"You'll be out of here tomorrow, or the day after," Washington said. "Even if this is not fantasy on the part of these people, they won't look for you in Wallingford. You are going to Wallingford, right?"

"I was, but not now," Matt said. "Christ, I don't want my family to hear about this!"

"It'll be in the papers," Wohl said. "They'll hear about it."

"I'll go to my apartment," Matt said, "not Wallingford."

"You in the phone book?" Lowenstein asked.

"No, sir."

"What I think this is intended to do, Payne," Lowenstein went on, "is frighten Mr. Monahan. I think they're trying to get him to think that if they can threaten a cop-You take my meaning?"

"Yes, sir."

"I can't believe they'd come after you. If they were serious about revenge, they wouldn't have given a warning."

"Yes, sir."

On the other hand, Matt thought, if they did kill me, that would really send Mr. Monahan a message.

The pain in his stomach had gone as quickly as it had come.

Jesus, that Demerol must be working. I'm not even afraid anymore. This is more like watching a cops-and-robbers show on TV. You know it' s not real.

And then he had a sudden, very clear image of the orange muzzle blasts in the alley, and heard again the crack of Abu Ben Mohammed's pistol, and felt again getting slammed in the calf and forehead, and the fear, and the cramp in his stomach, came back.

"I'll have a talk with your father, Matt," Wohl said. "And put this in perspective. If you'd like me to."

"Please," Matt said.

"I'm sure McElroy has arranged with the switchboard to put through only calls from your family and friends," Lowenstein said. "But some calls may get through-"

"Calls from whom?" Matt interrupted.

"I was thinking of the press, those bastards are not above saying they're somebody's brother, but now that I think of it, these people may try to call you too."

"In either case, hang up," Wohl said. "No matter what you would say, it would be the wrong thing."

"Yes, sir."

"And above all," Wohl said, "as the hangman said as he led the condemned man up the scaffold steps, try not to worry about this."

"Oh, God!" Washington groaned, and then they all laughed.

A little too heartily, Matt thought. That wasn't that funny.

SIXTEEN

The Honorable Jerry Carlucci, mayor of the City of Philadelphia, sat in the commissioner's chair at the head of the commissioner's conference table in the commissioner's conference room on the third floor of the Roundhouse rolling one of Chief Inspector Matt Lowenstein's big black cigars in his fingers. His Honor was visibly not in a good mood.

One indication of this was the manner in which he had come by the cigar.

"Matt, I don't suppose you have a spare cigar you could let me have, do you?" the mayor had politely asked.

Lowenstein knew from long experience that when The Dago was carefully watching his manners, it was a sure sign that he was no more than a millimeter or two away from throwing a fit.

"Thank you very much, Matt," the mayor said very politely.

Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernick, a large, florid-faced man sitting to the mayor's immediate left, next to Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, produced a gas-flame cigarette lighter, turned it on, and offered it to the mayor.

"No, thank you, Commissioner," the mayor said, very politely, "I'm sure Matt will offer me a match."

He turned to Lowenstein, sitting beside Peter Wohl on the other side of the table. Lowenstein handed him a large kitchen match and the mayor then took a good thirty seconds to get the cigar going. Finally, exhaling cigar smoke as he approvingly examined the coal on the cigar, he said, very politely, "Well, since we are all here, do you think we should get going? Why don't you just rough me in on this, Commissioner, and then I can ask specific questions of the others, if there's something I don't quite understand."

"Yes, sir," Commissioner Czernick said. "ShouldI start, sir, with the Goldblatt robbery and murder?"

"No, start with what happened at five o'clock this morning. I know what happened at Goldblatt's."

"Chief Lowenstein asked the assistance of Inspector Wohl, that is, Special Operations, in arresting eight men identified by a witness as the doers of the Goldblatt job. They obtained warrants through the district attorney. The idea was to make the arrests simultaneously, and at a time when there would be the least risk to the public and the officers involved, that is at five o'clock in the morning."

"And the operation presumably had your blessing, Commissioner? "

"I didn't know about it until it was over, Mr. Mayor."

"You and Lowenstein had a falling out?" Carlucci demanded, looking from one to the other. "You're not talking to each other? What?"

"It was a routine arrest, arrests, Jerry," Lowenstein said. "There was no reason to bring the commissioner in on it."

"Just for the record, Matt, correct me if I'm wrong, this is the first time we've arrested the Islamic Liberation Army, right? Or any other kind of army, right? So how is that routine?"

"Just because eightschwartzers call themselves an army doesn't make them an army," Lowenstein said. "So far as I'm concerned, these guys are thieves and murderers, period."

"Yeah, well, tell that to the newspapers," Carlucci said. "The newspapers think they're an army."

"Then the newspapers are wrong," Lowenstein said.

"And it never entered your mind, Peter," Carlucci asked, turning to Wohl, "to run this past the commissioner and get his approval?"

"Mr. Mayor, I thought of it like Chief Lowenstein did. It was a routine arrest."

"If it was a routine arrest-don't hand me any of your bullshit, Peter, I was commanding Highway when you were in high school-Homicide detectives backed up by district cops would have picked these people up, one at a time. Did you see what theDaily News said?"

"No, sir."

The mayor jammed his cigar in his mouth, opened his briefcase, took out a sheet of Xerox paper, and read, "They said, 'A small army of heavily armed police had their first battle with the Islamic Liberation Army early this morning. When it was over, Abu Ben Mohammed was fatally wounded and Police Officer Matthew M. Payne, who two months ago shot to death the Northwest Philadelphia serial rapist, was in Frankford Hospital suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. The police took seven members of the ILA prisoner.'"

He looked at Wohl.

"I didn't see that," Wohl said.

"Maybe you should start reading the newspapers, Peter."

"Yes, sir."

"Just don't give me any more bullshit about a routine arrest. If this thing had been handled like a routine arrest none of this would have happened."

"You're right," Lowenstein said angrily. "Absolutely right. If I had tried to pick up these scumbags one at a time, using district cops, we'd have three, four, a half dozen cops in Frankford Hospital, or maybe the morgue. And probably that many civilians."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. We took a goddamn arsenal full of guns away from these people. The only reason they didn't get to use them was because we hit them all at once. If we had taken them one at a time, by the time we got to the second or third one, they would either have been long gone, in Kansas City or someplace, if we were lucky. Or, if we were unlucky, they would have done what this scumbag Stevens did, come out shooting."

There were very few people in the Police Department, for that matter in city government, who would have dared to tell the mayor in scornful sarcasm that he was right, absolutely right, and then explain in detail to him why he was wrong. Matt Lowenstein was one of them. But there was doubt in the minds of everyone else in the conference room that he was going to get away with it this time.