The Investigators Part 29

"I'll have to get dressed," Amy said.

"Why bother?" Peter said as he put on his bathrobe. "If he comes in the bedroom, I don't think he'll believe you were in here helping me wash the windows. Maybe you could could say you were making a house call, Doctor." say you were making a house call, Doctor."

"Screw you, Peter," Amy said. "This is not funny!"

But she did get back into the bed and pulled the sheet up over her.

Peter turned the lights off, then left the bedroom, closing the door.

Then he turned and knocked on it.

"Morals squad!" he announced. "Open up!"

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Amy called, but she was chuckling.

Peter turned the lights on in the living room, walked to the door, and opened it.

Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin-who, in the process of maintaining his friendly relations.h.i.+p with the widow of his pal Sergeant John F. X. Moffitt, had become so close to the Payne family that all the Payne kids had grown up thinking of him as Uncle Denny-stood at the door.

In a cloud of Old Bushmills fumes, Peter's nose immediately told him. Peter's nose immediately told him.

"I was in the neighborhood, Peter," Coughlin said, "and thought I would take a chance and see if you were still up."

Peter had just enough time to decide, Bulls.h.i.+t, twice. I don't think you were in the neighborhood, and even if you were, you got on the radio to get my location, and if you did that, you would have asked the operator to call me on the phone to see if I was up, Bulls.h.i.+t, twice. I don't think you were in the neighborhood, and even if you were, you got on the radio to get my location, and if you did that, you would have asked the operator to call me on the phone to see if I was up, when Coughlin added: when Coughlin added: "That's bulls.h.i.+t. I wanted to see you. Radio said you were home. I'm sorry if I got you up. You got something going in there, I'll just go."

Does he suspect Amy is in here with me?

"Come on in. I was about to go to bed. We'll have a nightcap."

"You're sure?" Coughlin asked.

"Come on in," Peter repeated.

Coughlin followed him into the living room, sat down on Peter's white leather couch-a remnant, like several other pieces of very modern furniture in the apartment, of a long-dead and almost forgotten affair with an interior decorator-and reached for the telephone.

As Peter took ice, gla.s.ses, and a bottle of James Jamison Irish whiskey from the kitchen, he heard Coughlin on the telephone.

"Chief Coughlin," he announced, "at Inspector Wohl's house," and then hung up.

Peter set the whiskey, ice, and gla.s.ses on the coffee table in front of the couch and sat down in one of the matching white leather armchairs.

Coughlin reached for the whiskey, poured an inch into a gla.s.s, and took a sip.

"This is not the first I've had of these," he said, holding up the gla.s.s. "Mickey O'Hara came by the Roundhouse at six, and we went out and drank our dinner."

"There's an extra bed here," Peter said, "if you don't feel up to driving home."

And then he remembered that not only was Amy in his bed, where she could hear the conversation, but that the moment she heard what he had just said she would decide he was crazy or incredibly stupid. Or, probably, both.

If Denny Coughlin accepted the offer, there was no way he would not find out that Amy was here.

Coughlin ignored the offer.

"The trouble with Mickey is that he has a nose like a bird dog, and people tell him things they think he would like to know," Coughlin said. "And he thinks like a cop."

"He would have made a good cop," Peter agreed.

He poured whiskey in a gla.s.s and added ice.

"After he fed me about four of these," Coughlin said, "he asked me whose birthday party it was we were all at at the Rittenhouse Club."

"We meaning you, me, Matt, and the FBI?"

Coughlin nodded.

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him that Matty had had a little run-in with a couple of FBI agents, and you and I were pouring oil on some troubled waters."

"Did he buy it?"

"He said he was naturally curious why a couple of FBI agents who don't even work in Philadelphia were following Matty around in the first place."

"He knew they had been following him? G.o.d, he does find things out, doesn't he?" Wohl said.

"Including some things that you and I didn't know," Coughlin said. "Like when those two FBI agents were waiting in the Special Operations parking lot to see if Matty was coming out, a Highway Patrol sergeant-Nick DeBenedito-thought they looked suspicious and went and tapped on their car window and asked them who they were."

Coughlin smiled, and Wohl laughed.

"It's not funny, Peter," Coughlin said. "And it gets worse. The FBI guys showed Nick their identification, and told him they were on the job, surveilling the guy driving the Porsche, and did Nick know what he was doing inside. Nick asked why did they want to know, and they told him it was none of his business. So Nick goes inside, tells the duty officer, who calls the FBI duty officer and asks him what a couple of FBI agents, one of them named Jernigan, are doing parked in the Special Operations parking lot, and the FBI duty officer says he doesn't have an agent named Jernigan. So Nick and the duty officer go back to the parking lot, and the FBI guys are gone. Then they go see Matt, who's working upstairs, and ask him what's going on, and Matt tells them not to worry about it, the FBI thinks he's a kidnapper they're looking for."

"Oh, G.o.d!" Wohl said, laughing. "So within thirty minutes, it's all over Special Operations. The FBI with egg on its face again."

"That's funny, I admit. But what's not funny is, of course, that somebody couldn't wait to tell Mickey, and he put that and us being in the Rittenhouse Club together and came up with the idea that something's going on he doesn't know about, and the way to find out is to ask me."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him I didn't feel free to tell him until I'd first checked with you."

What do you call that? Pa.s.sing the buck?

"So he's going to come see me?" Wohl asked. "First thing in the morning, no doubt?"

"Probably, since he didn't beat me here," Coughlin said, smiling. He held up his whiskey gla.s.s. "I told you, we mostly drank our dinner. I don't like to make decisions when I do that. I figured telling Mickey he'd have to ask you would give us time to think how much we're going to tell him. We're going to have to tell him something."

Wohl didn't reply.

"So I decided to come here," Coughlin said. "And on the way I had a couple of other unpleasant thoughts."

"Oh?"

"Do me a favor, Peter, and don't decide before you think it over that this is the whiskey talking."

"I wouldn't do that, Chief," Peter said.

"Yes, you would. I would too, if you showed up at my place at this hour of the night with half a bag on."

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 pa.s.skey 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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."

"I'd already planned to do that," Peter said.

Coughlin met Wohl's eyes. He looked for a moment as if he was going to say something else, but changed his mind. He picked up his gla.s.s and drained it.

"I'll let you go to bed," he said. "Thanks for the drink."

"Anytime, Chief. You know that," Wohl said.

"If I interrupted anything," Coughlin said, nodding toward the closed door of Peter's bedroom, "I'm sorry."

Jesus Christ, is he psychic? Or did Amy cough or something and I didn't hear her and he did? Or did he take one look at my face and read on it the symptoms of the just-well-laid man?

"You didn't interrupt anything, Chief," Wohl replied.

"Good," Coughlin said.

He reached for the telephone and dialed a number.

"Chief Coughlin en route from Inspector Wohl's house to my place," he said, and hung up.

Then he walked to the door. He put out his hand to Wohl.

"A strong strong word when you talk to our Matty, Peter." word when you talk to our Matty, Peter."

"As strong as I can make it," Wohl said.

Coughlin nodded, then opened the door. Peter watched to make sure he made it safely down the stairway, then went inside the apartment, locked the door, and went into his bedroom.

"I gather he's gone?" Amy said. "He didn't accept your gracious invitation to spend the night?"

"Sorry about that," Peter said. "He's gone. How much did you hear?"