"You know what this thing is?" Carlucci asked him incredulously.

"They had a booth at the IACP (International Association of Chiefs of Police) Convention," Chief Coughlin said. "They demonstrated them. They're supposed to be used places where you don't want to fire a gun."

"And Monahan was shot with one of these things?" the mayor asked.

"That's what the medical examiner believes, sir," Wohl said. "Mr. Monahan died of a heart attack. The ME thinks it was caused by getting hit with a stun gun. There are two small bruises on his chest."

"How come the ME knows about these things?" the mayor asked.

"They've been trying to sell them to us," Coughlin said.

"We buy any of these things, Tad?" the mayor asked.

"I would have to check, Mr. Mayor."

"There are three at the range at the Academy," Wohl said. "On loan from the dealer, or the manufacturer, I'm not sure which."

"Let me get this straight: You're telling me Monahan was shot by a cop with a Mickey Mouse Buck Rogers stun gun we borrowed from somebody?"

"No, sir. I checked with the Academy. The ones out there are inoperative; they're waiting for the manufacturer, or the dealer, to come fix them.

"So where did the one who shot Monahan come from?" the mayor asked, and then, before Wohl could frame a reply, thought of something else: "I thought Coughlin just said they're nonlethal?"

"They're supposed to be, Jerry," Coughlin replied. "That's what they said at the convention. They're supposed to knock you on your ass for a couple of minutes, but they're not supposed to kill you."

"Monahan's dead," the mayor said.

"They're not classified as firearms, Mr. Mayor," Wohl said. "So they' re available on the open market. I called Colosimo's. They said they didn't have any, never had, but they had heard that a place in Camden had them, and some store in Bucks County. I've got people checking that out."

"How do we know Monahan was shot by a cop?" the mayor asked.

"We don't. Mrs. Monahan said that she saw a police officer take a gun from his coat-"

"These things look like guns?"

"I don't know, sir. I've never seen one."

"In dim light, or if you don't know all that much about guns," Coughlin said, "it would look, maybe, to Mrs. Monahan, like a gun."

"Do they make any noise? Where do they get the electricity to shock you?"

"They go 'splat,' " Coughlin said. "Or like that. Not like a.38."

"Like a.22, Chief?" Wohl asked.

"Something. Sure. It could be mistaken for a.22."

"Mrs. Monahan said it sounded like a.22," Wohl said.

"Why would they use something like this?"

"So there wouldn't be the sound of a gun going off," Lowenstein said.

"If it makes as much noise as a.22, then why not use a.22?" the mayor asked. He did not wait for a reply, but asked another question: "What is it, Peter? The guy who shot Monahan with this thing, the people in the car, were they cops or not?"

"They had an RPC, Mr. Mayor. An unmarked RPC."

"How do we know that? And if so, where did they get it?"

"Wedon't know. But Washington said, and I think he's right, that if it wasn't an RPC, I mean if it was just a similar Ford, the cop who walked past it would have picked up on that, either consciously or subconsciously: The tires would have been wrong, it wouldn't have had an antenna, or the right antenna-"

"So if it was a bona fide car, that makes it look as if a cop, cops, were the doers, doesn't it?" Carlucci interrupted.

"That sounds entirely credible," Wohl said. "As to where it came from, it probably came out of the parking lot at Bustleton and Bowler."

The mayor turned to Lowenstein and pointed a finger at him.

"I want those bastards, Matt!"

"Yes, sir," Lowenstein said softly, coldly, "so do I."

Carlucci turned back to Wohl. "What I'm thinking now is that it would be best, until he can give some real thought to your replacement, that we have Mike Sabara fill in for you. Is there something wrong with that?"

"No, sir. Sabara is a good man."

"Is there some way you can put off going to Harrisburg for a day or two? I'd like you to be available to Lowenstein."

"I'm not going to Harrisburg," Wohl said.

Carlucci looked at him in surprise, and then the look seemed to turn to anger.

"That's strange, Peter," he said. "Not half an hour ago, your pal Farnsworth Stillwell was on the phone. He wanted to be sure there would be no hard feelings about you going with him. He said you really didn't want to go, and that to get you he had to offer you a hell of a lot of money.

"I saw him last night. He offered me a job as his chief investigator. I told him I'd have to think it over, and I'd get back to him before he had his press conference this morning."

"He told me you had accepted. Period."

"I never thought of accepting. The reason I didn't call him this morning to tell him was that I was busy.

"Look at me, Peter," Carlucci said. Wohl met his eyes. "Now tell me again, when did you decide?"

"When he made the offer," Wohl said evenly. "I was afraid I would say something I would regret if I said anything last night."

Carlucci looked at him intently for a full thirty seconds before he spoke again.

"Okay. That obviously changes things," he said, finally, and then looked around the table. "Since Inspector Wohl is not resigning from the Department, there is no need to name a replacement for him at Special Operations at this time-"

"Mr. Mayor!" Czernick said.

"-temporary or otherwise," Carlucci went on coldly. Then he looked at Wohl. "There will be, Peter, unless you get this mess straightened out.Capisce?"

"Yes, sir."

"Keep me informed," the mayor said, and got up and walked out of the room.

TWENTY-SIX

Officer Foster H. Lewis, Jr., sat, as quietly and as inconspicuously as possible, on a folding steel chair in the small office that housed the Special Investigations Section of the Special Operations Division. He was very much afraid that he would, at any moment, be ordered out of the room on some minor errand or other, and he very much wanted to hear what was being said in the room.

The entire staff of the Special Investigations Section, that is to say Sergeant Jason Washington, Detective Anthony Harris, and himself, was in the room.

The night before, Officer Lewis had spent just about an hour making up an organizational chart for the Special Investigations Section using a drafting set he had last used in high school. There were three boxes on the chart, one on top of the other. The uppermost enclosed Sergeant Washington's name. The one in the middle read, Det. Harris, and the one on the bottom, PO Lewis. Black lines indicated the chain of authority.

It was sort of, but not entirely, a joke. Every other bureaucratic subdivision of the Special Operations Division had an organizational chart. It had been Tiny's intention, when Sergeant Washington saw the new organizational chart thumb-tacked to the corkboard and, as he almost certainly would, asked,"What the hell is that?" to reply,"We may be small, but we're bureaucratically up to standards.

Tiny Lewis had come to believe there was a small but credible hope that he could manage to stay assigned to the Special Investigations Section rather than find himself back in uniform and riding around in one of the Special Operations RPCs, which was the most likely scenario.

For one thing, the Officer Magnella murder job was no closer to a solution than it had ever been, and since it was the murder of a cop, it would continue to be worked. Tony Harris would continue to need his services as an errand runner. For another, now that they were officially caught up in the bureaucracy, there would be paperwork, that which was now being done by Inspector Wohl's administrative sergeant. He could take that over. Certainly the Black Buddha wouldn't want to do it, nor Tony Harris. If he could make himself useful, his temporary assignment just might become permanent.