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The waitress delivered the coffee.
"I'm going to need another one of these," Wohl said to her.
She nodded and left. Wohl took a sip, then another, then looked at Olsen.
"It would seem he has nice friends, our Corporal Lanza," Wohl said.
"Yeah, doesn't he?" Olsen replied. "So I took this to Chief Marchessi…"
"Right," Wohl said.
"Peter, I didn't mention to him that Framm and Pillare lost Lanza. He's… Framm is, this is not the first time he's lost somebody…and he's already on the chief's shit list."
If Olsen is covering for Framm, he has his reasons, and it's not because Framm's a nice guy.
"He wasn't lost, that's all that counts," Wohl said.
"Thank you," Olsen said. "The chief asked what you thought of all this, and I told him you were unavailable…At this point in time, Mike Sabara was still stonewalling me."
"Good for him," Wohl said.
"So the chief said that what we should do is bring the airline security people in on this. You remember Dickie Lowell?"
"Sure."
Before my time, Wohl thought. But I remember him. H. Dickinson Lowell had been one of the first, if not the first, black staff inspectors. And then he made inspector. Well, dammit, 1 am not the first staff inspector to have the gall to try to get myself promoted.
"Well, they had him running the Headquarters Division in the Detective Bureau and he didn't like it, all the paperwork, so he took retirement. He's chief of security for Eastern at the airport. More important, he and Marchessi are old pals."
"He was a good cop, as I recall," Wohl said.
"Marchessi called him, and explained the situation. Lowell is going to have his people keep an eye on Lanza, and he told Marchessi he has some friends, other airlines security, that he can go to. He will not go to the feds, which is important to Marchessi…"
"And me," Wohl interjected.
"…but he will call Marchessi or me if Lanza does something suspicious. And we'll keep sitting on Lanza when he's not on the job."
"Good," Wohl said. "Very good."
"And then the chief told me to find you and bring you in on this and see if it's all right with you, or if you had anything, a suggestion, or what."
Wohl didn't reply for a moment, then he said, "There's only two loose ends that I can think of. This woman, Schermer, you said?"
Olsen nodded.
"I'd like to know if she was the woman Payne saw with Lanza in the Poconos. And then there's Martinez. I don't want him to go off halfcocked and screw anything up."
"The chief said maybe I should mention Martinez to you."
The waitress appeared with their ham and eggs.
Wohl looked at his plate, and then stood up.
"I think I know how to kill two birds with one stone," he said, and walked to a pay telephone.
Five minutes later he was back.
"That didn't work," he said.
