Final Justice boh-8

by W. E. B Griffin

  “We can’t go into the IAD warehouse if we go there in my unmarked car.”

  “But we could drive by it, right? If we didn’t stop?”

  “Yes, we could.”

  “Okay, that solves that. What the hell, if I went inside, all I’d see is a bunch of cars, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Anything else?”

  “If we go to D’Allesandro’s, you’re probably going to be recognized, and likely mobbed by your fans.”

  “Sergeant Payne,” Colt said, switching voices again, “I have a deep, one might say profound, trust that you and Detective Lassiter can shield me from the enthusiasm of my fans. Anything else?”

  “Not that I can think of.”

  “Stan,” Olivia said. “I’m not working Dignitary Protection. I have to do one of two things: go back to the phone in Homicide, or go home, so I can start off first thing in the morning.”

  “You’ve already put a lot of hours in today,” Matt said. “We’ll take you home…” And then he had a second thought. “Why don’t we drop you at Homicide, and you see what the Captain or Washington wants you to do?”

  It took her a moment to understand what he really meant.

  “If anything interesting has come up, I could call you,” she said.

  “Great idea!” Colt said.

  “Hay-zus, you got the number of the sergeant downstairs? ” Matt asked.

  Martinez took out his telephone, punched in numbers, and handed the phone to him.

  “Sergeant Nevins.”

  “Matt Payne,” Matt said. “Mr. Colt wants to ride around town a little. Is that going to pose any problems for you?”

  “You want to take a couple of uniforms with you?”

  “No. I was thinking about the press. They still there?”

  “Yeah. We can handle them. Just give a couple of minutes’ notice.”

  “We’ll be down in five minutes,” Matt said.

  “I really appreciate this, buddy,” Stan Colt said.

  When officers commanding, for example, the Impact Unit and Internal Affairs get an order directly from the first deputy commissioner, they tend to drop whatever they might have been doing and start to comply with the order. The same is true when the commanding officer of a detective division gets any kind of an order from the chief inspector of detectives.

  This being the case, Inspector Wohl had been more than a little surprised that the first person to respond to the summons issued was Steven J. Cohen, Esq., head of the District Attorney’s Homicide Unit, a dapper, tanned, well-dressed forty-year-old.

  “That was quick, Steve,” Wohl greeted him. “Thank you.”

  “I would say I heard my mistress’s voice, but that would be subject to misinterpretation,” Cohen said. “I was in Center City. Please don’t ask me why.”

  “Why were you in Center City, Steve?” Wohl asked.

  “Would you believe my wife is a Stan Colt fan? And/or that I paid a hundred dollars each for two tickets entitling us to stand in a long line in the Bellvue-Stratford to shake his hand, and two very watery drinks? And that when Al called me, I was in the bar of the Ritz-Carlton, where he is staying, and where, my wife hoped, he would appear?”

  “I believe you,” Wohl said. “If you can’t believe a lawyer, who can you believe?”

  Cohen gave him the finger.

  “What’s up, Peter?”

  “We’ve identified one of the doers in the Roy Rogers job,” Peter began.

  He had just about finished when Inspector Michael Weisbach of Internal Affairs walked into Homicide. Weisbach was a slightly built man who wore mock tortoise-frame glasses and always managed to look rumpled. Weisbach and Wohl were longtime friends.

  He nodded at Cohen and looked expectantly at Wohl, but didn’t say anything.

  “So how’s by you, Michael?” Wohl asked, finally, in a creditable mock-Yiddish accent.

  Cohen chuckled.

  “What the hell is this all about, Peter?” Weisbach asked, not able to resist a smile.

  “I would deeply appreciate your patience, Inspector, until Captain Mikkles of Impact and Captain Calmon of Southwest Detectives get here,” Wohl said. “I’ve just explained the whole thing to the shyster here, and I’d rather do it only once more, when everybody is here.”

  “How come the shyster gets special treatment?”

  “Because I like him,” Wohl said.

  “Oh, Christ,” Weisbach groaned.

  Cohen pointed toward the door to Homicide. Captain Michael J. Mikkles, who commanded the Impact Task Force- a special antidrug unit-had just come in. He was a tall, very thin, bald-headed man in his fifties. He was halfway to Captain Quaire’s office when Captain Calmon entered Homicide.

  When he was in the office, and they had all shaken hands all around, Wohl closed the door.

  “First things first,” he said. “I need six undercover vehicles for an indefinite period, said vehicles suitable for a round-the — clock surveillance at the Paschall Homes Housing Project, and I need them right now.”

  “Who are we going to-” Weisbach started to ask.

  “Indulge me, Mike,” Wohl interrupted. “I’ll explain everything in a minute. Right now, I want two undercover vehicles at Special Operations, two more within a couple of hours, and a total of six by morning. You two decide between you where they’re coming from.”

  “You’re just asking for vehicles, right? You don’t want any of my detectives?” Captain Calmon asked.

  “Just the vehicles. We’ll use Special Operations and Homicide detectives for surveillance until we run out of people.”

  “Inspector,” Captain Mikkles said. “I don’t have any undercover cars to spare. The only way I could give you vehicles is to take them off jobs.”

  “Then that’s the way it’ll have to be,” Wohl said, “unless Inspector Weisbach can give me two right now.”

  Weisbach took out his cellular and punched an autodial number.

  “This is Weisbach,” he announced. “How many covert cars-anything suitable for surveillance in a project-can I get out of the warehouse right now?”

  The Internal Affairs Division, which is engaged primarily in investigating policemen, had a fairly large fleet of bona fide “civilian” cars and other vehicles because very few policemen cannot spot an unmarked car in the first glance. The vehicles- many of them forfeitures in drug cases-were kept in a warehouse several blocks from the IAD offices on Dungan Road.

  He waited and listened, and then turned to Wohl.

  “I’ve got two pretty beat-up vans and a Chrysler, almost new, you can have right now. Maybe tomorrow we can do better.”

  “They’re in the warehouse?” Wohl asked. Weisbach nodded. “Then we have to figure a way to get them out to Special Operations.”

  “I’m here in my car,” Weisbach said. “I could run a couple of people by the warehouse.”

  The IAD warehouse had no identifying signs on it, and IAD tried to preserve its anonymity by never going near it in marked or unmarked cars.

  “Can you carry four people?” Wohl asked.

  Weisbach nodded.

  “Then we’ll do that,” Wohl said.

  “Do I get an explanation of what’s going on?” Weisbach asked. “I’d kind of like to know.”

  “Well, if you’re going to be difficult,” Wohl said, and turned to Captain Mikkles. “Mick, I’m going to have to have two more cars in, say, two hours. If that means you have to call off a surveillance, so be it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mikkles said. It was obvious he did not like the order.

  “Okay,” Wohl said. “Then let’s go out there, and I’ll explain, for what I really hope is the last time, what’s going on.”

  Just about everybody in the outer office stopped talking and directed their attention toward Captain Quaire’s office as Wohl and the others filed out of it.

  “For you, Inspector,” Captain Michael J. Sabara said, handing Wohl one of the phones on Captain Quaire’s desk. �
��It’s Mickey O’Hara.”

  Sabara was sitting in Quaire’s chair. Peter Wohl and Jason Washington were sitting on wooden chairs-Washington with his legs sprawled in front of him, Wohl sitting in his chair backward. Quaire had left five minutes earlier, at Wohl’s pointed suggestion that since everybody had a lot to do in the morning, and he could think of nothing else they could do tonight, it might be a good idea to get some rest, it was already almost eleven.

  Sabara, Wohl had just told him, was going to be responsible for providing what detectives Washington-to whom Wohl had given responsibility for the Paschall Homes Housing Project-decided he needed, and to make sure there were Highway Patrol cars always no farther than five minutes away from the surveillance site.

  “And how is my all-time favorite journalist?” Wohl said into the phone.

  “Pissed is how I am,” O’Hara said. “Suspecting, as I do, that I am about to get another runaround.”

  “Another? Implying you have already been run around? By whom?”

  “The Master Chef,” O’Hara said. “You were there, Peter. Denny Coughlin promised to keep me informed. He didn’t. And when I called him just now, he told me to call you, and you’d fill me in.”

  “Fill you in about what?” Wohl said, innocently.

  “I knew it, I knew it. Be advised, Inspector, that my promise to have seen and heard nothing is now null and void.”

  “Where are you, Mick?”

  “Liberties.”

  “Washington and I will be there in five minutes. We’re just finishing up here.”

  “I’ll trust you that far, Peter. But not sixty seconds longer.”

  “We’ll be there in about five minutes. We’re leaving right now. Okay?”

  “You have ten minutes, Old Pal of Mine,” O’Hara said, and the line went dead.

  Washington’s cellular buzzed as he and Inspector Peter Wohl walked out of the Roundhouse into the parking lot.

  “Joe D’Amata, Lieutenant.”

  “Don’t tell me, please, Joseph, that you have encountered a problem at the warehouse. I want that car in the project right now.”

  “It’s an old Chevy van, not a car. And I don’t know if it’s a problem or not, but I thought I should tell you.”

  “Please do. The suspense is too much for my tired old heart.”

  “When I came out of the warehouse just now, there was a Ford parked halfway up the street. Lights out but people in it. When I got closer, I saw Payne was sitting in it.”

  “You refer to our Sergeant Payne?” Washington asked.

  The question caught Wohl’s attention.

  “Yeah. And sitting beside him was either Stan Colt or somebody who looks a hell of a lot like Stan Colt. Is there something I don’t know?”

  “What were they doing?” Washington asked.

  “Looking at the warehouse,” D’Amata said.

  “With their lights out?”

  “With their lights out.”

  “Joseph,” Washington said, looking at Wohl, “I have no explanation whatever for Sergeant Payne and Stan Colt being outside the IAD warehouse in an unmarked car with the lights out, but I will make inquiries and advise you. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”

  Washington pushed the End button and looked at Wohl. Wohl took out his cellular and pushed an autodial number.

  “Matt, is Mr. Colt with you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Meet me at Liberties. Now. Do not go inside.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Inspector Wohl, Lieutenant Washington, and Sergeant Payne arrived at Liberties within thirty seconds of one another.

  Lieutenant Washington went inside Liberties.

  Mr. Michael J. O’Hara was sitting alone at the bar.

  “You better be about to tell me that Peter’s right on your heels,” O’Hara greeted him.

  “Peter’s right on my heels.”

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “We’ve identified one of the miscreants in the Roy Rogers job, and have a good idea who the other one is.”

  “I heard that much at Augie Wohl’s.”

  “Mrs. Solomon is very concerned that, unless we exercise great care, the malefactors may slip through the cracks in the floor of the criminal justice system.”

  “Which means what, exactly?”

  “That an arrest will not be made until such time as Mrs. Solomon feels there is a stronger case than what we have now, which is identification of one of them by fingerprints. ”

  Inspector Wohl went to Matt’s unmarked Crown Victoria and got in the backseat.

  “Mr. Colt, I’m Inspector Wohl,” Wohl said.

  Stan Colt reached over the back of the seat and enthusiastically shook Wohl’s hand.

  “Hey! Great! How are you? Matt’s been telling me all about you!”

  “You were seen outside the IAD warehouse, Sergeant Payne,” Wohl said. “You want to tell me what that was all about?”

  “Mr. Colt wanted to see it, so I showed it to him.”

  “Okay. Is there anything else Mr. Colt wants to see tonight? ”

  “We’re going to D’Allesandro’s for a cheese steak,” Matt said.

  “And we’d love to have you come along,” Stan Colt said.

  “That’s very kind, but it’s been a long day, and what I’m going to do is have a nightcap with Lieutenant Washington and go home.”

  “Tell you what, Inspector,” Colt said. “Why don’t we all go in there and have a nightcap, then Matt and I will go to D’Allesandro’s, and then we’ll all go home.”

  Mr. Colt put action to his words by getting out of the car, walking quickly to the door of Liberties, motioning cheerfully for Matt and Wohl to follow him, and disappearing inside.

  “Jesus Christ!” Wohl said. “Mickey’s in there, waiting for me to tell him what’s going on.”

  “I saw the pressmobile,” Matt said.

  “This isn’t funny, goddamn it!”

  “What are you going to do?” Matt asked.

  “Goddamn movie actor!”

  “Actually, he’s not really such a bad sort,” Matt said. “He sort of grows on you.”

  FIFTEEN

  I may have had more of these than I remember,” Mickey O’Hara said, interrupting Washington, and holding up his Old Bushmills on the rocks, "because the guy in the door looks just like Stan Colt.”

  “Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” Washington agreed.

  Mr. Colt, smiling, his hand extended, marched up to them.

  “Hi,” he said. “You’re Matt’s boss, aren’t you? Lieutenant Washington?”

  “Yes, I am,” Washington said. “And unless I err, you are Mr. Stan Colt?”

  “Right!”

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Colt,” Washington said, adding: “This is Mr. Michael J. O’Hara, of the Bulletin.”

  “No shit!” Mr. Colt exclaimed. “You’re Mickey O’Hara? Goddamn! You’re a goddamn legend!”

  He enthusiastically pumped Mickey’s hand.

  “Mr. O’Hara is indeed one of our more prominent journalists, ” Washington said, as Wohl, trailed by Matt, came into the bar.

  “When you and Bull Bolinski got caught running numbers for Frankie the Gut, you took the fall for him, got expelled, and the Bull got to graduate, got to be All-American… you know. The Bull told me all about you.”

  “You know Casimir?” Mickey asked.

  “Hell, yeah, I know the Bull. We West Catholic guys got to stick together, you know. He always stays with me when he’s on the Coast.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Mickey said. “I heard you were in town, raising money for West Catholic, but I didn’t know you went there.”

  “You probably wouldn’t remember me. I used to be Stanley Coleman, I was a freshman and you and the Bull were juniors when you got shit-canned, but I sure remember you.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Mickey said, and now returned Mr. Colt’s enthusiastic hand-pumping.

  Wohl wa
lked up, smiling a little lamely.

  “Well, I see you’ve met Mr. O’Hara, Mr. Colt,” he said.

  “Met him, shit! We go way back; we both got kicked out of West Catholic. Jesus, I’m glad you brought me in here!”

  “Me, too,” Mickey said.

  “Hey, bartender,” Mr. Colt called, and when he had his attention, made a circling motion with his hand, which the bartender correctly interpreted to mean that he should bring liquid refreshment to one and all.

  “The usual, Inspector?” the bartender asked.

  Wohl nodded.

  “Detective?”

  “Hey, he’s a sergeant,” Mr. Colt corrected him. “Give us both one of those Irish martinis.”

  “And if I don’t want an Irish martini?” Matt asked, smiling.

  “Drink it anyway, you’re an outnumbered WASP,” Colt said, and then frowned, remembering. “Hey, I still don’t have any money. I’ll pay you back.”

  “Sure.”

  “The Bulletin will pay,” Mickey announced. “Why don’t we get a table?”

  They took a table. The bartender delivered a round of drinks.

  “You hang out with these guys, right, Mickey?” Mr. Colt inquired.

  “Yeah. What I want to know is what you’re doing with them.”

  “Matt’s showing me around the police department, and doing a goddamn good job of it.”

  “For a WASP,” Mickey said, “Matty’s a pretty good cop. I owe him big time.”

  “How come?”

  “A couple of years back, we were in an alley, and a really bad guy comes down it shooting at us with a. 45-”

  “Jesus, Mickey!” Matt protested.

  “-and Matty put him down,” O’Hara went on. “Took a bullet in the leg, but the bottom line was one dead bad guy.”

  “No shit?”

  “We call him the Wyatt Earp of the Main Line.”

  “My friends don’t call me that,” Matt said, coldly.

  “Or sometimes the Casanova of Center City,” O’Hara went blithely on.

  “Yeah, I like his taste in women,” Mr. Colt said. “You should have seen the one he had with him tonight.”

  “Curiosity overwhelms me,” Washington said. “To whom does Mr. Colt refer, Matthew?”

  “Captain Quaire assigned Detective Lassiter to explain the Williamson job to him,” Matt said.