"Can you make either of them, Mick?" Wohl asked.

O'Hara looked carefully at both and then shook his head.

"As much as I'd like to, no," O'Hara said. "It was dark, and as you may recall, the bastards took a shot at me."

"No shit?" Mr. Colt inquired, awe in his voice.

"Anyway, the D.A. doesn't think what we have is enough to convict them for sure. We need more-the weapon, for example. So we're not going to arrest them right now."

"Instead?"

"We're going to keep them under surveillance until we can develop more. That's the reason that Jason and I were still in Homicide when you called. We had everybody and his brother in there, setting up the surveillance…"

"And that's why I was ever so politely booted out of there, right?" Mr. Colt inquired.

"Excuse me?" Wohl asked.

"When that captain sent Matt's girlfriend to explain that other job to me…" He paused and made a pumping motion with his fist. "That was to get me out of Homicide, right?"

"I think one could reasonably draw that assumption, Mr. Colt," Washington said.

"I would have been in the way, right?"

"And been privy to things we would rather not be known to the public," Washington replied.

"Well, what the hell, we had a nice dinner, right?" Mr. Colt said.

"Very nice," Matt said.

"Can I ask you a question, Mickey?" Mr. Colt inquired, and then went on without waiting for an answer. "How come you were at this Roy Rogers? Just a coincidence? You went there for a hamburger or whatever?"

"No. I responded to a possible armed-robbery-in-progress call, and I got there just as these bastards were leaving."

"Explain that? You've got a police scanner? Right?"

"He has a battery of police scanners," Washington said. "With which he eavesdrops on police communications in the tristate area. You may have noticed all the antennae."

"That Buick Whatchamacallit outside is yours? I saw all the antennas."

"It's a Rendezvous," Mickey said. "Yeah, that's mine."

"If you want to really see the police department at work, Mr. Colt," Washington said, "perhaps Mr. O'Hara would be good enough to let you ride around with him. He responds to every interesting call, which usually means a call where violence is likely to be found."

"Be glad to have you, Stan," Mickey said.

"Jeez, I'd like that."

"Then we'll do it," Mickey said.

"There's a problem there," Wohl said. "We really have to make sure you have a police officer with you, Stan."

"Why, and what's wrong with Matt?"

"Because the commissioner says so," Wohl said. "And what's wrong with Matt is that he's been on the job all day and it's getting close to midnight."

"What about the other detective?" Mr. Colt asked. "The little one?"

He held out his hand to indicate Detective Martinez's diminutive stature.

"Who's he talking about?" Wohl asked Matt.

"Hay-zus," Matt said. "McFadden relieves him at midnight."

"Another Mick, Stan," O'Hara said. "Good guy. You'll like him."

"Inspector, I would venture to suggest that Mr. Colt would be safe in the capable Gaelic hands of Detective McFadden," Washington said.

"You mind if I ask if you always talk like that?" Mr. Colt asked.

"Always, I'm afraid," Wohl said, chuckling. He looked at his watch. "Put the arm out for him, Matt. Have him meet us here."

"Have him meet us at D'Allesandro's," Mr. Colt said. "This drink is my third and last one for the day, and I'm determined to have a cheese steak. You're all invited, of course."

Washington and Wohl looked at each other.

"Far be it from me to reject Mr. Colt's generous invitation, " Washington said. "And not only because it will afford me a splendid answer to Martha's inevitable question when I finally get home."

"Where the hell have you been, what have you been doing, and with whom?" Wohl asked.

" 'Actually, my precious, I was having a cheese steak at D'Allesandro's with Mr. Stan Colt, the movie star.' That should for once strike her dumb."

[TWO] At five past one, Mr. Stanley Colt having had his cheese steak, and having been transferred into the capable hands of Detective Charles McFadden, Matt got in his unmarked Crown Victoria and started home.

He smiled at the memory of Mr. Colt's response to Inspector Wohl's instructions to Detective McFadden: "He is not to get out of Mickey's car without your permission. If he gives you any trouble, cuff him, and turn him over to Dignitary Protection at the Ritz-Carlton. Trouble is defined to include any gesture toward a member of the opposite sex beyond a friendly smile."

"That's not going to be a problem. I can get laid anytime. But doing this, wow!"

He had just turned onto Walnut Street and was headed west toward Rittenhouse Square when his cellular went off.

Jesus, now what?

"Payne."

"Can you talk?" Detective Olivia Lassiter inquired.

"Yeah."

"They have a positive ID on one of the doers in the Roy Rogers job-"

"I heard," Matt interrupted. "And they're running an around-the-clock surveillance, which is why they threw us out of Homicide."

There was a silence.

"How's your hand?" Olivia asked after a long moment.

He looked at it.

"Fine," he said. "I had just about forgotten about it."

"Oh."

Another silence.

"I thought maybe you needed the bandage changed," she said, finally.

"No. It looks fine."

"Oh."

Jesus Christ, Matthew, you are the dumbest sonofabitch in Philadelphia!!!

"Where are you, Mother?"

"I'm not your mother."

"Where are you, Not My Mother?"

"In the Starbucks at Twelfth and Market."

"What are you doing there? I thought you went to Homicide?"

"I hung around Homicide for a while, made a few more calls. Then I came here and waited until I thought you'd probably put Colt to bed. Then I called."

"I'm at Nineteenth and Walnut. I'll be there in ten minutes."

"No."

"For Christ's sake, I'll take you home."

"If you come here, somebody who knows one or both of us will see us."

"Then go stand in the dark around the corner on Twelfth and Filbert. I'll pick you up there and take you home."

There was a long pause again, before she asked, "If I took a cab to Rittenhouse Square, how could I get in the building this time of night?"

Another pause, this one on Matt's part, and shorter.

"When you get out of the cab, I'll be waiting for you in the lobby."

And one final pause before she said, "The way you were talking before, I thought you didn't want me to come over there."

"Oh, baby!"

[THREE] The chiefs of police of Daphne and Fairhope, Alabama, were privately not at all happy with the Jackson's Oak Citizens' Community Watch, Inc.

Daphne and Fairhope are small, prosperous, primarily residential communities in Baldwin County on Mobile Bay in South Alabama. They lie across Mobile Bay from the city of Mobile, and about thirty miles from the Gulf of Mexico.

Baldwin County, which is larger than the state of Rhode Island, is similarly prosperous, both because of its fertile fields and its seashore on the Gulf of Mexico-known, despite the valiant efforts of the local chambers of commerce, as the Redneck Riviera-which is famous for its spectacular snow-white beaches, and which attracts affluent tourists throughout the year.

There is not much crime-certainly not as that term is interpreted in Philadelphia-in Baldwin County or in Daphne or Fairhope. But to fight what there is, there is a nice tax base to support law enforcement and the various fire departments.

The police cruisers of the Daphne and Fairhope police departments are state-of-the-art vehicles, equipped with the latest communication systems, video recorders, computers, and speed-detection radar. They are generally replaced annually, and the "old" vehicles sold to less prosperous communities.