"We were just having coffee," Penny said. "Real coffee. Amy even grinds the beans just before she makes it. Would you like some?"
"Please," Matt said.
Penny headed for the kitchen, probably, Matt thought, to get cups and saucers. Matt went and looked out the window. O'Dowd followed him.
"Nice view!" he said enthusiastically.
"Yeah, it is."
"Is that who I think it is?"
"Yeah."
"Pretty girl."
And you're a good cop. I was trying to read your face and couldn' t.
"Where were you before you went to work for Pekach?" Matt asked.
"Central Detectives, until I made sergeant, and before that in Narcotics. When Pekach was a lieutenant."
"And now Highway? You like riding a motorcycle?"
"You'll notice I'm not riding one. Pekach told me that if Highway was going to be good for his career, it should be good for mine."
"If I have to go to Wheel School and spend time in Highway, I think I'll stay a detective."
"You haven't been a detective long enough, have you, to make that kind of a judgment?"
"No, I haven't."
Amy came into the room, stopping their conversation.
"Okay, Matt," Amy said, "now what's this all about?" She didn't give him time to reply before she noticed that Penny was not in sight. "Where's Penny?"
"She went to get cups and saucers," Matt said. "What did you think?"
Amy ignored the question.
"What is that you're waving around like a field marshal's baton?" she asked.
O'Dowd chuckled. Amy found herself smiling at him again.
"There's nobody nicer anywhere than someone who thinks you're a wit," Matt said.
"Dad said that, not you," Amy said.
Matt peeled one of the Xeroxes from the roll of them he had been carrying in his hand.
"What's this…" Amy asked as she took a quick glance, and then she broke off in midsentence. Almost absently, she backed away from Matt and Jerry and sat down on the side arm of her couch.
"My God!" she said, finally. "This is a sick man."
"We'd sort of figured that out," Matt said. "What we need from you is a profile."
"Who's 'we,' you and the sergeant?"
"Peter Wohl, for one. The head of the Vice President's Secret Service detail, for another."
"The Secret Service have their own psychiatrists," Amy said. "I met one of them at Menninger one time. Why me?"
"Wohl said to tell you we need a profile yesterday," Matt said. " We won't get one from the Secret Service until tomorrow. If then."
"Secret Service?" Penny said, coming back into the room with cups and saucers. "That sounds interesting!"
"That's right," Amy said, ignoring Penny, "he is coming to town, isn't he? Next week?"
"Right," O'Dowd said.
"I think I have just been more or less politely told that what's going on here is none of my business," Penny said.
Matt looked at her, saw the hurt in her eyes, and surprised himself by handing her one of the Xeroxes.
"Not to be spread around the Merion Cricket Club, okay, Penny?"
"Thank you," Penny said, and Matt understood that it was not simply ritual courtesy for having been handed a piece of paper. He glanced at O'Dowd and saw in his eyes that he did not approve of what he had done.
And you 're right, Sergeant. I should not have passed that official document to a junkie three days out of the funny farm. And I thank you for not saying so, and humiliating me in front of my sister.
"You have no idea who this man is?" Amy asked.
"None. That's why we need the profile."
"What are you going to do with it?"
"Circulate it in the Department, 'Do you know someone who fits this description?'"
"Not in public? Not in the newspapers?"
"That didn't come up," Matt said.
"Probably not," O'Dowd said. "That would tend to set off the copycats."
"Yes," Amy said thoughtfully. She looked directly at O'Dowd. "This letter doesn't give me much to go on, you understand?"
"I understand, Doctor," O'Dowd said. "But whatever you could tell us would be helpful."
He sounds like Jason Washington, Matt thought. Stroking the interviewee.
Jason Washington, late of Homicide, now a sergeant heading up Special Operations Division's Special Investigation Section, considered himself to be the best detective in the Philadelphia Police Department. So did Peter Wohl and Matt Payne.
And then as Matt watched Jerry O'Dowd skillfully draw from his sister a profile of the looney tune who wanted to blow up the Vice President, he had another series of thoughts, which ranged from humbling to humiliating:
Wohl didn't send Pekach 's driver with me so that I could ask him questions. He sent me with Jerry O'Dowd because I could get O'Dowd in to see Amy. My sole role in this was to get him into her presence. She might have, probably would have, told anyone else to call her office and arrange an appointment.
Pekach didn't pick this guy to be his driver for auld lang syne, but rather because Jerry O'Dowd is a very bright guy, an experienced detective, and now a sergeant. Both Pekach, when he volunteered O'Dowd to "drive me," and Wohl, when he accepted the offer, knew damned well O'Dowd would take over this little interview sooner or later, probably sooner, and in any event the instant Rookie Detective Payne started to fuck it up.
Penny handed him a cup of coffee.
"Black, right?"
"Right. Thank you."
"Sergeant?"
"Black is fine with me."
And that's why O'Dowd was at 30^th Street Station when I picked Larkin up. Pekach was not about to tell Wohl that he thought he was making a mistake sending me on an important errand, but he felt obliged to protect his boss by sending O'Dowd there in case I fucked that up.
Matt had a clear mental image of him patronizing O'Dowd outside the station:"How are you, Jerry? What's up?"
Did your reputation precede you, Detective Payne? Did Captain Pekach say a soft word in Sergeant O'Dowd's ear before he sent him to the station, or did he think that was unnecessary, it would only be a matter of a minute or two before O'Dowd would be able to conclude for himself that Matthew M. Payne was a first-class, supercilious horse's ass?
"Sergeant, excuse me," Matt Payne said. "I think I'd better call Chief Coughlin, and then check in with Inspector Wohl."
Sergeant O'Dowd looked at Detective Payne with something in his eyes that hadn't been there before.
"Yeah, Matt, please. Go ahead. Tell the inspector that what we're getting from Dr. Payne is very valuable."
Pekach answered Wohl's private number.
"Captain Pekach."
"Payne, sir. I was told to check in."
"The inspector took Mr. Larkin down to Intelligence," Pekach said. "How's things going?"
"Chief Coughlin will meet us for lunch. And Sergeant O'Dowd said to say that what we're getting from my sister is valuable."
"The reservations are for twelve noon. The inspector wants O'Dowd there. Tell him it would be nice if he could get into civilian clothing by then."
"Yes, sir. I have the feeling we're about finished here. There should be time."
In the elevator, Matt said, "Sergeant, Captain Pekach said that you're to go to Bookbinder's, and that if there's time, he'd like you to get out of uniform."
"The inspector probably wants to hear two versions of what we got from your sister," O'Dowd thought out loud, and looked at his watch. " There will be time. I live in Ashton Acres, right by the entrance to Northeast Airport."