He had really been surprised to hear that Charley had become a detective. It took him a lot of thought to realize that what it probably was was dumb luck. As asshole named Gerry Gallagher had got himself hooked on drugs, desperately needed money, and had tried to stick up the Waikiki Diner on Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philly.

Tough luck for the both of them, the Commanding Officer of the Highway Patrol, a big mean sonofabitch named Captain “Dutch” Moffitt, had been having his dinner in the Waikiki. He tried to be a hero, and Gallagher was dumb enough to shoot him for trying. Killed him. With a little fucking. 22-caliber pistol.

Now the one thing you don’t want to do, ever, is shoot a cop, any cop. And Moffitt was a captain, and the Commanding Officer of Highway Patrol. There were eight-thousand-plus cops in Philadelphia, and every last fucking one of them had a hard-on for Gallagher.

If you were white and between sixteen and forty and looked anything like the description the cops put out on the radio, you could count on being stopped by a cop and asked could you prove you weren’t at the Waikiki Diner when the Highway Captain got himself shot.

Every cop in Philly was looking for Gallagher. Charley McFadden and his partner, a little Spic named Gonzales or Martinez or one of them Spic names like that, had caught him. They chased him down the subway tracks, near the Frankford-Pratt Station in Northeast Philly where the train is elevated. The dumb sonofabitch slipped and got himself cut in little pieces by a train that had come along at the wrong time.

Now the cops certainly knew, Sonny had reasoned at the time, that McFadden wasn’t Sherlock Holmes, and if he had found Gallagher it had to be dumb luck. That didn’t matter. Charley was a fucking hero. He was the cop who got the guy who shot Captain Dutch Moffitt. Got his picture in the newspapers with Mayor Carlucci and everything.

The next thing Sonny heard was that Charley was now a Highway Patrolman. Highway Patrolmen, everybody knew, were the sharp cops. They could find their asses with only one hand. What the hell, Sonny had reasoned, it was a payback. Even if Charley wasn’t too smart, he had done what he did, and Highway would make an exception for the guy who had caught the guy who shot the Highway commander.

The next thing Sonny heard about Charley after that was that he was now a detective. That was surprising. Sonny knew that you had to take a test to be a detective, and unless Charley had changed a whole hell of a lot since Bishop Neuman High School, taking tests was not his strong point.

Then Sonny figured that out, too. Charley hadn’t been able to cut it as a Highway Patrolman. You couldn’t be a dummy and be a Highway Patrolman, and Highway had probably found out about Charley in two or three days.

So what to do with him? Make him a detective. It sounded good, and despite what you saw on the TV and in the movies, all detectives weren’t out solving murders and catching big-money drug dealers. A lot of them did things that didn’t take too much brains, like looking for stolen cars, and checking pawnshops with a list of what had been heisted lately, things like that.

And then Sonny had heard that there were some Police Department big shots, chief inspectors and the like, who got to have a chauffeur for their cars and to answer their phones, and that sometimes these gofers were detectives.

That’s what Charley McFadden was probably doing, Sonny Boyle reasoned. It fit. The Police Department figured they owed him for catching Gallagher, and there was nothing wrong with being a detective, and he could be useful doing something, like driving some big shot around, that other cops would rather not do themselves.

All of this ran through Timothy Francis Boyle’s mind when he saw Charles Thomas McFadden walk into Lou’s Crab House at Eleventh and Moyaminsing.

What surprised him now was how Charley was dressed. He looked nice. Not as classy as the young guy with him-the other guy was not a cop; you don’t buy threads like he’s wearing on what they pay cops but nice. Nice jacket, nice white shirt, nice slacks, even a nice necktie.

And he was also surprised when McFadden headed for the booth where Sonny was waiting for his runners to bring the cash and numbers to him.

Did he just spot me? Or was he looking for me?

“Well, aren’t we in luck?” Charley McFadden said as he slid into the booth beside Sonny. “Timothy Francis Boyle himself, in the flesh!”

“How are you, Charley?” Sonny asked, and smilingly offered his hand. “Nice threads.”

“Thanks,” Charley said. “Sonny, say hello to my friend Matt Payne.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Sonny said. He gave the other guy his hand, and was surprised that he wasn’t able to give it a real squeeze the way he wanted to. This Payne guy was stronger than he looked like.

“How do you do, Mr. Boyle?” Matt said.

Main Line, Sonny decided. If he talks like that-like he keeps his teeth together when he talks-and dresses like that, he’s from some place like Merion or Bala Cynwyd. I wonder what the fuck he’s doing with McFadden.

“Long time no see,” Sonny said. “What brings you down this way?”

Charley put two fingers in his mouth, causing a shrill whistle which attracted the waitress’s attention. “Two coffees, darling,” he called out. “Put them on Sonny’s bill.”

“On my bill, my ass,” Sonny said.

“For old times’ sake, Sonny, right? Besides, I’ve told Matt you’re a successful businessman.”

“You did?”

“I told him you are one of the neighborhood’s most successful numbers runners and part-time bookies.”

“Jesus Christ, Charley, that’s not funny.”

“Don’t be bashful,” McFadden said. “He’s always been a little bashful, Matt.”

“Has he really?” Matt said.

“Yeah. What do you expect, with a name like Francis? That’s a girl’s name.”

“When its a girl, they spell it with an e,” Sonny said. “Damn it, you know that.” He looked at Matt Payne. “Charley and me go back a long ways. He’s always pulling my leg.”

Who the fuck is this guy? What the hell is this all about?

One of Sonny’s runners-Pat O’Hallihan, a bright, red-headed eighteen-year-old who worked hard, was honest, and for whom Sonny saw a bright future came into Lou’s Crab House, carrying a small canvas zipper bag with his morning’s receipts. He stopped when he saw that Sonny was not alone in the booth. Sonny made what he hoped was a discreet gesture telling him to cool it.

It was not discreet enough.

“Turn around, Matthew,” McFadden said. “The kid in the red hair? Three to five he’s one of Sonny’s runners.”

Matt turned and looked.

“Is he really?” he asked.

“Charley, you are not funny,” Sonny said.

“Who’s trying to be funny?” McFadden said. “I was just filling Detective Payne in on the local scumbags.”

“ Detective” Payne? Is he telling me this Main Line asshole in the three-hundred-fifty-dollar jacket and the fifty-dollar tie is a cop?

“You’re a cop?” Sonny’s mouth ran away with him.

“Show him your badge, Matthew,” McFadden said. “Sonny-I suppose in his line of work, it’s natural-don’t trust anybody.”

The Main Line asshole reached into the inside breast pocket of his three-hundred-fifty-dollar Harris tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows and came out with a small folder. He opened it and extended it to Sonny, which afforded Sonny the opportunity to see a Philadelphia Police Department detective’s badge and accompanying photo identification.

“You don’t look like a cop,” Sonny said.

“Don’t I really?” Matt asked.

“Detective Payne is with Special Operations,” Charley said. “You familiar with Special Operations, Sonny?”

“Sure.”

What the fuck is Special Operations? Oh, yeah. That new hotshot outfit. They’re over Highway Patrol.

“You know what Detective Payne said when I told him what line of work you’re in, Sonny?”