The special line telephone did not ring, after either the Highway patrols had come off their seven P.M. to three A.M. tour, or the district patrols had come off their midnight-to-eight tours. Neither did Malone nor Washington call.
His new assignment as one of the inner circle of Special Operations people looking for the lunatic who wanted to disintegrate the Vice President was turning out to be just as thrilling as his assignment as recovered stolen car specialist in East Detectives had been.
His mind began to wander.
His relationship with Evelyn came quickly to mind, with all its potential for disaster, long and near term, and specifically what he was going to do about her tonight, when he got off work, and she would be waiting by her phone for him to call, and if he didn't call, circling Rittenhouse Square until she decided to come up to the apartment and console him in his loneliness and sexual deprivation.
And he thought of Jesus and his dirty corporal at the airport. Going into the guy's car was a monumental act of stupidity. If someone had seen him, the excreta would really have hit the rapidly revolving blades of the electromechanical cooling device.
But maybe that was the way a good cop worked, fighting fire with fire. A dirty cop had to be stopped, even if you bent the law, taking a big chance, in the process.
There would be rewards, of course, if he was right. Maybe that was Jesus' motivation. Failing the detective exam had certainly been humiliating for him.
If this guy is dirty, is, if nothing else, associating with known criminals, and Hay-zus caught him at it, it would be, to coin a phrase, a feather in his cap. It wouldn't get him a detective's badge, of course, he's going to have to pass the exam to get promoted, but it might get him a better job, maybe in plainclothes someplace, than looking for baggage thieves at the airport.
Except that Hay-zus wants me to catch this guy associating with known criminals at the-what the hell is it? He fished through his pockets until he came up with the match-book from the Oaks and Pines Lodge.
Oaks and Pines Lodge, Gourmet Cuisine, Championship Golf, Tennis, Heated Pool, Riding, 340 Wooded Acres Only 12.5 miles North of Stroudsburg on Penna. Highway 402…
Plus, of course, if Hay-zus is to be believed-and he's probably right-fun and games for high rollers in the back room.
What am I supposed to do, just walk into this place and ask where the roulette tables are, and does there happen to be a dirty cop on the premises? I am again functioning from a bottomless pit of ignorance, but I suspect that you have to know someone to get into the back room. I doubt, even considering Hay-zus' opinion that I don't look like a cop, that the management is simply going to let a single guy who wanders into the place into the back room.
I may not look like a cop, but I damned well could be an FBI agent, or an IRS agent, or some other kind of fed. Who handles gambling for the feds?
I could not get in there alone. I would have to be with either a bunch of guys, out for a good time-that wouldn't work, if there were a bunch of guys, they would expect at least one of them to be able to furnish a reference…
Or a girl. A guy out with a date, who had heard you could play a little roulette in the back room. A guy driving a Porsche, and with a nice-looking girl would probably work.
What girl? Evelyn? Evelyn would love to take a ride to the Poconos for dinner, to be followed by several hours of mattress bouncing in a lodge in the oaks and pines.
But (a) Evelyn doesn't look young enough to be my girl and (b) I don't want to take Evelyn anywhere.
Who then? Precious Penny, maybe? Jesus H. Christ, what a lunatic idea!
But on the other hand, Penny is a bonafide airhead. There's no way she could be suspected of being an undercover FBI agent. With Penny, you see what you get, an over privileged, expensively dressed inhabitant of Chestnut Hill, the kind of young woman, were I the operator of an illegal gaming house for high rollers, I would be anxious to acquire as a client.
But what if they spotted her as Penelope Detweiler, aka the exgirlfriend of the late Tony the Zee?
That would either fuck things up completely, or the opposite. They would know she was a wild little rich girl who would be looking for something exciting, like gambling, to do.
You don't know, Matthew, how well acquainted she is among the Mob. On the other hand, you don't know which Mob controls Oaks and Pines Lodge, either. It could be a family out of New York, or Wilkes-Barre.
Very probably, now that I think of it, she probably is not well acquainted with the Mob. Tony the Zee would neither want to share her with his associates, or to run the risk of one of his associates telling Mrs. DeZego about Tony's blond girlfriend. Say what you like about the Mob, they are staunch defenders of the family.
Next question: Do you really want to involve Penny in something like this?
Involve her in what? All you would be doing would be taking her out to dinner in the Poconos. It would certainly be ill-advised to inform her you were checking out a dirty cop, so she wouldn't know what was going on, beyond being taken out to dinner, by the loyal family friend. And all you would be doing would be checking out the Oaks and Pines. Unless everything fell in place, you might not even inquire about gambling. Just take a look around and give them a face to remember-the guy with the Porsche who was in here a couple of days with the blonde-if you should go and ask about making a few small wagers.
And if you were in the Poconos with Penny, the odds are that by, say, midnight, Evelyn would finally become discouraged and stop calling and/or circling Rittenhouse Square.
Why not? What is there to lose?
****
Martin's Ford and Modern Chevrolet, both of Glassboro, N.J., shared the pleasure of the Sheriff's Department's business. By an amazing coincidence, going back at least fifteen years, when the sheriff announced for competitive bid his need for six suitably equipped for police service automobiles-which he did every year, replacing his eighteen vehicles on a three-year basis-Martin's Ford would submit the lowest bid one year, and Modern Chevrolet the next.
Maintenance of all county light automotive vehicles, including asneeded wrecker service, was similarly awarded, on a competitive bid basis, annually. And by another amazing coincidence, Modern Chevrolet seemed to submit the lowest bid one year, and Martin's Ford the next.
On a purely unofficial basis, both dealerships seemed to feel that it was a manifestation of efficiency in business to "subcontract" repairs to the brand agency. In other words, if, as was the case when Deputy Springs wrecked his Ford patrol car, Modern Chevrolet had that year's county maintenance contract, Modern would "subcontract" the Ford's repairs to Martin's. The next year, if a county-owned Chevrolet needed repair, and Martin's had the contract, Martin's would " subcontract" the repairs to Modern.
And so it came to pass when Modern Chevrolet's wrecker went out in the Pine Barrens to haul Deputy Springs's wrecked Ford off, it never entered the driver's mind to bring the car to Modern Chevrolet; he hauled it directly into the maintenance bay at Martin's Ford and lowered it onto the grease-stained concrete.
Greg Tomer, Martin's Ford's chief mechanic and service adviser, walked up and shook the hand of Tommy Fallon, the Modern Chevrolet's chief mechanic and wrecker driver. On the first Tuesday of each month, at seven-thirty P.M., they were respectively the senior vice commander and adjutant quartermaster of Casey Daniel Post 2139, Veterans of Foreign Wars.
"What the hell did he hit, Tommy?"
"He blew a tire. Going through the Barrens. Went right off the road. Hit a tree square in the middle. It broke. Had a hell of a time getting the sonofabitch off the tree. Fucked up the pan, I'm sure."
"Springs all right?"
"Yeah. I guess he was wearing his seat belt."
Greg Tomer dropped to his knees and peered under the car.
"Just missed the drive shaft," he said. "But, yeah, he fucked up the pan. I don't think it can be straightened."
"Radiator's gone too. And the fan."
"Maybe the insurance adjuster
will says it's totaled. I sure don't want to try to fix it." He got off his knees and leaned in the driver' s window. "Sixty-seven thousand on the clock. And no telling whether that's the second time around or the third."
"Well, he was lucky he wasn't hurt, is all I can say."
"Yeah."
"I gotta go, Greg."
"We appreciate your business, Mr. Fallon. Come in again soon."
Tommy Fallon touched Greg Tomer's arm, and then got in the cab on the wrecker, got it into low with a clash of gears, and drove out the back door of the maintenance bay.
"Shit," Greg Tomer said aloud, "I should have asked him to dump it out in back."
He had two options. He could fire up the Martin's Ford wrecker, pick the car up, and haul it out in back himself, or he could change the wheel with the blown tire on it, and push it into a corner of the maintenance bay.
He opened the trunk. There was a spare.
"Harry," he called to the closest of Martin's Ford's three mechanics, "get a jack and change the wheel here, and then we'll push it in the corner."
Harry rolled a hydraulic jack over to the Ford, maneuvered it into place, and raised the car in the bay. As he went to get an air powered wrench, Tomer jerked the spare from the trunk and rested it against the passenger side door.
Harry removed the wheel with quick expertise, and then stuck his head in the wheel well to see what damage the wreck had caused.
"What the hell is that?" he wondered aloud.
A moment later, after a grunt, he came out of the wheel with something in his hand and handed it to Tomer.
"Look at that?"
"What am I looking at?" Tomer asked. "Where did this come from?"
In his hand was a piece of steel plate, a rough oblong about ten inches long and five inches wide. One edge of the steel was bent at roughly a ninety-degree angle. There were several perforations of the steel, and in one of them was stuck what looked like a link of oneinch chain.
"I took it out of the wheel well, behind the rubber sheet, or whatever they call it," Harry said. "That's what blew his tire. There was nothing wrong with the tire. Look."
He took the piece of steel back from Tomer and laid it on the floor of the garage.
Tomer looked.
"That would certainly blow a tire all right," he said. "Like somebody swinging an ax. I wonder what the hell it is?"
"And it went into the tire far enough so that it got thrown into the wheel well, behind the rubber," Harry said. "I don't know what the hell it is. A piece of junk metal."
"When you get the spare on, Harry, have somebody help you push it into the corner." He pointed. "I'm going to walk across the street to the courthouse and give this to Springs. Souvenir."
"You think he'll want a souvenir?"
"Who can tell."
When Tomer went into the Patrol Division of the Sheriff's Department, they told him that Deputy Springs had slammed his chest into the steering wheel harder than he thought, that they'd x-rayed him at the hospital, nothing was broke, but the sheriff told him to take a couple of days off.
Tomer left the piece of steel, with the sawlike edge and the piece of chain wedged into it, and then walked back across the street to Martin's Ford and went back to work.
****
There were no telephone calls at all for Sergeant O'Dowd or Detective Payne all morning, until just before lunch, when Lieutenant Malone telephoned to say that he and Detective Washington were going to see Mr. Larkin at the Secret Service office, and that they should wait for their phone to ring; maybe something would happen when the eight-to-four tour came off duty.
Detective Payne and Officer Lewis took luncheon at Roy Rogers' Western Hamburger emporium. When they returned to the office, Sergeant O'Dowd went for his lunch. As soon as he was out the door, Detective Payne called Miss Penelope Detweiler at her residence and asked if she would like to go up to the Poconos for dinner.
Miss Detweiler accepted immediately, and with such obvious delight that it made Detective Payne a bit uneasy. He next called the residence of Mrs. Evelyn Glover and left a message on her answering machine that he had to work, and that if he got off at a reasonable hour, say before nine, he would call.
When he put the telephone back in its cradle, he felt Tiny Lewis's eyes on him, and looked at him.
"The last of the great swordsmen at work, huh?"
"Would you believe me, Officer Lewis, if I gave you my word as a gentleman that carnal activity with either lady is the one thing I don't want?"
"No," Officer Lewis said. "I would not."
****
It wasn't until Matt went into the parking lot to claim his car that he remembered he was driving the Bug. He glanced at his watch, even though he was fully aware that it was only a minute or two after five.
There would not be time to drive all the way downtown to the apartment to get the Porsche. He had told Penny he would pick her up at five-fifteen, and please not to make him wait, it was going to be at least a two-hour-drive to the Poconos.
He fired up the Bug and drove cross town to Chestnut Hill. The Bug was not going to be a problem, he could park it, probably, where no one would see it at Oaks and Pines Lodge, and if Penny didn't like it, screw her, let her see up close how the other half lived.
It didn't work out that way.
Surprising him not at all, H. Richard Detweiler answered the door of the Detweiler mansion himself, and informed him first that Penny would be down in a moment.
"Your Porsche is down?" he asked, and then as if that was self evident went on without giving Matt a chance to reply, "Your dad told me you couldn't bring yourself to sell the Volkswagen."
"An old friend, tried and true," Matt said. "It would have been like selling Amy."
Detweiler smiled a little uncomfortably.
"Tell you what," Mr. Detweiler said. "The Mercedes man was here today. Yesterday. Doing Penny's car. It hadn't been moved, since… uh…you brought it out here."
The Philadelphia Police Department (specifically then Officer M. M. Payne and then Detective Jason Washington) had returned the victim' s automobile, a 1973 Mercedes-Benz 380 SL roadster, to her residence after it had been processed by the forensics experts of the Mobile Crime Lab at the scene of the crime. The scene of the crime had been a Center City parking lot where the victim had been wounded by a shotgun during a homicide in which Mr. Anthony J. DeZego had been fatally shot by unknown person or persons.
Jesus, that's a great idea! I really didn't want to roll up to the Oaks and Pines in the Bug.
"It really should be driven," Mr. Detweiler said. "Why don't you take it? It's a long way to Allentown."
"Allentown"? What the hell does he mean, "Allentown"? And now that I think about it, it's a lousy idea. I don't want Precious Penny reminded of Tony the Zee lying on the concrete with his stomach blown out his back.
"Is that a good idea?" Matt said. "Bad memories?"
"I thought of that," H. Richard Detweiler said, somewhat impatiently. He touched Matt's shoulder. "Replace bad memories with a good one, right?"
He waited until Matt nodded, then pushed him toward the door.
"Come on in and have a drink, one drink, and I'll have Jensen get the car while we're having it."
Jensen was the Detweilers' chauffeur.
Detweiler led Matt onto the veranda outside the small sitting room where, predictably, Grace Detweiler was also waiting.
"How are you, Matt? You look very nice."
Matt, as he was expected to, kissed her cheek.
Detweiler picked up the telephone.
"Florence," he ordered, "would you please ask Jensen to bring Penny's car around to the front?"
"What's that all about?" Grace Detweiler asked.
"Matt's car is down," Detweiler said. "He's driving his Volkswagen, which is visibly on its last legs. Or tires. I suggested that he take Penny's car."
"Is that a good idea?" Grace challenged.
"He's a policeman now," Detweiler said. "He
doesn't get tickets, he gives them."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know what you meant," Detweiler snapped. "Leave it lie, Grace. They're taking the Mercedes."
"Well, excuse me!"
"Scotch all right, Matt?"
"A weak one, please," Matt said.
Penny and the chauffeur came onto the veranda together.
"Whenever you're ready, Mr. Detweiler," Jensen said,
"Communications problem again," Detweiler said. "Mr. Matt and Penny will be taking the car. I'm not going anywhere."
Penny walked to Matt and leaned up and kissed his cheek. She was wearing a crisp-looking cord suit with a frilly blouse under the jacket.
Giving the devil his-the deviless her-due, she's not a bad-looking female.
He had a quick, clear mental image of her in his erotic dream and wondered, almost idly, if she really looked that way, au naturel.
The next line in this little scenario of life in Chestnut Hill will be Detweiler telling me to make sure I get Precious Penny home by twelve, or maybe twelve-thirty.
"I'll put your bag in the car, Miss Penny," Jensen said.
"Thank you, Jensen," Penny smiled sweetly.
"Bag"? What bag? And what was that about Allentown?
"Well, Matt," Penny said. "You said not to keep you waiting. Here I am. Are we going to go or what?"
"One or the other," Matt said. "I don't know what you mean by ' what.'"
"We'll see you later," Penny said, and caught Matt's hand and led him off the veranda.
"Have a good time," Grace Detweiler called after them.
Jensen was waiting by the Mercedes, waiting to close Penny's door. Both doors were open.
Matt got behind the wheel, adjusted the seat, and waited for Penny to get it. The moment she closed the door he could smell her perfume.
A gas expands to the limits of its containment; there ain't a hell of a lot of space in here. Be nice.
"You smell good," Matt said.
"Oh, I'mso glad you noticed!" Penny said.
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