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Their eyes met for a moment, and then Coughlin went on.
“I’m worried about Matty,” he said. “I’m sorry I went along with this ‘cooperation’ with the FBI business.”
“I don’t think you had much choice.”
“I could have said no, and then gotten to Jerry Carlucci before Walter Davis did and told him why I said no.”
“What would you have told him?”
“That these animal activists are really dangerous people, and that Matt’s not experienced enough to deal with them.”
“As I understood it, he isn’t going to deal with them. Just see if he can, by getting close to the Reynolds woman, positively locate them for the FBI. And the FBI will deal with them.”
“Did you see what was in his eyes when I gave him that order?” Coughlin asked. “And I made that order as clear as I could.”
“I remember. What about his eyes?”
“There was a little moving sign in them. Like that sign in Times Square. You know what it said?”
Wohl shook his head again.
“Yeah, right. Say what you want, old man, but give me half a chance, and I’m going to put the arm on these people, make the FBI look stupid, and get to be the youngest sergeant in the Philadelphia Police Department. Just like Peter Wohl.”
Wohl was torn between wanting to smile at the image, and a sick feeling that Coughlin was right.
“Chief, for one thing, Matt knows an order when he hears one.”
“Ha!” Coughlin snorted.
“And he’s both smart and getting to be a pretty good cop. He won’t do anything stupid.”
“He’s too smart for his own good, he thinks he’s a much better cop than he really is, and what would you call crawling around on that ledge on the Bellvue-Stratford twelve stories above South Broad Street? That wasn’t stupid?”
“That was stupid,” Wohl admitted.
“And how would you categorize his using a boosted passkey to go into the Reynolds girl’s room in the hotel? The behavior of a seasoned, responsible police officer?”
Wohl didn’t reply.
“Not to mention taking the FBI on a wild-goose chase in North Philly?”
“Well, under the circumstances, I might have done that myself,” Wohl said. “But I see your point.”
“There’s a lot of his father in Matty,” Coughlin said. It took Wohl a moment to understand Coughlin was not talking about Brewster Cortland Payne. “Jack Moffitt would still be walking around if he had called for the backup he knew he was supposed to have before he answered that silent alarm and got himself shot. And Dutch Moffitt would still be alive, too, if he hadn’t tried to live up to his reputation as supercop.”
“Chief,” Wohl said, “I’m sure Matt has thought about what happened to his uncle Dutch and his father. And learned from it.”
“You don’t believe that for a second, Peter,” Coughlin said. “When did he think about it? Before or after he climbed out on that twelfth-floor ledge? And if Chenowith or any of the other lunatics show up in Harrisburg, you think he’s going to think about what happened to Dutch and his father? Or try to put the arm on him—or all of them?”
Wohl shrugged and didn’t reply for a moment.
“Well, what do you think we should do?” he asked finally.
“How’s he going to check in?”
“Twice a day. With either Mike Weisbach or Jason Washington, or Weisbach’s sergeant, Sandow. Or whenever—if—he finds something.”
“Take the call yourself. Have a word with him. He just might listen to you. He thinks you walk on water.”
