"Why did the fat doer stick his gun under Charlton's vest?" Matt asked. "Why not just shoot him in the head? Or the lower back, below the vest?"

Coughlin gave him a look Matt could not interpret, and finally decided it was exasperation at his having asked a question that obviously could not be answered.

Tony Harris held up both hands in a helpless gesture.

The restaurant manager walked up to them with three mugs of coffee on a tray.

"I thought you and the other detectives might like…"

"That's very nice of you," Coughlin said.

"Mr. Benetti, this is Commissioner Coughlin," Harris said.

"Oh, Jesus, I'm sorry…"

"I like to think I'm still a detective," Coughlin said. "No offense taken."

"I… uh… don't know how to say this," Benetti said. "But I'm glad to see you here, Commissioner. I would hate to have what those animals did to Mrs. Fernandez and Officer Charlton… wind up as an unsolved crime."

"We're going to try very hard, Mr. Benetti, to make sure that doesn't happen," Coughlin said.

Benetti looked at Coughlin, then put out his hand.

"Thank you," he said, and walked away.

Coughlin looked over his shoulder, then pointed to one of the banquettes. He slid in one side, and Tony Harris and Matt into the other.

"Still no idea who these animals are?" Coughlin asked.

Harris shook his head, "no."

"The police artist's stuff is just about useless," Harris said. "Everybody saw somebody else. We're going to have to have a tip, or make them with a fingerprint."

Coughlin shook his head.

"One question, Tony. I want the answer off the top of your head. How would you feel about having Sergeant Payne in Homicide?"

Harris chuckled, then smiled.

"I heard The List was out," he said. "Good for you, Matt!"

"That doesn't answer my question, Tony," Coughlin said.

"Welcome, welcome!" Tony said.

"I should have known better than to try that," Coughlin said. "In law school, they teach you never to ask a question to somebody on the stand unless you know what the answer's going to be."

"Commissioner, you asked," Harris said. "What's wrong with Matt coming to Homicide?"

"He's too young, for one thing. He hasn't been on the job long enough, for another. I can go on."

"He's also smart," Harris said. "And he's a stone-under-the -stone turner. I didn't wonder why this bastard didn't shoot Kenny in the head, or lower back. Matt already thinks like the Black Buddha. The other stuff, we can teach him."

Coughlin snorted.

"And he's going to make a good witness on the stand," Harris said. "Think about that."

"I'll be damned," Coughlin said. "For a moment, I thought- I guess, to be honest, hoped-you were pulling my leg. But you're serious, aren't you?"

Tony Harris nodded his head. "I thought you'd be all for him coming to Homicide," he said.

Coughlin looked between the two of them but didn't respond directly.

After a moment, he asked, "Are you about finished here, Tony?"

"Just about."

"I need a ride to the Roundhouse."

"My pleasure."

"Matt's going to Easton on a job I gave Peter Wohl and Peter gave to Matt," Coughlin said. "And he'd better get going."

"What job's that?" Harris asked.

"One of those I'd rather not talk about," Coughlin said, looking at Matt. "But the sooner youknow something, Matt, the better."

"Yes, sir. I understand."

"You sore at me, Matt?" Coughlin said.

"I could never be sore at you," Matt said.

Coughlin met his eyes and then nodded.

Then he pushed himself out of the banquette.

[FOUR] Matt started to head for the Schuylkill Expressway as the fastest way out of town. When he turned onto South Street, he punched the autodial button on his cellular, which caused Inspector Wohl to answer his cellular on the second ring.

"Matt, boss. Commissioner Coughlin's on his way back to the Roundhouse, and I'm on my way to Easton. Okay?"

"From the cheerful sound of your voice, I guess you again refused to listen to his sage advice?"

"He didn't offer any," Matt said. "He tried to sandbag me with Tony Harris."

"And?"

"Tony said I already think like the Black Buddha, they can teach me what I have to know, and 'welcome'-no, 'welcome, welcome'-to Homicide."

There was a moment's silence.

"He also told me he gave you the Cassidy job," Matt said.

Again there was a perceptible pause.

"If you come up with something unpleasant, give me a call," Wohl said. "Otherwise fill me in in the morning."

"Yes, sir," Matt said.

Wohl broke the connection without saying anything else.

At the next intersection-South and Twentieth Streets- Matt changed his mind about the Schuylkill Expressway and instead drove back to Rittenhouse Square, where he drove into the underground garage, parked the unmarked Ford, and got in the Porsche.

It had occurred to him that he hadn't driven the Porsche much lately, and it needed a run. What he liked best about the Porsche-something he somewhat snobbishly thought most people didn't understand-was not how easily you could get it up to well over 100, 120 miles per hour-a great many cars would do that-but how beautifully it handled on narrow, winding roads, making 60 or 70 where lesser cars would lose control at 50 or less. Such as the twenty miles or so of Route 611 between Kintnersville and Easton, where the road ran alongside the old Delaware Canal.

With the winding road, and a lot else on his mind- God, that was an unexpected compliment from Tony Harris, me thinking like Jason…

And it couldn't have been timed better. Uncle Denny had egg all over his face…

I wonder when the promotion will actually happen?

What am I going to do if Captain Cassidy's brother's will hasn't been filed in the courthouse? Some people don't even have wills. What do they call that, intestate, something like that?

With a little luck, the courthouse'll have a computer and I can do a search for all real estate in the name of John Paul Cassidy…

I've got to find out more about Whatshisname who stuffed his girlfriend in a trunk and sends Dave Pekach taunting postcards from Europe…

Uncle Denny said the body was (a) mummified and (b) in the trunk for a year? Didn't it smell?

I'll have to find out when Stan Colt is going to grace Philadelphia with his presence. I really would like to see more- a hell of a lot more- of Vice President Terry Davis…

Nice legs. Nice everything… -he didn't think about Route 611 passing through Doylestown, right past the Crossroads Diner, until the diner itself came into view.

Shit, Shit, Shit!

The mental image of Susan with the neat hole under her sightless eyes jumped into his mind.

No, goddamn it. No! Not twice in one day!

Think of something else.

Terry Davis in the shower.

A mummified body in a trunk. If you want to feel nauseous, think of a stinking, mummified body.

But (a) mummies don't stink. They look like leather statues, but they don't smell, (b) mummies are bodies that have gone through some sort of preservation process. They gut them, I think I remember from sixth grade, and then fill the cavity with some kind of preservatives- or was it rocks? sand?- and then wrap them in linen.

The body in this weirdo's trunk might have been dried out after a year, but, technically speaking, it wasn't mummified. After a year, why wasn't it a skeleton? Wouldn't the flesh have completely decomposed- giving off one hell of a stink- in a year?

There is a lot you don't know about bodies. And ergo sum, a sergeant of the Homicide Bureau should know a lot about dead bodies.

Maybe I can take a course at the university.

Not a bullshit undergraduate course, but a course at the medical school. Amy's a professor. She should (a) know and (b) have the clout to have her little brother admitted.