Matt took a pull at his bottle of Ortleib's.
"I'm ready," he said, signifying his willingness to leave. "Anytime."
Lorraine Witzell chuckled deep in her throat.
"Well," she said, "if it turns out to be a dull night, come on back. I'll probably be here."
FIFTEEN
At quarter to one, Officer Charley McFadden pulled Matt Payne's Porsche 911T to the curb before a row house on Fitzgerald Street, not far from Methodist Hospital, in South Philadelphia.
"It happens that way sometimes," Charley said to Matt. "Sometimes you can go out and find who you're looking for easy as hell. And other times, it's like this. We'll catch the bastard. Hay-zus will turn up something."
"Yeah," Matt said.
"And you got the fag tour, right?" Charley said. "So it wasn't a complete waste of time, right?"
"It was… educational," Matt said, just a little thickly.
"And we wasn't in all of them," McFadden laughed. "Maybe half."
"There seem to be more of those places than I would have thought possible," Matt said, pronouncing each syllable carefully.
"You all right to drive?"
"Fine," Matt said.
"You're welcome to sleep on the couch here," Charley offered.
"I'm all right," Matt insisted.
"Well, drive careful, huh? You don't want to fuck up a car like this."
"I'll be careful," Matt said, and got out of the car and walked around the back.
"We'll get the bastard," Charley McFadden repeated. "And what the hell, we were on overtime, right?"
"Right," Matt said. "Good night, Charley. See you in the morning."
He started the engine, returned to South Broad Street, and pointed the nose toward Willy Penn, surveying the city from atop City Hall.
Matt had asked Charley McFadden about "that woman you introduced me to in the FOP" five minutes after they had picked up the Porsche, and were headed into West Philadelphia.
"She works for the district attorney," Charley said. "They call her the shark."
"Why?"
"Well, she likes cops," Charley said. "Young cops in particular. What did she do, grab your joint?"
"No. Nothing like that," Matt said. "I was just curious, that's all."
"I'm surprised," Charley said. "She looked pretty interested, to me."
"She seemed to know a good deal about the police, about police work."
"As much as any cop," Charley had said.
Matt reached City Hall, and drove around it, and up North Broad to Spring Garden and into the FOP parking lot.
The place was still crowded. He made his way to the bar and ordered a scotch and soda. He had a good deal to drink, some of the drinks paid for by either the proprietors of the bars they visited, or put in front of him by the bartender, who had then said, "The tall fellow at the end of the bar," or something like that.
He saw Lorraine Witzell at the far end of the bar, with three men standing around her.
Well, it was dumb coming here in the first place.
And then fingers grazed his neck.
"I was beginning to think you'd found something more interesting to do," Lorraine Witzell said, as she slid onto the bar stool behind, which action caused first one of her knees and then the other to graze his crotch.
"May I buy you a drink?" Matt said, very carefully.
Lorraine Witzell looked at him and smiled.
"You can, but what I think would make a lot more sense, baby, would be for Lorraine to take you home and get some coffee into you. You can take me for a ride in your Porsche some other time. It'll be safe in the parking lot here."
"I'm all right to drive," Matt insisted, somewhat indignantly, as Lorraine led him across the FOP bar and up the stairs to the street.
Peter Wohl walked to his car, and stood outside the door until he saw Dr. Amelia Payne's Buick station wagon come out of the alley beside the Delaware Valley Cancer Society Building and drive past him.
He raised his hand in a wave, but Dr. Payne either did not see it, or ignored it. He shrugged and got in the car, started it up, and reached for the microphone in the glove compartment, realizing only then that was the wrong radio. He put the microphone back, and fumbled around on the seat for the microphone that would give him access to the Highway Band.
He became aware that a car had pulled parallel to him and stopped. He turned to look, and found a pair of Highway Patrolmen looking at him from the front seat of an unmarked Highway car.
He waved and smiled. There was no response from either cop, but the car moved off.
They either didn't recognize me, or they did and aren't in a particularly friendly mood toward the sonofabitch who took Highway away from Good Ol' Mike and gave it to Dave Pekach.
He picked up the microphone, and as he did, smiled.
"Highway One, this is S-Sam One."
"Highway One," Pekach came back immediately. Wohl was not surprised that Pekach was up and riding around. Not only was he new to the job, and conscientious, but Pekach was used to working nights; it would take him a week, maybe longer, to get used to the idea that the Commander of Highway worked the day shift.
"I'm on Rittenhouse Square, David. Where are you? Where could we meet?"
Wohl chuckled. The brake lights on the unmarked Highway car flashed on, and the car slowed momentarily. In what he was sure was an involuntary reflex action, the driver had hit the brakes when he heard the New Boss calling Highway One. He was sure he could read the driver's mind:I thought that was him. Now what's the bastard up to?
"I'm on the expressway about a mile from the Manayunk Bridge," Pekach said. "You name it."
"You know where I live?"
"Yes, I do."
"I'll meet you there," Wohl said, and laid the microphone down.
Pekach, in full uniform, complete to motorcyclist's boots and Sam Browne belt festooned with shiny cartridges, was leaning on a Highway blue-and-white on the cobblestones before Wohl's garage apartment when Wohl got there.
I wouldn't be surprised if he was working the expressway with radar for speeders,Wohl thought, and was immediately sorry. That was both unkind and not true. What David Pekach was doing was what he would have done himself in the circumstances, making the point that Highway could expect to find the boss riding around at midnight, and the second, equally important point, that he was not sneaking around in an unmarked car, but in uniform and in a blue-and-white.
Wohl pulled the nose of the LTD up to the garage and got out.
"Let me put this away, David," he called. "And then I'll buy you a beer. Long night?"
"I thought it was a good idea to ride around," Pekach said.
"So do I," Wohl said, as he unlocked the doors and swung them open. " But it's after midnight."
He put the car in the garage, and then touched Pekach's arm as he led him up the stairs to the apartment.
"You seen the papers?" Pekach said.
"No, should I have?"
"Yeah, I think so. I brought you theBulletin and theLedger. "
"Thank you," Wohl said. "It wouldn't take a minute to make coffee."
"I'm coffeed out; beer would be fine."
"Sit," Wohl said, pointing to the couch beneath the oil painting of the voluptuous nude, and went to the refrigerator and came back with two bottles of Schlitz. "Glass?"
"This is fine," Pekach said, "thank you."
"Nothing on Elizabeth Woodham?" Wohl asked. "I expect I would have heard…"
David Pekach shook his head.
"Not a damn thing," he said. "I was so frustrated I actually wrote a speeding ticket."
"Really?" Wohl chuckled.
"Sonofabitch came by me at about eighty, as if I wasn't there. I thought maybe he was drunk, so I pulled him over. He was sober. Just in a hurry."