Not only is it going to be bitter cold in that goddamn building, it's going to be dark.
Shit!
He drove back to Bustleton and Bowler, and turned in the Department car. He couldn't keep it overnight without permission, and he didn't want to ask Wohl for permission, so it was either turn it in now or when he was finished with the measuring job, and now seemed to be better than later.
On the way to the Frankford and Castor building, he remembered thinking that it was going to be dark, as well as cold, inside the building. He would need more than a flashlight. He could go back and draw a battery-powered floodlight from supply, but he didn't want to go back.
He drove down Frankford Avenue until he found a hardware store, and went in and bought the largest battery-powered floodlight they had, plus a spare battery. Then he bought a fifty-foot tape measure.
It then occurred to him that he would need something that provided more space than his pocket notebook. He found a stationery store and bought a clipboard, two mechanical pencils, and a pad of graph paper.
He was carrying all this back to his car when a Highway car suddenly pulled to the curb, in the process spraying his trousers and overcoat with a mixture of snow, soot, grime, and slush.
The driver's door opened and the head and shoulders of Officer Charles McFadden appeared.
"I thought those were your wheels," McFadden said, nodding up the street toward where Matt had parked his Porsche. "What the hell are you doing?"
"I'm on a scavenger hunt. The next thing on my list is the severed head of an Irishman."
McFadden laughed.
"No shit, Matt, what are you doing?"
"Would you believe I am going to measure the school building at Frankford and Castor?"
"I heard we were getting that," McFadden said. "And Inspector Wohl's making you measure it?"
"Right."
"All by yourself?"
"Right."
"Have fun," McFadden said, and got behind the wheel again.
Matt could see in the car. Officer McFadden was explaining to Officer Quinn why Officer Payne was wading through the slush with a floodlight, a tape measure, and a clipboard. To judge by the look on Officer Quinn's face, he found this rather amusing.
Officer McFadden put the Highway RPC in gear and stepped on the accelerator. The rear wheels spun in the dirty slush, spraying same on Officer Payne.
TWELVE
There was a telephone in Lieutenant Jack Malone's suite in the St. Charles Hotel, through which, by the miracle of modern telecommunications, he could converse with anyone in the whole wide world, with perhaps a few minor exceptions like Ulan Bator or Leningrad.
He had learned, however, to his horror, when he paid his first bill for two weeks residency, that local calls, which had been free on his home phone, and which cost a dime at any pay station, were billed by the hotel at fifty cents each.
Thereafter, whenever possible, Lieutenant Malone made his outgoing calls from a pay station in the lobby.
When he dropped the dime in the slot this time, he knew the number from memory. It was the fourth time he'd called since returning to the hotel shortly before six.
"Hello?"
"Officer McFadden, please?"
"You're the one who's been calling, right?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Well, he hasn't come home," Mrs. Agnes McFadden said.
"I don't really have any idea where he is. You want to give me a number, I'll have him call back the minute he walks in the door."
"I'll be moving around, I'm afraid," Malone said. "I'll try again. Thank you very much."
"What did you say your name was?"
Malone broke the connection with his finger.
"My name is Asshole, madam," he said softly, bitterly. "Lieutenant J. Asshole Malone."
He put the handset back and pushed open the door.
He was not going to get to talk to Officer McFadden tonight, and he would not try again. He had carefully avoided giving McFadden's mother his name-she had volunteered her identity on the first call.
When Officer McFadden finally returns home, his mother will tell him that some guy who had not given his name had called four times for him, but had not said what he wanted or where he could be reached.
McFadden will be naturally curious, but there will be no way for him to connect the calls with me.
On the other hand, if I did call back, and finally got through to him, he would know not only who I am, but whatever I had in mind was important enough that I would try five times to get through to him.
Under those circumstances, there would be no way I could casually, nonchalantly, let it be known that I would be grateful if he didn't tell his pal Payne that I was staking out Holland's body shop. I already know he has an active curiosity, and if I said please don't tell Payne, that's exactly what he will do. And Payne would lose no time in telling Wohl.
That triggered thoughts of Payne in a different area: The poor bastard's probably still over there in that falling-down building, stumbling around in the dark, measuring it.
That was chickenshit of Wohl, making him do that. He sent me over there to look it over. I should not have let myself be talked out of doing what I was sent to do by a rookie cop, even if the rookie works for Wohl. I'm a lieutenant, although there seems to be some questions at all levels about just how good a lieutenant. But he's taking the heat for what I did, and that's not right.
If I were a good guy, I'd get in the car and go over there and help him. But Wohl might not like that. He sent the kid over there to rap his knuckles and Wohl might not like it if I held his hand.
Fuck Wohl! A man is responsible for his actions, and other people should not take the heat for them.
He walked out of the lobby of the St. Charles Hotel and found his car and started out for the school building at Frankford and Castor.
Halfway there, he had another thought, which almost made him change his mind: Am I really being a nice guy about this? A supervisor doing the right thing? Or am I trying to show Payne what a nice guy I am, so that if I get the chance to ask him not to tell Wohl that I am watching Holland, he will go along?
You can be a conniving prick, Jack Malone, always working the angles, he finally decided, but this is not one of those times. You are going there because Payne wouldn't be there if you hadn't been a jackass.
When he reached the building, he at first thought that he was too late, that Payne had done what he had to do and left, because the building was dark. But then he saw, on the second floor, lights. Moving around.
A flashlight. No. A floodlight. Too much light for a flashlight. That's Payne.
Stupid, you know the lights aren't turned on!
He had anotherstupid thought a moment later, when he turned off Frankford Avenue onto Castor Avenue. There was a Porsche 911, what looked like a new one, parked against the curb, lightly dusted by the snow that had begun to fall as he had driven out here.
If there is a more stupid place to park a car like that, I don't know where the hell it would be. When the jackass who owns that car comes back for it, he'll be lucky to find the door handles.
He pulled his Mustang to the curb behind a battered Volkswagen, and added to his previous judgment: Because of the generosity of the Porsche owner, the Bug is probably safe. Why bother to strip a Bug when you can strip a Porsche?
It occurred to him, finally, as he got out of the car that possibly the Porsche was stolen. Not stolen-stolen, never to show up again, but stolen for a joy ride by some kids who had found it with the keys in the ignition.
Maybe I should find a phone and call it in.
Fuck it, it's none of my business. A district RPC will roll by here eventually and he he'II see it.
Fuck it, it is my business. I'm a cop, and what cops do is protect the citizenry, even from their own stupidity. As soon as I have a word with Payne, I will call it in.
There was now a layer of snow covering the thawed and then refrozen snow on the steps to the building, and he slipped and almost went down, catching himself at the last moment.
When he straightened up, he could see Payne's light, now on the first floor. He stopped just outside the outer door. The light grew brighter, and then Payne appeared. Except it wasn't Payne. It was a Highway cop.