The Assassin Part 66

"If he had told me, I wouldn't be asking," Vito said calmly.

"Then I guess we'll have to ask him, won't we?" Ricco replied. "What was the other question?"

"When and where do I get my money?"

You're a greedy sonofab.i.t.c.h too, aren't you? Well, I guess if I was into Oaks and Pines for four grand worth of markers, four grand that I didn't have, I'd be a little greedy myself.

"You don't worry about that, Vito. You carry out your end of the deal, Mr. Rosselli will carry out his."

"Yeah."

Ricco walked to the telephone and dialed Gian-Carlo Rosselli's number.

"Yeah?"

"Ricco. I'm with our friend."

"How's things going?"

"He wants to know what he should do with the basket of fruit."

"s.h.i.t, I didn't think about that," Rosselli said. There was a long pause. "Ask him if he could take it home, and we'll arrange to pick it up there."

Ricco covered the microphone with his hand.

"Mr. Rosselli says you should take it home, and he'll arrange to have it picked up. You got any problem with that?"

"No," Vito said, after thinking it over for a moment. "That'd be all right."

"He says that's fine," Ricco said.

"Okay. And everything else is fine too, right?"

"Everything else is fine too."

Mr. Rosselli hung up on Mr. Baltazari.

"Okay," Ricco said. "Everything's fine. I'll get out of your hair."

Vito Lanza nodded.

Ricco turned and walked to the door and opened it. Then he turned.

"I got to make the point," he said. "You know what happens to people who do foolish things, right?"

"Yeah, I know," Vito said. "And I already told you I'm not foolish. "

"Good," Ricco said and went through the door.

When, a few minutes before one A.M., Matt Payne drove into the underground garage at his apartment at the wheel of the unmarked Special Operations Division car he had been given for the business tomorrow morning, he was surprised to find that the s.p.a.ce where he normally parked the Bug was empty.

As if I need another reminder that my a.s.s is dragging, I have no idea where the Bug is. It's almost certainly at the Schoolhouse- where else would it be?-but I'll be d.a.m.ned if I remember leaving it there.

He parked the Ford, and rode the elevator to the third floor, and then walked up the stairs to his apartment.

The red light on the answering machine, which he had come to hate with an amazing pa.s.sion toward an inanimate object, was blinking.

I don't want to hear what messages are waiting for me. They will be, for one thing, probably not messages at all, but the buzz, hummm, click indication that my callers had not elected to leave a message, in other words, that Evelyn was back dialing my number. Or it might actually be a message from Evelyn, which would be even worse.

On the other hand, it might be a bulletin from the Schoolhouse; Wohl might have thought of some other way in which I can be useful before I meet O'Dowd at half past six, which is 5.5 hours from now.

He was still debating whether to push the PLAY b.u.t.ton when the phone rang.

It has to be either Wohl or O'Dowd. And if it's not, if it's Evelyn, I'll just hang up.

"Payne."

"Christ, where the h.e.l.l have you been?" Charley McFadden's voice demanded.

"What the h.e.l.l do you want?"

"Have you been at the sauce?"

"No, as a matter of fact, I haven't. But it seems like a splendid idea. You running a survey, or what?"

"Matt, you better get your a.s.s out here, right now," Charley said.

"Out where, and why?"

"I'm on the job. Northwest Detectives. Just get your a.s.s out here, right now," McFadden said, and hung up.

What the h.e.l.l is that all about?

But Charley's not pulling my chain. I can tell from his voice when he's doing that. Whatever this is, it is not a manifestation of Irish and/or police humor.

He had, in what he thought of as a Pavlovian reflex, laid his revolver on the mantelpiece. He reclaimed it and went down the stairs and took the elevator to the bas.e.m.e.nt.

The Porsche was where he remembered parking it, and he took the keys to it from his pocket and was about to put them in the door when he reconsidered.

Whatever Charley McFadden wants, it's personal, and I don't want to be about personal business when I run into one of Wohl's station wagons full of nuns. But on the other hand, it was made G.o.dd.a.m.ned clear to me that Wohl wants to know where I am, second by second, and there's no radio in the Porsche. The minute I drive the Porsche out of here, Wohl will call, and when he gets the answering machine, will get on the radio. And I won't answer.

He got in the unmarked car and drove out of the garage. There wasn't much traffic, and he was lucky with the lights. The only one he caught was at North Broad Street and Ridge Avenue, which gave him a chance to look at the Divine Lorraine Hotel, and wonder what the h.e.l.l went on in there.

Wouldn't the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Philadelphia have a heart attack if there was suddenly a booming voice from heaven saying, "You're wrong, Bishop; my boy Father Divine has it right"?

He remembered he hadn't reported in. He switched to the J frequency and told Police Radio that William Fourteen was en route to Northwest Detectives.

He then wondered, as he continued up North Broad Street, whether what Charley was so upset about was the missing Bug.

I know G.o.dd.a.m.ned well I left it at the apartment. Stolen? Out of the bas.e.m.e.nt, past the rent-a-cop, who knows who it belongs to? And who the h.e.l.l would steal the Bug when the Porsche was sitting right next to it? Who would steal the Bug if nothing nothing was sitting right next to it? was sitting right next to it?

That impeccable logical a.n.a.lysis of the situation collapsed immediately upon Detective Payne's entering the parking lot of Northwest Detectives, which shares quarters with the 35th District at Broad and Champlost Streets.

There was the Bug.

Jesus, what the h.e.l.l is this all about?

He went in the building and took the stairs to the second floor two at a time.

"I'm Detective Payne of Special Operations," Matt said, smiling at the desk man just inside the squad room. "Charley . . ."

"I know who you are," the desk man said with something less than overwhelming charm. He raised his voice: "McFadden!"

Charley appeared around the corner of a wall inside.

"What's with my car?" Matt asked.

McFadden, who looked very uncomfortable, didn't reply. He came to Matt, and motioned for him to follow him down the stairs.

They went into the district holding cells.

"You got him?" Matt asked. "Brilliant work, Detective McFadden!"

"You better take a look at this," Charley said, pointing at one of the cells.

A very faint bulb illuminated the cell interior just enough for Matt to be able to make out a figure lying on the sheet steel bunk. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Matt saw that the figure was in a skirt, and thus a female, and there was just enough time for the thought, Christ, a Christ, a woman woman stole my Bug? stole my Bug? when he recognized the woman. when he recognized the woman.

"Jesus Christ!" he said.

Charley McFadden tugged on his sleeve and pulled him out of the detention cell area.

"Okay, what happened?" Matt asked, hoping that he was managing to sound matter-of-fact and professional.

"I was out, serving a warrant, and when I brought the critter in here, two Narcotics undercover guys, I know both of them, brought her in."

"On what charges?"

McFadden did not reply directly.

"They were watching a house on Bouvier, near Susquehanna," he said, avoiding Matt's eyes. "Thinking maybe they'd get lucky and be able to grab the delivery boy."

"What delivery boy? What are you talking about?"

"You know where I mean? Bouvier, near Susquehanna?"

Matt searched his memory and came up with nothing specific, just a vague picture of Susquehanna Avenue as it moved through the slums of North Philadelphia near Temple University.

"No," Matt confessed. "Not exactly."

"You don't go in there alone, you understand?" Charley said.

Matt understood. He was not talking about it being the sort of place it was unwise for Miss Penelope Detweiler of Chestnut Hill to visit alone, he was talking about a place where an armed police officer did not go alone, for fear of his life.

He nodded.

"So they see this white girl in a Volkswagen come down Bouvier, and that attracts their attention. So she circles the block, they think looking for the house they're sitting on. And weaving. They think she's either drunk or stoned. These are not nice guys, Matt, do-gooders. But the thought of what was liable to happen to a white girl, stoned or drunk, going in that house was too much."

"Oh, G.o.d!"

"So one of them got out of the car and ran down the block, and the next time she came around, he flagged her down. She almost ran over him. But he stopped her, and saw she was drunk. . . ."

"Drunk?" Matt asked. Matt asked.

Please, G.o.d! Drunk Drunk, not drugged.

"Drunk," Charley said. "So he put cuffs on her and got in her car. She told them she's your girlfriend. So they tried to call you, and when they couldn't find you, brought her here. They know we're pals."

"They know who she is?"

"No. Just that she's your girl. She didn't have an ID. For that matter, not even a purse. Just a couple of hundred-dollar bills in her underwear."

"What's she charged with?"

"Right now, nothing. I called in some favors."

"Jesus, Charley!"

"Yeah, well, you'd do the same for me," McFadden said.

Absolutely. The very next time that your girlfriend, Miss Mary-Margaret McCarthy, R.N., who is probably the only virgin over thirteen that I know, gets herself hauled in by an undercover Narcotics officer, I'll pull in whatever favors I can to get her off.

Christ, I feel like crying.

"I don't suppose you have any handcuffs, do you?"

Jesus Christ, handcuffs? What for?

Matt shook his head, no.

McFadden reached behind him, where he wore his handcuffs draped over his belt. He handed them to Matt.

"You got a key?"

Matt nodded.

The cuffs are so it will appear to the uniforms in the lobby that I'm taking her out of here under arrest.

"She's . . . uh. She was pretty drunk, Matt. And mad about being in here."