"I'd like to see them," Wohl said. "Isthat why you called me at quarter to one?"
"No, sir. Sir, I've fucked up."
"Another run-in with Sergeant Dolan?"
"No, sir. It's something else."
"Where are you?"
"At 49^th and Lancaster. At a pay phone."
"If you don't think-which,ergo sum, you've called, so you don'tthis will wait until morning, come over here. Bring theLedger with you."
"Yes, sir, I'll be right there."
When he went outside, one of the two cops who had been at the counter was on the sidewalk. The other one was across the street, by the Porsche. Matt walked back across Lancaster Avenue.
"Nice car," the cop said.
"Thank you."
"You been drinking?"
"I had a couple of drinks," Matt said.
"Wedding, huh?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, you always take a couple of drinks at a wedding, don't you? And you made it across the street in a straight line," the cop said.
"Yes, sir."
"You open to a little friendly advice?"
"Sure."
"Dressed up like that, driving a car like this, this time of night, with a couple of drinks in you, maybe stopping in a neighborhood like this isn't such a good idea. You know what I mean?"
"I think so," Matt said. "Yes. I know what you mean."
"Good night, sir," the cop said. "Drive careful."
He walked back across Lancaster Avenue, got in the 19^th District RPC, and drove off.
He had no idea I'm cop. Obviously I don't look like a cop. Or act like one. But I know that, don't I, that I don't act like a cop?
As Matt swung wide to turn off Norwood Street in Chestnut Hill and to enter into the driveway that led to Peter Wohl's apartment, the Porsche's headlights swept across a massive chestnut tree and he thought he could see a faint scarring of the bark.
He thought: I killed a man there.
Warren K. Fletcher, 34, of Germantown, his brain already turned to pulp by a 168-grain round-nosed lead bullet fired from Officer Matt Payne's.38-caliber Chief's Special snub-nosed revolver, a naked civilian tied up with lamp cord under a tarpaulin in the back of his van, had crashed the van into that chestnut tree, ending what Michael J. O'Hara had called, in thePhiladelphia Bulletin, "The Northwest Philadelphia Serial Rapist's Reign of Terror.".
Matt recalled Chad asking him what it was like to have killed a man. And he remembered what he had replied: "I haven't had nightmares or done a lot of soul-searching about it. Nothing like that."
It was true, of course, but he suddenly understood why he had said that: It hadn't bothered him because it was unreal. It hadn't happened. Or it had happened to somebody else. Or in a movie. It was beyond credibility that Matthew M. Payne, of Wallingford and Episcopal Academy, former treasurer of Delta Phi Omicron at, and graduate of, the University of Pennsylvania, had been given a badge and a gun by the City of Philadelphia and had actually taken that gun from its holster and killed somebody with it.
He drove down the driveway. There was a Buick Limited parked in front of one of Peter Wohl's two garages. There was nothing on the car to suggest that it was a Department car, and he wondered who it belonged to.
He got out of the Porsche and climbed the stairs to Wohl's door and knocked.
A silver-haired, stocky man in his sixties, jacketless, his tie pulled down, wearing braces, opened the door.
"You must be Matt Payne," he said, offering one hand. The other held a squat whiskey glass. "I'm Augie Wohl. Peter's taking a leak. Come on in."
Matt knew that Peter Wohl's father was Chief Inspector August Wohl, retired, but he had never met him. He was an imposing man, Matt thought, just starting to show the signs of age. He was also, Matt realized, half in the bag.
"How do you do, sir?" Matt said.
"Let me fix you a little something," Chief Wohl said. "What's your pleasure?"
"I'm not sure that I should," Matt said.
"Oh, hell, have one. You're among friends."
"A little Scotch then, please," Matt said.
He followed Wohl's father across the room to Wohl's bar.
It was covered with takeout buckets from a Chinese restaurant. Chief Wohl reached over the bar, came up with a fifth of Johnnie Walker and a glass, and poured the glass half full. He added ice cubes from a plastic freezer tray and handed it to him.
"Dilute it yourself," he said cheerfully. "There's soda and water."
"Thank you," Matt said.
Peter Wohl, in the act of closing his zipper, came out of his bedroom.
"What we have here is obviously the best-dressed newspaper boy in Philadelphia," he said. "Have you and Dad introduced yourselves?"
He's not feeling much pain, either, Matt decided.
"Yes, sir."
"And I see he's been plying you with booze," Wohl went on. "So let me see whatThe Ledger has to say, and then you can tell me how you fucked up."
Matt handed him the newspaper, which Wohl spread out on the bar, and then read, his father looking over his shoulder.
"It could be worse," Chief Wohl said. "I think Nelson is being very careful. Nesfoods takes a lot of tomato soup ads in his newspapers."
"So how did you fuck up, Matt?" Peter Wohl asked.
Matt told him about his confrontation with H. Richard Detweiler, fighting, he thought successfully, the temptation to offer any kind of an excuse for his inexcusable stupidity.
"You're sure, son," Chief Wohl asked, "that Detweiler's girl has a drug problem?"
"If Washington has the nurse in Hahneman, Dad-" Peter Wohl said.
"Yeah, sure," Chief Wohl said. "What about the girl's relationship with DeZego? How reliable do you think that information is?"
"It's secondhand," Matt said. "It could just be gossip."
"You didn't tell her father about that, anyhow, did you, Matt?" Peter Wohl asked.
"No, sir, I didn't," Matt said. But that triggered the memory of his having told his father. And, shamed again, he felt morally obliged to add that encounter to everything else.
"Well, fortunately for you," Chief Wohl said, looking at Matt, " Jerry tried to belt the photographer. Or did he belt him? Or just try?"
"The paper said 'a scuffle ensued,' " Peter Wohl said.
"It was more than that," Chief Wohl said, went to the bar and read, somewhat triumphantly from the newspaper story: "… 'a scuffle ensued during which aLedger photographer was knocked to the ground and his camera damaged.' " Don't you watch television? A cop is supposed toget the facts."
" 'Just the facts, ma'am.' " Peter Wohl chuckled, mimicking Sergeant Friday onDragnet.
"Carlucci is going to be far more upset about that picture being on every other breakfast table in Philadelphia, son," Chief Wohl said, "than about you telling Detweiler his daughter has a drug problem."
"That was pretty goddamn dumb," Peter Wohl said.
"Yes, sir, I know it was. And I'm sorry as hell," Matt said.
"He was talking about Jerry Carlucci," Chief Wohl said.
"But the shoe fits," Peter Wohl said, "so put it on."
Matt glanced at him. There was a smile on Peter Wohl's face.
He's not furious, or even contemptuous, Matt realized, very surprised. He doesn't even seem very annoyed. It's as if he expected this sort of stupid behavior from a rookie. Or maybe from a college boy.
"Jerry never learned when not to use his fists," Chief Wohl said, then chuckled. "My God, the gorilla suit!" He laughed. "You ever tell Matt about Carlucci and the gorilla suit?"
Wohl, chuckling, shook his head.
"You tell him," he said, and walked to the bar.
"Well, this was ten, maybe twelve years ago," Chief Wohl began. " Jerry had Highway. I had Uniformed Patrol. Highway was under Uniformed Patrol then. I kept getting these complaints from everybody, the DA's office, a couple of judges, Civil Liberties, everybody, that Highway was taking guys to Bustleton and Bowler and working them over before they took them to Central Lockup. So I called Jerry in and read the riot act to him. I was serious, and he knew I was serious. I told him that the first time I could prove that he, or anybody in Highway, was working people over at Bustleton and Bowler, he would be in Traffic the next morning, blowing a whistle at Broad and Market…" He paused, glancing over his shoulder. "If you're making one of those for Matt, my glass has a hole in it too."