"Yes, sir."

"Is there anyone else involved in this? Another buddy?"

Martinez and Matt looked at each other.

"Okay, who?" Marchessi asked, correctly interpreting the exchanged glances.

"He didn't do anything, sir," Martinez said.

"Who,dammit?"

"I talked about Lanza to Detective McFadden, sir."

"He's the officer you worked with in Narcotics?" Marchessi asked.

"Yes, sir."

If he knows that, Matt thought, he knows that it was Hay-zus and Charley who brought down the guy who killed Uncle Dutch. That ought to be worth something.

"Anybody else?"

"No, sir."

"Just the three of you, huh? Your own private detective squad within the Department, huh?"

Marchessi looked between them until it was clear that neither dared reply to that, and then went on.

"You have any trouble getting in this place, Payne?"

"No, sir."

"It's open to the public?"

"I believe it's operated as a club, sir. I was with someone who belonged."

"That could be interpreted to mean that you are associating with known criminals."

"Not in this case, sir," Matt said quickly.

But that's bullshit. Penny is a known narcotics addict, as well as someone known to associate with known criminals. Jesus!

"And this Corporal Lanza was there?"

"Yes, sir."

"Associating with known criminals?"

"I don't know, sir."

"The truth of the matter, Payne," Wohl said, "is that, with the possible exception of somebody like Vincenzo Savarese, you wouldn't recognize a known criminal if you fell over one. Isn't that so?"

"Yes, sir."

"Tell me about the two-thousand-dollar marker," Marchessi said.

"Sir, as I was cashing out, I saw Lanza sign a marker for two thousand dollars' worth of chips. He was in the line ahead of me."

"I thought you said you didn't follow him up there."

"I didn't. He was there."

"You knew him by sight? That would suggest he knows you by sight."

"Yes, sir. But not the way that sounds, sir."

"Clarify it for me."

"I didn't know who he was. But I made him as a cop. He was carrying."

"People, other than policemen, sometimes go about armed."

"I had a gut feeling he was a cop, sir, and then he spoke to me."

"What did he say?"

"I had apparently run into him in Las Vegas, sir. And on the airplane from Las Vegas home. He recognized me. Not as a cop."

"You made him, is that what you're saying, as a cop, but he didn't make you as a cop?"

"I'm sure I could have told if he had, sir."

"I admire your confidence in your own judgment, Payne," Marchessi said. "And then what did you do?"

"I came back to Philadelphia and called Off…DetectiveMartinez and told him (a) that Lanza had been in the Oaks and Pines and (b) had signed a marker for two thousand dollars."

"And then I went to see you, sir," Martinez said to Wohl.

"Tell me, Martinez," Marchessi said. "Have you anyevidence to connect Corporal Lanza with the smuggling of narcotics, or, for that matter, of anything else, or any other criminal activity, at the airport?"

"No evidence, sir. But it has to be him."

"'Has'to be him?" Marchessi replied, softly sarcastic.

He looked at Wohl, who shrugged his shoulders.

"You two wait outside. In the corridor," Marchessi said.

Matt and Martinez turned around and left his office.

"You want some coffee, Peter?" Marchessi asked.

"What I would like is a stiff drink."

"At this hour of the morning?"

"Figure of speech," Wohl said.

"Both of them talked about 'gut feelings,' or implied it," Marchessi said. "My gut feeling is that they've found who we're looking for."

"But have they blown it?" Wohl asked. "Dammit, I asked him to give me a name."

"Give him the benefit of the doubt. He didn't want to point a finger until he was sure."

"And while he was making sure, there was a good chance this guy would smell that he was being watched. And breaking into his car was absolute stupidity."

Marchessi chuckled.

"There was a story going around that one of my staff inspectors, carried away with enthusiasm, tapped the line of a Superior Court judge without getting the necessary warrant."

"Ouch!" Peter said.

"I didn't believe it, of course," Marchessi said. "I don't know what I would have done if somebody had discovered the tap."

"What, to change the subject, Chief, do we do about this?"

"Well, I think we've already been shifted into high gear, whether or not we like it," Marchessi said.

He pushed one of the buttons on his telephone, then picked up the receiver.

"Ollie, can you come in here a minute?" he said, and hung up.

Less than a minute later, Captain Richard Olsen, a large, blondhaired man of forty, wearing a blue blazer and a striped necktie, opened Marchessi's door without knocking.

"Sir?"

"Come in and close the door, Ollie. You remember Peter, of course?"

"What brings you slumming, Inspector?"

Captain Olsen, whose exact title Wohl could not remember, provided administrative services to the fourteen staff inspectors assigned to the Internal Investigations Bureau. The staff inspectors, from whose ranks Wohl had been transferred to command of Special Operations, handled sensitive investigations, most often involving governmental corruption. Wohl liked and respected him.

"How are you, Ollie?"

"Ollie," Marchessi asked, "if I wanted around-the-clock, moving surveillance of an off-duty Airport Unit corporal, starting right now, what kind of problems would that cause?"

Olsen thought that over for a minute.

"What squad is he assigned to?"

"Three squad, four to midnight," Wohl furnished.

"I can handle the next twenty-four hours, forty-eight, with no trouble. After that, I'll need some bodies. What are we looking for?"

"For openers, association with known criminals. Ultimately, to catch him smuggling drugs out of the airport."

"Watching him on the job would be difficult."

"I'm wondering if I can strike a deal with the feds. I know goddamned well they have people undercover out there. If I told them I'll give them a name, if they let us have the arrest…"

"And if they won't go along?" Wohl asked.

"That would bring us back to Hay-zus, wouldn't it, Peter?" Marchessi said thoughtfully.

"Yeah," Wohl said.

"You call it, Peter, you know him better than I do."

"We'd be betting that Lanza has accepted the story that Martinez is out there because he failed the detective's examination," Wohl thought aloud. "And I would have to impress on Martinez that all, absolutely all, that he's to do is watch him on the job…Screw the feds. I don't like the idea of having the feds catch one of our cops dirty. Let's go with Martinez."

"I have no idea," Olsen said, "who or what either of you are talking about."

"I think we should bring Martinez back in here," Marchessi said. " I don't think we need Payne. Except to tell him to keep his nose out of this."

"I'll handle Payne," Wohl said. "I don't think you need me, either, do you, Chief?"

"No. And you're on the mad bomber too, aren't you? How're you doing?"

"We don't have a clue who he is," Wohl said, getting off the couch. "Thank you very much, Chief. You've been very understanding."

"I have some experience, Peter, with bright young men who sometimes get carried away. Every once in a while, they even catch the bad guys. You might keep that in mind."

"Just between you, me, and the Swede here, I'm not nearly as angry with those two as I hope they think I am," Wohl said.

"You could have fooled me," Marchessi said. "Send in Martinez, will you, Peter?"

"I guess I'll be seeing you, Peter?" Olsen said, extending his hand.

"More than you'll want to, Ollie," Wohl said.