Plywood had been nailed over the glass portion of the doors and many of the ground-floor windows, the ones from which, Matt Payne decided, the local vandals had been successful in ripping off the wire mesh window guards.
The front doors were locked with two massive padlocks and closing chains looped around the center posts of the door. When Matt finally managed to get one padlock to function, he turned to Lieutenant Jack Malone.
"Why don't we just stop here and go back and tell the inspector that a detailed survey of these premises has forced us to conclude they are unfit for human habitation?"
"They obviously are, but we are talking aboutpolice habitation," Malone said. "The standards for which are considerably looser."
Matt jerked the door open. It sagged and dragged on the ground; the top hinge had pulled loose from the rotten frame.
He bowed and waved Malone past him.
Malone chuckled. From what he had seen of Payne, he liked him. He was not only a pleasant kid, but he'd already proven he was a cop. And Malone had heard the gossip. He knew that Payne's father had been a sergeant, killed on the job, and that he had a very important rabbi in Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin.
Not that he needed one, Malone thought, as close as Payne was to Inspector Wohl. Wohl was a powerful man in the Department. In his present uncomfortable circumstances, that could mean he could get his career back on track, or begin thinking of leaving the Department as soon as he had his twenty in, or maybe even before.
And since Payne was close to Wohl, the same thing applied to him. He could help, or he could hurt. Malone had waked up wondering what kind of trouble he was already in, thanks to that zealous Highway cop who had spotted him keeping an eye on Holland's body shop.
Wohl hadn't said anything to him about keeping his nose out of Auto Squad's business now that he was assigned to Special Operations. Malone knew that he was supposed to be smart enough to figure that out himself. There was little chance that Wohl hadn't heard about it, however.
They didn't send me to Special Operations without talking to Wohl about Poor Jack Malone, who has personal problems, and who incidentally had somehow acquired the nutty idea that Robert L. Holland, respectable businessman and pal of everybody important from Mayor Jerry Carlucci down, was a car thief.
The smart thing for me to have done was just forget the whole damned thing and make myself useful around Special Operations. A good year on this job, and the word would get around that I had gotten through my personal problems and could now, again, be trusted not to make an ass of myself and the Department. That word, coming from Wohl, would straighten everything out.
The worst possible scenario would be for the Highway cop, McFadden, he said his name was, to tell his lieutenant that he had checked out a suspicious car parked near Holland's body shop and found the new lieutenant, Malone, in it. If that happened, there was a good chance that the lieutenant would "mention" that to either Sabara or Pekach. Or maybe to Inspector Wohl himself. In any event, Wohl would hear about it. At that point, Wohl would have to call me in and tell me to straighten up and fly right or find myself another home. Wohl was not about to put himself in a position where the brass would jump on his ass for letting Poor Jack Malone run around making wild accusations about a friend of the mayor's.
I think I could probably talk myself out of the first time.Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir. I realize I was wrong, sir. It won't happen again, sir.
And I couldn't let it happen again, which would mean that sonofabitch would continue to get away with it.
That's the worst possible scenario. That doesn't mean it will go down that way. For one thing, the odds are, because McFadden probably walked away thinking he had made a fool of himself, that he had walked into, and almost fucked up, a stakeout where he had no business, that McFadden won't mention what happened to anybody, least of all his lieutenant.
That, I suppose, is the best possible scenario. What will really happen is probably somewhere in between. Whatever it is, since I can't do a fucking thing about it, there's no point in worrying about it.
That puts me back to what I do next. The smart thing to do obviously, since I nearly got caught doing something that really threatens my career, is don't do that no more.
But I'm a cop, and Holland is a thief, and what cops are supposed to do is lock up thieves.
Maybe Wohl, if I went to him, would understand. He understands that some thieves are fucking pillars of the community. Christ, he locked up Judge Findermann, didn't he?
You're dreaming, Poor Jack Malone. You don't have anything to go on except a gut feeling, and if you said that to Wohl, you'd soon be commanding officer of the rubber-gun squad.
Inside the outer doors was a small flight of stairs. Malone went up that, and then through a second set of doors. He heard scurrying noises that experience told him was the sound of rats.
I wonder what the hell they eat in here? It doesn't look like anybody has been in here in years.
He waited for a moment, to let his eyes adjust to the dim light, and then went left down a corridor. The ancient hardwood floor squealed and creaked under his weight. There was a sign with PRINCIPAL still lettered on a door. He pushed that open and looked inside.
There was a counter inside, and several open doors, through which he could see rooms that could be used as Wohl's and Sabara's office.
"We could put the boss in there, I suppose," he said.
"Jesus!"
"And you, Officer Payne," Malone said. "I can see your desk right there by the hole in the wall."
"Do they really think we can use this place?" Payne asked.
"I think the inspector is desperate," Malone said. "We're sitting in each other's laps at Bustleton and Bowler."
"Well, there's a big enough parking lot. Already fenced in. We could start with that, I suppose, and build on it."
"Where?" Malone asked, and then went to a window and looked out where Payne pointed.
"I was reading the grant, and there's-"
"What?"
"The Justice Department Grant," Payne said. "That's where we got the money for Special Operations. A.C.T. It stands for Augmented Crime Teams."
Interesting. He's probably the only guy in Special Operations besides Wohl and Sabara who ever heard of the grant, much less read it.
"You were saying?"
"There's money in there, available on application, for capital improvement. About a hundred grand, if I remember correctly. The question is, would fixing this dump up be considered a 'capital improvement'?"
"I don't know," Malone said. "It's a thought."
"I'll mention it to the inspector," Payne said. Malone went back in the corridor and down it and into another room. It was a boys' room.
"Well, there's something else we could start with and build on," Malone said. "I saw a Highway guy this morning who's small enough to use one of those urinals."
"Hay-zus," Payne chuckled.
"What?"
"Hay-zus-Jesus-Martinez. He's a quarter of an inch and maybe two pounds over Department minimums."
"How did he get in Highway? Most of those guys are six feet something?"
"He was one of the two of the inspector's first probationary Highway Patrolmen. He was a Narc. He and his partner were the ones who caught the guy who killed Dutch Moffitt. The inspector gave him a chance to see if he could make Highway, and he did."
"Oh, yeah. I remember that. The doer got himself run over by an elevated train, right?"
"Right."
"I remember Dutch Moffitt too. He was a real pisser. Big, goodlooking guy. He screwed everything in skirts. What did they say?-'that he'd screw a snake if he could get it to hold still.' Did you know him?"
So that's why I have not been wallowing in Episcopalian remorse for having taken someone else's wife into my bed! My Moffitt genes have overwhelmed all my moral training.
"Dutch was my uncle," Payne said.
"Oh, Christ!" Malone said. "Payne, I'm sorry. I meant no offense."