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He put the telephone down.
“Inspector, I’m supposed to meet my girl,” Charley said uncomfortably.
“Well, I guess that will have to wait, won’t it?” Wohl snapped. “Central Detectives are on their way. Obviously, they’ll want to talk to you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No. Wait a minute,” Wohl said, exhaling audibly. “What exactly did you see, Charley, when you went down to the garage?”
“When I started to unlock the door, I saw the nose was down. So I looked at the tires. And then I saw what they did to the hood and doors with a knife or something.”
“You’re coming on at midnight, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll tell the detectives what you told me,” Wohl said. “Go ahead, Charley. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that.”
That’s okay, sir.”
He hurried down the stairwell as if he was afraid Wohl would change his mind.
Wohl lost his temper, Matt thought. He was nearly as mad as I am about the car. No. That’s impossible. Nobody can be nearly as fucking outraged as I am.
“Inspector, I was about to send out for supper for Hay-zus and me,” Matt said. “Will you have something with us?”
; “No pizza.”
“Actually, I was thinking of either a London broil or a mixed grill. My father fixed it with the Rittenhouse Club.”
“In that case, Officer Payne, I gratefully accept your kind invitation.”
TWENTY-TWO
Lieutenant Foster H. Lewis, Sr., was of two minds concerning Officer Foster H. Lewis, Jr. On one hand, it was impossible to feel like anything but a proud father to see one’s son and namesake drive up to the house in an unmarked car, wearing a very nice looking blazer, gray flannel slacks, a starched white shirt and a regimentally striped necktie and know that Tiny had a more responsible job after having been on the job less than a year than he had had in his first five years on the job.
But there were two problems with that. The first being that he had hoped—and for a long time believed—that Tiny would spend his life as Foster H. Lewis, M.D. But that hadn’t come to pass. Tiny had been placed on Academic Probation by the Temple University Medical School and reacted to that by joining the cops.
And then the Honorable Jerry Carlucci had put his two cents in, in what Foster H. Lewis, Sr., believed to be an understandable, but no less contemptible, ploy to pick up a few more Afro-American voters. The mayor had told a large gathering at the Second Abyssinian Baptist Church that, as one more proof that he was determined to see that the Police Department afforded Afro-Americans equal opportunities within the Department, that he had recommended to Commissioner Czernich that Officer Foster H. Lewis, Jr., son of that outstanding Afro-American police Lieutenant, Foster H. Lewis, Jr., be assigned to Special Operations.
It was said that if The Mayor looked as if he might be about to fart, Commissioner Czernich instantly began to look for a dog to blame, and, in case he couldn’t find one, pursed his lips to apologize for breaking wind.
Lieutenant Lewis thought that Special Operations was a good idea, and he would have been proud and delighted to see Tiny assigned there after he’d done a couple of years in a district, working a van, walking a foot beat, riding around in an RFC, learning what being a cop was all about. Sending Tiny over there before he’d found all the little inspection stickers on his new uniform was really—unless, of course, you were interested in Afro-American votes—a lousy idea.
And then Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, for whom Lieutenant Lewis had previously had a great deal of respect, had compounded the idiocy. Instead of sending Tiny out to work with experienced Special Operations uniformed officers, from whom he could have learned at least some of what he would have to know, he had put him in plain clothes and given him to Detective Tony Harris for use as a go-fer.
At the time, Harris had been working on two important jobs, the Northwest Philadelphia Serial Rapist, and the murder of Officer Magnella near Temple University. It could be argued that Harris needed someone to run errands, and to relieve him of time-consuming chores, thus freeing his time for investigation. And certainly, working under a really first class homicide detective would give Tiny experience he could get nowhere else.
But only as a temporary thing. It now looked as if it was becoming permanent. The serial rapist had been shot to death by another young, college-educated, Special Operations plainclothesman. Harris was now devoting his full time to the Officer Magnella job.
And in Lieutenant Lewis’s judgment, that was becoming a dead end. In his opinion, if those responsible for Magnella’s murder were ever apprehended, it would not be because of brilliant police work, or even dull and plodding police work, but either because of the reward offered, or simple dumb luck: Someone would come forward and point a finger.
Tiny Lewis rang the door buzzer, as he had been doing to his father’s undiminished annoyance since he was fourteen, to the rhythm of Shave-And-A-Haircut-Two Bits, and Lieutenant Lewis walked from the window to the door to let him in.
“Hi ya, Pop.”
“Come in.”
