"Oh, I heard about that!" Penny said. "He was stealing cars, wasn' t he?"
"By the hundreds," Wohl said. "And Jack was the guy who caught him."
Malone looked torn between pleasure and embarrassment.
But he has also decided, Matt saw, that being somewhere with Penny Detweiler was no cause for being uncomfortable. If Peter Wohl had a friendly arm around her shoulders, she was all right.
That was a goddammed nice thing for you to do, boss. And if it incidentally makes me feel like a shit, 1 deserve it.
"Is what's on your mind going to take long, Jack?" Wohl asked.
"No, sir."
"Then why don't we take our drinks and wander off in the woods for a minute and get it over with? Will you excuse us, Penny?"
"Certainly," Penny said. "Nice to have met you, Lieutenant. I can' t wait to tell my father."
When Wohl and Malone were out of earshot, Penny touched Matt's arm and when he looked at her, she said, "He's really nice, isn't he? I like your friends, Matt."
Wohl led Malone fifty yards away from the barbecue pit and then stopped.
"Okay, let's have it," he said.
"I had a call from the Secret Service this morning," Malone replied. "A guy named H. Charles Larkin.Supervisory Special Agent H. Charles Larkin."
"How did he get to you?"
"I told you that Dignitary Protection sergeant, Henkels, has a room temperature IQ. Larkin called him, and he gave him my number."
"What did this guy want?"
"He said that he was the guy in charge of the Vice President's security; that he was coming up here by train in the morning; and that I'm 'invited' to the Philly office of the Secret Service at ninethirty to discuss the Vice President's visit."
"Tomorrow's Sunday," Wohl thought aloud, "and I can't believe this guy doesn't know he's supposed to go through Captain Whatsisname Duffy in the Roundhouse."
"JackDuffy," Malone furnished. "Special assistant to the commissioner for inter-agency liaison."
Wohl looked at him and grunted. "What did you tell this guy?"
"That I would get back to him. And then I started looking for you."
"Have you got this guy's number?"
Malone nodded, and Wohl made a "follow me" gesture with his hand and led him back to the barbecue pit.
"Martha," he said. "I have to call Washington. May I use the phone? I'll have it billed to the Department, of course."
"Don't be silly. Just use the phone."
"Thank you," Wohl said, going to the cubicle in the brick wall where Evans had stored the telephone.
"Dave," he called. "I want you and Mike to hear this. And you too, Matt."
Pekach and Sabara walked over to him. Officer O'Mara, Matt thought, looked like he had just been told the Big Boys didn't want to play with him. And then Wohl saw the look on O'Mara's face too:
"And, of course, you too, O'Mara. You're supposed to be able to remind me of what I said."
"Yes, sir."
Wohl pointed to the phone. Malone took a notebook from his pocket, opened it, and found the number he had.
"Person to person, Jack," Wohl ordered.
The call went through very quickly. Malone put his hand over the microphone.
"They're ringing him."
Wohl took the telephone from Malone, and held it slightly away from his ear so the others would be able to hear both sides of the conversation.
"Larkin," a somewhat brusque voice said.
"Mr. Larkin, this is Inspector Peter Wohl of the Special Operations Division of the Philadelphia Police Department."
"What can I do for you, Inspector?"
"That's what I intended to ask you. You called one of my people, Lieutenant Malone, an hour or so ago."
"Oh, yeah. I asked him to come by our Philadelphia office in the morning. Is there a problem with that?"
"I'm afraid there is. I'm not free at that time."
"Is there sort of an inference in that that I should have called you, not this lieutenant?"
"That would have been nice. Dignitary Protection is under Special Operations. I run Special Operations."
"I thought it was run out of the commissioner's office."
"Not anymore."
"Oh, shit," Larkin said. "Okay, Inspector. You tell me. How do I make this right?"
"Are you open to suggestion?"
"Wide open."
"I was going to suggest…I understand you're coming by train?"
"Right. Arriving at 30^th Street at nine-oh-five."
"I was going to suggest that I have one of my men, Detective Payne, pick you up at 30^th Street and bring you by my office. By then, with a little luck, I can have my desk cleared for you."
There was a long pause before Larkin replied.
"That's very kind of you, Inspector," he said, finally.
"Detective Payne will be waiting for you at the information booth in the main waiting room," Wohl said.
"How will I know him? What does he look like?"
Wohl's mouth ran away with him: "Like a Brooks Brothers advertisement. What about you?"
Larkin chuckled. "Like a Brooks Brothers advertisement? Tell him to look for a bald fat man in a rumpled suit. Thanks for the call, Inspector."
There was a click on the line.
Wohl took the handset from his ear, held it in front of him, and looked at it for a moment before replacing it in its cradle.
"Tom," he said to Officer O'Mara as he tossed him a set of keys, " either tonight or first thing in the morning go get a car from the Schoolhouse, drop it at my apartment, and take my Department car. Pick Payne up at no later than eight-fifteen at his apartment. He lives on Rittenhouse Square, he'll tell you where."
"Yes, sir."
"Jack, I want you in uniform tomorrow."
"Yes, sir."
"And I would be grateful if you two," he said, nodding at Pekach and Sabara, "could just happen to drop by the Schoolhouse a little after nine. You in uniform, Dave."
Pekach nodded.
"And between now and nine tomorrow morning, I want the more lurid graffiti removed from the men's room walls.Supervisory Special Agent Larkin may experience the call of nature, and we don't want to offend him."
"I'll drop by the Schoolhouse on my way home," Sabara said, "and be outraged at what I find on the toilet's walls."
"We are not about to start a guerrilla war against the Secret Service," Wohl said. "But on the other hand, I want to make sure that Larkin understands that Special Operations is a division of the Philadelphia Police Department, not of the Secret Service."
"I think you made that point, Peter," Sabara said.
Matt saw H. Richard Detweiler and Brewster C. Payne II sitting at a cast-iron table on the flagstone area outside the library of the Detweiler mansion, dressed in what Matt thought of as their drive-tothe-golf-club clothes when he drove up.
There goes any chance I had of just dropping Penny off. Damn!
"Your dad's here," Penny said.
"I saw them," Matt said, and turned the ignition off and got out of the car and started up the shallow flight of stairs to the front door.
Miss Penelope Detweiler waited in vain for Matt to open her door, finally opened it herself, got out, and walked after him.
Grace Detweiler came into the foyer as they entered. Behind her, in the "small" sitting room, he saw his mother, who saw him and waved cheerfully.
"Well, did you have a good time?" Grace Detweiler asked.
"Oh, yes!" Penny said enthusiastically.
"She especially liked the part where Dave Pekach bit the head off the rooster," Matt said.