The Witness

by W. E. B Griffin

  He wondered now, as they waited for Stillwell to show up in Callis’s office, what Matt Lowenstein thought of him.

  “You wanted to see me, boss?” Stillwell called cheerfully as he strode, with an uneven gait, because of his knee, into Callis’s office.

  Then he saw Lowenstein first, and then Wohl, D’Amata, and Pelosi.

  “Chief Lowenstein,” he said. “How nice to see you. And Peter!”

  He went to each and pumped their hands, and then turned to D’Amata and Pelosi.

  “I’m Still Stillwell,” he said, putting out his hand.

  “Joe D’Amata, of Homicide,” Lowenstein offered, “and Jerry Pelosi of Central Detectives.”

  “Sit down,” Callis ordered, tempering it with a smile. “Matt’s got a wild idea. I want your reaction to it.”

  “Chief Lowenstein is not the kind of man who has wild ideas,” Stillwell said. “Unusual, perhaps. But not wild.”

  Nice try, Wohl thought, somewhat unkindly, but a waste of effort. Matt Lowenstein wouldn’t vote Republican if Moses were heading the ticket.

  “Tell the man about your unusual idea, Matt,” Callis said.

  Lowenstein laid out, quickly but completely, what he had in mind.

  “What do you think of the chief’s idea, Peter?” Stillwell asked.

  Covering your ass, Still?

  “We know what we think about it,” Callis said. “What we want to know is what you think about it.”

  Thank you, Mr. District Attorney.

  “All right. Gut reaction. Off the top of my head. I love it.”

  “Why?” Callis asked.

  “‘District Attorney Thomas J. Callis announced this afternoon that he will bring the six, eight, whatever it is, members of the gang calling themselves the Islamic Liberation Army before the Grand Jury immediately, and that he is confident the Grand Jury will return murder and armed robbery indictments against all of them.’”

  “You were listening when Lowenstein said they have just the one witness?”

  “Yes. And I was also listening when he said he thought other witnesses might experience a miraculous return of memory.”

  “You want to put your money where your mouth is?” Callis asked.

  “Am I going to be allowed to take part in this?”

  “It’s yours, if you want it,” Callis said.

  “I’ve got a pretty heavy schedule—”

  “Meaning you really don’t want to get involved, now that you’ve had ten seconds to think it over?”

  “Meaning, I’ll have to have some help with my present calendar.”

  “No problem,” Callis said. “That can be arranged.”

  Callis, Wohl thought unkindly, but with a certain degree of admiration, has just pulled a Carlucci. If this works, he will take, if not all, at least a substantial portion of the credit. And if it goes wrong, that will be Farnsworth Stillwell’s fault.

  Or Matt Lowenstein’s fault. Or mine.

  Probably the latter. When you get to the bottom line, Farnsworth Stillwell is smarter than either Lowenstein or me. Or at least less principled. Or both.

  “Keep me up-to-date on what’s going on,” Callis said. “And later today, Still, I’ll want to talk to you about the municipal court judge.”

  “Right, Chief,” Stillwell said. “Gentlemen, why don’t we go into the conference room and work out some of the details?”

  “Thank you, Tommy,” Lowenstein said.

  Callis grunted. When he gave his hand to Peter Wohl, he said, “You’d better hope your people can protect Mr. Monahan, Peter. For that matter you’d better hope he doesn’t have a heart attack.”

  When Officer Matthew Payne walked into the Special Operations Office, the sergeant had given him the message that Inspector Wohl had called in at 7:12 to say that he would not be in until later, time unspecified.

  Officer Payne sat down at his desk and opened the Bulletin. He had just started to read Mickey O’Hara’s story about the robbery and murder at Goldblatt & Sons Credit Furniture & Appliances, Inc., when, startling him, the newspaper was snatched out of his hands.

  Officer Charles McFadden was standing there, looking very pleased with himself.

  “Jesus Christ, Charley!”

  “Gotcha, huh?”

  “Why aren’t you out fighting crime?”

  “Need a favor.”

  “Okay. Within reason.”

  “Be my best man,” Charley said.

  “I have this strange feeling you’re serious.”

  “Margaret’s going to call her mother this morning; we’re going to get married in six weeks.”

  “Yeah, sure, Charley. I’d be honored.”

  “Thank you,” Charley said very seriously, shook Matt’s hand enthusiastically, and walked out of the office.

  When he was gone, Matt picked up and read the Bulletin and then the Ledger. Both carried stories about the robbery of Goldblatt’s. The Ledger story was accompanied by a photograph of a press release from the Islamic Liberation Army, claiming responsibility. Mickey O’Hara’s story in the Bulletin hadn’t mentioned the Islamic Liberation Army.

  Matt found that interesting. He allowed himself to hope that the press release was a hoax, on which the Ledger had bit, and which would show them up for the assholes they were.

  The society pages of both newspapers (called “LIVING” in the Ledger) carried stories of the festivities of the Delaware Valley Cancer Society on Rittenhouse Square, complete with photographs of some of the guests, standing around holding plastic champagne glasses. Matt hoped that he would find Helene’s picture, and then, in the caption, her last name. He examined each of them carefully but was unable to find a picture of Helene.

  Of course not. While this momentous occasion was being photographed for posterity, Helene and I were thrashing around in our birthday suits on my bed. It’s a shame I don’t have a picture of that for my memory book.

  The telephone rang.

  “Good morning. Inspector Wohl’s office, Officer Payne.”

  “You’re remarkably cheerful,” Wohl’s voice said.

  “Yes, sir. Every day, in every way, things are getting better and better.”

  “I gather you were not alone in your monastic cell last night?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s true.”

  “I’m in the DA’s office, Matt. Get word to Pekach and Sabara that I want to see them in my office at half past eleven. Tell them to keep lunch free too.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In the upper right drawer of my desk, you’ll find a ring of keys. They’re to the elementary school building at Frankford and Castor.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Get a car and take Lieutenant Malone over there. Tell him I want his assessment of the building as a headquarters—listen carefully: for Special Operations headquarters and Special Operations; for Special Operations headquarters and Highway; and for Special Operations headquarters, Special Operations, and Highway. All three possibilities. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  “Don’t help him,” Wohl said.

  “Sir?” Matt asked, confused.

  “I want to know what you think too, separately,” Wohl said. “Get him back in time for the eleven-thirty meeting.”

  “Yes, sir. What would you like me to do with the stuff for the FBI?”

  “You have it all?”

  “Yes, sir. I couldn’t run Mr. Harris down, but I asked Mr. Washington to have a look at it, and he said I found everything they’d want.”

  “Leave it on my desk. Maybe I’ll have time—I’ll have to make time—to look at it before eleven-thirty. You have to be damned careful what you hand the FBI. Call them, and tell them they’ll have it this afternoon.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And see if you can get word to Washington to be there at half past eleven.”

  “Just Mr. Washington?”

  “Just Mr. Washington” Wohl repeated, and hung up.

  Matt called Ca
ptain Sabara, Captain Pekach, Detective Washington—now Sergeant Washington—and finally the FBI office. He got through to everybody but SAC Davis, who was not available to come to the telephone. Matt left word that the material Inspector Wohl was sending would be there that afternoon.

  Then he went to the Special Operations dispatcher and asked for a car. When he had the keys, he went and looked for Lieutenant Malone.

  ELEVEN

  The building at Frankford and Castor Avenues, according to what was chiseled in stone over the front door and on a piece of granite to the left of the door, had been built in 1892 as the Frankford Grammar School.

  Plywood had been nailed over the glass portion of the doors and many of the ground-floor windows, the ones from which, Matt Payne decided, the local vandals had been successful in ripping off the wire mesh window guards.

  The front doors were locked with two massive padlocks and closing chains looped around the center posts of the door. When Matt finally managed to get one padlock to function, he turned to Lieutenant Jack Malone.

  “Why don’t we just stop here and go back and tell the inspector that a detailed survey of these premises has forced us to conclude they are unfit for human habitation?”

  “They obviously are, but we are talking about police habitation,” Malone said. “The standards for which are considerably looser.”

  Matt jerked the door open. It sagged and dragged on the ground; the top hinge had pulled loose from the rotten frame.

  He bowed and waved Malone past him.

  Malone chuckled. From what he had seen of Payne, he liked him. He was not only a pleasant kid, but he’d already proven he was a cop. And Malone had heard the gossip. He knew that Payne’s father had been a sergeant, killed on the job, and that he had a very important rabbi in Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin.

  Not that he needed one, Malone thought, as close as Payne was to Inspector Wohl. Wohl was a powerful man in the Department. In his present uncomfortable circumstances, that could mean he could get his career back on track, or begin thinking of leaving the Department as soon as he had his twenty in, or maybe even before.

  And since Payne was close to Wohl, the same thing applied to him. He could help, or he could hurt. Malone had waked up wondering what kind of trouble he was already in, thanks to that zealous Highway cop who had spotted him keeping an eye on Holland’s body shop.

  Wohl hadn’t said anything to him about keeping his nose out of Auto Squad’s business now that he was assigned to Special Operations. Malone knew that he was supposed to be smart enough to figure that out himself. There was little chance that Wohl hadn’t heard about it, however.

  They didn’t send me to Special Operations without talking to Wohl about Poor Jack Malone, who has personal problems, and who incidentally had somehow acquired the nutty idea that Robert L. Holland, respectable businessman and pal of everybody important from Mayor Jerry Carlucci down, was a car thief.

  The smart thing for me to have done was just forget the whole damned thing and make myself useful around Special Operations. A good year on this job, and the word would get around that I had gotten through my personal problems and could now, again, be trusted not to make an ass of myself and the Department. That word, coming from Wohl, would straighten everything out.

  The worst possible scenario would be for the Highway cop, McFadden, he said his name was, to tell his lieutenant that he had checked out a suspicious car parked near Holland’s body shop and found the new lieutenant, Malone, in it. If that happened, there was a good chance that the lieutenant would “mention” that to either Sabara or Pekach. Or maybe to Inspector Wohl himself. In any event, Wohl would hear about it.

  At that point, Wohl would have to call me in and tell me to straighten up and fly right or find myself another home. Wohl was not about to put himself in a position where the brass would jump on his ass for letting Poor Jack Malone run around making wild accusations about a friend of the mayor’s.

  I think I could probably talk myself out of the first time. Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I realize I was wrong, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.

  And I couldn’t let it happen again, which would mean that sonofabitch would continue to get away with it.

  That’s the worst possible scenario. That doesn’t mean it will go down that way. For one thing, the odds are, because McFadden probably walked away thinking he had made a fool of himself, that he had walked into, and almost fucked up, a stakeout where he had no business, that McFadden won’t mention what happened to anybody, least of all his lieutenant.

  That, I suppose, is the best possible scenario. What will really happen is probably somewhere in between. Whatever it is, since I can’t do a fucking thing about it, there’s no point in worrying about it.

  That puts me back to what I do next. The smart thing to do obviously, since I nearly got caught doing something that really threatens my career, is don’t do that no more.

  But I’m a cop, and Holland is a thief, and what cops are supposed to do is lock up thieves.

  Maybe Wohl, if I went to him, would understand. He understands that some thieves are fucking pillars of the community. Christ, he locked up Judge Findermann, didn’t he?

  You’re dreaming, Poor Jack Malone. You don’t have anything to go on except a gut feeling, and if you said that to Wohl, you’d soon be commanding officer of the rubber-gun squad.

  Inside the outer doors was a small flight of stairs. Malone went up that, and then through a second set of doors. He heard scurrying noises that experience told him was the sound of rats.

  I wonder what the hell they eat in here? It doesn’t look like anybody has been in here in years.

  He waited for a moment, to let his eyes adjust to the dim light, and then went left down a corridor. The ancient hardwood floor squealed and creaked under his weight. There was a sign with PRINCIPAL still lettered on a door. He pushed that open and looked inside.

  There was a counter inside, and several open doors, through which he could see rooms that could be used as Wohl’s and Sabara’s office.

  “We could put the boss in there, I suppose,” he said.

  “Jesus!”

  “And you, Officer Payne,” Malone said. “I can see your desk right there by the hole in the wall.”

  “Do they really think we can use this place?” Payne asked.

  “I think the inspector is desperate,” Malone said. “We’re sitting in each other’s laps at Bustleton and Bowler.”

  “Well, there’s a big enough parking lot. Already fenced in. We could start with that, I suppose, and build on it.”

  “Where?” Malone asked, and then went to a window and looked out where Payne pointed.

  “I was reading the grant, and there’s—”

  “What?”

  “The Justice Department Grant,” Payne said. “That’s where we got the money for Special Operations. A.C.T. It stands for Augmented Crime Teams.”

  Interesting. He’s probably the only guy in Special Operations besides Wohl and Sabara who ever heard of the grant, much less read it.

  “You were saying?”

  “There’s money in there, available on application, for capital improvement. About a hundred grand, if I remember correctly. The question is, would fixing this dump up be considered a ‘capital improvement’?”

  “I don’t know,” Malone said. “It’s a thought.”

  “I’ll mention it to the inspector,” Payne said.

  Malone went back in the corridor and down it and into another room. It was a boys’ room.

  “Well, there’s something else we could start with and build on,” Malone said. “I saw a Highway guy this morning who’s small enough to use one of those urinals.”

  “Hay-zus,” Payne chuckled.

  “What?”

  “Hay-zus—Jesus—Martinez. He’s a quarter of an inch and maybe two pounds over Department minimums.”

  “How did he get in Highway? Most of those guys are six feet something?”

&nb
sp; “He was one of the two of the inspector’s first probationary Highway Patrolmen. He was a Narc. He and his partner were the ones who caught the guy who killed Dutch Moffitt. The inspector gave him a chance to see if he could make Highway, and he did.”

  “Oh, yeah. I remember that. The doer got himself run over by an elevated train, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I remember Dutch Moffitt too. He was a real pisser. Big, good-looking guy. He screwed everything in skirts. What did they say?—‘that he’d screw a snake if he could get it to hold still.’ Did you know him?”

  So that’s why I have not been wallowing in Episcopalian remorse for having taken someone else’s wife into my bed! My Moffitt genes have overwhelmed all my moral training.

  “Dutch was my uncle,” Payne said.

  “Oh, Christ!” Malone said. “Payne, I’m sorry. I meant no offense.”

  “None taken,” Payne said. “Dutch was—Dutch.”

  “If I’d have known he was your uncle, I wouldn’t have—”

  “Lieutenant, it’s all right,” Matt said. “But I would like to make a suggestion.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I think we have seen enough of this ruin to know that without spending a hell of a lot of money on it, it’s useless. Why don’t we go back and tell the inspector that? Maybe there is money in the grant we could get.”

  “Agreed. I’m freezing.”

  “Presuming we can get the door to shut, let’s go find a cup of coffee.”

  Inspector Wohl was walking to the door of the building at Bustleton and Bowler as Matt Payne and Jack Malone drove up. He saw them and waited for them to get out of their car.

  “Well, if it isn’t the real estate squad,” Wohl greeted them. “How did that go?”

  “Well, we cut it sort of short, sir,” Payne said. “The building is falling down. Unless we can get the money to fix it from ACT Capital Improvement, I think we should tell the City ‘thank you, but no thank you.’”