Only minor adjustments had been necessary, Evans had happily told him. Mr. Alex had been, fortunately, just slightly larger than Captain Pekach, rather than the other way.
The buttons on the blazer, which bore the label of a London tailor, and which to Dave Pekach's eyes looked unworn, had been replaced with Philadelphia Police Department buttons.
"You have no idea what trouble Evans had to go to for those buttons!" Martha had exclaimed. "But it was, wasn't it, Evans, worth it. Doesn't the captain look nice?"
"The captain looks just fine, Miss Martha," Evans had agreed, beaming with pleasure.
It had not been the time to bring up the subjects of being able to buy his own damned clothing, thank you just the same, or being unable to comfortably wear a dead man's hand-me-downs.
And the trouble,Dave Pekach thought, as he walked into the bedroom carrying his drink in one hand and a bacon-wrapped oyster in the other, and saw the blazer hanging on the mahogany clothes horse,is that I now think of all these clothes as mine.
He unbuckled his Sam Browne belt and hung it over the clothes horse, and then stripped out of his uniform, tossing it onto a green leather chaise lounge, secure in the knowledge that in the morning, freshly pressed, it (or another, fresh from the cleaners) would be on the clothes horse.
And that I'm getting pretty used to living like this:When he came out of the glass-walled shower, Martha was in the bathroom. He was a little confused. Sometimes, when she felt like fooling around, she joined him, but not all dressed up as she was now.
"Captain Sabara called," Martha announced. "He wants you to call. I wrote down the number."
She extended a small piece of paper, but snatched it back when he reached for it.
"Put your robe on, precious," she said. "You'll catch your death!"
He took a heavy terry-cloth robe (also ex-Alexander Peebles, Esq.) from the chrome towel warmer, shrugged into it, took the phone number from Martha, and went into the bedroom, where he sat on the bed and picked up the telephone on the bedside table.
Martha sat on the bed next to him.
"Dave Pekach, Mike," he said. "What's up?"
Martha could hear only Dave's side of the conversation.
"They did what?…
"Monahan okay?…
"Anyone else hurt?…
"Where's Wohl?…
"Okay. If you do get in touch with him, tell him I'm on my way to the Roundhouse. It should take me twenty minutes, depending on the traffic. Thanks for calling me, Mike."
He put the telephone back in its cradle and stood up.
He saw Martha's eyes, curiosity in them, on him.
She never pries, he thought. She's pleased when I tell her things, but she never asks.
"When they started to take Monahan, the witness to the Goldblatt job, from Goldblatt's to the Roundhouse, they were firebombed."
"Firebombed?"
"Somebody threw a whatdoyoucallit? A Molotov cocktail, a bottle full of gas."
"Was anyone hurt?"
He looked at the green leather chaise lounge where he'd tossed his uniform. It had already been removed.
Damn!
He started to put on the clothing Evans had laid out for him, and remembered she had asked a question.
"No. Not as far as Sabara knew. I sent a Highway RPC down there. I can't imagine anybody trying to firebomb a Highway car." He looked at her, and added, "I'll have to go down there, to the Roundhouse."
"Of course," she said, and then, a moment later, "I suppose that means I should make arrangements for my dinner? And about seeing the Payne boy?"
"I don't know how long I'll be," he said. "You'd probably have to wait around-"
"I don't mind," Martha said very evenly.
Pekach suddenly realized that a very great deal depended on his response to that.
"On the other hand, if you came along, it would save me coming all the way back out here to get you. You sure you wouldn't mind waiting?"
"I don't have anything else to do," she said. "Why should I?"
Dave Pekach understood that he had come up with the proper response. He could see it in her eyes, and then confirmation came when she impulsively kissed him.
When they went out under the portico, the Mercedes was there. He looked at the garage. Not only had the Department's car been put away, but a snowplow sat in front of the garage door where it had been put.
He went to the Mercedes and put his hand on the door, and then remembered his manners and went around and held the passenger side door open for Martha.
I have been manipulated, he thought. Why am I not pissed off?
As Peter Wohl looked for a place to park at Frankford Hospital, he saw two Highway cars, the first parked by the main entrance, and the second near the Emergency entrance.Jesus Christ, has something happened?
His concern, which he recognized to contain more than a small element of fear for Matt Payne's well-being, immediately chagrined him.
You're getting paranoid. They have this clever thing called "police radio." You have one. If something had happened, you 'd have heard about it.
He had trouble finding a place to park and finally decided he had as much right to park by the main entrance as the Highway RPC did. He wasn't here to visit an ailing aunt.
He walked past the "Visitors Register Here" desk by holding out his leather badge-and-photo-ID case to the rent-a-cop on duty. But when he walked across the lobby toward the bank of elevators he saw that the hospital rent-a-cops had set up another barrier, a guy sitting behind a table you had to get past before you could get on an elevator.
This time, holding out the leather folder and murmuring the magic words "police officer" didn't work.
"Excuse me, sir," the rent-a-cop said, getting to his feet after Wohl had waved the leather folder in front of him. "I don't see your visitor's badge."
Another rent-a-cop he hadn't noticed before stepped between Wohl and the elevator.
"I don't have one," Wohl said. "I'm a police officer." He gave the rent-a-cop a better look at his identification.
"Who are you going to see?"
"Matthew M. Payne," Wohl said. "He's on the surgical floor."
"I'm sorry, sir, there's no patient here by that name," the rent-acop said.
He had not, Wohl noticed, checked any kind of a list before making that announcement.
He chuckled. "I'mInspector Wohl," he said. "The police officers keeping an eye on Officer Payne work for me."
"Just a moment, sir," the rent-a-cop said, and sat down at his table and dialed a number. A moment later he said, "You can go up, sir."
"You guys are really doing your job," Wohl said. "Thank you."
The compliment, which was genuine, didn't seem to make much of an impression on either of the rent-a-cops.
When Wohl stepped off the elevator, there was a Highway Patrolman Wohl could not remember having seen before, and a Highway Sergeant he had seen around and whose name came to him almost instantly.
"Hello, Sergeant Carter," Wohl said, smiling, extending his hand. " For a while there, I didn't think they were going to let me come up here."
"Good evening, sir," Sergeant Carter said. "You know Hughes, don't you?"
"I've seen him around," Wohl said, offering his hand. "How are you, Hughes?"
"Inspector."
Then Wohl saw something he didn't like. Behind Hughes, leaning against the wall, was a short-barreled pump shotgun.
I don't think that's a Remington 870, Wohl thought automatically. Probably an Ithaca.
"Do you really think we're going to need the shotgun?" Wohl asked.