"I'm tempted to," Stillwell said. "Sergeant Washington's insight into things like that is legendary."
The flattery,he decided, after looking at Washington's face,had not gone wide of the mark.
"If you and Inspector Wohl could find the time," he went on, having made that decision, "I'd like you to come help me deal with the press. I asked the ladies and gentlemen of the press to be at the office at nine."
"I'll beg off, thank you just the same," Washington said. "I want a good look at the others."
"Peter?"
"No, thank you. I live by the rule never to talk to the press unless I have to. And anyway, I want to go back to Frankford Hospital. The officer who was shot works for me."
"I'm going up there too," Washington said. "When I'm finished here."
"Tragic, tragic," Stillwell said. "Thank God, he's alive."
"Yes," Washington said.
"Would you call my office, Sergeant, when you're finished? I'd really like to hear your assessment of these people."
"Certainly."
Farnsworth Stillwell offered Wohl and Washington his hand.
"Thank you very much for letting me share this with you," he said. " It's been a-aneducation. I've never been in here before."
"This is where it happens, Mr. Stillwell," Washington said.
Stillwell rode the elevator down to the main lobby and started for the parking lot, but as he reached the door, he had a second thought, one he immediately recognized to be a first-rate idea.
He turned and went to the desk, asked permission of the sergeant to use the telephone, and dialed his office number.
"When the press arrives," he ordered. "Give them my apologies, and tell them I have gone to Frankford Hospital to visit the police officer who was shot this morning. I feel I have that duty. Tell them that too. And tell them if they come to the hospital, I'll meet with them there."
When he hung up, he had another idea, even better, and pulled the telephone to him again and dialed his home.
"Darling," he said when his wife answered, "I'm glad I caught you. Something has come up. I'm going to Frankford Hospital, to visit with the cop who got himself shot this morning-"
"What are you talking about?"
"-I'll tell you all about it in the car. I want you there with me. The press will be there."
There was twenty seconds of silence.
"Darling, this is important to me," he said firmly. "I'll be waiting outside for you in fifteen minutes."
He hung up thinking, somewhat petulantly, If she really wants to be the governor's wife, she damned well had better learn that there is no free lunch, that certain things are going to be required of her.
"Mother," Officer Matt Payne said, "why don't you get out of here? I' m all right, and there's nothing you can do for me here."
Patricia and Brewster C. Payne had been in the Recovery Room when Matt was taken there from the surgical suite. It was strictly against hospital policy, but the chairman of the board of trustees of Frankford Hospital entrusted his legal affairs to Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo amp; Lester. A telephone call to him had resulted not only in a telephone call to the senior staff physician, but the physical presence of that gentleman himself, three minutes later, to make sure that whatever Brewster Payne thought the hospital should do for his son was being done.
Aside from access to the Recovery Room, the only request Brewster Payne had made was that Matt be given a private room, something the senior staff physician had already decided to provide to spare some other patient from the horde of people who had come to the hospital to see Matt Payne.
The mayor, the police commissioner, two chief inspectors, and their respective entourages, plus a number of less senior police officers, plus representatives of the print and electronic media had begun to descend on the hospital at about the same time screaming sirens on two Highway Patrol cars had announced the arrival of the Payne family.
While the press could be required to wait in the main lobby, the others immediately made it plain they would wait right where they were, overflowing the small waiting room on the surgical floor, until Officer Payne was out of surgery and his condition known.
And when that had come to pass-the removal of a bullet from the calf musculature was a fairly simple procedure, routinely handled by surgical residents half a dozen times on any given weekend-and Young Payne was taken to the Recovery Room, the Hospital Security Staff was unable to deter the mayor's driver from carrying out his assigned mission-"Go down and bring the press up here. They'll want a picture of me with Payne when he wakes up."
The senior staff physician was able to delay the picture taking until the staff had put Young Payne in a private room, and after the mayor had taken the necessary steps to keep the public aware that their mayor, in his never-ceasing efforts to rid the streets of Philadelphia of crime, was never far from the action, he left, and so did perhaps half of the people who had arrived at about the time he had.
"You'll need pajamas," Patricia Payne said to her son. "And your toilet things-"
"I won't be in here long," Matt said. "You don't know that," Patricia Payne said, and looked at her daughter, Amelia.
"I don't know how long they're going to keep him, Mother," she replied. "But I'll find out. I'll call you at home and let you know. And I'll go by his apartment and get him what he needs. I have to come back out here anyway. You and Dad go on home."
"I suppose he should rest," Patricia Payne gave in. She leaned over her son and kissed him. "Do what they tell you to do, for once."
"Yes, ma'am," Matt said.
"If you need anything, Matt," Brewster Payne said, "I'm as close as that phone."
"Thank you, Dad. I don't think I'll need anything."
"I'll call as soon as I have a chance to go home, change, and get to the office."
"Go on, you two, get out of here," Amelia Payne said. They left.
"Thank you," Matt said when the door had closed.
"Don't look so pleased with yourself, you sonofabitch," Amy Payne snapped. "I did that for them, not you."
"Wow!"
"Youbastard! Are you trying to drive Mother crazy, or what?" She dipped into an extra large purse, came out with a copy of theBulletin and threw it at him. "I hope she doesn't see that!"
The front page showed Matt, bloody-faced, holding his gun on Charles D. Stevens.
"Hey, I didn't do this on purpose. That bastard was shooting at me."
"That bastard died thirty minutes ago. You can carve another notch on your gun, Jesse James."
"He died?" Matt asked, wanting confirmation.
"I didn't think Mother needed to know that."
She looked at him. Their eyes met.
"How do you feel about that?" she asked.
"I'm not about to wallow in remorse, if that's what you're hoping. He was trying to kill me."
"And almost did. Do you have any idea how lucky you are? Have you ever seen what a.45-caliber bullet does to tissue?"
"I just found out."
"No, you didn't. The bullet that hit you had lost most of its energy bouncing off a wall."
"Amy, I wasn't trying to be hero. This just happened. I can't understand why you're sore at me."
"Because, youass, of what you're doing to Mother. When are you going to come to your senses, for her sake, if nothing else?"
Matt was not given time to form a reply. The door opened, and a nurse put her head in.
"Are you a family member?"
"I'm Dr. Payne," Amy replied, not at all pleasantly. "What do you want?"
"Mr. Payne's grandmother and aunt are here, Doctor. They'd like to see him."
"Let them come in, I'm leaving."
The nurse pushed the door open. A stout, somewhat florid-faced woman in her sixties, her gray hair done up in a bun, followed by a blond woman in her late thirties came into he room.