"Maybe the insurance adjuster will says it's totaled. I sure don't want to try to fix it." He got off his knees and leaned in the driver' s window. "Sixty-seven thousand on the clock. And no telling whether that's the second time around or the third."
"Well, he was lucky he wasn't hurt, is all I can say."
"Yeah."
"I gotta go, Greg."
"We appreciate your business, Mr. Fallon. Come in again soon."
Tommy Fallon touched Greg Tomer's arm, and then got in the cab on the wrecker, got it into low with a clash of gears, and drove out the back door of the maintenance bay.
"Shit," Greg Tomer said aloud, "I should have asked him to dump it out in back."
He had two options. He could fire up the Martin's Ford wrecker, pick the car up, and haul it out in back himself, or he could change the wheel with the blown tire on it, and push it into a corner of the maintenance bay.
He opened the trunk. There was a spare.
"Harry," he called to the closest of Martin's Ford's three mechanics, "get a jack and change the wheel here, and then we'll push it in the corner."
Harry rolled a hydraulic jack over to the Ford, maneuvered it into place, and raised the car in the bay. As he went to get an air powered wrench, Tomer jerked the spare from the trunk and rested it against the passenger side door.
Harry removed the wheel with quick expertise, and then stuck his head in the wheel well to see what damage the wreck had caused.
"What the hell is that?" he wondered aloud.
A moment later, after a grunt, he came out of the wheel with something in his hand and handed it to Tomer.
"Look at that?"
"What am I looking at?" Tomer asked. "Where did this come from?"
In his hand was a piece of steel plate, a rough oblong about ten inches long and five inches wide. One edge of the steel was bent at roughly a ninety-degree angle. There were several perforations of the steel, and in one of them was stuck what looked like a link of oneinch chain.
"I took it out of the wheel well, behind the rubber sheet, or whatever they call it," Harry said. "That's what blew his tire. There was nothing wrong with the tire. Look."
He took the piece of steel back from Tomer and laid it on the floor of the garage.
Tomer looked.
"That would certainly blow a tire all right," he said. "Like somebody swinging an ax. I wonder what the hell it is?"
"And it went into the tire far enough so that it got thrown into the wheel well, behind the rubber," Harry said. "I don't know what the hell it is. A piece of junk metal."
"When you get the spare on, Harry, have somebody help you push it into the corner." He pointed. "I'm going to walk across the street to the courthouse and give this to Springs. Souvenir."
"You think he'll want a souvenir?"
"Who can tell."
When Tomer went into the Patrol Division of the Sheriff's Department, they told him that Deputy Springs had slammed his chest into the steering wheel harder than he thought, that they'd x-rayed him at the hospital, nothing was broke, but the sheriff told him to take a couple of days off.
Tomer left the piece of steel, with the sawlike edge and the piece of chain wedged into it, and then walked back across the street to Martin's Ford and went back to work.
There were no telephone calls at all for Sergeant O'Dowd or Detective Payne all morning, until just before lunch, when Lieutenant Malone telephoned to say that he and Detective Washington were going to see Mr. Larkin at the Secret Service office, and that they should wait for their phone to ring; maybe something would happen when the eight-to-four tour came off duty.
Detective Payne and Officer Lewis took luncheon at Roy Rogers' Western Hamburger emporium. When they returned to the office, Sergeant O'Dowd went for his lunch. As soon as he was out the door, Detective Payne called Miss Penelope Detweiler at her residence and asked if she would like to go up to the Poconos for dinner.
Miss Detweiler accepted immediately, and with such obvious delight that it made Detective Payne a bit uneasy. He next called the residence of Mrs. Evelyn Glover and left a message on her answering machine that he had to work, and that if he got off at a reasonable hour, say before nine, he would call.
When he put the telephone back in its cradle, he felt Tiny Lewis's eyes on him, and looked at him.
"The last of the great swordsmen at work, huh?"
"Would you believe me, Officer Lewis, if I gave you my word as a gentleman that carnal activity with either lady is the one thing I don't want?"
"No," Officer Lewis said. "I would not."
It wasn't until Matt went into the parking lot to claim his car that he remembered he was driving the Bug. He glanced at his watch, even though he was fully aware that it was only a minute or two after five.
There would not be time to drive all the way downtown to the apartment to get the Porsche. He had told Penny he would pick her up at five-fifteen, and please not to make him wait, it was going to be at least a two-hour-drive to the Poconos.
He fired up the Bug and drove cross town to Chestnut Hill. The Bug was not going to be a problem, he could park it, probably, where no one would see it at Oaks and Pines Lodge, and if Penny didn't like it, screw her, let her see up close how the other half lived.
It didn't work out that way.
Surprising him not at all, H. Richard Detweiler answered the door of the Detweiler mansion himself, and informed him first that Penny would be down in a moment.
"Your Porsche is down?" he asked, and then as if that was self evident went on without giving Matt a chance to reply, "Your dad told me you couldn't bring yourself to sell the Volkswagen."
"An old friend, tried and true," Matt said. "It would have been like selling Amy."
Detweiler smiled a little uncomfortably.
"Tell you what," Mr. Detweiler said. "The Mercedes man was here today. Yesterday. Doing Penny's car. It hadn't been moved, since… uh…you brought it out here."
The Philadelphia Police Department (specifically then Officer M. M. Payne and then Detective Jason Washington) had returned the victim' s automobile, a 1973 Mercedes-Benz 380 SL roadster, to her residence after it had been processed by the forensics experts of the Mobile Crime Lab at the scene of the crime. The scene of the crime had been a Center City parking lot where the victim had been wounded by a shotgun during a homicide in which Mr. Anthony J. DeZego had been fatally shot by unknown person or persons.
Jesus, that's a great idea! I really didn't want to roll up to the Oaks and Pines in the Bug.
"It really should be driven," Mr. Detweiler said. "Why don't you take it? It's a long way to Allentown."
"Allentown"? What the hell does he mean, "Allentown"? And now that I think about it, it's a lousy idea. I don't want Precious Penny reminded of Tony the Zee lying on the concrete with his stomach blown out his back.
"Is that a good idea?" Matt said. "Bad memories?"
"I thought of that," H. Richard Detweiler said, somewhat impatiently. He touched Matt's shoulder. "Replace bad memories with a good one, right?"
He waited until Matt nodded, then pushed him toward the door.
"Come on in and have a drink, one drink, and I'll have Jensen get the car while we're having it."
Jensen was the Detweilers' chauffeur.
Detweiler led Matt onto the veranda outside the small sitting room where, predictably, Grace Detweiler was also waiting.
"How are you, Matt? You look very nice."
Matt, as he was expected to, kissed her cheek.
Detweiler picked up the telephone.
"Florence," he ordered, "would you please ask Jensen to bring Penny's car around to the front?"
"What's that all about?" Grace Detweiler asked.
"Matt's car is down," Detweiler said. "He's driving his Volkswagen, which is visibly on its last legs. Or tires. I suggested that he take Penny's car."