…"
"At Ristorante Alfredo," Wohl went on. "He had made reservations. When he got there, Vincenzo Savarese was there. He gave him- I'm cutting corners here."
"You're doing fine," the mayor said.
"A little speech about being grateful for a favor Dave had done for him-nothing dirty there, just Dave being nice to a girl he didn't know was Savarese's granddaughter. You want to hear about that?"
"Not unless it's important."
"Savarese said thank you for the favor, and then Ricco Baltazari gave Dave a matchbook, said Dave dropped it. Inside was a name and address. Black guy named Marvin P. Lanier. Small-time. Says he's a gambler. Actually he's a pimp. And according to two of Dave's undercover cops-Martinez and McFadden, the two who caught the junkie who killed Dutch Moffitt-Lanier sometimes transports cocaine from Harlem."
"You've lost me," the mayor said. "What's a nigger pimp got to do with precious Penny Detweiler?"
"Last night Martinez and McFadden saw Lanier. They had been using him as a snitch. Lanier told them, quote, a guinea shot Tony the Zee, unquote."
"He had a name?" the mayor asked.
"He was supposed to come up with one by four o'clock this afternoon," Wohl said.
"You think he will?"
"Lanier got popped last night. Five shots with a.38," Wohl said. "Do you know Joe D'Amata of Homicide?"
"Yeah."
"He got the job. Because there was a Highway car seen at the crime scene, he came out to Bustleton and Bowler first thing this morning to see what we had on Lanier."
"Which was?"
"Nothing. Martinez and McFadden were in the car. Working on their own."
"I'm having a little trouble following all this, Peter," the mayor said, almost apologetically.
"When McFadden and Martinez saw Lanier, they took a shotgun away from him. Joe D'Amata said Lanier had a shotgun under his bed. So I thought maybe there was a tie-in-"
"How?"
"Savarese pointed us to this guy. DeZego was popped with a shotgun. Lanier had two. Lanier gets killed."
"What about the shotgun? Shotguns?"
"I sent them to the lab."
"And?"
"I can call. They may not be through yet."
"Call."
Less than a minute later Wohl replaced one of the mayor's three telephones in its cradle.
"Forensics," Wohl announced, "says that the shotgun-shell cases found on the roof of the Penn Services Parking Garage were almost certainly, based on the marks made by the ejector, fired from the Remington Model 1100 shotgun D'Amata found under Lanier's bed."
"Bingo," Dennis V. Coughlin said.
"You're saying the pimp shot DeZego?" the mayor asked.
"I think Savarese wantsus to think Lanier shot DeZego," Matt Lowenstein said.
"Why?" the mayor asked.
"Who the hell knows?" Lowenstein said.
"Check with Organized Crime," the mayor said. "See if they can come up with any reason the mob would want DeZego dead."
"They're working on that, Jerry," Lowenstein said. "I asked them the day after DeZego got popped; they said they'd already been asked to check by Jason Washington.
If there was a rebuke in Lowenstein's reply, the mayor seemed not to have noticed.
"Washington working on this dead-pimp angle?" Carlucci asked.
"No, sir," Wohl replied. "Chief Lowenstein loaned me D'Amata. I was going to have him work with Washington. But when I couldn't find him, I put Tony Harris on it."
"Why can't you find Washington?"
"I don't know where he is," Wohl said, and then heard his words. " I didn't mean that, sir, the way it came out. He's working on the street somewhere, and when I got the word to come here, he hadn't reported in yet. I've got Payne looking for him. For all I know, he's probably already found him."
"Tony Harris is working on the Officer Magnella job, right?" the mayor asked. "So you turn him off that to put him on this?"
"We're getting nowhere on the Magnella job, Mr. Mayor," Peter Wohl said. "That one's going to take time. I wanted a good Homicide detective at the Lanier scene while it was still hot."
"Meaning you don't think Joe D'Amata is a good Homicide detective?" Lowenstein snapped.
"If I didn't think Joe was as good as he is, I wouldn't have asked you for him, Chief," Wohl replied. "Maybe that was a bad choice of words. What I meant was that I wanted Harris and D'Amata, now that we know we're looking for something beside the doer of a pimp shooting, to take another look at the crime scene as soon as possible."
"I don't like that," the mayor said thoughtfully.
"Sir?" Peter asked.
"Shit, I didn't meanthat the way it came out. I wouldn't tell you how to do your job, Peter. What I meant was what you said about the Magnella job, that it's going to take time. We can't afford that. You can't let people get away with shooting a cop. You have to catch himthem-quick. And in a good, tight, all-the-i's-dotted, all-the-t'scrossed arrest."
"Yes, sir, I know. But Harris told me all he knows how to do is go back to the beginning. There's nothing new to run down."
"Lowenstein giving you all the help you need?"
"Chief Lowenstein has been very helpful, sir. I couldn't ask for anything more," Wohl said.
"Denny, you paying attention?" the mayor asked.
"Sir?"
"Peter knows what's the right thing to say to make friends and influence people. You ought to watch him, learn from him."
"Oh, fuck you, Jerry," Coughlin said when he realized that the real target of Carlucci's barb was Wohl, and that he was being teased.
"Make that, 'oh, fuck you, Mr. Mayor,' sir," Carlucci said, chuckling. Then his voice grew serious. "Okay. Thanks for coming in. If it wasn't for what Peter said about the Magnella job, I'd say I feel a lot better than I felt before. Jesus, I'd like to hang the DeZego job on Savarese, or even on one of his scumbags."
Coughlin stood up and shook the mayor's hand when it was offered. Lowenstein followed him past the mayor's desk, and then past Wohl.
The mayor hung on to Wohl's hand, signaling that he wanted Wohl to remain behind.
"Yes, sir?"
"I spoke to your dad last night," the mayor said.
"Last night?" Peter asked, surprised.
"This morning. Very early this morning. He told me he had been talking to you and that you led him to believe your salami was on the chopping block with all this, and you thought that was unfair."
"I- We had a couple of drinks at Groverman's."
"So he said."
"I'm sorry he called you, Mr. Mayor."
"How could you have stopped him? What I told him, Peter, was that you were absolutely right. Your salami is on the chopping block, and it isn't fair. I also told him that if you come out of this smelling like a rose, you stand a good chance to be the youngest full inspector in the Department."
"Jesus," Wohl said.
"My salami's in jeopardy, Peter, not only yours. I'm going to look like a fucking fool if Special Operations drops the ball on all this. If I don't look like a fucking fool when this is all over, then you get taken care of. Take my meaning?"
"Yes, sir."
"Give my regards to your mother, Peter," Mayor Carlucci said, and walked Peter to his office door.
Charley McFadden was almost home before he realized there was a silver lining in the dark cloud of being on Inspector Wohl's shit list. And that was a dark cloud indeed. If Wohl was pissed at them, that meant Captains Sabara and Pekach were also pissed at them, and that meant that Sergeant Big Bill Henderson would conclude that hunting season was now open on him and Hay-zus. Christ only knew whatthat son of a bitch would do to them now.
There was a good possibility that he and Hay-zus would wind up in a district somewhere, maybe even in a goddamn wagon. McFadden really didn't want to be a Highway Patrolman, but he wanted to be an ordinary, turn-off-the-fire-hydrants, guard-a-school-crossing cop even less.