“Short fat guy? Works for Strawbridge’s?”
“No. Ordinary-sized. Maybe a little bigger. And I thought he worked for Wanamaker’s.”
“Right. Yeah. He comes in here every once in a while.”
“He been in tonight?”
“Haven’t seen him in a while.”
“Yeah, well, what the hell. Listen, if he does come in, tell him his cousin Marty, from Conshohocken, said hi, will you?”
“Yeah, if I see him, I’ll do that.”
“I’d be obliged.”
“You’re a long way from Conshohocken.”
“Went to a wake. Jack O’Neill. May he rest in peace.”
“Didn’t know him.”
“He retired from Budd Company.”
“Didn’t know him,” the bartender said, made change, and went back to his stool.
Milham looked at Matt and raised his beer glass.
“Good ol’ Jack,” he said.
“May he rest in peace,” Matt said.
“I think he made me,” Milham said when they were back in his car. “He was being cute with that ‘short fat guy?’ line. And I got lucky when I said Wanamaker’s. I’ll bet when we finally find Mr. Foley, he will work in Wanamaker’s, and now we know he lives around here. It may not be our Frankie, but you never can tell. Sometimes you get lucky.”
“If he made you,” Matt said, “and was cute, he’s going to tell this guy somebody, a cop, was looking for him.”
“Good. If it is our Frankie, it will make him nervous. Unless he’s got a cousin from Conshohocken. Give me the clipboard.”
Milham switched on the light, consulted the Xerox pages of the telephone book, and drew a circle around the name “Foley, Mary” of 2320 South Eighteenth Street.
“Maybe he lives with his mother,” Milham said, handing the clipboard back to Matt. He switched off the overhead light and started the engine.
They drove to South Eighteenth Street, and drove slowly by 2320. It was a typical row house, in the center of the block. There were no lights on.
They visited three more bars. Two of them had coffee. None of their bartenders had ever heard of Frank, or Frankie, Foley.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” Milham said. “On one hand, you still smell like a brewery. On the other hand, so do I. You want to take a chance on going back to the Roundhouse with me, to see what everybody else has come up with?”
“Whatever you think is best,” Matt said, chagrined.
“What the hell, we have to get your car anyway,” Milham said. “Just try not to breathe on anybody.”
“Sergeant, this is Detective Payne,” Milham said. “Payne, this is Sergeant Zachary Hobbs.”
Hobbs offered his hand, and looked at Matt closely.
“We didn’t expect you for a couple of days,” he said.
“You weren’t here,” Milham replied for him, “when he came in. Your memo was in my box, so I took him with me.”
“You find this Foley guy?”
“I think we know where he lives, and that he works for Wanamaker’s.”
“The bartender at the Inferno says there was a guy named Foley in there that night,” Hobbs said. “That’s in your box, too.”
Milham nodded.
“Payne, Captain Quaire knows about your, uh, personal problem. You don’t have to come to work, is what I’m saying, until you feel up to it,” Hobbs said.
“I think I’d rather work than not,” Matt said. “But thank you.”
“You need anything, you let me know. Did Wally show you the memo?”
“Yes, he did.”
“OK. You work with Wally.”
Matt nodded.
“I think you’d better see Lieutenant Natali,” Hobbs said. “Let him know you’re here.” He gestured across the room. Matt saw Lieutenant Natali in a small office.
Jesus, I hope he’s got a cold or something, and can’t smell the booze.
He had met Lieutenant Natali once before. The circumstances flooded his mind.
He had been escorting Miss Amanda Spencer to a prewedding dinner honoring Miss Daphne Soames Brown and Mr. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV, at the Union League Club.
No wonder Amanda said I hadn’t seen her at Martha Peebles’s party; she hadn’t wanted me to. I’m trouble, dangerous. If I were her, I wouldn’t have wanted to see me either.
When he had pulled the Porsche onto the top floor of the Penn Center Parking Garage, there had been a body lying in a pool of blood, that of a second-rate gangster named Tony the Zee Dezito, who had been taken out with a shotgun blast in what was almost certainly a contract hit by party or parties unknown for reasons unknown.
Nearby was Miss Penelope Detweiler, a lifelong acquaintance, also lying in a pool of blood. Matt’s original conclusion that Penny, like him and Amanda en route to Daffy and Chad’s party, was an innocent bystander was soon corrected by the facts. She had been in the parking garage to meet Tony the Zee, with whom she was having an affair.
And almost certainly, I know now, to get something from him to stick in her arm, or sniff up her nose. It was that goddamn Dezito who gave Penny her habit.
Narcotics had had a tail on Tony the Zee, and when Matt had gone to Homicide to give them a statement, a Narcotics sergeant, an asshole named Dolan, and another Narcotics asshole had been waiting for him there. They had taken him into the interview room, sat him down in the steel captain’s chair with the handcuffs, and as much as accused him of being involved with either Tony the Zee or Narcotics, or both. And then taken him to Narcotics, if not under arrest, then the next thing to it, to continue the interrogation and to search the Porsche.
Lieutenant Natali had been the tour lieutenant in Homicide that night, hadn’t liked what he had seen, and had called Peter Wohl. Wohl had come to Narcotics like the Cavalry to the rescue and gotten him out.
Natali had bent, if not regulations, then departmental protocol, and thus stuck his neck out, by calling Peter Wohl. He was therefore, by definition, a proven good guy.
Matt walked to the office and stood in the door until Natali looked up and waved him inside. He stood up and put out his hand.
“I didn’t expect to see you so soon, Payne,” he said. “I, uh, heard what happened. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” Matt said.
It was evident on Natali’s face that he, too, was recalling the circumstances of their first meeting.
“I thought I would rather work than sit around.”
That’s not true. I’m here because I got shitfaced and didn’t want to go to bed. I’m a goddamned hypocrite and a liar.
“Yeah,” Natali said. “I understand.” He paused and then went on. “Payne, some of the people here are going to resent you being here.”
“I thought they would.”
“But they know-Captain Quaire passed the word-that you had nothing to do with it. So I don’t think it will be a problem. If there is one, you come to me with it.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll be working with Wally Milham. There’s a memo…”
“I saw it.”
“OK. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with Milham. And he’s a good Homicide detective. You can learn a lot from him. Homicide works differently. I don’t know how much experience you had at East Detectives…”
“Not much,” Matt said. “Most of it on recovered stolen vehicles.”
Natali smiled understandingly.
“I did a few of those myself, when I made detective,” he said. “We don’t get as many jobs here,” Natali went on. “And when one comes in, everybody goes to work on it. There’s an assigned detective, of course. Milham, in the case of the Inferno Lounge job. But everybody works on it.”
“I understand. Or I think I do.”
“You’ll catch on in a hurry,” Natali said. “If you have any problems, come see me.”
“Thank you, sir.”
When he went to Wally Milham’s desk, Milham was working his way through
a thick stack of paper forms. He read one of the forms, and then placed it facedown beside the unread stack.
“You better take a look at these,” Milham said, tapping the facedown stack without raising his eyes from the document he was reading.
Matt pulled up a chair and slid the facedown stack to him.
Matt turned over the stack. They were all carbon copies of 75-49s, the standard Police Department Detective Division Investigation Report.
He started to read the first one:
The telephone on the desk rang. Without taking his eyes from the 75-49s before him, Milham reached for it.
“Homicide, Milham,” he said.
Matt looked up in natural curiosity.
“Hello, honey,” Milham said, his voice changing.
The Widow Kellog, Matt decided, and that makes it none of my business.
He turned his attention to the second 75–49:
“Jesus Christ!” Milham said, softly but with such intensity that Matt’s noble intention to mind his own business was overwhelmed by curiosity.
“Baby,” Milham said. “You stay there. Stay inside. I’ll be right there!”
I wonder what the hell that’s all about.
Milham hung the telephone up and looked at Matt.
“Something’s come up,” he said. “I gotta go.”
Matt nodded.
“Tell you what, Payne,” Milham said, obviously having thought over what he was about to say. “Take that stack with you and go home. You all right to drive?”
“I’m all right.”
“I’ll call you about ten tomorrow morning. You read that, see if you come up with something.”
“Right.”
“OK. You’ll find some manila envelopes over there,” Milham said, pointing. “I really got to go.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Yeah, if anybody asks where I went, all you know is I told you to go home.”
“OK.”
“Ten tomorrow, I’ll call you at ten tomorrow,” Milham said, and went to retrieve his pistol from a filing cabinet.
SIXTEEN
Matt left the Police Administration Building and found his car. The interior lights were on. Because, he saw, the door was ajar.
Christ, was I so plastered when I came here that I not only didn’t lock the car, but didn’t even close the damned door? No wonder Milham was worried if I was all right to drive.
Or did somebody use a Car Thief’s Friend and open the door? Did I leave anything inside worth stealing?
He pulled the door fully open and stuck his head inside.
There was no sign of damage; the glove compartment showed no sign that anyone had tried to force it open.
I deduce that no attempt at Vehicular Burglary has occurred. I am forced to conclude that I was shitfaced when I drove in here. Shit!
There was a white tissue on the floor under the steering wheel.
Penny’s Kleenex. With her lipstick on it.
He picked it up and looked at it.
What the hell do I do with it? Throw it away? I don’t want to do that. Keep it, as a Sacred Relic? I don’t want to do that, either.
He patted his pocket and found a book of matches.
He unfolded the Kleenex, struck a match, and set the Kleenex on fire. He held it in his fingers until that became painful, and then let what was left float to the ground. He watched until it was consumed and the embers died.
Then he got in the Porsche and drove out of the Roundhouse parking lot.
His stomach hurt, and he decided that was because he still hadn’t had anything to eat. He drove over to the 1400 block of Race Street where he remembered a restaurant was open all night. He ordered two hamburgers, changed his mind to three hamburgers, a cup of coffee, a large french fries, and two containers of milk, all to go.
Then he got back in the Porsche and drove home.
The red light was blinking on his answering machine. He was tempted to ignore it, but finally pushed the Play Messages button.
Predictably, there was a call from his mother, asking if he was all right. And one from his father, same question. And there were seven No Message blurps; someone had called, and elected not to leave a message.
He opened the paper bag from the St. George Restaurant and started to unwrap a hamburger.
The telephone rang.
He debated answering it, but finally ran and grabbed it just before the fifth ring, which would turn on the answering machine.
“Hello?”
There was no reply, but someone was on the line.
“If you’re going to talk dirty to me, please start now,” Matt said.
There was a click and the line went dead.
“Fuck you, pal,” Matt said, hung the telephone up, and went back to the hamburger.
The telephone rang again.
“Goddamn it!”
He snatched the phone from the wall and remembered at the last moment that the caller, this time, might be his mother, and one did not scream obscenities at one’s mother.
“Hello?”
And again there was no reply.
“Oh, goddamn it!”
“Were you asleep?” It was a female voice.
Jesus Christ! Amanda?
“Amanda?”
“I was worried about you,” Amanda said.
“I’m all right.”
“I knew this was going to be a bad idea. I told myself you would be all right.”
“I’m glad you called,” he said. “What was going to be a bad idea? Jesus, it’s quarter after three. Was that you on the machine? You called and didn’t leave a message?”
There was no reply, which told him it had indeed been Amanda who had called and elected not to leave a message.
“How long have you been trying to reach me?”
“I got here about eleven,” she said, very softly.
“Where’s here? Home?”
“No.”
“Where are you?”
“In the Warwick Hotel.”
“The Warwick? I thought you were staying with Chad?”
“I was. They put me on the train at seven.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What happened is that I kicked myself most of the way to Newark for being afraid what Chad and Daffy would think if I told him I was worried about you and wanted to see you. So I got off in Newark and came back. At the time, it seemed like a reasonable idea.”
“Jesus, that was nice of you,” he said.
“I haven’t had anything to eat,” she said. “Damn you. Where were you?”
“On the job. Working.”
“I should have guessed that,” she said. “I thought maybe you were out getting sloshed.”
“I started to,” he said. “And then I decided I’d better go to work.”
There was a long pause, and then she said:
“This is your town. Is there someplace I can get something to eat this time of the morning?”
“How about a lukewarm hamburger and some limp french fries?”
There was another long pause.
“You mean at your place?”
“I stopped off at a restaurant on my way home,” he said.
“I’m so hungry I’m tempted to accept,” Amanda said. “But knowing you, you’d get the wrong idea.”
“Oh, hell, I wouldn’t-Jesus, Amanda!”
“All I want to be is your friend, Matt, OK? I thought you could use one.”
“Absolutely. I understand. Nothing else ever entered my mind.”
“OK. As long as you understand that.”
“I do. Perfectly. Look, you want me to bring the hamburger there?”
“No,” she said, after a just-perceptible pause. “I know where you live. Give me ten, fifteen minutes. I have to get dressed again. The last call was going to be the last call.”
“I’ll come get you.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Amanda said, and hung up.
“I
will be damned,” Matt thought aloud. “That was really very nice of her.”
He went back to the table, took knives and forks and salt and pepper and plates from cabinets, and laid them on the table. Then he got a pot from under the sink and poured the coffee into it.
At least I can offer her hot coffee!
Then he went into the living room and sat down in his chair. While I wait, I’ll take a look at this stuff:
When Detective Wally Milham pushed open the door of the Red Robin Diner at Frankford and Levick it was nearly empty, and for at least fifteen seconds, which seemed like much longer, he couldn’t find Helene Kellog. But then he saw her, in a booth halfway down the counter, staring into a coffee cup on the table.
She had a kerchief around her head, and was wearing a cotton raincoat.
He walked quickly to the booth and slid onto the seat facing her.
“Hi,” he said.
She looked up at him and smiled wanly, but didn’t speak, and when he touched her hand, she pulled it away.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” he said.
“My mother came into my room. I hadn’t heard the phone ring, it’s downstairs in the hall. And she told me I had a call-”
“When was this?”
“Just before I called you.”
“You were in bed?”
“Of course I was in bed. It was…God, I don’t know. Late. Of course I was in bed. Everybody was in bed. My mother had to get out of bed to answer the phone…”
“Take it easy, honey,” Milham said gently.
“I’m frightened, Wally.”
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
“He said, he said, ‘Keep your…’ Wally, he said, ‘Keep your fucking mouth closed, bitch, or you’ll get the same thing your fucking husband did.”
“Sonofabitch,” Milham said. “Did you recognize the voice?”
Helene shook her head.
“Honey, do you know something about-what your husband was doing, something dirty, that you haven’t told me?”
“No. But, Wally, they must know I went to see Sergeant Washington.”
“You did what?”
“Oh, God, I didn’t tell you, did I?”
“Didn’t tell me what?”
“That I went to see Sergeant Washington.”
“No, you didn’t,” Milham said. “What exactly did you tell Washington?”
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