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They had pointed out to him that just because someone has a little trouble with promotion examinations doesn't mean he's not a good cop, with potential. It just means that he has trouble passing examinations.
Not like you, Peter, the inference had been. You're not really all that smart, you're just good at taking examinations.
One or the other or both of them had suggested that what Officer O'Mara needed was a little broader experience than he was getting in the Traffic Division, such as he might get if it could be arranged to have him assigned to Special Operations as your administrative assistant.
"Now that you've lost Young Payne:" his father had said.
"Now that Matt's gone to East Detectives…" Chief Coughlin had said.
In chorus: "You're going to need someone to replace him. And you know what a good guy, and a good cop, his father is."
And so Officer O'Mara had taken off his uniform, with the distinctive white Traffic Division brimmed cap, and donned a trio of suits Inspector Wohl somewhat unkindly suspected were left over from his high school graduation and/or obtained from the Final Clearance rack at Sears Roebuck and come to work for Special Operations.
Peter Wohl was sitting on his bed, pulling his socks on when Officer O'Mara walked in with a cup of coffee.
"I couldn't find any cream, Inspector, but I put one spoon of sugar in there. Is that okay?"
Inspector Wohl decided that telling Officer O'Mara that he always took his coffee black would be both unkind and fruitless: He had told him the same thing ten or fifteen times in the office.
"Thank you," he said.
"Stakeout got two critters at the Acme on Baltimore Avenue last night. It was on TV," Officer O'Mara said.
"'Got two critters'?"
"Blew them away," O'Mara said, admiration in his voice.
"Any police or civilians get hurt?"
"They didn't say anything on TV."
Wohl noticed that Officer O'Mara did not have any coffee.
"Aren't you having any coffee, Paul?"
"I thought you just told me to get you some," O'Mara said.
"Help yourself, Paul. Have you had breakfast?"
"I had a doughnut."
"Well, we're going to the Roundhouse. We can get some breakfast on the way."
"Yes, sir," O'Mara said, and walked out of the bedroom.
Peter Wohl walked to his closet and after a moment's hesitation selected a gray flannel suit. He added to it a light blue button-down collar shirt and a regimentally striped tie.
Clothes make the man, he thought somewhat cynically. First impressions are important. Particularly when one is summoned to meet with the commissioner, and one doesn't have a clue what the sonofabitch wants.
****
There was no parking space in the parking lot behind the Police Administration Building reserved for the commanding officer, Special Operations, as there were for the chief inspectors of Patrol Bureau (North), Patrol Bureau (South), Command Inspections Bureau, Administration, Internal Affairs, Detective Bureau, and even the Community Relations Bureau.
Neither could Paul O'Mara park Peter Wohl's official nearly new Ford sedan in spots reserved for CHIEF INSPECTORS AND INSPECTORS ONLY, because Wohl was only a staff inspector, one rank below inspector. The senior brass of the Police Department were jealous of the prerogatives of their ranks and titles and would have been offended to see a lowly staff inspector taking privileges that were not rightly his.
Wohl suspected that if a poll were t
aken, anonymously, of the deputy commissioners, chief inspectors, and inspectors, the consensus would be that his appointment as commanding officer, Special Operations Division, reporting directly to the deputy commissioner, Operations, had been a major mistake, acting to the detriment of overall departmental efficiency, not to mention what harm it had done to the morale of officers senior to Staff Inspector Wohl, who had naturally felt themselves to be in line for the job.
