order."
"I wonder," Wohl said, "but thanks anyway."
"What can Northwest Detectives do for Special Operations?"
"I want a look at the files on the burglary-is it burglaries?-job on a woman named Peebles, in Chestnut Hill," Wohl said.
"Got them right here," Spanner said. "Captain Sabara said somebody was coming over. He didn't say it would be you."
"The lady," Wohl said, "the Commissioner told me, has friends in high places."
Spanner chuckled. "Not much there; it's just one more burglary."
"Did Mike say we were also interested in the Flannery sexual assault and abduction?"
"There it is," Spanner said, pointing to another manila folder.
Wohl sat down in the chair beside Spanner's desk and read the file on the Peebles burglary.
"Can I borrow this for a couple of hours?" Wohl asked. "I'll get it back to you today."
Spanner gave a deprecatory wave, meaningSure, no problem, and Wohl reached for the Flannery file and read that through.
"Same thing," he said. "I'd like to take this for a couple of hours."
"Sure, again."
"What do you think about this?" Wohl said.
"I think we're dealing with a real sicko," Spanner said. "And I'll lay odds the doer is the same guy who put the woman in the van. Anything on that?"
"Not a damned thing," Wohl said. "Push me the phone, will you?"
He dialed a number from memory.
"This is Inspector Wohl," he said. "Would you have the Highway car nearest Northwest Detectives meet me there, please?"