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"There are allegations that certain Narcotics officers have had a little more temptation than they can handle put under their noses and are feeding information to the mob," Wohl said.
"Jesus!"
"Several arrests and confiscations that should have gone smoothly didn't happen," Wohl went on. "Chief Lowenstein told Commissioner Czernick what he thought was happening. Maybe a little prematurely, because he didn't want Czernick to hear it anywhere else. Czernick, either on his own or possibly because he told the mayor and the mayor made the decision, took the investigation away from Chief Lowenstein."
"Who did he give it to?"
"Three guesses," Wohl said dryly.
"Is that why Chief Lowenstein was so sore?"
"Sure. If I were in his shoes, I'd be sore too. It's just about the same thing as telling him he can't be trusted."
"But why to us? Why not Internal Affairs?"
"Why not Organized Crime? Why not put a couple of the staff inspectors on it? Because, I suspect, the mayor is playing detective again. It sounds like him: 'I can have transferred to us anybody I want from Internal Affairs, Narcotics, Vice, or Organized Crime'theoretically routine transfers. But what they're really for, of course, is to catch the dirty cops-presuming thereare dirty cops-in Narcotics."
Wohl then fell silent, obviously lost in thought. Matt knew enough about his boss not to bother him. If Wohl wanted him to know something, he would tell him.
Several minutes later Wohl said, "There's something else."
Matt glanced at him and waited for him to go on.
"On Monday morning Special Operations is getting another bright, young, college-educated rookie, by the name of Foster H. Lewis, Jr. You know him?"
Matt thought, then shook his head and said, "Uh-uh, I don't think so."
"His assignment," Wohl said dryly, "is in keeping with the commissioner's policy, which of course has the mayor's enthusiastic support, of staffing Special Operations with bright, young, welleducated officers such as yourself, Officer Payne. Officer Lewis has a bachelor of science degree from Temple. Until very recently he was enrolled at the Temple Medical School."
"The medical school?" Matt asked, surprised.
"It was his father's dream that young Foster become a healer of men," Wohl went on. "Unfortunately young Foster was placed on academic probation last quarter, whereupon he decided that rather than heal men, he would prefer to protect society from malefactors; to march, so to speak, in his father's footsteps. His father just made lieutenant. Lieutenant Foster H. Lewis, Sr. Know him?"
"I don't think so."
"Good cop," Wohl said. "He has something less than a warm, outgoing personality, but he's a good cop. He is about as thrilled that his son has become a policeman as yours is."
Matt chuckled. "Why are we getting him?"
"Because Commissioner Czernick said so," Wohl said. "I told you that. If I were a suspicious man, which, of course, for someone with a warm, outgoing, not to forget trusting, personality like mine is unthinkable, I might suspect that it has something to do with the mayor."
"Doesn't everything?" Matt chuckled again.
"In this case a suspicious man might draw an inference from the fact that Officer Lewis's assignment to Special Operations was announced by the mayor in a speech he gave last night at the Second Abyssinian Baptist Church."
"This is a colored guy?"
"The preferred word, Officer Payne, is black."
"Sorry," Matt said. "What are you going to do with him?"
"I don't know. I was just thinking that there is a silver lining in every black cloud. I'm going to give myself the benefit of the doubt there; no pun was intended, and no racial slur should be inferred. What I was thinking is that young Lewis, unlike the last bright, college-educated rookie I was blessed with, at least knows his way around the Department. He's been working his way through school as a police radio operator. Mike Sabara has been talking about having a special radio net for Highway Patrol and Special Operations. Maybe something to do with that."
When they pulled into the parking lot at Bustleton and Bowler, Matt saw that Captain Mike Sabara's car was in the space reserved for it. Wohl saw it at the same moment. Sabara was Wohl's deputy.
"Captain Sabara's still here. Good. I need to talk to him. You can take off, Matt. I'll see you in the morning."
"Yes, sir," Matt said.
