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He opened the door of the Pontiac and went looking for a telephone.

****

Officer Paul O'Mara stuck his head in Peter Wohl's office.

"Inspector," he said, "there's a Captain Olsen on 312. You want to talk to him?"

"Paul, for your general fund of useful knowledge," Wohl replied as he reached for his telephone, "unless the commissioner is in my office, or the building's on fire, I always want to talk to Captain Olsen."

He punched the button for 312.

"How are you, Swede? What's up?"

"Inspector, I put Bill Sanders and Howard Hansen on Lanza. You know them?"

"Hansen, I do. Good cop. Smart. What about them?"

"Sanders is a sergeant. Good man. He just called from the airport. Lanza just went to work. They picked him up at his house. Before he went to work, Paulo Cassandro paid him a visit at his house."

"Vincenzo Savarese's Paulo Cassandro?" Wohl asked, and then, before Olsen could reply, went on, "We're sure about that?"

"Sanders said he went in, was inside maybe five minutes, and while he was, Gian-Carlo Rosselli and Jimmy the Knees Gnesci rode around the block in Rosselli's Jaguar."

"I suppose it's too much to hope, Swede, that we have photographs?"

"We have undeveloped film," Olsen said. "But Hansen's pretty good with a camera."

"I know. How soon can we have prints?"

"As soon as I can get it to the lab in the Roundhouse. Our lab is temporarily out of business, which is really why I called. I'm out of people, Inspector, I was hoping maybe you could help me out."

"When are younot going to be out of people?"

"I had the feeling this was special, and that we should have good people on it. I'll be out ofgood people until about eight o'clock tonight:"

"This is special," Wohl interrupted without meaning to.

"…when I have two good people coming in. What I need between now and then is some way to get Hansen's film to the Roundhouse lab. And if possible to relieve them."

"They don't like overtime?"

"I like to change people. I don't want Lanza to remember seeing them on Ritner Street."

"Yes, of course," Wohl said, feeling more than a little stupid. " Swede, let me get right back to you. Where are you? Give me the number."

He wrote the number down, put the telephone in its cradle, and then sat there for a moment, thinking.

I need one, better two, good men from now until eight. Who's available? Jason Washington won't do. Every cop in the Department knows him. Tony Harris? Jerry O'Dowd?

He pushed himself out of his chair and walked quickly out of his office, stopping at O'Mara's desk.

"Call the duty lieutenant and find out what kind of an unmarked car we have that doesn't look like an unmarked car," he ordered, and then walked out without further explanation.

He walked quickly down the corridor to the door of the Special Investigations Section and pushed it open. Detective Tony Harris was there, and so were Sergeant Jerry O'Dowd, Officer Tiny Lewis, and Detective Matthew M. Payne. Only Lewis was in uniform.

'Tony," Wohl began without preliminaries, "do you know a cop named Vito Lanza, now a corporal at the airport?"

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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