He returned to the coffee machine alcove and washed out his cup, then put it in the rack. Then he picked up a telephone on one of the unoccupied desks in the detective squad room and dialed a number from memory.

"City desk," a male voice came on the line.

"This is O'Hara," he said.

"Mr. Michael J. O'Hara?" Gerald F. Kennedy, the city editor of theBulletin replied, in mock awe. "Might one dare to hope, Mr. O'Hara, that there is a small germ of truth in the rumor going around that you are no longer withholding your professional services?"

"Fuck you, Kennedy."

"Then to what do I owe the honor of this telephone call, Mr. O'Hara?"

"Who's been covering the Northwest Philly rapes?"

"Why do you want to know, Mickey?"

"I think I'm onto something."

"Are you?" Gerry Kennedy asked.

"Yeah, I am," Mickey said.

"Odd, but I don't seem to recall assigning this story to you."

"Are we going to play games? In which case, Kennedy, go fuck yourself. I get paid whether or not I work."

"I assigned the story to Cheryl Davies," Kennedy said. "She's not going to like it if I take it away from her and give it to you."

"Fuck her."

"I would love to," Gerry Kennedy said. "But I don't think it's likely. What do you want with her, Mickey?"

"Not a goddamned thing," Mickey said. "What I'm going to do, Kennedy, is cover this myself. And you decide whose stuff you want to run."

"How about working together with her, Mick?" Gerry Kennedy asked. "I mean, she's been on it for three weeks-"

He broke off in midsentence when he realized that Mickey O'Hara had hung up.

SIX

"Good afternoon, sir," Jesus Martinez, who was of Puerto Rican ancestry, and who was five feet eight inches tall and weighed just over 140 pounds, said to the man who had reached into the rear seat of a 1972 Buick sedan in the parking lot of the Penrose Plaza Mall at Lindbergh Avenue and Island Road in West Philadelphia, and taken out two shopping bags, one of them emblazonedJohn Wanamaker amp; Sons.

"What the fuck?" the man replied. His name was Clarence Sims, and he was six feet three and weighed 180 pounds.

"Been doing a little shopping, have you, sir?"

"Get out of my face, motherfucker," Clarence Sims replied.

"I'm a police officer," Jesus Martinez said, pulling up his T-shirt, which he wore outside his blue jeans, so that his badge, through which his belt was laced, came into sight. "May I see your driver's license and vehicle registration, please?"

Clarence Sims considered, briefly, the difference in size between them, and his options, and then threw theJohn Wanamaker amp; Sons shopping bag at Jesus Martinez and started running.

He got as far as the Buick's bumper when he stumbled over something. The next thing Clarence Sims knew he was flat on the ground, with an enormous honky sitting on him, and painfully twisting his arms behind him. He felt a steel handcuff snap shut around one wrist, and then around the other.

And the little spick was in his face, the spick and a gun, shoved hard against his nostrils.

"Don't youever call me motherfucker, you motherfucker!" Officer Jesus Martinez said, furiously. "I ought to blow your fucking brains out, cocksucker!"

"Hay-zus," the enormous honky said, "cool it!"

"I don't like that shit!" Officer Martinez replied, still angry. But the revolver barrel withdrew from Clarence Sims's nostril.

Clarence Sims felt hands running over his body. From one hip pocket a switchblade was removed, from the other his wallet. His side pockets were emptied, spilling a collection of coins and chewing gum wrappers onto the macadam of the parking lot. His groin was probed dispassionately, and then he felt the hands moving down his legs. From his right sock, fingers removed a joint of marijuana, a small plasticine bag of marijuana-known on the street as a "nickel bag," because they sold for five dollars-and a book of matches.

"Oh, my God!" a female voice said, in shock.

"It's all right, ma'am," Clarence heard the spick say, "we're police officers. Is this your car, ma'am?"

"Yes, it is," the female voice said, and then she spotted the shopping bags, and a tone of indignation came into her voice. "Those are my things!"

"Somehow, I didn't think they were his," Martinez said.

Clarence felt the weight of the man kneeling on his back go away.

"Your name Clarence Sims?" Martinez asked.

"Go fuck yourself!"

Clarence Sims's face, which he had raised off the macadam of the parking lot, suddenly encountered it again, as if something-a foot, say-had pushed the back of his head.

"You're under arrest, Clarence," the honky said.

"What happened here?" the female voice asked.

"I saw him taking those bags out of the backseat," Martinez said. " Ma'am, can you tell me how much the stuff in them is worth?"

The victim thought about that a moment. "Two hundred dollars," she said, finally. "Maybe a little more."

"It would help if you could tell us if it'sfor sure worth more than two hundred dollars," Martinez pursued.

The victim considered that for a moment, then said, "Now that I've had a chance to think, it's all worth closer to three hundred dollars than two."

"Bingo," Charley McFadden said. "M-l."

The victim looked at him strangely.

The crime of which Clarence Sims now stood accused,theft from auto, was a misdemeanor. There were three sub-categories: M-3, where the stolen property is worth less than fifty dollars; M-2, where the property is worth between fifty and two hundred dollars; and M-l, where the property is worth more than two hundred dollars.

Like most police officers, Charley McFadden was pleased that the critter he had arrested was not as unimportant as he might have been. An M-l thief was a better arrest than an M-3.

A faint but growing glimmer of hope that he might be able to extricate himself from his current predicament came into Clarence Sims's mind: The fucking pigs had not read him his goddamned rights. Like most people in his line of work, Clarence Sims was well aware of what had come to be known as theMiranda Decision. If the fucking pigs didn't read you the whole goddamned thing, starting with "You have the right to remain silent" and going through the business about them getting you a lawyer if you couldn't afford one, and could prove it, then you told the judge and the judge let you walk.

Clarence Sims erred. Under the law it is necessary to advise a suspect of his rights underMiranda only when the suspect is to be questioned concerning a crime. Since it was not the intention of the arresting officers to ask him any questions at all about the crime, it was not necessary for them to inform Mr. Sims of his rights underMiranda.

The man Clarence Sims thought of as the big honky, who was a twentytwo-year-old police officer named Charles McFadden, opened the door of a battered old Volkswagen, and picked up a small portable radio.

The battered old Volkswagen was his personal automobile. He had been authorized to use it on duty. Authorized, but not required. Since he had chosen to use it, he had been issued sort of a Police Department credit card, which authorized him to gas up at any Police Department gas pump-there is one at every District Headquarters-up to a limit of one hundred gallons per month, no questions asked. If he had not elected to use his personal vehicle on duty, he could have performed that duty on foot.

"Twelfth District BD," Charley McFadden said into the radio. (Burglary Detail.)

"Twelfth District BD," Police Radio promptly responded.

"Twelfth District BD," Charley McFadden said. "I need a wagon for a prisoner. We're in the parking lot of the Penrose Plaza at Island Road and Lindbergh."