The brown-trash woman just looked at him.

He looked over her shoulder, saw a telephone sitting on top of the refrigerator, pointed to it and repeated, “ Telefono.”

Her expression didn’t change, but she shrugged, which Officer Bailey decided could be interpreted to mean that she had given him permission to enter her home.

And now the phone won’t work. They won’t have paid that bill either.

There was a dial tone.

“Homicide, Detective Kramer.”

“Detective, this is Officer Woodrow W. Bailey, of the Thirty-ninth District.”

“What can I do for you, Bailey?”

“I’d like to talk to somebody working the job of that police officer, Kellog, who was murdered.”

“What have you got, Bailey?”

“You working the job, Detective?”

“The assigned detective’s not here. But I’m working it.”

“What I got may not be anything, but I thought it was worth telling you.”

“What have you got, Bailey?”

“A fellow named James Howard Leslie-he’s a junkie, done some time for burglary-was burning garbage in his backyard.”

“And?” Detective Kramer asked, somewhat impatiently.

“I put the fire out, and then I got a good look at what he was burning. I don’t know…”

“What, Bailey?”

“There was a photograph of Officer Kellog and his wife, on their wedding day, in his garbage.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then Detective Kramer asked, very carefully: “How do you know it was Officer Kellog?”

“There’s a sign on the wall behind him. ‘Good Luck Officer Kellog From the Seventeenth District.’ And I remembered his picture in the newspapers.”

“Where’s the picture now?”

“I left it there.”

“Where’s the guy…Leslie, you said?”

“In my car. I arrested him for setting an unlawful fire.”

“Where are you?”

“Behind his house. In the alley. The 1900 block of Sedgwick Street.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t let him out of your sight, don’t let anybody near where you found the picture, and don’t touch nothing you don’t have to.”

Bailey hung up the telephone, then called the Thirty-ninth District and asked for a supervisor to meet him at the scene.

“What have you got, Bailey?” the Corporal inquired.

“A garbage burner,” Bailey said, and hung up.

He nodded at Leslie’s Puerto Rican woman, then walked back through the yard to his car and got behind the wheel.

“Hey, Officer, what’s happening?” Mr. Leslie inquired, sliding forward with some difficulty on the seat to get closer to the fucking cop.

“You under arrest, Speed,” Officer Bailey replied. “For setting a fire in your backyard.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, man! For burning some fucking garbage?”

“If I was you, I’d just sit there and close my mouth,” Officer Bailey replied.

As a general rule of thumb, unless the visitor to the Mayor’s office was someone really important (“really important” being defined as someone of the ilk of a United States Senator, the Governor of the State of Pennsylvania, or the Cardinal Archbishop of the Diocese of Philadelphia) Mrs. Annette Cossino, the Mayor’s secretary, would escort the visitor to the door of the Mayor’s office, push it open, and say, “The Mayor will see you now.”

The visitor would then be able to see the Mayor deep in concentration, dealing with some document of great importance laid out on his massive desk. After a moment or two, the Mayor would glance toward the door, look surprised and apologetic, and rise to his feet.

“Please excuse me,” he would say. “Sometimes…”

Visitors would rarely fail to be impressed with the fact that the Mayor was tearing himself from Something Important to receive them.

This afternoon, however, on learning that Chief Inspector Matt Lowenstein had asked for an appointment for himself and Inspector Peter Wohl, His Honor had decided to deviate from the normal routine.

While he could not be fairly accused of being paranoid, the threatened resignation of Chief Lowenstein had caused the Mayor to consider that he really had few friends, people he could really trust, and that Matt Lowenstein was just about at the head of that short list.

“When he comes in, Annette,” the Mayor ordered, “you let me know he’s here, and I’ll come out and get him.”

Such a gesture would, the Mayor believed, permit Chief Lowenstein to understand the high personal regard in which he was held. And Peter Wohl would certainly report the manner in which Lowenstein had been welcomed to the Mayor’s office to his father. The Mayor was perfectly willing to admit-at least to himself-that his rise through every rank to Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department-which, of course, had led to his seeking the mayoralty-would not have been possible had not Chief Inspector Augustus Wohl covered his ass in at least half a dozen really bad situations.

And when he thought about that, he realized that Inspector Peter Wohl was no longer a nice young cop, but getting to be a power in his own right. And that he could safely add him to the short list of people he could trust.

He was pleased with his decision to greet Lowenstein and Wohl in a special manner.

And was thus somewhat annoyed when he pulled the door to his office open, a warm smile on his face, his hand extended, and found that Chief Lowenstein was at Annette’s desk talking on the telephone.

Finally, Chief Lowenstein hung up and turned around.

“Sorry,” Lowenstein said.

“What the hell was that?” Carlucci asked, somewhat sharply.

“Henry Quaire,” Lowenstein said. “There may be a break in the Kellog murder.”

“What?” the Mayor asked.

He’s not being charming, Peter Wohl thought. When Lowenstein told him that, he went right back on the job. He’s a cop, and if there is one thing a cop hates worse than a murdered cop it’s a murdered cop with no doers in sight.

“A uniform in the Thirty-ninth working his beat came across a critter, junkie, petty criminal with a record six feet long, including burglaries, burning garbage in his backyard. In the garbage was Officer Kellog’s wedding picture. The uniform called Homicide.”

“There was mention of a wedding picture in the 49s,” Carlucci said. “In a silver frame.”

“Right,” Lowenstein said.

“Where else would he get a picture of Kellog?” Carlucci asked, thoughtfully rhetoric. “Have you got the frame?”

“Yeah. That’s why Quaire called me. We got a search warrant. They found not only a silver frame, but a dozen-thirteen, actually-tape cassettes. They were in the fire, but maybe Forensics can do something with them. If Mrs. Kellog can identify the frame, or there’s something on the tapes…”

“Where’s the critter?”

“Right now, he’s on his way from the Thirty-ninth to Homicide,” Lowenstein said.

“Who’s going to interview him?”

Lowenstein shrugged. “Detective D’Amata is the assigned detective.”

“Peter, do you have Jason Washington doing anything he can’t put off for a couple of hours?” the Mayor asked, innocently.

That is, Wohl noted mentally, the first time the Mayor has acknowledged my presence.

“You want to take it away from D’Amata?” Lowenstein asked.

“I’d like an arrest in that case,” Carlucci said. “If you think it would be a good idea to have Washington talk to this critter, Matt, I’d go along with that.”

“Shit,” Lowenstein said. “You find Washington, Peter,” he ordered. “I’ll call Quaire.”

“Yes, sir,” Peter said.

“Only if you think it’s a good idea, Matt,” the Mayor said. “It was only a suggestion.”

“Yeah, right,” Lowenstein said, and walked back to Mrs. Annette Cossino’s desk and reached for one of the telephones.

“D’Amata will understand, Peter,” the Mayor said.

“Yes, sir,” Peter said. “I’m sure he will.”

“Annette,” the Mayor called. “Call the Thirty-ninth. Tell the Commanding Officer I want him and this uniform standing by to come here if I need them.”