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With an amazing speed and grace, the Latino effortlessly bent and grabbed the butcher-paper-wrapped objects, then, ignoring the sugar packets, moved to a heavy steel door-and was gone.
Then there immediately came a woman’s hysterical screams from behind the Beiler’s Bakery counter.
And it wasn’t until a woman beside Tricia wordlessly pointed to Tricia’s bloody upper left sleeve that she first felt the burning sensation in her arm.
After exiting the steel door onto Filbert, El Gato began walking purposefully in an effort to blend in with the morning crowd moving along the rain-slickened sidewalk.
As he went, he peeled off the navy blue vinyl raincoat, balled it up, then stuffed it in the trash receptacle at the corner of Filbert and Twelfth. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt from his head and put on the ball cap he’d tucked in his pants. Then, keeping his face down, he passed through the revolving door at the Market Street Station.
At the Thirtieth Street Station, El Gato disembarked the train and walked out to the lot where he’d left the white rusty Plymouth minivan. He drove it back to Hancock Street, then, exhausted, took his Tahoe home to Manayunk.
Police cars rocketed past him, headed toward Center City.
FOUR
Office of the First Deputy Commissioner Philadelphia Police Headquarters Race and North Eighth Streets, Philadelphia Wednesday, September 9, 7:50 A.M.
“Okay, gentlemen,” First Deputy Commissioner Dennis V. Coughlin said, his ruddy face showing some displeasure. “So now we would seem to have two problems. Let’s stick with the first one at hand, concerning His Honor the Mayor and Mr. James Henry Benjamin, president and chief executive officer of Benjamin Securities.”
Coughlin, a tall and heavyset man, sat in the high-back black leather chair at his massive wooden desk and made a note on the leather-bound desk blotter. He was fifty-nine years old, still with all of his curly hair, though now silver, and all his teeth.
Standing beside him, and pouring coffee from a stainless-steel thermos, was his assistant, Captain Francis Xavier Hollaran. The forty-nine-year-old Hollaran was also a large Irishman who had all of his teeth. His luxurious mop of red hair, however, had thinned out long ago.
He was pouring into one of two heavy china coffee mugs he held. They bore the logotype of the Emerald Society. Both Hollaran and Coughlin belonged to the fraternal organization of police officers of Irish heritage. Denny Coughlin had joined “The Emerald” right out of the Police Academy. He had since served twice as its president, as the framed certificates behind him on the wall by the flat-screen television-which was muted and tuned to the local FOX newscast-attested.
Also in Coughlin’s office on the third floor of the Police Administration Building were Chief Inspector Matthew Lowenstein, commanding officer of the Detective Bureau; Captain Henry Quaire, commander of the Homicide Unit, who reported to Lowenstein; and Lieutenant Jason Washington, whose immediate boss was Quaire.
They were all white shirts, though not one wore his police uniform; instead, all were in coats and ties or suits and ties. Denny Coughlin had his well-tailored gray plaid double-breasted suit coat on a hanger on the peg on the back side of his office door, which now was closed.
And while this was a collection of department brass, a meeting of many of its best and brightest to handle a situation that had become a political hot potato, the air was at once serious and somewhat informal. The reason for the ease with which they worked was (a) that the men immensely respected one another and (b) that respect was the result of having a long history of working together.
In Coughlin’s case, damn near forever-it had been thirty-seven years since he’d graduated from the Police Academy.
“My phone has been going off constantly all morning,” Coughlin announced. “His Honor the Mayor is breathing down the neck of Commissioner Mariani, who of course has chosen to share said hot air.”
Ralph J. Mariani, a natty, stocky, balding Italian, was the police commissioner. The image of the mayor leaning on the top cop triggered a couple of chuckles and a derisive snort.
“Ralph,” Coughlin went on, “put it to me that His Honor had told him: ‘Commissioner, I suggest you suggest to your deputy that he suggest…’ ” He paused to let that sink in. “So, you see where this is coming from. Short of a personal visit, it doesn’t get much more direct than that.”
Not that Coughlin was at all fearful of a personal visit from His Honor the Mayor of Philadelphia.
If it hadn’t been for the Honorable Jerome H. “Jerry” Carlucci following protocol and passing orders down the chain of command, Coughlin kn
ew he’d have damn sure seen Carlucci standing in his office-or, more likely, Coughlin called to the mayor’s office.
Because before being elected to public office, Carlucci had, as he liked to brag, held every rank but that of policewoman in the Philadelphia Police Department. And during which time-as a captain, then on up through the ranks-Carlucci had been Coughlin’s rabbi.
The purpose of a rabbi was to groom a young police officer, mentoring him in preparation for the greater responsibilities of the higher and higher ranks it was expected he would hold down the line.
His Honor also of course had had a rabbi, Augustus Wohl, who ultimately retired as a chief inspector, one step shy of deputy commissioner. Wohl’s only son-who’d entered the Police Academy at age twenty, only two weeks after graduating from Temple University, and who’d at one point risen to be the department’s youngest staff inspector-was now Inspector Peter Wohl.
Like his father, Peter Wohl was damn smart, damn honest, and a damn good cop. Which was why His Honor the Mayor had damn sure seen to it that Wohl had been made commander of the Special Operations Bureau, reporting directly to Coughlin.
And everyone in the room knew Inspector Wohl was the rabbi to one then-Detective and now-Seargeant Matthew Payne.
“Carlucci breathing on Mariani to breathe on you, Denny,” Francis Hollaran, who had over the years followed Coughlin up through the ranks, said, “I believe that’s called ‘the shit flowing downhill.’ ”
The others in the room chuckled.
