Badge Of Honor: The Victim Part 21

She put the handset carefully beside the base and then went upstairs. Charley's room was at the rear. When he had first gone on the job-working Narcotics undercover, which had pleased his mother not at all, the way he went around looking like a b.u.m and working all hours at night-he had had his own telephone line installed.

Then, as happy as a kid with a new toy train, he had found a little black box in Radio Shack that permitted the switching on and off of the telephone ringer. It was a great idea, but what happened was that after he turned off the ringer, he forgot to turn it back on, which meant that either he didn't get calls at all, or the caller, as now, had the number of the phone downstairs, and she or his father had to climb the stairs and tell him he had a call.

She knocked at his door and, when there was no answer, pushed it open. Charley was lying facedown on the bed in his Jockey shorts, his arms and legs spread, snoring softly. That told her that he'd stopped off for a couple (to judge by the sour smell, a whole h.e.l.l of a lot more than a couple) of beers when he got off work last night.

She called his name and touched his shoulder. Then she put both hands on his shoulders and bounced him up and down. He slept like the dead. Always had.

Finally he half turned and raised his head.

"What the h.e.l.l, Ma!" Charley said.

"Don't you swear at me!"

"What do you want, Ma?"

"There's some sergeant on the phone."

Still half asleep, Charley found his telephone, picked it up, heard the dial tone, and looked at her in confusion.

"Downstairs," she said. "You and your telephone switch!"

He got out of bed with surprising alacrity and ran down the corridor. She heard the thumping and creaking of the stairs as he took them two at a time.

"McFadden," he said to the telephone.

"Sergeant Henderson, out at Bustleton and Bowler."

"Yes, sir?"

"You heard about Officer Magnella being shot last night?"

"Yeah."

"We're trying to put as many men on it as we can. Any reason you can't do some overtime? Specifically, any reason you can't come in at noon instead of four?"

"I'll be there."

Sergeant Henderson hung up.

Charley had two immediate thoughts as he put the phone in its cradle: Jesus, what time is it? and, an instant later, Jesus, I feel like death warmed over. I've got to start cutting it short at the FOP.

"What was that all about?" his mother asked from the foot of the stairs, and then, without waiting for a reply, "Put some clothes on. This isn't a nudist colony."

"I gotta go to work. You hear about the cop who got shot?"

"It was on the TV. What's that got to do with you?"

"They're still trying to catch who did it."

Mrs. Agnes McFadden had been the only person in the neighborhood who had not been thrilled when her son had been called a police hero for his role in putting the killer of Captain Dutch Moffitt of the Highway Patrol out of circulation. She reasoned that if Gerald Vincent Gallagher was indeed a murderer, then obviously he could have done harm to her only son.

"I thought you were in training to be a Highway Patrolman. ''

Charley McFadden had done nothing to correct his mother's misperception that Highway Patrol was primarily charged with removing speeding and/or drunk drivers from the streets.

"I am," he said. "It's overtime. I gotta go."

"I'll make you something to eat," she said.

"No time, Ma. Thanks, anyway."

"You have to eat."

"I'll get something after I report in."

He went up the stairs and to his bedroom and found his watch. It was quarter to ten. He had declined breakfast because he knew it would be accompanied by comments about his drinking, his late hours, and probably, since she had heard about Magnella getting himself shot, by reopening the subject of his being a cop at all.

But since he had announced he had to leave right away, he would have to leave right away, and even if he took his time getting something to eat and going by the dry cleaners to drop off and pick up a uniform, he still would have an hour or more to kill before he could sign in.

He took his time taking a shower, steeling himself several times for the shock turning off the hot water would mean, hoping that the cold would clear his mind, and then he shaved with care.

He didn't need a haircut, although getting one would have killed some time.

f.u.c.k it, he decided finally. I'll just go get something to eat and go out to Bustleton and Bowler and just hang around until noon.

His mother was standing by the door when he came down the stairs, demanding her ritual kiss and delivering her ritual order for him to be careful.

He noticed two things when he got to the street: first, that the right front wheel of his Volkswagen was on the curb, which confirmed he had had a couple of beers more than he probably should have had at the FOP; and, second, that the redhead with the cute little a.s.s he had noticed several times around the neighborhood was coming out of the McCarthys', across the street and two houses down.

He smiled at her shyly and, when she smiled back, equally shyly, gave her a little wave. She didn't wave back. Just smiled. But that was a step in the right direction, he decided. Tomorrow morning he would ask around and see who she was. He could not ask his mother. She would know, of course; she knew when anybody in the neighborhood burped, but if he asked her about the girl, the next thing he knew, she would be trying to pair him off with her.

Charley knew that his mother devoutly believed that what he needed in his life was a nice, decent Catholic girl. If the redhead with the cute little a.s.s had anything to do with the McCarthys, she met that definition. Mrs. McCarthy was a Ma.s.s-every-morning Catholic, and Mr. McCarthy was a big deal in the Knights of Columbus.

Still, it was worth looking into.

He got into the Volkswagen, started it up, and drove around the block, eventually turning onto South Broad Street, heading north. And there was the redhead, obviously waiting for a bus.

Impulsively he pulled to the curb and stopped. First he started to lean across the seat and roll the window down, and then he decided it would be better to get out of the car. He did so, and leaned on the roof and smiled at her. He was suddenly absolutely sure that he was about to make a real horse's a.s.s out of himself.

"You looking for a ride?" he blurted.

"I'm waiting for a bus," the redhead said.

"I didn't mean that the way it sounded," Charley said.

"How did you mean it?" the redhead said.

"Look," he said somewhat desperately, "I'm Charley McFadden-"

"I know who you are," she said. "My Uncle Bob and your father are friends."

"Yeah," he said.

"You don't remember me, do you?" she said.

"Yeah, sure I do."

"No you don't." She laughed. "I used to come here when I was a kid."

His mind was blank. "Look, I'm headed across town. Can I give you a ride?"

"I'm going to Temple," she said. "You going anywhere near there?''

"Right past it," he said.

"Then yes, thank you, I would like a ride," she said.

"Great," Charley said.

She walked to the car and got in. When he got behind the wheel and glanced at her, she had her hand out.

"Margaret McCarthy," she said. "Bob McCarthy is my uncle, my father's brother."

"I'm pleased to meet you," Charley said.

He turned the key, which resulted in a grinding of the starter gears, as the engine was already running. He winced.

"So what are you doing at Temple?" he asked a moment or so later.

"Going for my B.S. in nursing."

"Your what?"

"I'm already an RN," she said. "So I came here to get a degree. Bachelor of Science, in Nursing. I live in Baltimore."

"Oh," Charley said, digesting that. "How long will that take?"

"About eighteen months," she said. "I'm carrying a heavy load."

"Oh."

What the h.e.l.l did she mean by that?

"I'm a cop," he said.

She giggled.

"I would never have guessed," she said.

"Oh, Christ!" he said.

"Uncle Bob sent us the clippings from the newspaper," Margaret McCarthy said, "when you caught that murderer "

"Really?"

"My father said he thought you would wind up on the other side of the bars," she said, laughing. And then she added, "Oh, I shouldn't have said that."

"It's all right," he said.

"You put a golf ball through his windshield," she said. "Do you remember that? Playing stickball?"

"Yeah," Charley said, remembering. "My old man beat h.e.l.l out of me."

"So, do you like being a policeman?"

"I liked it better when I was plainclothes," he said. "But, yeah, I like it all right."

"I don't know what that means," she said.

"I used to work undercover Narcotics," Charley said. "Sort of like a detective."

"That was in the newspapers," she said.

"Yeah, well, after that, getting your picture in the newspapers, the drug people knew who I was. So that was the end of Narcotics for me."

"You liked that?"

"I liked Narcotics, yeah," Charley said.

"What are you doing now?"

"What I want to do is be a detective," Charley said. "So what I'm really doing now is killing time until I can take the examination.''

"How are you 'killing time'?"

"Well, they transferred us, me and my partner, Hay-zus Martinez-"

"Hay-zus?"

"That's the way the Latin people say Jesus," Charley explained.

"Oh," she said.

"They transferred us to Special Operations," Charley said, "which is new. And then they made us probationary Highway Patrolmen. Which means if we don't screw up, after six months we get to be Highway Patrolmen."

"Is that something special?"

"They think it is. Like I said, I'd rather be a detective."