"Yes, sir."

Wohl, without thinking about it, handed the teletype to Matt Payne. Then he saw Charley McFadden and Jesus Martinez coming into the outer office.

"Wait a minute, Payne," he said, as he walked into the outer office.

"Good afternoon, sir," Martinez said.

"I hope you're here to report that you have seen Miss Peebles, and that she now loves the Police Department and all we're doing for her," Wohl asked.

"I don't know if she loves us or not," McFadden said, smiling. "But she made us a cup of coffee."

"What's going on over there?" Wohl said, gesturing for the two of them to go into his office, and then adding, "You, too, Matt. I want you in on this."

Wohl sat in the upholstered chair and indicated that Martinez, McFadden, and Payne should sit on the couch.

"Okay, what happened? What's going on with Miss Peebles?"

"She's all right," McFadden said. "A little strange. Rich. Scared, too."

"Explain all that to me," Wohl said. "Did Captain Sabara explain that she has friends in high places?"

"Yes, sir," Martinez said. "Well… do you want to hear what I think, Inspector?"

"That would be nice," Wohl said, dryly.

"She's a nice lady, with a fag for a brother," Martinez said. "I don' t even know if she knows the brother is a fag, she's that dumb. I mean, nice but dumb, you follow me?"

"I'm sure that you're going to tell me what her brother's sexual proclivities have to do with the burglary. Burglaries."

"She knows all right," McFadden said.

"Anyway, the brother brought a guy home. An actor."

"Going under the name Walton Williams," McFadden said. "Nothing in criminal records under that name."

"That was in the report I told you to read," Wohl said.

"Anyway, the way we see it," Martinez went on, "the fag took one look around the place, saw all the expensive crap- what do you call it, ' bric-a-brac'?"

"If it's worth more than fifty dollars, we usually say, 'objets d' art,' " Wohl said.

"Expensive knickknacks," McFadden offered.

"-and figured he was in a toy store. Especially after the brother went to France. So he's been ripping her off."

"How would you handle this crime wave?"

"Find the fag," McFadden said.

"Cherchez la pouf, " Wohl said.

Matt Payne laughed.

"Excuse me?" Martinez said.

"Go on," Wohl said. "How would you do that?"

"Give us a couple of days," McFadden said. "We'll find him."

"You think you know where to look?"

"There's a couple of fairies around who owe me some favors," Martinez said.

"Just off the top of my head, do you think there is any chance this Mr. Williams could be the doer in the rapes?"

"I called Detective Hemmings at Northwest Detectives," McFadden said. "The best description of that doer is that he's hairy. Black hairy. The description we got from Miss Peebles is that the brother's boyfriend is blond."

"And 'delicate,' " Martinez said.

Well, they're thinking, Wohl thought.

"What about his stealing her underwear?"

"That's a puzzler," Martinez said. "When I catch him, I'll ask him."

"We could stake out the house, Inspector," McFadden said. "Until he comes back. I'm sure he'll be back. But I think the easiest and cheapest way to catch him is for you to let us go look for him."

"What did you say 'cheapest'?" Wohl asked.

"I got the feeling that when we catch this guy, Miss Peebles isn't going to want to go testify against him," McFadden said. "Because of the brother. What he is would get out. And the brother may not want the guy locked up."

"I see."

"But if we can find him, maybe we can talk to him," Martinez said. " Maybe we can even get some of the stuff back. But I think we can discourage him from going back there again."

"You're not suggesting anything that would violate Mr. Williams's civil rights, are you, Martinez?"

"No, sir," Martinez said, straight-faced. "As a minority member myself, I am very sensitive about civil rights."

"I'm glad to hear that," Wohl said. "I would be very annoyed if I learned any of my men were slapping some suspect around. You understand that?"

"Yes, sir."

"You, too, McFadden?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay, go look for him," Wohl said.

"Yes, sir," they said in unison, pleased.

"Sir, the best time to deal with people like that is at night, say from nine o'clock on, until the wee hours," McFadden said.

"You're talking about overtime?" Wohl asked, looking at Matt Payne as he spoke.

"Yes, sir," McFadden said.

"Put in as much overtime as you think is necessary," Wohl said. "I want you to take Officer Payne along with you, to give him a chance to see how you work."

"Yes, sir," McFadden said, immediately.

"Inspector, that might be a little awkward," Martinez said.

"That wasn't a suggestion," Wohl said.

"Yes, sir," Martinez said.

"Can we keep the car we've been driving, sir?" McFadden asked.

"If you mean, do you have to turn it in when you go off duty, the answer is no, not for the time being. I don't care which one of you keeps it overnight, but I don't want to hear that somebody stole the radios, or the tires, or ran a key down the side to show his affection for the police."

"I'll take good care of it, sir," Martinez said.

"For right now, for the rest of the afternoon, I want you to keep drawing cars and taking them for radios and bringing them here. Take Payne with you. He's doing an errand for me, and he'll need a car to do it."

"Yes, sir," McFadden said.

"That's all," Wohl said. He looked at Payne. "Get that Xeroxed, and then come back here."

"Yes, sir," Payne said.

"I have every confidence that in the morning, Mr. Williams will be in the hands of the law, and that I can call the Commissioner and tell him that not only has justice been done, but that Miss Peebles is more than satisfied with her police support."

Martinez and McFadden flashed smiles that were not entirely confident, and got up. As Payne started to follow them out of the office Wohl said, softly, "Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut tonight, Matt."

THIRTEEN

Matt Payne turned off Seventh Street into the parking lot behind the Roundhouse at the wheel of an almost new Plymouth Fury. Forty-five minutes before, he had picked it up at the Radio garage, and it was equipped with the full complement of radios prescribed for Special Operations by Staff Inspector Peter Wohl.

He knew the radio worked, because he had tried it.

"W-William Two Oh Nine," he had called on the Highway Band. "Out of service at Colosimo's Gun Store in the nine-hundred block of Spring Garden."

And Radio had called back, "W-William Two Oh Nine, is that the ninehundred block on Spring Garden?"

The Radio Dispatcher was Mrs. Catherine Wosniski, a plump, grayhaired lady of sixty-two who had been, it was said, a dispatcher since Police Dispatch had been a couple of guys blowing whistles from atop City Hall, long before Marconi had even thought of radio.

Mrs. Wosniski had been around long enough to know, for example, that:

Special units-and Special Operations was certainly a Special Unit-did not have to report themselves out of service as did the RPCs in the Districts. The whole idea of reporting out of (or back in) service was to keep the dispatchers aware of what cars were or were not available to be sent somewhere by the dispatchers. Dispatchers did not dispatch special unit vehicles.

Catherine Wosniski also knew about Colosimo's Gun Store. It was where three out of four cops in Philadelphia, maybe more, bought their guns. And she also knew that many of them stopped by Colosimo's to shop on a personal basis when they had been officially sent to the Roundhouse; that they shopped there, so to speak, on company time, almost invariably "forgetting" to call Police Radio to report themselves out of service.