McFadden understood he was being dismissed.
"Yes, sir. Good night, Captain." He faced Sabara and repeated, " Captain."
Sabara nodded and smiled.
When McFadden had closed the door behind him, Sabara said, "There are three hundred young cops out there with five, six years on the job who would give their left nut to be in Highway, and that one says, 'It's all right, I guess.'"
"Butyour three hundred young cops never had the opportunity to work forme inNarcotics," Pekach said.
"Oh, go to hell," Sabara chuckled. "You're no better than he is."
"He wasn't much help, was he?"
"No, he wasn't. Did you think he would be?"
"Wohl said he thought we should find out what we could about Goldblatt's. I was trying."
"You really think Special Operations is going to wind up with that job?"
"I wouldn't be surprised. Carlucci probably sees a story in the newspapers, 'Mayor Carlucci announced this afternoon that the Special Operations Division arrested the Islamic Liberation Army-' "
"All eight of them," Sabara interrupted. "That's if thereis an Islamic Liberation Army. And anyway, Highway could handle it without the bullshit."
"That's my line, Mike. Write this on your forehead:'Pekach is Highway,I'm Special Operations.' "
Sabara chuckled again. "What the hell is Wohl up to?"
"I guess he's just trying to cover his ass," Pekach replied. "In case he does-in other words, we do-get that job."
Charley McFadden drove home, took a bottle of Schlitz from the refrigerator, carried it into the living room, sat on the couch, and dialed Matt Payne's apartment. It rang twice.
"Matthew Payne profoundly regrets, knowing what devastating disappointment it will cause you, that he is not available for conversation at this time. If you would be so kind as to leave your number at the beep, he will know that you have called."
"Shit!" Charley said, laughing, and hung up.
"Watch your mouth, Charley!" his mother called from the kitchen.
Charley hoisted himself out of the couch and went up the stairs, two at a time, to his bedroom. He took his pistol from its holster, put it in the sock drawer of his dresser, and took his snub-nosed Colt.38 Special and its holster out of the drawer. Then he took off his uniform. He rubbed the Sam Browne belt and its accoutrements with a polishing cloth, took a brush to his boots, and then arranged everything neatly in his closet, where, with the addition of a clean shirt, it would be ready for tomorrow.
Then he dressed in blue jeans and a sweatshirt that had WILDWOOD BY THE SEA and a representation of a fish jumping out of the water painted on it. He slipped his feet into loafers and completed dressing by unpinning his badge from his leather jacket and pinning it to a leather badge and ID case and putting that in his left hip pocket, and by slipping the spring clip of the Colt holster inside his trousers just in front of his right hip.
He went down the stairs three at a time, grabbed a quilted nylon zipper jacket from a hook by the front door, and, quickly, so there would be no opportunity for challenge, called out, "I'm going down to Flo amp; Danny's for a beer, Ma. And then out for supper."
Flo amp; Danny's Bar amp; Grill was on the corner. He slid onto a bar stool and Danny, without a word, drew a beer and set it before him.
"How they hanging, kid?"
"One lower than the other."
Charley looked at his watch. It was quarter to six. He had to meet Margaret at the FOP at seven. It would take fifteen minutes to drive there. There was plenty of time.
Maybe too much. She doesn't like it when I smell like a beer tap.
"Danny, give me an egg and a sausage," he said.
Harry fished a purple pickled egg and a piece of pickled sausage from two glass jars beside the cash register and delivered them on a paper napkin. Charley took a bite of the egg, and walked to the telephone and put the rest of his egg in his mouth as he dropped a dime in the slot and dialed a number.
"Hello."
"You and your goddamn wiseass answer machine messages. Where have you been?"
"Running errands."
"You want to have a beer or something?"
"Just one. I got a date."
"Me too. At seven."
"You want to come here? Where are you?"
"Home. FOP?"
"Fifteen minutes?"
"Good."
Matt Payne hung up.
Charley paid for the beer, the egg, and the sausage, and got in his car and drove to the FOP. Matt Payne's Porsche was already in the parking lot, and he found him at the bar.
There was just time to order a beer and have it served when he heard Margaret's soft voice in his ear.
"Hi!"
"Well, as I live and breathe, Florence Nightingale," Matt said, smiling.
"Hello, Matt."
"You're early," Charley said.
"You make it sound like an accusation," Matt said.
"Get off early?" Charley asked.
"Not exactly."
"What's that mean?"
"I mean, I went in, and they said they really needed me from midnight till six."
"They told you to come in," Charley said indignantly.
"And I get an hour, at time-and-a-half, just for coming in," Margaret said. "Plus double-time for midnight to six."
"You're not really going to go in at midnight?" Charley asked incredulously.
"Yes, of course, I am," Margaret said. "I told you, it's doubletime."
"If I were you, I'd tell them where to stick their double-time."
"Charley!"
"May I make a suggestion?" Matt asked.
"Huh?" Charley asked.
"What, Matt?" Margaret asked, a touch of impatience in her voice.
"If you're going to fight like married people, why don't you go get married?"
"I'm with him," Charley said.
"We just can't, Matt," Margaret said. "Not right now."
"It is better to marry than to burn," Matt quoted sonorously. "Saint Peter."
"No, it's not," Margaret said. "Saint Peter, I mean."
"It was one of those guys," Matt said. "Saint Timothy?"
"So what do we do now?" Charley asked.
"I don't know about you, but I'm going home to get some sleep. You can stay with Matt."
"I'll take you home," Charley said flatly. "He's got a date."
"You don't have to take me home."
"I'll take you home,and to work."
"You don't have to do that."
"You're not going walking around North Broad Street alone at midnight."
"Don't be silly."
"Listen to him, Margaret," Matt said.
"Oh, God!" she said in resignation.
Charley got off the bar stool.
"Let's go," he said.
"We'll have to get together real soon, Margaret, and do this again," Matt said.
"You can go to hell too," Margaret said, but she touched his arm before she left.
Matt watched as the two of them walked across the room, and then signaled for another drink.
He did not have a date. But when Charley had called, he had realized that he did not want to sit in a bar somewhere and watch television with Charley.
What he wanted to do was get laid. He had been doing very poorly in that department lately. If he was with Charley, getting laid was, now that Charley had found Margaret, out of the question. Charley was a very moral person.
The trouble, he thought, as he watched the bartender take a bill and make change, is that men want to get laid and women want a relationship. Since I don't want a relationship, consequently, I'm not getting laid very much.
As he took his first sip of the fresh drink, he considered the possibility of hanging around the FOP and seeing what developed. There were sometimes unattached women around the bar. Some of them had a connection with either the police or the court establishment, clerks, secretaries, girls like that. And some were police groupies, who liked to hang around with cops.