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“Our beloved Mayor has been gracious enough to find time to offer me his wise counsel.”
“Really?”
“Specifically, he is of the opinion that we should go to Officers Crater and Palmerston and offer them immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony against Captain Cazerra and Lieutenant Meyer.”
“Jason,” Matt said, “I can’t find a bottle of any kind of scotch. Not even Irish.”
“I am not surprised,” Washington said. “It’s been one of those days. Get your coat. We will pub crawl for a brief period.”
“There’s some rum and gin. And vermouth. I could make you a martini.”
“Get your coat, Matthew,” Washington said. “I accept your kind offer of a drink at the Rittenhouse Club bar.”
“Oh, thank you, kind sir,” Matt said, mockingly, and started shrugging into Chad Nesbitt’s tweed jacket. “I think the Mayor’s idea stinks.”
“Why?”
“Because any lawyer six weeks out of law school could tear them up on the stand, and we know Cazerra and Meyer’s lawyers will be good.”
“Armando C. Giacomo, Esquire,” Washington agreed, citing the name of Philadelphia’s most competent criminal lawyer. “Or someone of his ilk. Perhaps even the legendary Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson, Esquire.”
Matt laughed. “No way. My father would go ballistic. I’m ready.”
“I made that point to His Honor,” Washington said as he pushed himself out of one of Matt’s small armchairs.
“And?”
“And as usual got nowhere. Or almost nowhere. We have two weeks to get something on Cazerra and Meyer that will stand up in court. He wants those two in jail.”
“Or what?”
“We work Crater and Palmerston over, figuratively speaking of course, with a rubber hose.”
“What does Wohl say?” Matt asked as he waved Washington ahead of him down the stairs.
“I haven’t told him yet. I figured I would ruin tomorrow for him by doing that first thing in the morning.”
The Rittenhouse Club was closed when they got there.“What do we do now?” Matt asked.
“Why don’t we take a stroll down Market Street?” Washington replied. “It will both give us a chance to see how the other half lives, and trigger memories of those happy days when Officer Washington was walking his first beat.”
“You walked a beat on Market Street?” Matt asked. It was difficult for him to imagine Washington in a police officer’s uniform, patrolling Market Street.
Officer Friendly Black Buddha, he thought, impeccably tailored and shined, smiling somewhat menacingly as he slapped his palm with his nightstick.
“Indeed I did. Under the able leadership of Lieutenant Dennis V. Coughlin. And on our watch,” Washington announced sonorously, “the thieves and mountebanks plied their trade in someone else’s district.”
“Police Emergency,” David Meach said into his headset.“This is the Inferno Lounge,” his caller announced. “1908 Market. There’s been a shooting, and somebody may be dead.”
“Your name, sir, please?”
“Shit!” the caller responded and hung up.
David Meach had been on the job six years, long enough to be able to unconsciously make judgments regarding the validity of a call, based on not only what was said, but how it was said. Whether, for example, the caller sounded mature (as opposed to an excited kid wanting to give the cops a lit
tle exercise) and whether or not there was excitement or tension or a certain numbness in his voice. This call sounded legitimate; he didn’t think he’d be sending police cars racing through downtown Philadelphia for no purpose.
He checked to see what was available.
