W.E.B Griffin - The Victim

"No, sir," Matt said. "That's not so."

"Yes, it is, goddamn you! You took advantage of our friendship! That's despicable!"

"Dick, take it easy!" Brewster C. Payne said.

"You better get him out of here before I beat him up," H. Richard Detweiler said.

"Mr. Detweiler-" Matt said.

"Get out of my sight, goddamn you! I never want to see your face again!"

"You can believe this or not, Mr. Detweiler, but we're trying to help Penny," Matt said.

Detweiler stepped menacingly toward Matt.

"Goddamn you!"

Oh, Christ, I don't want to hit him! Matt thought.

His father stepped between them and kept them apart. He motioned with his head for Matt to leave.

Matt felt sick to his stomach. He fled the house and after some difficulty found his car. It was blocked in by several limousines, and he had to find their chauffeurs and get them to move them.

As he started down the drive he saw his father, obviously waiting for him. There was a temptation to pretend he didn't see him, but at the last moment he braked sharply and stopped and rolled down the window.

"You had better be sure of your facts," Brewster C. Payne said, leaning down to the window. "Dick Detweiler is looking for Dr. Dotson right now."

"And if Dotson won't tell him, then what?"

"All I'm saying is that you had better be sure of your facts," his father said.

"There seems to be some doubt in your mind, Dad," Matt said.

"I know that you don't have very much experience as a policeman," his father said. "If you had, you wouldn't have run off at the mouth about any of this to Chad. A lot of damage has been done."

"To whom, Dad?" Matt's mouth ran away with him. "To Penny? Or to your cozy relationship with Nesfoods International?"

"That," Brewster C. Payne said calmly, "was a despicable thing for you to say."

"You think so?" Matt said, his mouth now completely out of control. "Then try this on for size: Our information, as we cops are prone to say, is that Penny Detweiler was not only a coke junkie but was fucking that guinea gangster who got himself blown away. Nice girl, our precious Penny."

Brewster C. Payne looked at Matt intently for a moment, then straightened, turned, and started to walk back to the house.

Matt drove down the driveway and, after one of the rent-a-cops had carefully examined him and the car, was passed out the gate.

A hundred yards down the road he pulled the car to the curb, got out, and took several deep breaths. The technique, alleged to constrain the urge to become nauseous, didn't work.

Matt took Lancaster Avenue, which is U.S. Highway 30, into Philadelphia, driving slowly, trying to think of some way he could explain, in the morning, his runaway mouth to Jason Washington. Then it occurred to him that he had to tell Peter Wohl, not Washington, and he had to tell him tonight, not wait until morning.

The worst possible, and thus the most likely, scenario was that the trouble I am going to cause for having confided, like a fourteenyear-old-which, it may be reasonably argued, I am, intellectually speaking-in Chad Nesbitt is going to start tonight. Mr. Detweiler will find Dr. Dotson. Dr. Dotson will either deny outright, or downplay, Penny's coke problem. Mr. Detweiler will then naturally construe Brewster C. Payne's best legal advice, to cool it, as being based on Brewster C. Payne's paternal loyalty to his son, Boy Cop, Ye Olde Blabbermouth. He will then express his displeasure, his outrage, to the nearest official ear he can find. Which will be that of His Honor Mayor Jerry Carlucci, last seen in the striped tent on his lawn.

There was a cheese-steak joint at 49^th and Lancaster. He pulled the Porsche to the curb and walked across Lancaster to it. There was a 19^th District RPC at the curb, and two cops at the counter drinking coffee.

The cops looked at him with unabashed curiosity, reminding him that he was wearing formal evening wear.

Be not concerned, Officers. While my unbelievable stupidity has just brought down upon the Police Department generally, and on two of its best, who have been both holding my hand to keep me out of trouble, and have so foolishly placed an entirely unjustified faith in my common sense, the completely justified wrath of a very powerful man, what you have here is not some rich kid in a monkey suit who will disturb the peace of this establishment, but, incroyable, one of you, a police officer, complete to gun, badge, and out in the Porsche, handcuffs and everything.

Matt walked to a pay phone mounted on the wall and fished change from his pocket. He had just received a dial tone when his eye fell on a stack on newspapers, apparently just delivered, on the counter. It was theLedger. At first glance there seemed to be a three-column photograph of His Honor Mayor Jerry Carlucci just about in the act of either punching or choking someone.

Curiosity overwhelmed Matt. He hung the phone up and went to the counter. On closer examination the photograph on the front page of thePhiladelphia Ledger was indeed of the mayor, and he did indeed look as if he were about to either choke someone or punch him out. The caption, simply "The Honorable Jerry Carlucci, mayor of the City of Philadelphia," provided no explanation.

The explanation came in the story below the picture.

HEAVY POLICE GUARD:

By Charles E. Whaley,

Ledger Staff Writer

Phila-The wedding of socialites Daphne Elizabeth Brown and Chadwick T. Nesbitt IV went on as scheduled at 7:30p.m. at St. Mark's Church last evening, minus one bridesmaid, and with a heavy force of police and private security personnel evident at the church.

Penelope Detweiler, 23, whose father, H. Richard Detweiler, is president of Nesfoods International and who was to have been a bridesmaid, instead laid in Hahneman Hospital after having suffered multiple shotgun wounds at the hands of an unknown assailant in a downtown parking garage the previous day.

As the Right Reverend Wesley Framingham Kerr, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Philadelphia, united in marriage the daughter of financier Soames T. Browne and the son of Nesfoods International Chairman, C.T. Nesbitt III, police and private detectives scattered among the socially prominent guests in the church nervously scanned them and the church itself in a manner that reminded this reporter of Secret Service agents guarding the president.

It was reported that the police were present at the orders of Philadelphia Mayor Jerry Carlucci, himself a guest, who is reported to be grossly embarrassed both that Miss Detweiler was shot in what appears to have been a Mafia-connected incident, and that the Special Operations Division of the Philadelphia Police Department, which was organized with his enthusiastic support, and which he personally charged with solving the crime, has been so far unable to identify any suspects in the shooting. The presence of private detectives at the church, reportedly from Wackenhut Security, Inc., was taken by some as an indication that the Browne and Nesbitt families had little faith in the Philadelphia Police Department to protect them and their guests.

Mayor Carlucci, outside the church, refused to discuss that issue with this reporter, and a scuffle ensued during which aLedger photographer was knocked to the ground and his camera damaged.

(See related stories, "No Clues" and "Gangland War Victim," p.3a.)

"Oh, Jesus!" Matt said aloud.

His Honor must know about this. That's going to have put him in a lovely frame of mind so that when Mr. Detweiler says, "Jerry, old pal, let me tell you about this blabbermouth cop of yours," he will be understanding and forgiving.