The corporal became the spirit of cooperation, to the point of offering Washington a rubber apron once they entered the darkroom.

If I were a suspicious man, Washington thought, or a cynic, I might think that he has considered the way the wind is blowing, and also that if anything is amiss, he didn't do it, or at least can't blamed for it, and has now decided that Dolan can swing in the wind all by himself.

There was only one roll of film, a thirty-six-exposure roll.

"Hold it up to the light," the corporal said. "Or, if you'd like, I can make you a contact sheet. Take only a minute."

"A what?"

"A print of every negative in negative size on a piece of eightby-ten."

"Why don't you just feed the roll through the enlarger?" Washington asked.

Jason Washington was not exactly a stranger to the mysteries of a darkroom. Years before, he had even fooled around with souping and printing his own 35-mm black-and-white film. That had ended when Martha said the chemicals made the apartment smell like a sewagetreatment station and had to go. He had no trouble "reading" a negative projected through an enlarger, although the blacks came out white, and vice versa.

The first negative projected through the enlarger showed Anthony J. DeZego emerging from his Cadillac in front of the Warwick Hotel. The second showed him handing money to the doorman. The third showed him walking toward the door to the hotel cocktail lounge. The fourth showed him inside the cocktail lounge; the view partially blocked by a pedestrian, a neatly dressed man carrying an attache case who was looking through the plate-glass window into the cocktail lounge. That photograph had not been in the stack of five-by-sevens Sergeant Dolan had shown him.

Next came an image of DeZego inside the bar, the pedestrian having moved on down the street. Then there were two images of DeZego's car as the bellboy walked toward it and got in it. The pedestrian was in one of the two, casually glancing at the car. He was not in the second photograph. Dolan had shown him a print of the bellman and the car, less the pedestrian.

What's with the pedestrian?

The next image was of DeZego's Cadillac making a left turn. And the one after that was of the pedestrian crossing the street in the same direction. Dolan's stack of prints hadn't included that one, either.

Is that guy following DeZego's car? Who the hell is he?

The next shot showed the chubby bellboy walking back to the hotel, apparently after having parked DeZego's Cadillac. Two frames later the pedestrian with the attache case showed up again. Then came a shot of the bellboy giving DeZego his car keys, and then, no longer surprising Jason Washington, the pedestrian came walking down the sidewalk again.

"Go back toward the beginning of the roll, please," Jason Washington said. "The third or fourth frame, I think."

"Sure," the corporal said cooperatively.

The image of the well-dressed pedestrian with the attache case looking into the Warwick Hotel cocktail lounge appeared.

"Print that one, please," Washington said.

"Five-by-seven all right?"

"Yeah, sure," Washington said, and then immediately changed his mind. "No, make it an eight-by-ten. And you better make three copies."

"Three eight-by-tens," the corporal said. "No problem."

Sergeant Patrick J. Dolan is an experienced investigator. If he didn't spot the guy with the attache case, my name is Jerry Carlucci. Who the hell is he, and why didn't Dolan want me to see his picture?

Even in a well-equipped photographic laboratory with all the necessary equipment to print, develop, and then dry photographs, it takes some time to prepare thirty-six eight-by-ten enlargements. It was 10:10 when Detective Jason Washington, carrying three large manila envelopes each containing a set of the dozen photographs Sergeant Dolan had taken, but not either included in his report or shown to Washington, came out of the Police Administration Building.

He got in his car and drove the half dozen blocks to Philadelphia' s City Hall, then parked his car in the inner courtyard with its nose against a sign reading RESERVED FOR INSPECTORS.

As he got out of the car he saw that he had parked beside a car familiar to him, that of Staff Inspector Peter Wohl. He checked the license plate to be sure. Wohl, obviously, was somewhere inside City Hall.

Peter will want to know about this, Jason Washington thought immediately. But even if I could find him in here, what the hell could I tell him I have? It's probably a good thing I didn't bump into him.

He then visited inside City Hall and began to prowl the cavernous corridors outside its many courtrooms, looking for Sergeant Patrick J. Dolan.

"You have your special assistant with you, Inspector?" Mayor Jerry Carlucci asked, by way of greeting, Staff Inspector Peter Wohl.

"No, sir," Peter Wohl replied.

"Where is he?"

"He's working with Detective Washington, sir."

"That's a shame," the mayor said. "I had hoped to see him."

"I didn't know that, sir."

"Didn't you, Inspector? Or were you thinking, maybe, 'He's a nice kid and I'll keep him out of the line of fire'?"

"I didn't know you wanted to see him, Mr. Mayor," Peter said.

"But now that you do, do you have any idea what I would have liked to have said to him, if given the opportunity?"

"I think he already heard that, Mr. Mayor, from me. Last night," Peter said.

"So you know he has diarrhea of the mouth?"

"I used those very words, Mr. Mayor, when Icounseled him last night," Peter said.

Carlucci glowered at Wohl for a moment and then laughed. " Youcounseled him, did you, Peter?"

"Yes, sir."

"I don't know why the hell I'm laughing," the mayor said. "That was pretty goddamn embarrassing at the Browne place. Dick Detweiler was goddamn near hysterical. Christ, hewas hysterical."

"Mr. Mayor," Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin said, "I think any father naturally would be upset to learn that his daughter was involved with narcotics."

"Particularly if he heard it third hand, the way Detweiler did," the mayor said icily, "instead of, for example, from a senior police official directly."

"Yes, sir," Coughlin said.

His Honor the Mayor was not through.

"Maybe anIrish police official," Carlucci said. "The Irish are supposed to be good at politics. An Irishman could have told Detweiler about his daughter with a little Irish-what is it you call your bullshit, Denny, the kind you just tried to lay on me?-blarney."

"Sir," Wohl said, "it could have been worse."

"How the hell could it have been worse?" the mayor snapped. "Do you have any idea how much Detweiler contributed to my last campaign? Or phrased another way, howlittle he, and his friends, will contribute to my next campaign unless we put away, for a long time-and more importantly, soon-whoever popped his daughter?"

"We have information that Miss Detweiler was involved with Tony the Zee, Mr. Mayor. He may not know that. Payne didn't tell him."

The mayor looked him, his eyebrows raised in incredulity.

"Oh,shit!" he said. "How good is your information?"

"My source is Payne. He got it from the Nesbitt boy-the Marine?who got it from the Browne girl," Wohl said.

"Then it's just a matter of time until Detweiler learns that too," the mayor said.

"Even if that's true, Mr. Mayor," Dennis Coughlin said, "I don't see how he could hold that against you."

The mayor snapped his head toward Coughlin and glowered at him a moment. "I hope that's more of your fucking blarney, Denny. I would hate to think that I have a chief inspector who is so fucking dumb, he believes what he just said."

"Jerry, for chrissake," Chief Inspector Matt Lowenstein said. It was the first time he had spoken. "Denny's on your side. We all are."