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“Guess I’ll be buying lunch. Looks like I won the over-under for Last Out with sixteen.”
“Jesus, Matty,” Coughlin said, shaking his head. “You ever give it a break?”
Payne looked up from his phone.
“Why? Payout’s usually between two, three hundred bucks, cash. I’ll find some place appropriate to donate it to, probably the Camilla’s Kids fund-raiser tonight.”
“Or maybe to one of the new scholarships for Police Explorer Cadets?” Coughlin said.
Payne’s look was questioning.
Coughlin went on. “Someone in the bursar’s office at Temple left me a message yesterday saying they had a question about the, quote, Moffitt brothers police scholarships, unquote. Putting Jack and Dutch together with the fact you’re an Eagle Scout, I said they probably should ask you.”
Coughlin hadn’t been surprised to hear about the scholarships. In the last month, it had come to his attention that Payne quietly had been the one behind a new mentoring program for youth in Kensington, a hellhole neighborhood infamous for its street-corner drug dealers and the junkies overdosing on heroin in Needle Park.
The program’s volunteers, most of whom were off-duty cops, worked with kids who were the product of single-mother homes and were otherwise destined to be lost to the streets—what Lieutenant Jason Washington described as “community policing, winning hearts and minds one at a time.”
“I wondered how Temple got my number,” Payne said, neither confirming nor denying responsibility. He went on. “The sixteen breaks down as four expiring and a dozen wounded. One of the dead was stabbed. And there was a double and a triple shooting. Busy night.”
Coughlin sighed, and said, “Well, there won’t be any lunch. Those sixteen are the reason—make that the latest reason—that Jerry is holding the presser for the noon newscasts. Big announcement on changes in the department.”
“I guess that explains your uniform.”
Coughlin nodded. “Yeah, and I’m afraid I’ve got some news that you won’t want to hear. I damn sure didn’t.”
Payne took a long sip of coffee as he looked at Coughlin.
“Does it have something to do with today’s big announcement?” Payne said.
“Indirectly, yes.”
He paused to collect his thoughts, then went on. “Matty, it’s interesting that you brought up Tank and Jason. And even Walker, for that matter. In each of those cases, there is an example of one having to deal with something that one has no control over. Tank, for example, had to deal with getting passed over. And Jason is dealing with a little of it, but I think with time he will get those captain bars.”
“If too much time passes, he first will have to retake the exam,” Payne said, “which doesn’t seem at all fair.”
“Life is not fair. You may want to write that down.”
“You mentioned Wafflin’ Walker?”
“He’s my cross to bear. As you know, I’m not particularly thrilled he’s reporting to me. I don’t disagree with your nickname for him. But he has an in with Commissioner Mariana, who told me to deal with him. And I have.”
“I’m guessing I’m about to have to swallow something.”
Coughlin nodded.
“And it’s interesting youse phrased it that way,” he said. “It’s what Jerry said to me: ‘Sometimes we all have to swallow something we don’t like.’ And let me tell you, Matty, I don’t like it one damn bit. I made that clear to Jerry. I also made clear that I was going to be straight with you. What I’m telling you is not what I would do personally. But it’s what I think you should know you can expect to happen.”
Payne’s eyebrows raised.
“Okay,” he said, “I’m a big boy. What is it?”
“After last year’s record homicides, and now this new year tracking to do the same, there is enormous pressure on Jerry to do something to lower the rate of violent crime.”
“Especially if he expects to be reelected . . .”
Coughlin, meeting Payne’s eyes, had a look of resignation.
“I told Jerry I wasn’t going to beat around the bush with you,” he said, “and I won’t. You hit the nail on the head.”
