Goddamn her!
Wait a minute. Don't leap to conclusions.
Daffy told Susan's mother that Susan was off somewhere with me.
Susan's mother, or father, told Dad's pal, Lawyer Emmons, that Susan had gone off with me.
One of them, probably Lawyer Emmons, went to the FBI, and told the FBI the same thing.
The FBI is investigating the kidnapping, or at least the disappearance and possible kidnapping of Susan Reynolds.
So soon? She only turned up missing at two A.M. this morning.
The victim is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Reynolds. Reynolds, a multimillionaire, is president of Tomar, Inc.
And important enough to get the FBI working on a weekend.
Goddamn Daffy!
I am, if not a suspect, then the last person known to have seen the victim.
Those FBI clowns were just doing their job. I probably shouldn't have given them such a hard time. But they are such an arrogant bunch of bastards! "I am Special Agent Jernigan of the FBI, Mr. Payne. We'd like to talk to you. May we come in?" and then that "Where are you employed, Mr. Payne?" bullshit. Translation: "We're going to get you in trouble with your boss, wise guy."
Fuck them! All they had to do was tell me they were looking for Susan Reynolds, that they thought she might have been kidnapped. Even if I was the kidnapper, that wouldn't have hurt their investigation. And I would have told them everything I know… except, of course, that I don't think she spent the night in her room, because I went into her room and the bed hadn't been slept in.
Goddamn it, going into her room was really stupid!
He reached the top of the stairs, crossed to his couch, slumped into it, and put the telephone in his lap.
"Hello?"
"Daffy, curiosity overwhelms me. Where did your pal Susan finally turn up?"
"Matt," Daphne Browne Nesbitt said solemnly, "I am so sorry."
"So sorry about what?"
"Can you keep your mouth shut?"
"Of course."
"She was there all the time," Daffy said.
"She was where all the time?"
"In her room. She didn't want to answer the telephone. "
"How do you know that?"
"Because she told me."
"When was this?"
"About an hour ago. She called just before she checked out of the hotel."
"You're sure it was her?"
"Of course I'm sure."
"Did she tell you why she didn't want to answer the telephone?"
"No, but I can guess, can't you?"
"You're suggesting she was in the sack with some guy all the time?"
"I suggested nothing of the kind. Susan isn't that kind of girl."
"Where is she now?"
"Probably, about now, about halfway to Harrisburg. Matt, I feel like such a shit for getting you involved."
"Involved in what?"
"I know about her father's lawyer calling your father."
"No major problem, Daffy."
"You want to come to supper? There's all kinds of leftovers."
"I'll take a rain check."
"You want Susan's telephone number? If at first you don't succeed, et cetera, et cetera…"
He stopped himself just in time from saying "no." He wrote the number down, then said good-bye to Daphne.
Do I want to take another shot at that dame? No, I do not. Then why did I take down her phone number?
He crumpled the sheet of notepaper up and threw it at an overflowing wastebasket. He missed.
He spent the next thirty minutes in an only partially successful attempt to clean up the apartment, then started carrying bags of garbage down the stairs to the elevator. On his third trip, emptying the wastebasket in brown kraft paper bags from Acme Supermarkets, he saw the crumpled ball of paper with Susan Reynolds's telephone number on it. He picked it up and after a moment's hesitation stuffed it into his pocket.
Then he went down in the elevator with the half-dozen bags of garbage, set them where they would be collected in the morning, and walked back to the Porsche. He debated a moment about taking the unmarked car, then decided not to. He was going on duty, sure, extra duty, and therefore the taxpayers of Philadelphia should be happy to pay for his transportation.
But on the other hand, driving the Porsche was fun. And there was probably going to be little chance to drive it during the next week or ten days. With His Honor the mayor paying personal attention to the investigation of dirty cops in Narcotics, there was almost certainly going to be a lot of overtime.
He drove out of the garage, closed it after him, and then started for Special Operations, via Broad Street. As he passed Hahnemann Hospital, he glanced in the rearview mirror to change lanes and saw Special Agent Leibowitz of the FBI at the wheel of a green Chevrolet, with Special Agent Jernigan sitting beside him.
I'll be goddamned! Those clowns are surveilling me!
They were still behind him after twenty minutes and a lengthy trip up and down the back alleys off Frankford Avenue when he pulled into the Special Operations Division parking lot and into the parking spot reserved for the unmarked car he had left in the Cancer Society Building garage.
First of all, he thought, not without a certain pleasure, they'll be wondering what I'm doing here. After a while-a long while, it is to be hoped-they may actually interrupt their dedicated surveillance of the kidnap suspect long enough to enter the building, identify themselves to the sergeant or the duty officer, and inquire of him if they happen to know what the occupant of the silver Porsche is doing in here.
At that point, they may actually get in touch with their supervisor, who will tell them that there is no kidnapping after all, and they will be denied the great pleasure of hauling the uncooperative wiseass off in handcuffs.
He went up the stairs to the Investigation Section, turned on the lights, worked the combination lock on "his" filing cabinet, took the tapes from the cabinet, seated himself at his desk, and turned on the dictating machine.
Staff Inspector Michael Weisbach looked around the Investigations Section office at the people he had summoned-in the case of Sergeant Jason Washington, politely asked-to participate.
Among them was the only man in uniform, Sergeant Elliot Sandow, a slight, sickly-looking former Traffic of ficer who had been struck on the job by a Strawbridge amp; Clothier delivery truck, spent four months in the hospital, and personally petitioned Mayor Carlucci to stay on the job rather than go out on disability.
He had proved to be an unusually skilled administrator, whom Weisbach had found working in Personnel and arranged to have transferred first to the Staff Inspection Unit, and then, when he had been named to command the Ethical Affairs Unit, to EAU. At the moment, Weisbach and Sandow were the EAU.
Also present were Detectives Anthony C. Harris, Jesus Martinez, Charles McFadden, Matthew M. Payne, and Of ficer Foster H. Lewis, Jr., a very black twenty-four-year-old who stood six feet three inches tall, weighed 230 pounds, and was known, perhaps inevitably, as "Tiny."
Foster H. Lewis, Sr., a lieutenant in the 9th District, was very unhappy that his son was a police officer at all, and working plainclothes in the Investigations Section of Special Operations in particular. As a parent, he would have much preferred that his son had remained a medical student rather than join the police department. As a policeman, he would have much preferred that his son learn the police profession as he had, working his way up from walking a beat, rather than going almost directly from the Academy to a plainclothes Special Operations assignment that carried with it so much overtime that he was bringing home almost as much money as his father and was usually provided with an unmarked car.
Lieutenant Foster was truly ambivalent about his son having recently taken-just as soon as he was eligible-the examination for promotion to detective. If he passed it and was promoted, Lieutenant Foster knew that he would really be proud of his son-despite his genuine belief that his son hadn't been on the job long enough to be a good beat patrolman, much less a detective.
"I'm sure," Staff Inspector Weisbach began, "that everyone was as thrilled as I was to learn that this morning Commissioner Czernich, by classified communication, charged the Ethical Affairs Unit with investigating certain allegations of misbehavior in the Five Squad of the Narcotics Unit, and further directed Inspector Wohl to make available to EAU whatever Special Operations resources are needed, which includes the services of everybody in this room."