"Hello, sir, an honor I'm sure," McGovern said to Davis.
"How are you, Sergeant?"
McGovern looked at Payne, decided he wasn't important, and nodded at him.
"Anything I can do for you?" McGovern asked.
"Where can we find a place to park?" Wohl asked.
"Going in Shank amp; Evelyn's?"
"Yeah."
"You got a parking place," Sergeant McGovern said. He raised his eyes to Matt Payne. "Back it up, son, and I'll get out of your way."
"Good to see you, Pat."
"Yeah, you too," McGovern said as he started to get back in his car. "Say hello to your old man. He all right?"
Davis remembered that Wohl's father was a retired chief inspector.
"If anything, meaner."
"Impossible," McGovern said, and then got his car moving.
Payne moved into the space vacated, and Davis and Wohl got out of the car.
"Peter," Davis said quietly, touching Wohl's arm. "Could we send your driver someplace else to eat?"
"Is this personal, Walter?"
Davis hesitated a moment before replying.
"No. Not really."
"He's good with details," Wohl said, nodding toward Payne.
Which translates, Davis thought, a little annoyed, that Wohl's straight man doesn't go somewhere else to eat.
Shank amp; Evelyn's Restaurant was worse for Davis's purposes than he could have imagined possible. The whole place was smaller than his office, and consisted of a grill, a counter with ten or twelve stools, and half a dozen tables, at the largest of which, provided they kept their elbows at their sides, four people could eat.
What I should have done, Davis thought, annoyed, was simply get in my car and drive out to Wohl's office at Bustleton and Bowler. This is a disaster.
They found seats at a tiny table littered with the debris of the previous customers' meals. A massively bosomed waitress with a beehive hairdo first cleaned the table and then took their orders. Wohl ordered the veal, and somewhat reluctantly, Davis ordered the same.
"Sausage,hot sausage, and peppers, please, extra peppers," Matt Payne said.
"Frankie around?" Wohl asked her.
"In the back," the waitress said.
Wohl nodded.
A minute or so later, a very large, sweating man in a chef's hat, Tshirt, and white trousers came up to the table, offering his hand.
"How the hell are you, Peter?"
"Frankie, say hello to Walter Davis and Matt Payne," Wohl said. "This is Frankie Perri."
Frankie gave them a callused ham of a hand.
"Matt works for me," Wohl went on. "Walter runs the FBI. He said he'd never met a Mob guy, so I said I could fix that and brought him here."
"He's kidding, I hope you know," Frankie said.
"Yes, of course," Davis said uncomfortably.
"With a name like Frankie Perri, the FBI figures you have to be in the Mafia," Wohl said.
"Kiss my ass, Peter," Frankie Perri said, punching Wohl affectionately on the arm. "I'm going to burn your goddamn veal."
He put out his hand to Davis, and nodded at Matt.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Davis. Come back. Both of you."
"Thank you," Davis said, and then when he was gone, he said, "What do you call that, Peter, community relations?"
"What's on your mind, Walter?"
"The government is going to try Clifford Wallis and Delmore Travis for murder/kidnapping under the Lindbergh Act."
"Who?" Matt Payne asked.
Wohl glanced at him, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes.
"New Jersey's got them," Wohl said, "with a lot of evidence, on a murder one. They might plea bargain that down to manslaughter one, but no further. That's good for twenty-to-life, anyway. Why?"
"They violated federal law, Peter."
"Come on."
"Let us say there is considerable interest in this case rather high up in the Justice Department."
"You mean that Arthur Nelson wants them prosecuted," Wohl said.
Davis, who had been sitting back in his chair with his left hand against his cheek, moved the hand momentarily away from his face, a tacit agreement with Wohl's statement.
"Why?" Wohl asked, visibly thinking aloud.
"People get paroled on a state twenty-to-life conviction after what, seven years?" Davis said.
"And he wants to make sure they do more than seven years for the murder of his son. You got enough to try them?"
"We have enough for a Grand Jury indictment."
"That's not what I asked."
"I grant, it's pretty circumstantial," Davis said. "That's why I'm turning to you for help, Peter."
"Would you think me cynical to suspect that someone's leaning on you about this, Walter?"
"Yes," Davis said, smiling. "But they called me to Washington yesterday, and both of the telephone calls that delayed this little luncheon of ours concerned this case."
The waitress with the beehive hairdo delivered three large plates with sliced tomatoes and onions just about covering them.
When she had gone, Wohl took a forkful, chewed it slowly, and then asked, "So how can I help, Walter? More than the established, official routine for cooperation with the FBI would be helpful?"
"I need what you have as soon as I can get it, and I want everything you have, not just what a normal request for information would produce."
The waitress delivered three round water glasses, now scarred nearly gray by a thousand trips through the dishwasher. She half filled them, from a battered stainless-steel water pitcher, with a red liquid.
"Frankie said his grandfather made it over in Jersey," the waitress said.
Wohl picked up his glass, then stood up, called "Frankie," and, when he had his attention, called "Salud!" and then sat down again.
Walter Davis, thinking,Oh, God, homemade Dago Red! took a swallow. It was surprisingly good.
"You're almost certainly drinking an alcoholic beverage on which the applicable federal tax has not been paid," Wohl said. "Does that bother you?"
"Not a damned bit, to tell you the truth," Davis said. He stood up, called "Frankie" and then "Salud!" and then sat down, looking at Wohl, obviously pleased with himself.
Wohl chuckled, then looked at Matt Payne.
"Matt, when we get back to the office, round up everything in my files on the Nelson murder case. Make a copy of everything. Then go to Homicide and do the same thing. Then find Detective Harris and photocopy everything he has. Have it ready for me in the morning."
"Yes, sir," Matt Payne said.
"I'll take a look at it, see if anything is missing, and then you can take it to the FBI. Soon enough for you, Walter?"
"Thank you, Peter. 'Harris,' you said, was the detective on the job? Any chance that I could talk to him?"
"You, or one of your people?"
"Actually, I was thinking of one of my people."
"Tony Harris is the exception to the rule that most detectives really would rather be FBI agents, Walter. I don't think that would be very productive."
"I thought everybody loved us," Davis said.
"We all do. Isn't that so, Officer Payne?"
"Yes, sir. We all love the FBI."
The waitress with the beehive hairdo delivered their meal.
The veal was, Walter Davis was willing to admit, better than the veal in Ristorante Alfredo. And the homemade Chianti was nicer than some of the dry red wine he'd had at twenty-five dollars a bottle in Ristorante Alfredo.
But he knew that neither the quality of the food nor its considerably cheaper than Ristorante Alfredo prices were the reasons Peter Wohl had brought him here for lunch.
SIX
Under the special agent in charge (the "SAC") of the Philadelphia Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation were three divisions, Criminal Affairs, Counterintelligence, and Administration. Each division was under an assistant agent in charge, called an "A-SAC."