"None for me, thanks," Matt said about two seconds before Peter Wohl handed him a fresh drink.
"Ssh," Peter Wohl said, "you're interrupting the old man."
"So he stopped for a while," Chief Wohl went on. "Maybe for a week. Then I started hearing about it again. So I went to the sergeant in Central Lockup. I was serious about this and told him the next time they got a prisoner from Highway that looked like he'd been worked over, I wanted to hear about it right then. So, sure enough, two or three nights later, about eleven o'clock at night, I get this call from Central Lockup."
Peter Wohl handed his father a drink.
He looked at it, and then at Matt.
"Don't worry about getting home, son," he said. "I'll drive you myself."
"The hell you will." Peter Wohl laughed. "He stays here and you're getting driven home. The one thing I don't need is either or both of you running into a bus."
"You're not suggesting that I'm drunk, are you?"
"It's not a suggestion at all," Wohl said. "It's one of those facts you were talking about before." He went to the telephone and dialed a number.
"This is Inspector Wohl," he said. "Would you put out the word to have the nearest Highway car meet me at my house, please?"
"I'm not sure I like that," Chief Wohl said.
"I would rather have you pissed at me than Mother, okay?" Wohl said. "Finish the gorilla story."
"Where was I?"
"You got a call from Central Lockup," Peter furnished.
"Yeah. Right. So what happened, Matt, was that I got in my car and went down there. They had a bum, a real wiseass, in one of the cells, and somebody in Highway had really worked him over. Swollen lips. Black eye. The works. And I knew Jerry Carlucci had been out at Bustleton and Bowler.
So I thought I had him. So I went into the cell with this guy and asked him what had happened. 'Nothing happened,' he said. So I asked him where he got the cut lip and the shiner. And he said, 'From a gorilla.' And I said 'Bullshit' and he said a gorilla beat him up, and if I didn't like it, go fuck myself. And I asked, where did the gorilla beat him up, and he said 'Bustleton and Bowler' and I said there weren't any gorillas at Bustleton and Bowler, and he said 'The hell there wasn't, one of them came into the detention cell there and kicked the shit out of me.' "
Peter Wohl laughed out loud. "True story, Matt," he said.
"Well," Chief Wohl went on, "like I said, Matt, this guy was a real wiseass, and I knew I was wasting my breath. If Carlucci had beat him up, he wasn't going to tell me. So I went home. About a week later a piece of paper crossed my desk. It was a court order for the release of evidence in a truck heist before trial. You know what I mean, son?"
"Matt," Peter Wohl said, "sometimes a court will order the release of stolen property to its owners before the case comes to trial, if they can prove undue hardship, that sort of thing."
"Yes, sir," Matt said.
"The evidence was described as 'theatrical costumes and accessories.' Highway had the evidence. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, but the same afternoon, I was out at Bustleton and Bowler, and I was a little curious. So I asked the sergeant where the theatrical costumes were-I was asking, in other words, if they had been returned to the owners yet. The sergeant said, 'Everything but the gorilla suit's out in the storeroom. Captain Carlucci's got the gorilla suit.' "
He put his glass down and laughed so hard, his eyes watered.
"That goddamn Jerry Carlucci had actually put the gorilla suit on, gone into the holding cell, and worked the bum over. And the bum, who had his reputation to think of, was not going to go to court and complain he'd been assaulted by a guy in a gorilla suit. Oh, Jesus, Jerry was one hell of a cop!"
There were the sounds of footsteps on the stairs outside, and then a rap at the door. Wohl went to it and opened it. Sergeant Big Bill Henderson stood there.
"Not that I'm not glad to see you, Sergeant," Wohl said, "but I guess I should have asked for a two-man car."
"What's the problem, Inspector?"
"There's no problem at all, Sergeant," Chief Wohl said. "My son has got the cockamamie idea that I'm too drunk to drive."
"Hello, Chief," Big Bill said. "Nice to see you again, sir."
"I was just telling Matt Payne about Jerry Carlucci and the gorilla suit," Chief Wohl said. "You ever hear that story?"
"No, sir," Big Bill said. "You can tell me on the way home. Inspector, I'll have a car pick up mine and meet me at the chief's house. Okay?"
"Fine," Wohl said. "Or we could wait for a two-man car."
"No, I'll take the chief. I want to hear about the gorilla suit." He winked at Peter Wohl.
Peter Wohl found his father's coat and helped him into it. Matt saw for the first time that Chief Wohl had a pistol.
I guess once a cop, always a cop.
"You tell Mother going to Groverman's Bar was your idea, Dad?" Peter said.
"I can handle your mother, don't you worry about that," Chief Wohl said. He walked over to Matt and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, son. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but Peter thinks you're going to make a hell of a cop."
"I said 'in twenty years or so' is what I said," Peter Wohl said.
Chief Wohl and Sergeant Henderson left.
Wohl walked past Matt, into his bedroom, and returned in a moment carrying sheets and blankets and a pillow. He tossed them at Matt.
"Make up the couch. Go to bed. Do not snore. Leave quietly in the morning. You are still working with Jason?"
"Yes, sir. I'm to meet him at the Roundhouse at eight."
"Try not to breathe on him," Wohl said. "I would hate for him to get the idea that you've been out till all hours drinking."
"Yes, sir. Good night, sir."
At his bedroom door Peter Wohl turned. "When you hear the gorilla suit story again, and you will, remember that the first time you heard it, you heard it from the source," he said.
"Yes, sir."
"Good night, Matt," Wohl said, and closed the door.
Matt undressed to his underwear. The last thing he took off was his ankle holster. He laid it on the table beside his tuxedo trousers.
My gun, he thought. The tool of the policeman's trade. Chief Wohl still carries his. And Chief Wohl thinks I'm a cop. A rookie, maybe, but a cop. He wouldn't 't have told that story to a civilian, about the mayor when he was a cop, putting on a gorilla suit and knocking some wiseass around. I wouldn't tell it to my father; he's a civilian and wouldn't understand. And Chief Wohl wasn't kidding when he said that Inspector Wohl told him he thought I could make a good cop.
Matt Payne went to sleep feeling much happier than when he had walked in the door.
SIXTEEN
Matt Payne's bladder woke him with a call to immediate action at half past five. It posed something of a problem. There was only one toilet in Peter Wohl's apartment, off his bedroom. It was either try to use that without waking Wohl or going outside and relieving himself against the wall of the garage, something that struck him as disgusting to do, but he knew he could not make it to the nearest open diner or hamburger joint.
When he stood up, the decision-making process resolved itself. A sharp pain told him he could not wait until he got outside.
On tiptoe he marched past Wohl, who was sleeping on his stomach with his head under a pillow. He carefully closed the door to the bathroom, raised the lid, and tried to accomplish what had to be done as quietly as possible. He had just congratulated himself on his skill doing that and begun to hope that he could tiptoe back out of Wohl's room undiscovered when the toilet, having been flushed, began to refill the tank. It sounded like Niagara Falls.