"Thank you."
"He also volunteered to send out to Wallingford as many of the Nesfoods plant security people as would be necessary for as long as would be necessary. The point of this is that if the reason you don't want to come home is because of your con-cern for your mother and me, that won't be a problem. Dick would really like to help."
"I'm a cop," Matt said. "I'm not about to let these scum-bags run me out of town."
"I told you that's what he would say," Patricia Payne said.
"And I'll have people with me," Matt said.
"That was explained to us in great detail by Denny Cough-lin. Having said that, I think Denny would be more comfort-able if you were in Wallingford."
"I'm going to the apartment, Dad," Matt said.
"The police are taking these threats seriously, honey," Patricia Payne said. "Getting in to see you is like trying to walk into the White House."
"I suspect Uncle Denny had a lot to do with whatever se-curity there is here," Matt said. "In his godfather, as opposed to chief inspector of police, role."
"I think that probably has a lot to do with it," Brewster Payne agreed, smiling. "Okay. You change your mind-I sus-pect you'll get claustrophobia in your apartment-and we'll get you out to the house."
The door opened again, and a nurse came in. She was well under two hundred pounds, but she was every bit as formidable and outraged as the two-hundred-pounder Patricia Payne had imagined.
"Liquor is absolutely forbidden," she announced. "I should think you would have known that."
"I tried to tell my wife that," Brewster C. Payne said, straight-faced, "but she wouldn't listen to me."
Matt laughed heartily, and even more heartily when he saw the look on his mother's face. Each time his stomach con-tracted in laughter his leg hurt.
***
Jason Washington was waiting for Peter Wohl when he walked into the building at Bustleton and Bowler at five minutes to eight the next morning.
"Morning, Jason."
"Can I have a minute, Inspector?"
"Sure. Come on in the office. With a little bit of luck, there will be hot coffee."
"How about here? This will only take a yes or a no."
"Okay. What's on your mind?"
"Captain Sabara told me he wants Tiny Lewis-you know who I mean?"
"Sure."
"-on the security detail for Matt Payne. I'd rather he got somebody else."
"You have something for Lewis to do?"
Washington nodded.
"You got him. You discuss this with Sabara?"
"No."
"I'm sure he would have let you have Lewis."
"He would have asked why."
"You're losing me."
"I didn't know if he knew Tony Harris has been at the bot-tle."
"What's that got to do with Lewis?"
"Harris is sober. If we can keep him that way for the next seventy-two hours, I think we can keep him that way more or less indefinitely. Lewis will be with Harris all day, with orders to call me if Tony even looks at a liquor store."
"And at night?"
"Martha likes him. We have room at the apartment. He can stay with us for a while."
"Martha is a saint," Wohl said.
"No," Washington said, "it's just-"
"Yeah," Wohl interrupted coldly. "Only a saint or a fool can stand a dedicated drunk, and Martha's not a fool."
"He's a good cop, Inspector."
"That's what I've been thinking, with one part of my mind, for the last three or four days. The other part of my mind keeps repeating, 'He's a drunk, he's a drunk, he's a drunk.' "
"I think it's under control," Washington said.
"It better be, Jason."
"Thanks, Inspector," Washington said.
"You got something going now? I'd like you to sit in on what Malone has set up for Matt and Monahan. They're sup-posed to be waiting for me in my office."
"I can make time for that," Washington said.
Wohl led the way to his office. Sabara was standing by his desk, a telephone to his ear.
"He just walked in, Commissioner," Sabara said. He cov-ered the mouthpiece with his hand. "This is the third time he called."
Wohl nodded and took the telephone from him.
"Good morning, Commissioner. Sorry you had to call back."
The others in the room could hear only Wohl's end of the conversation:
"I'm sure Mr. Stillwell has his reasons....
"I checked with the hospital fifteen minutes ago. We're planning on taking him out of there at about half past ten....
"Yes, sir....
"I can stop by your office as soon as the interview is over, Commissioner....
"I'm sure everyone else-No. I don't know about O'Hara, come to think of it. But every one involved but O'Hara has given a statement, sir. I'll check on O'Hara right away and let you know, sir....
"Yes, sir. I'll see you in your office as soon as they've fin-ished with Payne. Good-bye, sir."
He put the telephone in its cradle, but, deep in thought, did not take his hand off it.
He finally shrugged and looked at the others.
"Stillwell wants to run Matt Payne, the shooting, past the Grand Jury. It probably makes sense, if you think about it-"
He paused, thinking, I wonder why that sonofabitch didn't tell me-
"-they will decline to indict, and then Giacomo can't start making noise about a police cover-up."
"It was a good shooting," Sabara said. "Stevens-what does he call himself?"
"Abu Ben Mohammed," Wohl furnished.
"-came out shooting. It wasn't even justifiable force, it was self-defense."
"I guess that's what Stillwell figures," Wohl said, and then changed the subject. "Jack has polished my rough plan to pro-tect Matt and Monahan. I'd like to hear what you think of it. Jack?"
Malone took the protection plan, which he had just had typed up and duplicated, from his jacket pocket.
Is he trying to give me credit for this to be a nice guy, Malone wondered, or trying to lay the responsibility on me in case something goes wrong!
TWENTY
Matt had been told "The Doctor" would be in to see him before he would be discharged, and therefore not to get dressed.
"The Doctor" turned out to be three doctors, accompanied, to Matt's pleasant surprise, by Lari Matsi, R.N.
No one acted as if there was a live human being in the bed. He was nothing more than a specimen.
"Remove the dressing on the leg, please," a plump doctor with a pencil-line mustache Matt could not remember ever hav-ing seen before ordered, "let's have a look at it."
Lari folded the sheet and blanket back, put her fingers to the adhesive tape, and gave a quick jerk.
"Shit!" Matt yelped, and then, a moment later, added, "Sorry."
Lari didn't seem to notice either the expletive or the apology.
The three doctors solemnly bent over and peered at the leg. Matt looked. His entire calf was a massive bruise, the purple-black of the bruise color coordinated with the circus orange antiseptic with which the area had apparently been painted.
There was a three-inch slash, closed with eight or ten black sutures. A bloody goo seemed to be leaking out.
"Healing nicely," one doctor opined.
"Not much suppuration," the second observed.
Pencil-line mustache asked, "What do I have him on?"
Lari checked an aluminum clipboard, announced something ending in "-mycin, one hundred thousand, every four hours," and handed Pencil-line mustache the clipboard. He took a gold pen from his white jacket and wrote something on it.
"Have that filled before he leaves the hospital," he ordered.
"Yes, Doctor," Lari said.
Pencil-line mustache pointed at Matt.
Lari reached over and snatched the bandage on Matt's fore-head off.
He didn't utter an expletive this time, but it took a good deal of effort.
Pencil-line
mustache grunted.
"Nice job," Doctor Two opined. "Who did it?"
"Who else?" Doctor One answered, just a trifle smugly.
Pencil-line mustache looked from one to the other. Both shook their heads no.
Pencil-line mustache finally acknowledged that a human be-ing was in the bed.
"You will be given a medication before leaving-"
" 'Medication'?" Matt interrupted. "Is that something like medicine?"
"-which should take care of the possibility of infection," Pencil-line went on. "The dressing should be changed daily. Your personal physician can handle that. Your only problem that I can see is your personal hygiene, in other words, bathing. Until that suppuration, in other words that oozing, stops, I don't think you should immerse that leg, in other words, get it wet."
"I see," Matt said solemnly.
"The best way to handle the problem, in my experience, is with Saran Wrap. In other words, you wrap the leg with Saran Wrap, holding it in place with Scotch tape, and when you get in the bathtub, you keep the leg out of the water."
"Do I take the bandage off, or do I wrap the Saran Wrap over the bandage?"
"Leave the dressing-that's a dressing, not a bandage-on."
"Yes, sir."
"In a week or so, in his good judgment, whatever he thinks is appropriate, your personal physician will remove the sutures, in other words those stitches."
"In other words, whatever he decides, right?"
"Right," Pencil-line said. A suspicion that he was being mocked had just been born.
"Got it," Matt said.
"Nurse, you may replace the dressing," Pencil-line said.
"Yes, Doctor," Lari said.
Pencil-line nodded at Matt. His lips bent in what could have been a smile, and he marched out of the room. Doctors One and Two followed him.
"You're a wise guy, aren't you?" Lari said, when they were alone.
"No. I'm a cop. A wise-guy is a gangster. Who was that guy, in other words, Pencil-line, anyway?"
"Chief of Surgery. He's a very good surgeon."
"In other words, he cuts good, right?"
She looked at him and smiled.
"You told me you weren't coming back," Matt said.
"I go where the money is. They were shorthanded, probably because of the lousy weather, so they called me."
"I'm delighted," Matt said. "But we're going to have to stop meeting this way. People will start talking."
"How's the pain?" she asked, pushing a rolling cart with bandaging material on it up to the bed.
"It's all right now. It hurt like hell last night."
"It's bruised," she said. "But I think you were very lucky."
"Yeah, look at the nurse I got."
"Have you ever used a crutch before?"
"No. Do I really need one?"
"For a couple of days. Then you can either use a cane, or take your chances without one. When I finish bandaging this, I'll get one and show you how to use it."
"That's not a bandage, that's a dressing."
"I'm bandaging it with a dressing," Lari said, and smiled at him again.
It was, he decided when she had finished, a professional dressing. And she hadn't hurt him.
"What happens now?"
"I get your prescription to the pharmacy, get your crutch, show you how to use it, and presuming you don't break your leg, then-I don't know. I'll see if I can find out."
Charley McFadden, in civilian clothes, blue jeans and a quilted nylon jacket, came in the room as Matt was practicing with the crutch.
"Hi ya, Lari," he said, obviously pleased to see her.
"Hello, Charley," she said. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm going to carry Gimpy here to the Roundhouse. Can he operate on that crutch?"
"Why don't you ask me?" Matt asked.
"You wouldn't know," Charley said.
"He'll be all right," Lari said.
"Are you here officially?" Matt asked.
"Oh, yeah. Unmarked car-Hay-zus is downstairs in it-what-ever overtime we turn in, the works. Even a shotgun. And on the way here, I heard them send a Highway RPC here to meet the lieutenant. You get a goddamn-sorry, Lari-convoy."
"When?"
"Whenever you're ready."
"When is that going to be, Lari?" Matt asked.
"As soon as you get dressed," she said. "I'll go get a wheelchair."
Matt was amused and touched by the gentleness with which Charley McFadden helped him pull his trouser leg over his injured calf, tied his shoes, and even offered to tie his necktie, if he didn't feel like standing in front of the mirror.
Lari returned with the wheelchair, saw him installed in it, put his crutch between his legs, and then insisted on pushing it herself.
"Hospital rules," she said when McFadden stepped behind it.
"I like it," Matt said. "In China, they make the females walk three paces behind their men. This is even better."
"You're not my man," Lari said.
"We could talk about that."
What the hell am I doing? Making a pass at her when two minutes ago I was wondering how I could get Helene back in the sack?
Both Highway cops on duty at the nurse's station by the elevator greeted Matt by name, and then got on the elevator with them.
Lieutenant Malone was waiting in the main lobby when the door opened.
"There's a couple of press guys," he said to the Highway cops, nodding toward the door. "Don't let them get in the way."
Matt saw two men, one of them wearing earmuffs and both holding cameras, just outside the hospital door.
Lari rolled him up the side of the circular door.
"End of the line," she said.
Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin came through the re-volving door, trailed by a very large, neatly dressed young man whom Matt correctly guessed was Coughlin's new driver.
"Morning, Matt," he said.
"Good morning."
"You two make a hand seat," Coughlin ordered. "Put him in back of my car. There's more room."
Coughlin's official car was an Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight.
"I can walk."
"It's icy out there, and you're no crutch expert," Coughlin said.
"Thanks for everything," Matt said to Lari. "I'll see you around."
She crossed her arms under her breasts and nodded.
Charley and Coughlin's driver made a seat with their crossed hands. Matt lowered himself into it, Coughlin pushed open a glass door and they carried him out of the lobby.
"How do you feel, Payne?" one of the reporters called to him, in the act of taking his picture.
"I'm feeling fine."
"Any regrets about shooting Charles Stevens?"
"What kind of a question is that? What the hell is the matter with you people?" Denny Coughlin flared.
The interruption served to give Matt time to reconsider the answer-"Not a one"-that had come to his lips.
"I'm sorry it was necessary," he said.
Matt saw that he was indeed being transported in a convoy. There was a Highway Patrol RPC, an unmarked car (probably Malone's, he thought), Coughlin's Oldsmobile, and behind that another unmarked car with Jesus Martinez behind the wheel.
They set him on his feet beside the Oldsmobile. Coughlin's driver opened the door, and Matt got in.
"Let him sit sideward with his leg on the seat," Coughlin ordered. "McFadden, you ride in your car."
"There's plenty of room back here," Matt protested. "Get in, Charley."
Charley looked at Coughlin for a decision.
"Okay, get in," Coughlin said.
By the time Coughlin had gotten into the front seat, his driver had gotten behind the wheel and started the engine.
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