The first thought Jason Washington had was, Has Wohl lost his mind? If Czernick finds out he has been slipping material to the FBI, he'II be on the phone to Jerry Carlucci two seconds later, and ten seconds after that, Wohl will be teaching "Police Administration" at the Academy.
This was immediately followed by the obvious rebuttaclass="underline" Either Czernick is in on this, or Wohl has his own agenda; the one thing Peter Wohl is not is a fool.
And then: Interesting, the way he calls the FBI guy "Mr."; Wohl "the inspector"; and, the first time, Harris "Mr." But that title of respect dropped off the second time he got to Tony. Since he knows that Tony is a first-rate detective, it has to be something else. A little vestigial Main Line snobbery, because Tony dresses like a bum? Or has the kid figured out that Tony has a bottle problem? One possibility is that he called Tony at home-if a furnished room can be called a home-and Tony was incoherent, and he 'd rather not deal with that.
"Why don't you bring what you have here, Matt? I'll have a look at it; see if it's all there."
"Yes, sir," Matt Payne said. "Thank you. I'm on my way."
Washington broke the connection with his finger and dialed Tony's number. There was no answer.
Meaning he's not there. Or that he's there, passed out.
He took a well-worn leather-bound notebook from his pocket, found the number of the Red Rooster, Tony Harris's favorite bar, and dialed it. Tony wasn't there. Washington left word for him to call him at home. It was possible, even likely, that Wohl would want to see him in the morning. Wohl, being Wohl, probably knew all about Tony's bottle problem, but it would not do Tony any good if Wohl saw him with the shakes.
He hung up, looked at the drink he had left sitting on the table beside his chair, and took the first swallow from it.
Jason and Martha Washington lived in an apartment on the tenth floor of a luxury building on the parkway. A wall of ceiling-to-floor windows in the living room gave them a view of the Art Museum, the Schuylkill River, and West Philadelphia.
Martha Washington was a commercial artist who made just about as much money as he did. Now that their daughter, Barbara, was gone, married to a twenty-five-year-old electronics engineer at RCA, across the Delaware in Jersey, who made as much money as his in-laws did together, the Washingtons were, as Jason thought of it, "comfortable."
Not only did they have the condo at The Shore, but Martha had a Lincoln; the furniture in the apartment was all they wanted; and Martha was starting to buy (and sell at often amazing profit) art. It had been a long time, he thought, since there had been an angry or hurt look in Martha's eyes when he walked in wearing a Tripler or Hart, Shaffner amp; Marx new suit.
They no longer had to think about the costs of getting Barbara a good education. That need had been removed from the financial equation when the graduate student of engineering had snatched her from her cradle the week before he graduated and RCA started throwing money at him.
Ten minutes later the doorman announced that a Mr. Payne was calling.
"If he's wearing shoes, send him up, please."
Washington timed his walk to the door precisely; he opened it as Matt got off the elevator.
"Sorry to bother you with this at home," Matt said.
"Come on in, Matt. I am drinking from the good stuff; make yourself one."
"What's the occasion?"
"Let me see what you have," Washington said, putting out his hand for the manila envelope. "You know where the booze is."
Matt headed for the liquor cabinet.
He is, with the possible exception of Peter Wohl, the only one of my brothers in blue who is not awed and/or made uncomfortable by this apartment.
Washington sat down on a leather upholstered couch and took the photocopies from the envelope and went through them. Payne sat in an armchair watching him.
"I think everything's there, Matt," Washington said, finally.
"Thank God," Matt said. "Thank you."
"You couldn't find Tony, you said?"
"He didn't answer the radio-twice, and he didn't answer the phone at his apartment."
"You ever been to his apartment?"
Matt shook his head no.
Then he hasn't found Tony mumbling incoherently into his booze. Moot point, he will learn eventually.
"Anything interesting going on at Homicide?"
"They had a murder of a guy during a robbery at a furniture store on South Street."
"I heard the call," Washington said.
Theofficer needs assistance shooting hospital case call had been on the air when he switched on the police radio in his unmarked police car as he came off the Benjamin Franklin Bridge into Philadelphia from New Jersey. By the time he reached the parkway, he had heard Matt Lowenstein calling in that he was at the scene. That too was very interesting. The chief of the Detective Division would ordinarily not go in on a robbery, or even a murder. Neither was uncommon in Philadelphia. He finally decided that Lowenstein had coincidentally been somewhere near without anything else important to do.
The car issued to Jason Washington by the Philadelphia Police Department was a new, two-tone (blue over gray) Ford LTD four-door sedan. It had whitewall tires, elaborate chrome wheel covers, and powder blue velour upholstery. There were only eight thousand odd miles on the odometer, and the car still even smelled new.
Detectives (like corporals, only one step above the lowest rank in the Police Department hierarchy) are not normally given brand-new cars to drive, much less to take home after work, but Jason Washington was not an ordinary detective.
Until recently, he had been able to take more than a little pride in his reputation of being the best detective in the Homicide Bureau, which was tantamount to saying that he was arguably the best detective in the entire Philadelphia Police Department, as it is generally conceded that the best detectives are assigned to Homicide.
Washington had not willingly given up his assignment to Homicide. He had been transferred (he thought of it as "shanghaied") to the justthen-formed Special Operations Division over his somewhat bluntly stated desire not to be transferred.
There had been a number of advantages in being assigned to Homicide. There was of course the personal satisfaction of simply knowing that youwere a Homicide detective. That satisfaction was of course buttressed if you could believe that you were probably the best Homicide detective in the Bureau.
Jason Washington was not plagued with extraordinary humility. While he was perfectly willing to admit there were a number of very good detectives in Homicide, he could not honestly state that he knew of any who were quite as professionally competent as he was.
And the money was good, because of overtime. As a Homicide detective, he had taken home as much money as a chief inspector. Chief inspectors, he knew, often put in as many hours as he did, but under Civil Service regulations, they didn't get paid for it; they were given "compensatory time off" that they never seemed able to find time to take.
And chief inspectors (and other Police Department supervisors) spent a good portion of their time handling administrative matters that had little to do with catching critters, marching them through the judicial process, and seeing them sentenced and packed off to the pokey.
In Homicide, all Jason Washington had had to do was catch critters, either on jobs that had come to him via the Wheel, or on jobs that the Wheel had given to others, but on which he had been asked to "assist."
(The Wheel wasn't really a wheel, but rather a piece of lined paper, on which, at the beginning of each tour, each Homicide detective's name was written. As each homicide came to the attention of the Homicide Bureau, the job was given to the detective whose name was at the head of the list. He would not be given another job until every other detective listed on the Wheel had, in turn, been given one.)