"I think I'll finish the coffee and go," the rabbi said.

"Don't be silly. Mickey's always good for a laugh. You look like you could use one."

"I'd be in the way."

"Beer or booze?"

"Beer, please."

"Don't be polite. I'm going to have a stiff drink. It's been a bad day."

"Beer anyway."

"Samuel's not home yet, so don't go in the basement," Sarah said as she took her coat off a hook by the rear door. "You wouldn't hear the doorbell."

"Where is he?"

"He called and said he would be studying with the Rosen girl, Natalie."

"That's what they call that now, 'studying'?"

"He must have had a bad day, Rabbi, excuse him, please," Sarah said, and went out the door.

"A bad bad day?" Kuntz asked. "Or an ordinary, run-of-the-mill bad day?"

Lowenstein took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and handed it to Kuntz, and then made himself a stiff Scotch, with very little ice or water, before replying.

"Maybe in the middle of that," Lowenstein said, raising his drink and adding "Mazeltov."

"Mazeltov,"the rabbi replied.

"I spent a painful hour and a half-closer to two, really-before lunch with the commissioner and the mayor," Lowenstein said. "Most of it strained silence, which is actually worse than an exhibition of his famous Neapolitan temper."

"What about?"

"That young Italian cop who got himself shot down by Temple University. You know what I'm talking about?"

Kuntz nodded. "It's been in the papers."

"Has it really?" Lowenstein said bitterly. "There was another editorial in today'sLedger, you see that one?"

Kuntz nodded.

"We have no idea who shot him or why," Lowenstein said. "Not even a hunch. And the mayor, who is angry at several levels, first, giving him the benefit of the doubt, as a cop, and then as an Italian, and then, obviously, as a politician, getting the flack from the newspapers, and not only theLedger, is really angry. Frustrated, maybe, is the better word."

"Which makes him angry."

"Yeah."

"And he's holding you responsible?"

"He took the job away from me-technically away from Homicide, but it' s the same thing-and gave it to Special Operations. I think he now regrets that."

"Special Operations isn't up to the job?"

"You know Peter Wohl? Runs Special Operations?"

Kuntz shook his head no.

"Very sharp cop. His father is a retired chief, an old pal of mine. Peter was a sergeant in Homicide. He was the youngest captain in the Department, and is now the youngest staff inspector. Just before Carlucci gave him Special Operations, he put Judge Findermann away."

"I remember that," Kuntz said. "So why can't he find the people who did this?"

"For the same reason I couldn't; there's simply nothing out there to find."

"But wouldn't you have more resources in the Detective Division? More experienced people?"

"Wohl took the two best homicide detectives away from Homicide, with the mayor's blessing," Lowenstein said. "And I passed the word that anything else he wants from the Detective Division, he can have. The way it works is that if you don't get anything at the scene of the crime, then you start ringing doorbells and asking questions. Wohl's people have run out of doorbells to ring and people to question. Hell, there's a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward out-Nesfoods International put it up-and we haven't gotten a damned thing out of that, either."

"And the mayor knows all of this?"

"Sure. And I think one of the reasons he's so upset is that he knows he couldn't do any better himself. But that doesn't get the newspapers off his back. I had a very unkind thought in there this morning: The only reason Carlucci isn't throwing Peter Wohl to the wolves-"

"This man Wohl was there?"

"Yeah. Wohl and Denny Coughlin too. As I was saying, the only reason he hasn't already thrown Wohl to the wolves is because he knows that whoever he would send in to replace him wouldn't be able to do a damned thing Wohl hasn't already done. And he-Carlucci-would look even worse if his pinch hitter struck out."

"Yes, I see."

"Shooting a cop is like shooting the pope," Lowenstein said. "You just can't tolerate it. So you throw all the resources you can lay your hands on at the job. We've done that, and that hasn't been good enough. But there's other crimes in the city, and you can't keep it up. Not even if it means that for the first time in the history of the City of Philadelphia, a cop killer will get away with it."

"Really? This has never happened before?"

"Never," Lowenstein said. "Not once. And, at the risk of repeating myself, you can't let anyone get away with shooting a cop."

"So what will happen?"

Lowenstein shrugged his shoulders and threw up his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

"And two other little items to brighten my day came to my attention," he said. "One connected to the Magnella-that's the name of the young cop-job. Interesting problem of ethics. You know Captain Frieberg, Manny Frieberg?"

"Sure."

"He's got the 9^th District. One of my boys. Good cop. There are those that say I'm his rabbi."

"I've heard the term," Rabbi Kuntz said with a chuckle.

"He came to see me just before I went to see the mayor. At half past three this morning, one of his cars answered a call about a body in a saloon parking lot. It wasn't a body. It was a passed-out drunk. Specifically, it was one of the hotshot homicide detectives I mentioned a moment ago, who were transferred from Homicide to Peter Wohl. He passed out, fortunately, between the barroom door and his car, so he didn't have a chance to run into the cardinal archbishop or a station wagon full of nuns."

Kuntz chuckled, and then asked, "Does he have a drinking problem?"

Lowenstein ignored the question.

"When they tried to wake him up," he went on, "he got belligerent, so they took his gun away from him and locked him up in a district holding cell. When Manny came in, he turned him loose and then came to see me."

"You said 'ethical problem'?"

"If he worked for me, I'd know how to deal with him. I'd tell him if I heard he had so much as sniffed a cork for six months, he would be on the recovered stolen car detail forever. "

"I don't know what that means."

"Two kinds of stolen cars are recovered. The ones some kids took for a joy ride and ditched, or ones that somebody has stripped and abandoned. In either case, it has to be investigated. Lots of forms that no one will ever see again have to be filled out. It's the worst job a detective can get. For a Homicide detective, it would be the worst thing that could possibly happen to him."

"But?"

"He doesn't work for me. So what do I do, go tell Peter Wohl? Since he doesn't work for me, it's none of my business, right? And I don't know how Peter would handle it. He's under a hell of a lot of pressure, and he would not be pleased to hear that one of the two men he's forced to rely on has a bad bottle problem."

"Is that what it is? The man is an alcoholic?"

"Maybe not yet, but almost. What happened is that his wife caught him in the wrong bed. The judge awarded the wife everything but his spare pair of socks. He's living in a cheap room out by the University, eating baked beans out of the can. And the ex-wife is using his money to support a boyfriend."

"How sad," Kuntz said.

The doorbell played "Be It Ever So Humble."

"That's O'Hara," Lowenstein said, looking at his watch. "He has only one virtue, punctuality. The subject we were on is now closed, okay?"

Kuntz nodded.

Lowenstein left the kitchen and returned in a moment leading Mickey O'Hara, who had a bottle in a brown bag in his hand, and a young woman.

"If I knew the rabbi was going to be here, I'd have brought two of these," Mickey said, handing the bag to Lowenstein. He pulled a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label Scotch from it.