W. Griffin: Special Operations

She gave the big-league bitcher and her consort another room, apologizing for any inconvenience the original room assignment might have caused. Mickey thought the big-league bitcher was a little disappointed, like a bantamweight who sent his opponent to the canvas for the count with a lucky punch in the first round. All keyed up, and nobody around to fight with.

"Good evening, sir," the desk clerk said. "How may I help you?"

Her voice was low and soft, her smile dazzling; and her hazel eyes were fascinating.

"What room is Bull Bolinski in?" Mickey asked.

"Mr. Bolinski isn't here, sir," she replied immediately.

"He isn't?"

"Are you Mr. O'Hara, sir? Mr. Michael J. O'Hara?"

"Guilty."

She smiled. Warmly, Mickey thought. Genuinely amused.

"I thought I recognized you from your pictures," she said. "I'm one of your… what… avid readers… Mr. O'Hara."

"Oh, yeah?"

She nodded confirmation. "Mr. Bolinski called, Mr. O'Hara," she said. "Just a few moments ago. He's been delayed."

"Oh?"

"He said you would be here, and he asked me to tell you that he will be getting into Philadelphia very late, and that he hopes you'll be free to have breakfast with him, somewhere around ten o'clock."

"Oh."

"Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. O'Hara?"

"No. No, thanks."

She smiled at him again, with her mouth and her eyes.

By the time he got to the revolving door, Mickey realized that opportunity had knocked, and he had as usual, blown it again.

Well, what the hell was 1 supposed to say, "Hey, honey, what time do you get off? Let's you and me go hoist a couple?"

Mickey got back in the Chevy and drove home, nobly resisting the temptation to stop in at six different taverns en route for just one John Jamison's. He went into the kitchen, finished the quart bottle of Ortleib's, and then two more bottles as he considered what he would do if he couldn't be a police reporter anymore. And, now that the opportunity was gone, thinking of all the clever, charming and witty things he should have said to the desk clerk with the soft and intimate voice and intelligent, hazel eyes.

George Amay, the Northwest Detectives Division detective, who, using the designator D-Dan 209, had gone in on the naked woman call, stayed at the crime scene just long enough to get a rough idea of what was going down. Then he got back in his car and drove to an outside pay phone in a tavern parking lot on Northwestern Avenue and called it in to the Northwest Detectives desk man, one Mortimer Shapiro.

Detective Shapiro's place of duty was a desk just inside the Northwest Detectives squad room, on the second floor of the Thirtyfifth Police District Building at North Broad and Champlost Streets.

"Northwest Detectives, Shapiro," Mort said, answering the telephone.

"George Amay, Mort," Amay said. "I went in on a Thirty-fifth District call for a naked lady on Forbidden Drive. It's at least Criminal Attempt Rape, Kidnapping, et cetera et cetera."

"Where are you?"

"In a phone booth on Northwestern. The victim's been taken to Chestnut Hill Hospital. The Thirty-fifth Lieutenant and Sergeant are at the scene. And Highway. And a lot of other people."

"Go back to the scene, and see if you can keep Highway from destroying all the evidence," Shapiro said. "I'll send somebody over."

Detective Shapiro then consulted the wheel, which was actually a sheet of paper on which he had written the last names of all the detectives present for duty that night in the Northwest Detectives Division.

Assignment of detectives to conduct investigations, called jobs, was on a rotational basis. As jobs came in, they were assigned to the names next on the list. Once assigned a job, a detective would not be assigned another one until all the other detectives on the wheel had been assigned a job, and his name came up again.

The next name on the wheel was that of a detective Mort Shapiro privately thought of as Harry the Farter. Harry, aside from his astonishing flatulence, was a nice enough guy, but he was not too bright.

What Amay had just called in was not the sort of job that should be assigned to detectives like Harry the Farter, if there was to be any real hope to catch the doer. The name below Harry the Farter's on the wheel was that of Richard B. "Dick" Hemmings, who was, in Mort Shapiro's judgment, a damned good cop.

Shapiro opened the shallow drawer in the center of his desk, and took from it a report of a recovered stolen motor vehicle, which had come in several hours before, and which Detective Shapiro had "forgotten" to assign to a detective.

When a stolen motor vehicle is recovered, or in this case, found deserted, a detective is assigned to go to the scene of the recovery to look for evidence that will assist in the prosecution of the thief, presuming he or she is ultimately apprehended. Since very few auto thefts are ever solved, investigation of a recovered stolen motor vehicle is one of those time-consuming futile exercises that drain limited manpower resources. It was, in other words, just the sort of job for Harry the Farter.

"Harry!" Mort Shapiro called, and Harry the Farter, a rather stout young man in his early thirties, his shirt showing dark patches of sweat, walked across the squad room to his desk.

"Jesus," Harry the Farter said when he saw his job. "Another one?"

Shapiro smiled sympathetically.

"Shit!" Harry the Farter said, broke wind, and walked back across the squad room to his desk. When, in Shapiro's judgment, Harry the Farter was sufficiently distracted, Shapiro got up and walked to the desk occupied by Detective Hemmings, who was typing out a report on an ancient manual typewriter. He laid a hand on his shoulder and motioned with his head for Hemmings to join him at the coffee machine.

"Amay just called in," Shapiro said after Hemmings had followed him to the small alcove holding the coffee machine. "We've got another rape, it looks like, on Forbidden Drive by the Bell's Mill bridge over the Wissahickon."

Hemmings, a trim man of thirty-five, just starting to bald, pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows.

"Amay said that he could use some help protecting the crime scene," Shapiro said. "I just gave Harry a recovered stolen vehicle."

Hemmings nodded his understanding, then walked across the room to a row of file cabinets near Shapiro's desk. He pulled one drawer open, reached inside, and came out with his revolver and ankle holster. He knelt and strapped the holster to his right ankle. Then he went to Shapiro's desk, opened the center drawer, and took out a key to one of the Northwest Detectives unmarked cars, then left the squad room.

Shapiro, first noting with annoyance but not surprise that Harry the Farter was still fucking around with things on his desk and had not yet left, entered the Lieutenant's office, now occupied by the tour commander, Lieutenant Teddy Spanner.

"Amay called in an attempted criminal rape, kidnapping, et cetera," Shapiro said. "It looks as if our scumbag is at it again. I gave it to Hemmings."

"Where?" Spanner asked.

"Forbidden Drive, by the bridge over the Wissahickon."

"Who's next up on the Wheel?" Spanner said.

"Edgar and Amay," Shapiro said.

"What's Harry Peel doing?" Lieutenant Spanner asked.

"I just sent him on a recovered stolen vehicle," Shapiro said.

Spanner met Shapiro's eyes for a moment.

"Well, send Edgar if he's next up on the Wheel, over to help, and tell him to tell Amay to stay with it. Or, I will. I better go over there myself."

"Yes, sir," Mort Shapiro said, and walked back across the squad room to his desk, where he sat down and waited for the next job to come in.

Officer Bill Dohner used neither his siren nor his flashing lights on the trip to the Chestnut Hill Hospital Emergency Room. For one thing, it wasn't far, and there wasn't much traffic. More importantly, he thought that the girl was upset enough as it was without adding the scream of a siren and flashing lights to her trauma.