RECORDS, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Hobbs pushed it open, and eventually the door opened. A corporal looked at Officer McFadden very dubiously.

"This is McFadden, Narcotics," Hobbs said. The room held half a dozen enormous gray rotary files, each twelve feet long. Electric motors rotated rows of files, thousands of them, each containing the arrest and criminal records of one individual who had at one time come to the official attention of the police. The files were tended by civilian employees, mostly women, under the supervision of sworn officers.

Hobbs saw the sergeant on duty, Salvatore V. DeConti, a short, balding, plump, very natty man in his middle thirties, in a crisply starched shirt and perfectly creased uniform trousers, sitting at his desk. He saw that DeConti was unable to keep from examining, and finding wanting, the fat bearded large young man he had brought with him into records.

Amused, Hobbs walked McFadden over to him and introduced him: " Sergeant DeConti, this is Officer McFadden. He's identified the woman who shot Captain Moffitt."

It was an effort, but DeConti managed it, to offer his hand to the fat, bearded young man with the leather band around his forehead.

"How are you?" he said, then freed his hand, and called to the corporal. When he came over, he said, "Officer McFadden's got a name on the girl Captain Moffitt shot."

"I guess the fingerprint guy from Identification ought to be back from the medical examiner's about now with her prints," the corporal said. "What's the name?"

"Schmeltzer, Dorothy Ann," McFadden said. "And I got a name, Sergeant, for the guy who got away from the diner." He gestured with his hand, a circular movement near his head, indicating that he didn't actually have a name, for sure, but that he knew there was one floating around somewhere in his head. That he was, in other words, working intuitively.

"Florian will help you, if he can," Sergeant DeConti said.

"Gallagher, Grady, something Irish," McFadden said. "There's only three or four thousand Gallaghers in there, I'm sure," Corporal Florian said. "But we can look."

"Help yourself to some coffee, Sergeant," DeConti said. Then, "Damned shame about Dutch."

"A rotten shame," Hobbs agreed. "Three kids." Then he looked at DeConti. "I'm sure McFadden is right," he said. "Lieutenant Pekach said he's smart, a good cop. Even if he doesn't look much like one."

"I'm just glad I never got an assignment like that," DeConti said. " Some of it has to rub off. The scum he has to be with, I mean."

Hobbs had the unkind thought that Sergeant DeConti would never be asked to undertake an undercover assignment unless it became necessary to infiltrate a group of hotel desk clerks, or maybe the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. If you put a white collar on DeConti, Hobbs thought, he could easily pass for a priest.

Across the room, McFadden, a look of satisfaction on his face, was writing on a yellow, lined pad. He ripped off a sheet and handed it to Corporal Florian. Then he walked across the room to Hobbs and DeConti.

"Gerald Vincent Gallagher," he announced. "I remembered the moment I saw her sheet. He got ripped off about six months ago by some AfroAmerican gentlemen, near the East Park Reservoir in Fairmount Park. They really did a job on him. She came to see him in the hospital."

"Good man, McFadden," DeConti said. "Florian's getting his record?"

"Yes, sir. Her family lives in Holmesburg," McFadden went on. "I went looking for her there one time. Her father runs a grocery store around Lincoln High School. Nice people."

"This ought to brighten their day," Hobbs said.

Corporal Florian walked over with a card, and handed it, a little uneasily, to McFadden. DeConti and Hobbs leaned over to get a look.

"That's him. He's just out on parole, too," McFadden said.

"He fits the description," Hobbs said, and then went on: "If you were Gerald Vincent Gallagher, McFadden, where do you think you would be right now?"

McFadden's heavily bearded face screwed up in thought.

"I don't think I'd have any money, since I didn't get to pull off the robbery," he said. "So I don't think I would be on a bus or train out of town. And I wouldn't go back where I lived, in case I had been recognized, so I would probably be holed up someplace, probably in North Philly, if I got that far. Maybe downtown. I can think of a couple of places."

"Make up a list," Hobbs ordered.

"I'd sort of like to look for this guy myself, Sergeant," McFadden said.

Hobbs looked at him dubiously.

"I don't want to blow my cover, Sergeant," McFadden went on. "I could look for him without doing that."

"You can tell Lieutenant Pekach that I said that if he thinks you could be spared from your regular job for a while, that you could probably be useful to Detective Washington," Hobbs said. "IfWashington wants you."

"Thank you," McFadden said. "I'll ask him as soon as I get back to the office."

"Jason Washington's got the job?" Sergeant DeConti asked.

"Uh-huh," Hobbs said. He picked up the telephone and dialed it.

"Detention Unit, Corporal Delzinski."

"This is Sergeant Hobbs, Homicide, Corporal. The next time a wagon from the Sixth District-"

"There's one just come in, Sergeant," Delzinski interrupted.

"As soon as they drop off their prisoner, send them up to Criminal Records," Hobbs said. "I've got a prisoner that has to be transported to Narcotics. They'll probably have to fumigate the wagon, afterward, but that can't be helped."

DeConti laughed.

"We have a lot of time and money invested in making you a credible turd, McFadden," Hobbs said. "I would hate to see it all wasted."

"I understand, sir," McFadden said. "Thank you." A civilian employee from the photo lab, a very thin woman, walked up with three four-byfive photographs of Gerald Vincent Gallagher.

"I wiped them," she said. "But they're still wet. I don't know about putting them in an envelope."

"I'll just carry them the way they are," Hobbs said.

"McFadden, you make up your list. When the Sixth District wagon gets here, Sergeant DeConti will tell them to transport you to Narcotics. I'll send somebody up to get the list from you."

"Yes, sir," McFadden said.

"Thank you, Brother DeConti," Hobbs said. "It's always a pleasure doing business with you."

"I just hope you catch the bastard," DeConti said.

The Wackenhut Private Security officer did not raise the barrier when the blue Ford LTD nosed up to it, nor even when the driver tapped the horn. He let the bastard wait a minute, and then walked slowly over to the car.

"May I help you, sir?"

"Raise the barrier," Wohl said.

"Stockton Place is not a public thoroughfare, sir," the security officer said.

Wohl showed him his badge.

"What's going on, Inspector?" the security officer said.

"Nothing particular," Wohl said. "You want to raise that thing?"

Louise Dutton's old yellow Cadillac convertible, the roof now up, was parked three-quarters of the way down the cobblestone street.

When the barrier was raised, Wohl drove slowly down the street and pulled in behind the convertible. Wohl looked around curiously. He hadn't even known this place was here, although his office was less than a dozen blocks away.

Stockton Place looked, he thought, except for the cars on the street, as it must have looked two hundred years ago, when these buildings had been built.

He got out of the car, then crossed to the nearest doorway. There was no doorbell that he could see, and after a moment, he saw that the doorway was not intended to open; that it was a facade. He backed up, smiled more in amusement than embarrassment, and looked at the doorways to the right and left. There were doorbells beside the doorway on the left.