There was a uniformed sergeant standing there, and two Highway Patrolmen. Behind them Matt could see Jason Washington looking for all the world like a curious civilian.

“What have you got, Payne?” one of the Highway Patrolmen said. Matt recalled having met him somewhere. He couldn’t recall his name.

“Nothing yet. I figured I’d better let you guys in.”

“How’d you get in?”

“Back door was unlocked. The wagon guy’s covering it.”

“Who are you?” the uniformed sergeant asked.

“He’s Detective Payne of Special Operations,” Jason answered for him. “And I am Sergeant Washington. Nothing, Matt?”

“Nothing on the floor. There’s a basement, I didn’t get down there.”

“I think we should have a look,” Washington said, and moving with a quick grace, suddenly appeared in front of the two Highway Patrolmen and the uniformed sergeant. “Lead on, Matthew!”

Matt turned and walked quickly back through the bar, the restaurant, and the kitchen to the corridor, then started down the stairs. Washington stopped him with a massive hand on his shoulder.

“Announce your arrival,” he said softly. “You don’t know what you’re going to find down there, and if the proprietor, for example, is down there, you want to be sure he knows the man coming down the stairs is a police officer.”

“Police!” Matt called.

“Down here!” a male voice called.

The stairs led to a narrow corridor, and the corridor to a small office.

The first thing Matt saw was a somewhat stocky man in his forties sitting behind a battered desk, in the act of taking a pull from the neck of a bottle of Seagram’s VO. There was a Colt Cobra revolver lying on the desk.

The next thing Matt saw, as he entered the office, was a young female, white, sitting in a chair. Her head was hanging limply back. Her eyes were open and her head, neck, and chest were covered with blood. She was obviously dead. On the floor, lying on his side in a thick pool of blood, was the body of a heavy man. His arm was stretched out, nearly touching the desk.

Matt looked at the man behind the desk.

“What happened here?”

“I was held up,” the man said.

“By who?”

Matt looked at the office door and saw that Jason Washington and one of the Highway Patrolmen had stepped inside the office.

“Two white guys.”

“Are you all right?”

“I was shot in the leg,” the man said.

Matt crossed to him and saw that he had his right leg extended, and that the trouser leg between the knee and the groin was soaked in blood.

“Can you describe the men?” Matt asked.

“There was two of them,” the man said. “One was a short, stocky sonofabitch, and the other was about as big as I am.”

“How were they dressed?”

“The little fucker was in a suit; the other one was wearing a zipper jacket.”

“Mustaches, beards, anything like that?”

The man shook his head.

Jason Washington turned to the Highway Patrolman standing beside him.

“Get out a flash on that,” he said softly. “And tell Police Radio that Sergeant Washington and Detective Payne of Special Operations are at the scene of what appears to be an armed robbery and double homicide.”

SIX

“That was interesting,” Sergeant Edward McCarthy of the Homicide Unit said to Detective Wallace J. Milham as he walked up to a desk where Milham was trying to catch up with his paperwork. Milham looked at McCarthy with mingled curiosity and annoyance at having been disturbed.

“Radio just told me we have a double homicide at the Inferno Lounge,” McCarthy said. “No names on the victims yet, but the report came from Police by radio. A Ninth District van, relaying a message from none other than Sergeant Jason Washington of Special Operations, who is apparently on the scene.”

“I wonder what that’s all about.” Milham chuckled. “That neighborhood, and especially that joint, is not the Black Buddha’s style. Who’s got the job?”

“You’re the assigned detective, Detective Milham,” McCarthy said.

“Give me thirty seconds,” Milham said. “Let me finish this page.”

“Take your time. The victims aren’t going anywhere,” McCarthy said, and added, “I’m going to see if I can find the Captain.”

Captain Henry C. Quaire, Commanding Officer of the Homicide Unit, was located attending a social function-the annual dinner of the vestry of St. John’s Lutheran Church-in the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel with his wife when Sergeant McCarthy reached him.

“Where are you, Mac?”

“In the Roundhouse.”

“Pick me up outside. I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Yes, sir.”

Preoccupied with his concern about what his wife would say when he told her she would have to drive herself home-a dire prediction of tight lips and a back turned coldly toward him in their bed when he finally got home, a prediction that was to come true-Captain Quaire neglected to inquire of Sergeant McCarthy whether or not he had gotten in touch with Chief Inspector Matthew Lowenstein. The Chief liked to be notified of all interesting jobs, no matter what the hour, and a double willful killing would qualify by itself. With Washington somehow involved, he would be even more interested.

He would, he decided, try to get on a phone while waiting for McCarthy to pick him up. That idea went out the window when he stepped off the elevator and saw Mac’s car waiting for him outside on South Broad Street.

“I don’t suppose you got in touch with the Chief?” he asked as he got in the car.

McCarthy turned on the flashing lights and the siren and made a U-turn on Broad Street.

“I didn’t have to,” McCarthy replied. “I got a call from Radio, saying the Chief was going in on this, and would somebody call his wife and tell her he was delayed.”

“Who are the victims? Do we know yet?”

“I’m praying that it was a family dispute,” McCarthy said.

Quaire chuckled. Sergeant McCarthy was not referring to a disagreement between husband and wife, but to one between members of Philadelphia’s often violent Mafia.

“Who’s assigned?” Quaire asked.

“Wally Milham. You didn’t say anything…”

“Sure. He was up, he got the job. I don’t think he had anything to do with Kellog.”

“I wonder who did that.”

“Nothing’s turned up?”

“Not a thing.”

By the time Detective Milham pulled up in front of the Inferno Lounge, there were nine police vehicles, including three unmarked cars, parked on Market Street. Without consciously doing so, he picked out the anomaly. The three unmarked cars were battered and worn. Therefore, none of them belonged to Sergeant Jason Washington, whose brand-new unmarked car had been the subject of much conversation in the Homicide Unit.

Wally wondered if McCarthy had been pulling his chain about Washington being in on this; or if someone had been pulling McCarthy’s chain.

There was a uniformed cop standing at the door who recognized Milham and let him in. Inside the Inferno, Milham saw three detectives whom he knew: David Rocco of the Central Detective Division; John Hanson of the Major Theft Unit; and Wilfred “Wee Willy” Malone, a six-foot-four-inch giant of a man assigned to the Intelligence Unit. That explained the three unmarked cars.

Rocco and Hanson gave him a wave. Wee Willy looked at him strangely. Wally wondered if he had heard about Kellog; that he had been interviewed and that they were checking his guns at Ballistics.

“We’re glad you’re here,” Rocco said. “ Sergeant Washington is with the victims, protecting the scene until the arrival of the hotshots-one of which presumably is you, Wally-of Homicide.”

“If you less important people would learn not to walk all over our evidence, that wouldn’t be necessary,” Wally replied, and then, not seeing Washington: “Where’s the Black Buddha?”

“Oh, shit,” Hanson said, and laughed and then pointed. “There’s a stairway off the corridor in back. There’s an office downstairs.”