“And maybe it wouldn’t.”
“You call it, Payne.”
“I think I had better be very careful,” Matt said.
“Whatever. Anything else?”
“I’m going to follow him. I don’t suppose you could tag along?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to check in.”
“Fuck it,” Matt thought aloud. “I started this myself, I’ll do it myself. Anyway, he might catch on if two cars followed him.”
“You know that he hasn’t caught on to you already?”
“No, I don’t.”
They waited in silence for another ten minutes.
“If you saw a gun barrel or something sticking out of a ripped package, that would be sufficient cause for you to ask for a permit, right?” asked Matt.
“Absolutely. A wrapped-up gun is a concealed weapon.”
“He’s got a permit to carry concealed, but you could get the serial numbers.”
“I’ll go bump the sonofabitch,” Cronin said.
Five minutes after that, Gerald North Atchison came out the Yock’s Diner. Detective Cronin stepped from between two parked cars and bumped into him, hard enough to make Atchison stagger. But he didn’t drop the package, and he held on to it firmly while Cronin profusely apologized for not watching where he was going, and tried to straighten Atchison’s clothing.
Detective Cronin, still apologizing, went into the diner. Atchison watched him, then turned and walked quickly to his car. Matt trotted to his Porsche and followed him out of the parking lot.
Atchison drove back toward Media. Just making the light, he turned left on Providence Road. The line of traffic was such that Matt could not run the stoplight. He fumed impatiently until it finally gave him a green left-turn signal, and then took out after Atchison’s Cadillac.
It was nowhere in sight. There weren’t even any red taillights glowing in the distance.
Matt put his foot to the floor. When he passed the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Brewster Cortland Payne II, he was going seventy-five miles an hour. There were lights on in the kitchen, and he had a mental picture of his mother and father at the kitchen table.
Just beyond the bridge over the railroad tracks near the Wallingford Station, he was able to pick out the peculiar taillight assembly of a Cadillac. He gradually closed the distance between them.
Atchison drove into and through Chester, to the river, then through a run-down area of former shipyards and no-longer-functioning oil refineries, weaving slowly between enormous potholes and junk strewn on the roadway.
Matt turned off his headlights, which kept, he felt, Atchison from noticing that he was being followed but which also denied him a clear view of the road. He struck several potholes hard enough to worry about blowing a tire, and making a trip to enrich the alignment technicians at the Porsche dealership a certainty.
And then he ran over something metallic, which lodged itself somewhere under the Porsche, set up a terrifying howl of torn metal, and gave off a shower of sparks.
He slammed on the brakes, wondering if he had done so because he was afraid Atchison would hear the screeching or see the sparks, or because it hurt to consider what damage was being done to the Porsche.
He jumped out, looking in frustration at Atchison’s disappearing Cadillac. And then the brake lights came on and the Cadillac stopped.
Christ, he saw me!
What do I do now?
There was a sudden light as the Cadillac’s door opened. Atchison got out, looked around, seemed fascinated with the Porsche, and then slammed the car door shut.
It took Matt’s eyes some time to adjust to the now pitch darkness, but when they did he saw Atchison-nothing more than a silhouette-walking away from the car.
He ran after him. When he got close he saw that they were next to the river, and that Atchison was on a pier extending into it.
He saw Atchison make a move like a basketball player. A shadow of something arced up into the sky, fell, and in a moment, Matt could faintly hear a splash.
Atchison now walked quickly back to the Cadillac, fired it up, and started to turn around. As the headlights swept the area, Matt dropped to the ground. His hands touched something wet and sticky. He put his fingers to his nose. It smelled as foul as it felt.
Atchison’s Cadillac rolled past him. It stopped at the Porsche. Atchison got half out of the car, looked around, then got all the way out. It looked for a moment as if he was going to try the door, but then he stumbled over something.
Then he got back in the car and drove rapidly away.
Matt got to his feet, rubbed his hands against his jacket to cleanse them of whatever the hell it was on his hands-the jacket was ruined anyway-and walked back to his car.
He saw what Atchison had stumbled over. A curved automobile bumper.
That which caused that unholy screech and the shower of sparks. With a little bit of luck, Atchison will think that’s why the Porsche is here, and not that I ran over the goddamn thing when I was tailing him.
The Cadillac’s taillights were no longer visible.
What the hell, he’s probably going home anyway.
Matt opened the car door with two fingers, got the keys from the ignition, then opened the hood and took out the jack. It took him fifteen minutes to dislodge the bumper from the car’s underpinnings.
TWENTY
Inspector Peter Wohl was visibly disturbed when he opened the door to his apartment and found Detective Payne standing there.
“What the hell do you want? Are you drunk, or what?”
“Atchison threw something I’ll bet is guns in the river,” Matt said.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“In Chester,” Matt said. “I followed him.”
“You did what? What the hell gave you the idea you had that authority?”
“He met Frankie, Frankie gave him a package, and Atchison threw it in the river in Chester.”
“I’ll want to hear all about this, Detective Payne, but not here, and not when you’re obviously shitfaced. I’ll see you in my office at eight o’clock.”
The door slammed in Detective Payne’s face. He waited a moment and then started down the stairs. He was halfway down when light told him the door had reopened. He looked over his shoulder.
Amelia Payne, Ph. D., M.D., attired in a terry-cloth bathrobe, stood at the head of the stairs.
“Matt, what happened to you?”
You may be his lady love, but first of all, you are my big sister, who takes care of her little brother.
“Are you drunk?” Amy asked, more in sympathy than moral outrage.
“Not yet.”
“Well, come in here,” Amy said. “What does ‘not yet’ mean?”
“I mean that getting drunk right now seems like a splendid idea, one that I will pursue with enthusiasm, once I have a bath.”
“What is that stuff on you?” Wohl demanded, in curiosity, not sympathy.
“I don’t think I want to find out.”
“Come up here,” Amy ordered.
She is now in her healer-of-mankind role.
Matt climbed the stairs.
“It’s all over you!” Amy announced.
“I’ve noticed.”
She wiped a finger, professionally, across his forehead.
“There’s irritation. It’s a caustic of some sort. You need a long hot bath.”
“If he’s coming in here,” Inspector Wohl said, resigned to the inevitable, “he’s going to take his clothes off first.”
Fifteen minutes later, attired in the robe Amy had been wearing when she appeared at the top of the steps, Detective Payne entered Inspector Wohl’s living room. Inspector Wohl and Dr. Payne were now fully clothed.
“I am under instructions to apologize for accusing you of being drunk,” Wohl said. “You want a beer?”
“I’d love a beer,” Matt said.
Wohl walked into his kitchen, returned with a bottle of Ortleib’s, and han
ded it to Matt.
“I am under further instructions to question you kindly, having been reminded that you are undoubtedly in a condition of grief shock,” Wohl said. “So why don’t we start at the beginning?”
“I don’t like your sarcasm, Peter,” Amy said. “Look at his face and hands! He’s been burned! Have you got any sort of an antiseptic lotion?”
“Listerine?” Wohl asked. “Where did you get that stuff on you, anyway?”
“No, not Listerine, stupid!”
“On a pier, or near a pier, near the old refineries in Chester,” Matt said.
“Where you had followed, you said, Mr. Atchison?”
“That will have to wait until I do something about his face and hands,” Amy said. “I probably should take him to an emergency room.”
“I’m all right,” Matt said.
“You must have something around here,” Amy said to Peter Wohl.
“Look in the medicine cabinet,” Wohl said. “You were telling me you followed Atchison? And I was asking you where the hell you got the idea-”
“Stop it, Peter,” Amy ordered. “For God’s sake, what’s the matter with you?”
She glowered at him, then marched into the bedroom. Thirty seconds later she was back, triumphantly displaying a tube of medicine.
“This will do,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me you had it?”
“I don’t even know what it is,” Wohl said.
Amy daubed the ointment on Matt’s face, then rubbed it in on his hands.
“Give me that, I’ve got a nasty scratch on my leg,” Matt said.
Wohl looked.
“I’m just dying to learn where you’ve been besides on a pier in Chester,” he said sweetly.
“I got these in the bushes outside the Yock’s Diner on Fifty-Seventh and Chestnut. That’s where I saw Atchison and Foley.”
“You have been a busy little junior Sherlock Holmes, haven’t you?”
“Peter, for Christ’s sake, at least hear me out!”
Wohl glared at him.
“OK. Fair enough. We’re back at square one. Start at the beginning.”
Ten minutes later, Wohl dialed a number from memory.
“Tony, I hate to call you at this hour, but this is important. Go out to South Detectives. I’ll call out there and tell them you’re coming. I want you to get a statement from two detectives. One of them is named Cronin, and the other’s name is Chesley. The first thing you say to them is to keep their mouths shut about what happened tonight at the Yock’s Diner on Fifty-Seventh and Chestnut. If they spread the story around the squad room, it’ll be public knowledge in the morning. Then I want you to question them, separately, about what went on at the Yock’s Diner. Payne was there, he followed Atchison there. Frankie Foley was there. Frankie arrived with a package. Atchison left with the package. Payne thinks Atchison gave Foley an envelope, and he thinks there was money in the envelope. Atchison then went to the riverfront in Chester and threw a package in the river. Payne suspects the package contained guns. What I want from the detectives are the facts, not what they think or surmise, something they can testify to in court without getting blown out of the witness chair by Atchison’s lawyer.”
Detective Tony Harris asked a question, during which Inspector Wohl glanced at Detective Payne. Detective Payne’s face bore, in addition to a glistening layer of medicated ointment, a look of smug vindication. Inspector Wohl, tempering the gesture with a smile, extended his right hand toward Detective Payne, the palm upward, all but the center finger folded inward.
Detective Payne was not cowed.
“When you’re right, you’re right,” he said.
Inspector Wohl returned his attention to the telephone.
“I know a couple of people in the Chester Police Department,” he said. “I’m going to call them, and then Payne and I are coming out there. Payne says he can find the pier; he marked the site with an old bumper. I’m going to ask the Chester cops to guard the site until we can get our divers out there at first light. What I’m hoping, Tony, is that Sherlock Holmes, Junior, got lucky again. I think he may have. Call me when you’re finished. I don’t care what time it is.”
He put the phone back in the cradle.
“What we have, hotshot,” he said, turning to Matt, “is a lot of ifs. If the package does contain firearms. If those firearms can be ballistically connected with the weapons used in the Inferno. If we can tie the guns to either Atchison or Foley.”
“If all else fails, we can shake the two of them up,” Matt argued. “What were they doing together in the Yock’s Diner? What did the package Foley gave him contain?”
Wohl could think of no counterargument.
“And when we find your pier, I will drop you off at your family’s home in Wallingford,” he said.
“He can’t go to Wallingford at this hour, looking like that,” Amy announced. “Mother and Dad have gone through enough in the last couple of days without him showing up looking like that.”
“And you can’t go to your apartment, either, can you, with Milham’s girlfriend there? That leaves here, doesn’t it?” Wohl asked.
“I could go to a hotel.”
“No he-” Amy began. Wohl held up his hand to interrupt her. To Matt’s surprise, she stopped.
“If this thing works out, I may have to forgive you for a large assortment of sins, but I will not forgive you, Matt, for this.”
He gestured around the apartment. Amy took his meaning, and blushed.
Detective Payne smiled.
“Chastity, goodness, and mercy shall follow you all the days of your lives,” he paraphrased piously.
“Why, you little sonofabitch!” Amelia Payne, Ph. D., M.D., said.
The Philadelphia Marine Police Unit occupies part of a municipal pier on the Delaware River just south of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.
When Detective Payne arrived at ten minutes to seven, at the wheel of his Porsche, which shuddered alarmingly whenever he exceeded thirty miles per hour, and looking both as if he had fallen asleep on the beach and was suffering from terminal sunburn, and as if his clothing had shrunken (he was wearing a complete ensemble borrowed from Inspector Peter Wohl, who was two inches shorter and twenty-five pounds lighter than he was, there having been no time for him to get his own clothing), the parking lot was crowded with personal and official vehicles.
There were two Mobile Crime Laboratory vans, and a similar-size van bearing the insignia of the Marine Police Unit; two radio patrol cars; two unmarked cars (one of which he recognized as belonging to Wally Milham); a green Oldsmobile 98 coupe (which he knew to be the personal automobile of Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin); a police car bearing the insignia of the Chester Police Department; and an assortment of personal automobiles.
That Denny Coughlin was driving his own car, rather than being in his official car chauffeured by Sergeant Francis Holloran, made it clear to Matt that he was present in his role of Loving Uncle in Fact, rather than as a senior member of the Philadelphia police hierarchy.
Chief Coughlin and Detective Milham were standing on the pier. Coughlin waved him over.
“What the hell did you do to your face, Matty?” he asked, his gruffness not quite masking his concern.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Matt said.
“Amy said it’ll be gone in a couple of days,” Coughlin said, his tone making it clear that he had serious doubts about the accuracy of the diagnosis.
“They’re ready for us,” Milham said, and gestured over the side of the pier. Matt looked down. There was a forty-foot boat down there, festooned with flood- and spotlights, a collection of radio antennae, a radar antenna, and what looked like a standard RPC bubble gum machine.
The rear deck was crowded with diving equipment and people, including a neatly uniformed sergeant of the Chester Police Department. His dapper appearance contrasted strongly with the appearance of officers of the Marine Police Unit, who had reported for duty prepared to go
to work, which meant that their badges were pinned to work clothing.
There was a lieutenant (presumably the Marine Police Unit commander) standing by the wheel, and a sergeant actually at the boat’s controls.
Matt followed Milham down a flight of stairs onto a floating pier and then jumped aboard the boat after him.
“Chief,” the Inspector called up to Coughlin. “Would you like to ride along with us, sir?”
It was a pro forma question, asked because lieutenants generally recognize the wisdom of being very courteous under any circumstances to chief inspectors. The expected response would normally have been, “No, thank you. But thank you for asking.”
Chief Coughlin looked at his watch, looked thoughtful, then said, “What the hell, there’s nothing on my desk that won’t wait a couple of hours.”
He then quickly came down the flight of stairs onto the floating pier and jumped onto the boat.
“Don’t let me get in your way, Lieutenant,” he called, then went to the Chester police sergeant. “I’m Chief Coughlin,” he said, offering his hand. “We appreciate your courtesy, and especially you coming in here like this.”
“Anything we can do to help,” the Sergeant said. “I thought I might make it easier to find the site.”
“We appreciate it,” Coughlin said.
The diesel engines roared, and the boat moved away from the pier and headed downstream. To his left, Matt could see the Nesfoods International complex on the Camden shore, and to his right, on Society Hill, he thought he could make out the apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick T. Nesbitt IV.
I wonder what Vice President Nesbitt is doing at this hour of the morning? Trying to come up with some clever way to sell another ten billion cans of chicken soup?
Matt watched as Denny Coughlin made his way among the other police officers and technicians. Matt was impressed, but not particularly surprised, that Coughlin knew most of their names. Somewhat unkindly, knowing that it would offend Coughlin if he knew what he was thinking, Matt thought he was working the crowd of cops just about as effectively as Jerry Carlucci worked a crowd of voters.
Then the Sergeant from the Chester Police Department embarrassed him.
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