“From the time we get there, we don’t have anything else to do, right? I mean, when it’s all over, we’ll walk by and say something to Jeannie and Gertrude Moffitt, but there’s nothing else we have to do as pallbearers, right?”
“I think that’s right, Chief,” Peter said.
“The minute we get there, Peter, I mean when we march away from the gravesite, and are standing there, you take off.”
“Sir?”
“You take off. You go to the first patrol car that can move, and you tell them to take you back to Marshutz & Sons. Then you get in your car, whose radio is out of service, and you go home and you throw some stuff in a bag, and you go to Jersey in connection with the murder of the suspect in the Nelson killing. And you stay there, Peter, until I tell you to come home.”
“Commissioner Czernick sent Sergeant Jankowitz to tell me the commissioner wants me in his office at two this afternoon,” Peter said.
“I’ll handle Czernick,” Coughlin said. “You do what I tell you, Peter. If nothing else, I can buy you some time for him to cool down. Sometimes, Czernick lets his temper get in the way of his common sense. Once he’s done something dumb, like swearing to put you in uniform, assigned to Night Command, permanently, on the ‘last out’ shift—”
“My God, is it that bad?” Peter said.
“If Carlucci loses the election, the new mayor will want a new police commissioner,” Coughlin said. “If the Ledger doesn’t support Carlucci, he may lose the election. You’re expendable, Peter. What I was saying was that once Czernick has done something dumb, and then realized it was a mistake, he’s got too hard a head to admit he was wrong. And he doesn’t have to really worry about the cops lining up behind you for getting screwed. I think you’re a good cop. Hell, I know you’re a good cop. But there are a lot of forty-five- and fifty-year-old lieutenants and captains around who think the reason they didn’t get promoted when you did is because their father wasn’t a chief inspector.”
“I won’t resign,” Peter said. “Night Command, back in uniform ... no matter what.”
“Come on, Peter,” Coughlin said. “You didn’t come on the job last week. You know what they can do to somebody—civil service be damned—when they want to get rid of him. If you can put up with going back in uniform and Night Command, he’ll think of something else.”
Peter didn’t reply.
“It would probably help some if you could catch whoever hacked up the Nelson boy and shot his boyfriend,” Coughlin said.
They were in the cemetery now, winding slowly down access roads. He could see Dutch Moffitt’s gravesite. Highway Patrolmen were already lined up on both sides of the path down which they would carry Dutch’s casket.
Jesus, Peter thought. Maybe that was my mistake. Maybe I should have just stayed in Highway, and rode around on a motorcycle, and been happy to make Lieutenant at forty-five. That way there wouldn’t ‘t have been any of this goddamned politics.
But then he realized he was wrong.
There’s always politics. In Highway, it’s who gets a new motorcycle and who doesn’t. Who gets to do interesting things, or who rides up and down Interstate 95 in the rain, ticketing speeders. Same crap. Just a different level.
“Thank you, Chief,” Peter said. “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“I owe your father one,” Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin said, matter-of-factly. “He saved my ass, one time.”
****
“Hello?”
Peter’s heart jumped at the sound of her voice.
“Hi,” he said.
“I thought it might be you,” she said. “You don’t seem thrilled to hear my voice,” Peter said.
“I don’t get very many calls at midnight,” she said, ignoring his reply.
“It took me that long to get up my courage to call,” he said.
“Where are you, home? Or out on the streets, protecting the public?”
“I’m in Atlantic City,” he said.
“What are you doing there?”
“Working on the Nelson job,” he said.
“At two o’clock this afternoon, I had a call from WCTS-TV, Channel Four, Chicago,” Louise said. “They want me to co-anchor their evening news show.”
“Oh?”
“They want me so bad that they will give me twenty thousand a year more than I ‘m making now, and they will buy out my contract here,” Louise said. “That may be because I am very good, and have the proper experience, and it may be because my father owns WCTS-TV.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’d like to talk to you about that,” she said. “Preferably in a public place. I don’t want to be prone to argue.” He didn’t reply.
“That was a joke,” she said. “A clever double entendre on the word ‘prone.’ “
“I’ve heard it before,” Peter said.
“But if you promise to just talk, you could come here. How long will it take you to drive from Atlantic City?”
“I can’t come,” Peter said.
“Why not?” she asked.
“I just can’t, Louise.”
“Your girl friend down there with you? Taking the sea air? I saw her kiss you this morning.”
“No,” he said. “I told you I’m working.”
“At midnight?”
“I can’t come back to Philadelphia right now,” he said.
“Somebody told your girl friend about me? She’s looking for you with a meat cleaver?” She heard what she said. “That was really first-class lousy taste, wasn’t it? I’m upset, Peter.”
“Why?”
“My father is a very persuasive man,” she said. “And then he topped his hour and a half of damned-near-irrefutable arguments why you and I could never build anything permanent with that lovely WCTS-TV carrot. And seeing good ol’ whatsername kiss you didn’t help much, either. I think it would be a very good idea if you came here, as soon as you could, and offered some very convincing counter arguments.”
“Would you be happy with the carrot? Knowing it was a carrot?”
“I think the news director at WCTS-TV will be very pleasantly surprised to find out how good I am. Since I have been shoved down his throat, he expects some simpering moron. And I’m not, Peter. I’m good. And Chicago is one step from New York, and the networks.”
“Is that what you want? New York and the networks?”
“I don’t know right now what I want, except that I want to talk to you,” she said.
“I can’t come tonight, Louise,” Peter said.
“Why not? I can’t seem to get an answer to that question.”
“I’m in trouble with the department,” Peter said.
“What kind of trouble?”
“Political trouble.”
“Any chance they’ll fire you, I hope, I hope?”
“Thanks a lot,” he said.
“Sorry, I forgot how important being a policeman is to you,” she said, sarcastically.
There was a long pause.
“We’re fighting, and saying things we won’t be able to take back,” she said. “That’s not what I wanted.”
“I love you,” Peter said.
“One of the interesting thoughts my father offered was that people tend to confuse love with lust. Lust comes quickly and eventually burns itself out. Love has to be built, slowly.”
“Okay,” Peter said. “I lust you, and I’m willing to work on the other thing.”
She laughed, but stopped abruptly.
“I don’t know why I’m laughing,” she said. “I’m not sure whether I should cry or break things, but I know I shouldn’t be laughing. I want you to come here, Peter. I want to look at you when we’re talking.”
“I can’t come,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“When can you come?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Three, four days, maybe.”
“Why not now?” Louise demanded plaintively.
“Because I’m liab
le to lose my job if I come back right now.”
There was a long pause. When Louise finally spoke, her voice was calm.
“You know what you just said, of course? That your goddamned job is more important in your life than me.”
“Don’t be silly, Louise,” Peter said.
“No, I won’t,” she said. “Not anymore.”
The phone went dead in his ear.
When he dialed again, he got her answering device. He tried it three more times and then gave up.
When he tried to call her at WCBL-TV the next day, she was either not in, or could not be called to the telephone, and would he care to leave a message?
****
Staff Inspector Peter Wohl paid lip service to the notion that he was in Atlantic City working on the Nelson homicide job. He went to the hospital where the autopsy on Errol F. Watson, also known as Pierre St. Maury, was performed, and looked at the corpse, and read the coroner’s report. Errol F. Watson had died of destruction of brain tissue caused by three projectiles, believed to be .32 caliber, of the type commonly associated with caliber .32 Colt semiautomatic pistols.
That didn’t mean he had been shot with a Colt. There were a hundred kinds of pistols that fired the .32 ACP cartridge. No fired cartridge cases had been found, despite what Wohl believed had been a very thorough search of the area where the body had been found. They had found blood and bone and brain tissue.
Very probably, whoever had shot Errol F. Watson also known as Pierre St. Maury had marched him away from the Jaguar, and then shot him in the back of the head. And then twice more, at closer range. God only knew what had happened to the ejected cartridge cases. If they had been ejected. There were some revolvers (which do not eject fired cases), chambered for .32 ACP. Whatever the pistol was, it was almost certainly already sinking into the sandy ocean floor off Atlantic City, or into the muck of a New Jersey swamp, and the chances of recovering it were practically nil.
He also spent most of a day at the state trooper garage, watching, with professional admiration, the lab technicians working on the Jaguar. They knew their business, and they lifted fingerprints and took soil samples and did all the clever things citizens have grown to expect by watching cop stories on television.
Lieutenant Bob McGrory, who had taken him to the garage, picked him up after work there and then insisted he come home with him for supper. He had been at first reluctant and uncomfortable, but McGrory’s wife, Mary-Ellen, made him feel welcome, and McGrory produced a bottle of really good scotch, and they sat around killing that, and telling Dutch Moffitt stories, and Peter’s mouth finally loosened, and he told McGrory why he really had been sent to Atlantic City.
He left then, aware that he was a little drunk, and not wanting to confide in Bob McGrory the painful details of his romance with Miss Louise Dutton.
On his arrival in Atlantic City, in a fey mood, he had taken a room in the Chalfonte-Haddon Hall, a thousand-room landmark on the boardwalk, rather than in a smaller hotel or a motel. He had told himself that he would endure his time in purgatory at least in luxury.
It was, he decided, faded grandeur rather than luxury. But it did have a bar, and he stopped there for a nightcap before he went to his room. He had just had another one-way conversation with Louise Dutton’s answering machine, the machine doing all the talking, when there was a knock at his door.
“Hi,” she said. “I saw you downstairs in the bar, and thought you might like a little company.”
He laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’m a cop,” he said.
“Oh, shit!”
He watched her flee down the corridor, and then, smiling, closed the door and walked across the room to his bed.
The phone rang.
Please, God, let that be Louise! Virtue is supposed to be its own reward.
“Did I wake you up?” Lieutenant Bob McGrory asked.
“No problem, I had to answer the phone anyway,” Wohl said, pleased with his wit.
“I just had a call from a friend of mine on the Atlantic City vice squad,” McGrory said. “Two gentlemen were in an establishment called the Black Banana earlier this evening. They paid for their drinks with a Visa credit card issued to Jerome Nelson. The manager called it in. I understand he needs a friend—several friends—in the police department right now.”
“The Black Banana?” Wohl asked. “If it’s what it sounds like, we’ve got one of those in Philly.”
“Maybe it’s a franchise,” McGrory said, chuckling.
“They still there?”
“No. The cops are checking the hotels and motels. They have what may be a name from the manager of the Black Banana, and they’re also checking to see if anyone is registered as Jerome Nelson. They have a stakeout at the Banana, too.”
“Interesting,” Peter said.
“I told my friend I’d call him back and tell him if you wanted to be waked up if they find them.”
“Oh, yes,” Peter Wohl said. “Thank you, Bob.”
****
On his fifth day in Atlantic City, when Peter Wohl walked into the state trooper barracks, Lieutenant Robert McGrory told him that he had just that moment hung up from talking with Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin.
“ ‘Almost all is forgiven, come home’ is the message, Peter,” Lieutenant McGrory said.
“Thank you,” Peter said. “Thanks for everything.”
“Any time. You going right back?”
“Yeah,” Peter said. “My girl friend’s probably finally given up on me.”
“The one at the church? Very nice.”
“Her, too,” Peter said.
****
There was a Mayflower moving van parked on the cobblestone street before Six Stockton Place.
It is altogether fitting and proper, Peter Wohl thought, that I should arrive here at the exact moment they are carrying out Louise’s bed.
But he got out of the LTD anyway, and walked into the building and rode up in the elevator. The door to Louise’s apartment was open, and he walked in.
There were two men standing with a packing list.
“Where are you taking this stuff?” Peter asked.
“What’s it to you?”
“I’m a police officer,” Peter said, and took out his ID.
The man handed him a clipboard with forms on it. The household furnishings listed below were to be shipped to 2710 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois, Apartment 1705.
“Thank you,” Peter said.
“Something wrong?”
“Nothing at all,” Peter said, and left the apartment and got in the LTD and drove to the Roundhouse.
He parked the car and went in and headed for the elevators, then turned and went to the receptionist’s desk.
“Let me have that phone, will you please?” Peter asked.
He knew the number of WCBL-TV by memory now.
They told him they were sorry, Miss Louise Dutton was no longer connected with WCBL-TV.
He pushed the phone back to the officer on duty and walked toward the elevators.
When the door opened, Commissioner Taddeus Czernick and Sergeant Jankowitz got out. Jankowitz’s eyes widened when he saw Wohl.
“Good afternoon, Commissioner,” Peter said.
“Got a minute, Peter?” Czernick said, and took Wohl’s arm and led him to one side.
“I think I owe you an apology,” Czernick said.
“Sir?”
“I should have known you weren’t the one with diarrhea of the mouth,” Czernick said.
“No apology is necessary, Commissioner,” Peter said.
Czernick met his eyes for a moment, and nodded.
“Well, I suppose you’re ready to go back to your regular duties, aren’t you, Peter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Give my regards to your dad, when you see him,” Czernick said. He smiled at Peter, patted his shoulder, and walked away.
Peter got on the elevator and r
ode up to Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin’s office.
“Well, good afternoon, Inspector,” Sergeant Tom Lenihan said, smiling broadly at him. “How nice to see you. I’ll tell the chief you’re here.”
Dennis V. Coughlin greeted him by saying, “I was hoping you would walk in here about now. You can buy me lunch. You owe me one, I figure.”
“Yes, sir. No argument about that.”
They went, with Tom Lenihan, to Bookbinder’s Restaurant. Coughlin ate a dozen cherrystone clams and drank a bottle of beer before he got into the meat of what he wanted to say.
“Commissioner Czernick happened to run into Mickey O’Hara,” Coughlin said. “And the subject somehow turned to the story Mickey wrote quoting an unnamed senior police officer to the effect that we were looking for a Negro homosexual in connection with the Nelson murder.”
“You set that up, didn’t you, Chief?” Peter said.
“Mickey wouldn’t tell him who the unnamed police officer was, but he did tell him, swearing by all that’s holy, that it wasn’t you.”
“And the commissioner believed him?”
“I think so. I’d stay out of his way for a while, if I were you.”
“I ran into him getting on the elevator in the Roundhouse,” Peter said.
“And?”
“He apologized, I said none was necessary, and then he said he thought I would be happy to be getting back to my regular duties, and that I should give his regards to my dad.”
“Okay,” Coughlin said. “Even better than I would have hoped.”
“I’m off the hook, then?”
“You weren’t listening. I said that if I were you, I’d stay out of his sight for a while.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Since it wasn’t you, who had the big mouth? That wasn’t hard to figure out. DelRaye. So DelRaye has been transferred from Homicide to the Twenty-Second District—in uniform—and he can kiss away, for good, his chances, not that there were many, to make captain. And then, I understand, Hizzoner the Mayor called Mr. Nelson, and told him what had happened, that he had found out who had the big mouth, and taken care of him, and that, proving our dedication to finding the murderers of his son, we sent you to Atlantic City where you did in fact assist the local police in apprehending the men we are sure are the murderers of his son, and couldn’t we be friends again? Whereupon, Mr. Nelson let the mayor have it. I have it on reliable information that they said some very unpleasant things to each other.”
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