W.E.B Griffin: The Assassin

There was a hissing sound, and one of the drivers gestured to the corridor toward what was in effect the executive suite of the Police Administration Building. The meeting was over, the bosses were coming out.

Chief Delachessi came first, gestured to his driver, and got on the elevator. Next came Chief Coughlin, who walked up to his driver, a young Irish sergeant named Tom Mahon.

"Meet me outside Shank amp; Evelyn's in an hour and a half," he ordered. "I'll catch a ride with Inspector Wohl."

Shank amp; Evelyn's was a restaurant in the Italian section of South Philadelphia.

"Yes, sir," Sergeant Mahon said.

Then Chief Coughlin walked to Officer Payne and shook his hand.

"Nice suit, Matty," he said.

"Thank you."

For all of his life, Officer Payne had called Chief Coughlin " Uncle Denny," and still did when they were alone.

Staff Inspector Wohl walked up to them.

"Officer Martinez is on his way to meet me in the parking lot," he said to Officer Payne. "You meet him, give him the keys to my car, and tell him that Chief Coughlin and I will be down in a couple of minutes. You catch a ride in the Highway car back to the Schoolhouse. I'll be there in a couple of hours. I'll be, if someone really has to get to me, at Shank amp; Evelyn's."

"Yes, sir," Officer Payne said.

Chief Coughlin and Inspector Wohl went back down the corridor toward the office of the police commissioner and his deputies. Sergeant Mahon and Officer Payne got on the elevator and rode to the lobby.

"What the hell is that all about?" Mahon asked.

"I think Coughlin and Wohl are being nice guys," Matt Payne said. "The results of the detective exam are back. Martinez didn't pass it."

"Oh, shit. He wanted it bad?"

"Real bad."

"You saw the list?"

"I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me," Matt Payne said.

Mahon chuckled.

"How'd you do?"

"Third."

"Hey, congratulations!"

"If you quote me, I'll deny it. But thank you."

Matt Payne had to wait only a minute or two on the concrete ramp outside the rear door of the Roundhouse before a Highway Patrol RPC pulled up to the curb.

He went the rest of the way down the ramp to meet it. The driver, a lean, athletic-looking man in his early thirties, who he knew by sight, but not by name, rolled down the window as Highway Patrolman Jesus Martinez got out of the passenger side.

"How goes it, Hay-zus?" Payne called.

Martinez nodded, but did not reply. Or smile.

"We had a call to meet the inspector, Payne," the driver said. While the reverse was not true, just about everybody in Highway and Special Operations knew the inspector's "administrative assistant" by name and sight.

Payne squatted beside the car. "He'll be down in a minute," he said. "I'm to give Hay-zus the keys to his car; you're supposed to give me a ride to the Schoolhouse."

The driver nodded.

I wish to hell I was better about names.

Payne stood up, fished the car keys from his pocket, and tossed them to Martinez.

"Back row, Hay-zus," he said, and pointed. "I'd bring it over here. If anyone asks, tell them you're waiting for Chief Coughlin."

Martinez nodded, but didn't say anything.

I am not one of Officer Martinez's favorite people. And now that he busted the detective exam, and Charley and I passed it, that's going to get worse. Well, fuck it, there's nothing I can do about it.

He walked around the front of the car and got in the front seat. Martinez walked away, toward the rear of the parking lot. The driver put the car in gear and drove away.

"You have to get right out to the Schoolhouse?" Matt asked.

"No."

"You had lunch?"

"No. You want to stop someplace?"

"Good idea. Johnny's Hots okay with you?"

"Fine."

"You have an idea where McFadden's riding?"

"Thirteen, I think," the driver said.

Matt checked the controls of the radio to make sure the frequency was set to that of the Highway Patrol, then picked up the microphone.

"Highway Thirteen, Highway Nine."

"Thirteen," a voice immediately replied. Matt recognized it as Charley McFadden's.

"Thirteen, can you meet us at Johnny's Hots?"

"On the way," McFadden's voice said. "Highway Thirteen. Let me have lunch at Delaware and Penn Street."

"Okay, Thirteen," the J-band radio operator said. J-band, the city-wide band, is the frequency Highway units usually listen to. It gives them the opportunity to go in on any interesting call anywhere in the city.

"Highway Nine. Hold us out to lunch at the same location."

Matt dropped the microphone onto the seat.

"I guess you and McFadden are buying, huh?" the driver asked.

"Why should we do that?"

"You both passed the exam, didn't you?"

"You heard that, did you?"

"I also heard that Martinez didn't."

"I think that's what the business at the Roundhouse is all about. The inspector and Chief Coughlin are going to break it to him easy."

"I tried the corporal's exam three years ago and didn't make it," the driver said. "Then I figured, fuck it, I'd rather be doing this than working in an office anyhow."

Was that simply a conversational interchange, or have I just been zinged?

"I'm surprised Hay-zus didn't make it," Matt said.

"Yeah, I was too. But I guess some people can pass exams, and some people can't."

"You're right. You think McFadden knows we passed?"

"He told me this morning at roll call."

"So that means Martinez knows too, I guess?"

"Yeah, I'm sure he knows."

Was that why Hay-zus cut me cold, or was that on general principles?

Detective Matthew M. Payne, of East Detectives, pulled his unmarked car to the curb just beyond the intersection of 12^th and Butler Streets in the Tioga section of Philadelphia.

There was a three-year-old Ford station wagon parked at the curb. Payne reached over and picked up a clipboard from the passenger seat, and examined the Hot Sheet. It was a sheet of eight-and-a-half-byeleven-inch paper, printed on both sides, which listed the tag numbers of stolen vehicles in alphanumeric order.

There were three categories of stolen vehicles. If a double asterisk followed the number, this was a warning to police officers that if persons were seen in the stolen vehicle they were to be regarded as armed and dangerous. A single asterisk meant that if and when the car was recovered, it was to be guarded until technicians could examine it for fingerprints. No asterisks meant that it was an ordinary run-of-the-mill hot car that nobody but its owner really gave a damn about.

The license number recorded on the Hot Sheet corresponded with the license plate on the Ford station, which had been reported stolen twenty-eight hours previously. There were no asterisks following the listing. Two hours previously, Radio Patrol Car 2517, of the 25^th Police District, on routine patrol had noticed the Ford station wagon, and upon inquiry had determined that it had been reported as a stolen car.

The reason, obviously, that this Ford station wagon had attracted the attention of the guys in the blue-and-white was not hard for someone of Detective Payne's vast experience-he had been a detective for three whole weeks-to deduce. The wheels and tires had been removed from the vehicle, and the hood was open, suggesting that other items of value on the resale market had been removed from the engine compartment.

The officer who had found the stolen car had then filled out Philadelphia Police Department Form 75-48, on which was listed the location, the time the car had been found, the tag number and the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number), and the condition (if it had been burned, stripped, or was reasonably intact).