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A glass dark with twelve-year-old Scotch rested on his stomach. Whenever anything disturbing happened, it was Jason Washington’s custom to make himself a drink of good whiskey. He would then sit down and think the problem over. During the thought process, he never touched the whiskey. The net result of this, he sometimes thought, was that he wasted a lot of good whiskey.
“Hello,” he said to the telephone. He had a very deep, melodious voice. When she was little, his daughter used to say he should be on the radio.
“Mr. Washington, this is Matt.”
Officer Matthew M. Payne had the discomfiting habit of calling Detective Washington “Mr.” At first, Washington had suspected that Payne was being obsequious, or perhaps even, less kindly, mocking him in some perverse manner known only to upper-class white boys. He had come to understand, however, that Matt Payne called him “Mr.,” even after being told not to, as a manifestation of his respect. Washington found this discomfiting too.
“Hello, Matt.”
“I hate to bother you at home, but I have a little problem. Is this a bad time for me to call?”
I am sitting here alone with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, just hoping for something to brighten my day.
“What is it, Matt?”
“The feds are going to try the two guys who carved up Jerome Nelson.”
What the hell is he talking about?
“Run that past me again?”
“The inspector and I had lunch with the FBI SAC, Mr. Davis. He told the inspector the feds are going to try the doers of the Nelson job for kidnapping. He asked the inspector for what we have on the job. The inspector told me to Xerox everything we have in the files, what Homicide has, and to check with Mr. Harris. I just left Homicide. I can’t find Harris. The inspector wants it all on his desk first thing in the morning.”
The first thought Jason Washington had was, Has Wohl lost his mind? If Czernich finds out he has been slipping material to the FBI, he’ll be on the phone to Jerry Carlucci two seconds later, and ten seconds after that, Wohl will be teaching “Police Administration” at the Academy.
This was immediately followed by the obvious rebuttal: Either Czernich is in on this, or Wohl has his own agenda; the one thing Peter Wohl is not is a fool.
And then: Interesting, the way he calls the FBI guy “Mr.”; Wohl “the inspector”; and, the first time, Harris “Mr.” But that title of respect dropped off the second time he got to Tony. Since he knows that Tony is a first-rate detective, it has to be something else. A little vestigial Main Line snobbery, because Tony dresses like a bum? Or has the kid figured out that Tony has a bottle problem? One possibility is that he called Tony at home—if a furnished room can be called a home—and Tony was incoherent, and he’d rather not deal with that.
“Why don’t you bring what you have here, Matt? I’ll have a look at it; see if it’s all there.”
“Yes, sir,” Matt Payne said. “Thank you. I’m on my way.”
Washington broke the connection with his finger and dialed Tony’s number. There was no answer.
Meaning he’s not there. Or that he’s there, passed out.
He took a well-worn leather-bound notebook from his pocket, found the number of the Red Rooster, Tony Harris’s favorite bar, and dialed it. Tony wasn’t there. Washington left word for him to call him at home. It was possible, even likely, that Wohl would want to see him in the morning. Wohl, being Wohl, probably knew all about Tony’s bottle problem, but it would not do Tony any good if Wohl saw him with the shakes.
He hung up, looked at the drink he had left sitting on the table beside his chair, and took the first swallow from it.
Jason and Martha Washington lived in an apartment on the tenth floor of a luxury building on the parkway. A wall of ceiling-to-floor windows in the living room gave them a view of the Art Museum, the Schuylkill River, and West Philadelphia.
Martha Washington was a commercial artist who made just about as much money as he did. Now that their daughter, Barbara, was gone, married to a twenty-five-year-old electronics engineer at RCA, across the Delaware in Jersey, who made as much money as his in-laws did together, the Washingtons were, as Jason thought of it, “comfortable.”
Not only did they have the condo at The Shore, but Martha had a Lincoln; the furniture in the apartment was all they wanted; and Martha was starting to buy (and sell at often amazing profit) art. It had been a long time, he thought, since there had been an angry or hurt look in Martha’s eyes when he walked in wearing a Tripler or Hart, Shaffner & Marx new suit.
They no longer had to think about the costs of getting Barbara a good education. That need had been removed from the financial equation when the graduate student of engineering had snatched her from her cradle the week before he graduated and RCA started throwing money at him.
Ten minutes later the doorman announced that a Mr. Payne was calling.
“If he’s wearing shoes, send him up, please.”
Washington timed his walk to the door precisely; he opened it as Matt got off the elevator.
“Sorry to bother you with this at home,” Matt said.
“Come on in, Matt. I am drinking from the good stuff; make yourself one.”
