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“I know a place,” Totts offered.
“I’m going to turn in the car first,” Jones said. “I hear Pekach is a real sonofabitch if you get caught drinking.”
“Hey, we’ve been relieved,” Kallanan said.
“We’re still in the goddamn car,” Jones said. “You can wait.”
At 6:06 A.M., Special Operations Radio Patrol Car W-22 (Radio Call, William Twenty-Two) carrying Officers Rudolph McPhail, Paul Hennis, and John Wilhite turned right off Castor Avenue onto Bridge Street, and then right again on Sylvester Street.
“I don’t see the car,” Officer Wilhite, who was driving, said. “You don’t suppose they took off without waiting for us?”
“Shit, we’re only a couple of minutes late,” Officer Hennis said.
“Hey, Monahan’s house is all lit up,” Officer McPhail said, from the backseat.
The radio went off:
“BEEP BEEP BEEP. 5600 block Sylvester Street. Report of shooting and hospital case. Civilian by phone.”
“BEEP BEEP BEEP. 5600 block Sylvester Street. Report of shooting and hospital case. Civilian by phone.”
“Holy shit!” Officer Hennis said.
Officer Wilhite picked up the microphone.
“William Twenty-Two, in on that. On the scene. There is no other car in sight at this location.”
The three of them literally leaped out of the car and ran as fast as they could toward the residence of Albert J. Monahan.
“Wohl,” Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, his mouth as dry as the Sahara Desert, said into the phone at his bedside.
“Inspector, this is Lieutenant Farr. We have a report of a shooting and hospital case at Monahan’s.”
“What?”
“We have a report of a shooting and hospital case at Monahan’s house.”
“Did they get Monahan?”
“I think so.”
“On my way. Notify Captains Sabara and Pekach, Lieutenant Malone, and Sergeant Washington. Have them meet me there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And check with the people sitting on Payne. Send a Highway car there, in any event.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wohl hung up without saying anything else, kicked the blankets off himself, and got out of bed.
TWENTY-FIVE
“Inspector,” the Emergency Room physician at Nazareth Hospital said, “I don’t know why this man died—I suspect he suffered a coronary occlusion, a heart attack—but I am sure that he wasn’t shot. Or for that matter, suffered any other kind of a traumatic wound.”
Wohl looked at her in disbelief. She was what he thought of as a pale redhead, as opposed to the more robust, Hungarian variety. She was slight and delicate, with pale blue eyes. Probably, he guessed, the near side of forty.
“Doctor, we have an eyewitness who said she saw him being shot. His wife. She said she saw the gun, heard a noise, and then saw her husband fall down.”
