The Assassin Part 21

Martinez nodded.

"You're doing a good job, Hay-zus," Wohl said. "I think it's just a question of hanging in there with your eyes open."

"Yes, sir."

"Anytime you want to talk, Hay-zus, about anything at all, you have my personal number."

"Yes, sir."

Martinez stood up, looked at Wohl for a moment, long enough for Wohl to suspect that he was about to say something else, but then, as if he had changed his mind, nodded at Wohl.

"Good morning, sir."

Wohl walked to the door with him and touched his shoulder in a gesture of friendliness as Martinez opened it and stepped outside.

Wohl had just about finished carefully was.h.i.+ng his Jaguar when Detective Payne drove onto the cobblestone driveway in his silver Porsche. It showed signs of just having gone through a car wash. The way Payne was dressed, Wohl thought, he looked like he was about to pose for an advertis.e.m.e.nt in Esquire Esquire-for either Porsche automobiles, twenty-five-year-old Amba.s.sador Scotch, or Hart, Schaffner & Marx clothing.

Payne handed Wohl a paper bag.

"Present," he said.

"What is it?"

"The latest miracle automobile polish. It's supposed to go on and off with no perceptible effort, and last for a thousand years."

I am not going to ask him what's on his mind. In his own time, he will tell me.

"And you believe this?"

"Also in the tooth fairy. But hope springs eternal. I didn't think you would be willing to try it on the Jag, but I thought we could run a comparison test. I'll do mine with this stuff, and you do the Jag with your old-fas.h.i.+oned junk . . ."

"Which comes all the way from England and costs me five ninety-five a can . . ."

"... and we'll see which lasts longer. You'll notice mine is also freshly washed."

"In a car wash," Wohl said. "I'm surprised you do that. Those brushes are supposed to be h.e.l.l on a finish. They grind somebody else's dirt into your paint."

He's looking at me as if I just told him I don't know how to read.

"You don't believe that?" Wohl asked.

"You know the car wash on Germantown Avenue, right off Easton Road?"

Wohl nodded.

"For four ninety-five, they'll wash your car by hand."

"I didn't know that," Wohl confessed.

"They don't do a bad job, either," Matt said, gesturing toward the Porsche.

Wisdom from the mouth of babes, Wohl thought. Wohl thought. One is supposed to never be too old to learn. One is supposed to never be too old to learn.

"So I see," Wohl said.

Payne took off his linen jacket, and then rolled up the sleeves of his light blue b.u.t.ton-down collar s.h.i.+rt. Then he extended his can of car polish toward Wohl.

"You want to do a fender, or the hood, with this? Then you could really tell."

"The bonnet bonnet," Wohl said. "On a Jaguar the hood is the bonnet bonnet. And thank you, no."

Matt opened the hood of his rear-engined Porsche, which was of course the trunk, and took out a package of cheese cloth.

Why don't I spend the two bucks? Instead of using old T-s.h.i.+rts? Except when I can't find an old T-s.h.i.+rt and have to use a towel that costs more than two bucks?

"So how is life treating you, Matt?" Wohl asked.

"I thought you would never ask," Matt said. "The good news is that I won six thousand bucks, actually sixty-seven hundred, in Las Vegas, and the bad news is that the IRS gets their share."

He is not pulling my leg. Jesus Christ, six thousand dollars! Nearer seven!

"What were you doing in Las Vegas?"

"I was sent out there to bring Penny Detweiler home from the funny farm."

That was a surprising announcement, and Wohl wondered aloud: "How did you get time off?"

"Ostensibly, I was helping with the paperwork in Chief Lowenstein's office. That is the official version."

"Start from the beginning," Wohl said.

Payne examined a layer of polish he had just applied to the front of the Porsche before replying. Then he looked at Wohl.

"My father asked me to meet him for drinks. When I got there, Denny Coughlin was there. They asked me how I would like to go to Nevada and bring Penny home, and I said I would love that, but unfortunately, I couldn't get the time off. Then Uncle Denny said, 'That's been taken care of,' and Dad said, 'Here's your tickets.' "

I wonder what Matt Lowenstein thought about that? Not to mention Matt's sergeant, lieutenant, and captain in EDD.

"They won't ha.s.sle you in East Detectives, Matt, if that's what you're worrying about. That couldn't have happened without Chief Lowenstein knowing about it, ordering it. Your response should be the cla.s.sic 'mine not to reason why, mine but to do what I'm told.' "

"I'm not worried about East Detectives. What I'm wondering about is how you feel about me coming back to Special Operations. "

s.h.i.+t! That's disappointing. I didn't think he'd ask to get transferred back. I thought he was smart enough to know that would be a lousy idea, and I didn't think he would impose on our friends.h.i.+p for a favor. Helping him out of a jam is one thing, doing something for him that would be blatant special treatment is something entirely different. But, on the other hand, the only thing he's known since he's joined the Department is special treatment. different. But, on the other hand, the only thing he's known since he's joined the Department is special treatment.

"Matt," Wohl said carefully. "I think your coming back to Special Operations would be, at the very least, ill-advised. And let me clear the air between us. I'm a little disappointed that you can't see that, and even more disappointed that you would ask."

Wohl saw on Matt's face that what he had said had stung. He hated that. But he had said what had to be said.

Matt bent over the front of the Porsche and applied wax to another two square feet. Then he straightened and looked at Wohl again.

"Well, I suspected that I might not be welcomed like the prodigal returning to the fold, but just to clear the air between us, Inspector, I didn't ask to come back. You or anybody else. I was told to report to Chief Lowenstein's office at half past one yesterday, and when I got there, a sergeant told me to clean out my locker in East and report to Special Operations Monday morning."

"G.o.ddammit!" Wohl exploded.

"I could resign, I suppose. Suicide seems a bit more than the situation calls for," Matt said.

"You can knock off the 'Inspector' c.r.a.p. I apologize for thinking what I was thinking. I should have known better."

"Yeah, you should have known better," Matt said. It was not the sort of thing a very junior detective should say, and it wasn't expressed in the tone of voice a junior detective should use to a staff inspector who was also his division commander. But Wohl was not offended.

For one thing, I deserve it. For another, in a strange perverted way, that was a remark by one friend to another.

"I wouldn't have said what I said, obviously, if I had known you were coming back," Wohl said. "This is the first I've heard of it."

"It was on the teletype," Matt said, and reached into the Porsche and handed Wohl a sheet of teletype paper. "Charley McFadden took that home from Northwest Detectives."

GENERAL: 1365 04/23/74 17:20 FROM COMMISSIONER RECEIPT NO.107.

PAGE 1 OF 1.

THE FOLLOWING TRANSFERS WILL BE EFFECTIVE 1201 AM MON 04/23/74.

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"I wonder," Wohl said, and there was sarcasm and anger in his voice, "why no one thought I would be interested in this?"

"Maybe what you need is a good administrative a.s.sistant, to keep something like this from happening again," Matt said.

"No," Wohl said. "I've got an administrative a.s.sistant. Until I figure out what to do with you, you can work for Jason Was.h.i.+ngton."

Before the words were out of his mouth, Wohl had modified that quick decision. Matt would possibly wind up working for Jason somewhere down the line, he decided, but where he would go to work immediately was for Jack Malone.

Malone could use some help, certainly, in his new role in Dignitary Protection. And if Matt were working with him, he would not only learn something that would broaden his general education, but also just might keep Malone from doing something stupid. Malone was a good cop, but working with the feds was always risky.

Wohl decided this was not the time to tell Matt he had changed his mind. Instead, he changed the subject.

"We're invited to a party," he said.

"Oh?"

"Steak, you know, barbecue, at Martha Peebles's. Dave Pekach called up right after you did, invited me and, when I said you were coming over, said to bring you too."

"Fine," Matt said. "Maybe he'll he'll glad to have me back." glad to have me back."

"It is not nice to mock your superiors. Detective Payne. Make a note of that. Carve it in your forehead with a dull knife, for example."

Payne laughed, and Wohl smiled back at him.

I am glad he's back.

He remembered an insight he'd had about Matt Payne several months before, when Matt was still in Special Operations and had found himself in trouble not of his own making, and Wohl had jumped in with both feet in his defense before asking why. The reason, he had finally concluded, was that he thought of Matt as his younger brother.

"How is the Detweiler girl?" Wohl asked.

"She looks all right," Matt said.

"People do lick their drug problems, Matt."

"And I'll bet if you looked hard enough, you could find a pig who really can whistle."

"Is that a general feeling, or is there something specific?"

Matt looked at him and shrugged helplessly.

"She told me she was in love with Tony the Zee," Matt said.

"Have you considered that may be simple female insanity, not connected with narcotics?"

Matt laughed again.

"No," he said. "But isn't that a cheerful thought?"

Peter Wohl was not prepared to admit that Matt Payne's miracle auto polish was better in every way than his imported British wax, but there was no doubt that it went on and off faster, and with less effort.

For at least the last fifteen minutes, Detective Payne had been leaning on his gleaming Porsche, sucking on a bottle of beer and smiling smugly as he waited for Staff Inspector Wohl to finish waxing his Jaguar.

"Mine will last longer," Wohl said, when he had finally finished.

"We don't know that, do we?" Matt replied. "And you will notice that I I am not sweating." am not sweating."

"No one loves a smarta.s.s."

"It is difficult for someone like myself to be humble," Matt said.

"I wonder what a contract on the mayor would cost?"

Matt picked up on that immediately.

"You think he was responsible for sending me back to Special Operations?"

Wohl put the galvanized steel bucket, the car polish, and the rags into the garage, came out again, closed the door, and motioned for Matt to follow him into his apartment before replying.

"Who else? Not only does it smell like one of his friendly suggestions for general improvement of departmental operations, but who else would dare challenge the collective wisdom of Lowenstein and Coughlin-and my dad, by the way-that the best place for you to learn how to be a detective was to send you to East Detectives?"

He turned on the stairs and looked back at Payne.

"I'd say five thousand dollars," Matt said. "I understand the price goes up if the guy to be hit is known to go around armed."

Mayor Carlucci was known to never feel completely dressed unless he had a Smith & Wesson Chief's Special .38 caliber snubnose on his hip.