The Assassin Part 61

"Good," Wohl said. "Very good."

"And then the chief told me to find you and bring you in on this and see if it's all right with you, or if you had anything, a suggestion, or what."

Wohl didn't reply for a moment, then he said, "There's only two loose ends that I can think of. This woman, Schermer, you said?"

Olsen nodded.

"I'd like to know if she was the woman Payne saw with Lanza in the Poconos. And then there's Martinez. I don't want him to go off half-c.o.c.ked and screw anything up."

"The chief said maybe I should mention Martinez to you."

The waitress appeared with their ham and eggs.

Wohl looked at his plate, and then stood up.

"I think I know how to kill two birds with one stone," he said, and walked to a pay telephone.

Five minutes later he was back.

"That didn't work," he said.

"What didn't work?"

"I called the Schoolhouse. I was going to tell Payne to find Martinez, and bring him here. Payne could have told us whether that was the woman Lanza had with him in the Poconos, and we both could have impressed on both of them that neither of them are to get anywhere near Lanza until we finish this."

"What happened?"

"Payne is in New Jersey with the Secret Service, they may have a lead on the guy who wants to blow up the Vice President, and when I called Martinez, his mother told me he's got the flu, and called in sick."

"You've got Payne working on the screwball?" Olsen asked, surprised.

"Mike sent him," Wohl said. "When I have him shot in the morning, I'll have them pick up the body and shoot him again."

He looked at Olsen.

"And my eggs are probably cold. I think this is going to be one of those days."

At five minutes past one, Marion Claude Wheatley left his room in the Divine Lorraine Hotel, rode the elevator to the lobby, left his key at the desk, and walked out onto North Broad Street.

He turned north, walked three blocks, and then crossed the street. There he waited for a bus, rode it downtown into Center City, got off, and walked to Suburban Station. He went downstairs, picked up a Pennsylvania Railroad Timetable from a rack, and went back out to the street.

He flagged a cab and had himself driven to the airport, giving American Airlines as his destination. Inside the airport, he went to a fast-food restaurant and had a hot dog with sauerkraut and mustard and a medium root beer.

When he was finished, he went to the locker where he had left his things earlier, picked them up, and went to the taxi stand.

He gave the driver an address on Ridge Avenue, and when he got there, carried his luggage into a small office building until he was sure the cab had driven away.

Then he went back to the Divine Lorraine Hotel, sorted everything out on the bed, repacked everything, and put it in the closet. The closet had a key, which he thought was fortuitous, and he removed it and put it in his pocket.

Then he sat down at the desk and looked at the Bible again, and reread the pa.s.sage the Lord had directed him to. He could by now practically recite Haggai 2:17 by heart, but he was no closer to understanding what "17. I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the Lord" meant than he had been when the Lord had first directed his attention to it.

Marion decided the only thing to do was pray.

He knelt by the bed, and with the Bible before him, he prayed for understanding.

When Inspector Wohl walked into his office, a few minutes after two, it was immediately apparent to Captain Mike Sabara that he had a hair up his a.s.s about something, and Sabara wondered if he had done the wrong thing in sending Matt Payne off with the man from the Secret Service.

"Do you have any word from Payne, Mike?" Wohl asked.

"No, sir."

"When he gets back, let me know," Wohl said, and went into his office and closed the door.

Twenty minutes later, Officer O'Mara put his head in Wohl's door and said that Mr. Larkin was here, and could the inspector see him?

"Ask him to come in," Wohl said, "and if Payne is out there, don't let him get away."

"Yes, sir," Officer O'Mara replied crisply, and then promptly misinterpreted his instructions. Detective Payne, at Officer O'Mara's bidding, followed Supervisory Special Agent Larkin into Inspector Wohl's office.

"Well, Peter," Larkin asked as they shook hands, "how did the promotion ceremony go?"

Does everybody in Philadelphia know I've been promoted? And what the h.e.l.l is Matt doing in here?

"I did all right until the Commissioner kissed me."

He stopped.

I'll show Payne the photograph and then throw him out.

"Yes, sir?"

"Excuse me, Charley. This won't take a minute," Wohl said, and handed Matt the photograph. "You ever see this woman before?"

Matt looked at it.

"That's the girl Lanza had in the Poconos."

"Okay. Call Captain Olsen in Internal Affairs and tell him that," Wohl ordered.

"Right now?"

"Right now," Wohl said sharply.

"Peter," Larkin said. "Excuse me, but is that as important as our lunatic?"

No, of course it isn't. I am just having one of my G.o.dd.a.m.ned bad days. What the h.e.l.l is the matter with me?

"No, of course not," Wohl said. "Sorry. Payne, that will wait."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm reasonably sure, Peter, that we know where our man has been," Larkin said. "But we don't have an idea who he is, or where."

"What happened in New Jersey?"

"A deputy sheriff came across a piece of steel that showed evidence of having been involved in a high-explosive detonation," Larkin said. "Actually, he ran over it. Anyway, an ATF guy out of Atlantic City ran it down, and they called us. What we found, in a garbage dump in the middle of the Pine Barrens, were half a dozen railroad station, airline terminal, bus station rental lockers that had been, recently, blown up. The ATF expert said he was almost sure it was Composition C-4, and that it was set up with GI detonators. This guy knows his way around explosives."

"That's not good news, is it?"

"It may not be all bad. It may give us a line on him. We're already back-checking with the military. And if he knows what he's doing, that would lessen the chance of his explosives going off accidentally. "

"But you don't know who he is?"

"That's the bad news. Where we stand is that the FBI is searching records in the county courthouse over there to find out who owns the property. There's a house, more of a cabin, on the property. Someone has been there in the past week or ten days, which coincides with when the ATF explosives guy says the explosions took place. And, for a cabin, the place was out-of-the-ordinary neat and clean. Which ties in with the psychological profile. Both of them. Ours and Dr. Payne's. I have a gut feeling he could be our guy."

"But no name?"

"Not yet. And I could be wrong. Maybe the people who own the property have nothing to do with what happened there. But that's all we have to go on, unless we get a name from the Defense Department, some explosives guy with mental problems."

"How can we help?" Wohl asked.

"If we come up with a name, we're going to have to move fast. It would help if we had a search warrant that had the important parts left blank." we come up with a name, we're going to have to move fast. It would help if we had a search warrant that had the important parts left blank."

"Denny Coughlin," Wohl said. "I'll call him. He's good at that. He knows every judge in the city."

"You're not?"

"There's a Superior Court judge named Findermann in the slam," Wohl said. "Since I put him there, I have not been too popular with the bench."

"The only people worse than doctors and Congressmen when it comes to protecting their own are judges," Larkin said, and then went on: "If we get a name and an address, and and a search warrant, we'll need some explosives people, maybe even a b.o.o.by-trap expert. " a search warrant, we'll need some explosives people, maybe even a b.o.o.by-trap expert. "

"I thought of that," Wohl said. "We call it 'Ordnance Disposal.' It's in the Special Patrol Bureau. When I called over there, they told me, 'You tell us where, and we'll be there in ten minutes.' "

"Good. I appreciate your cooperation, Peter."

"You keep saying that."

"I keep saying it because I mean it. We couldn't handle this by ourselves."

"I have the simple solution to this problem," Wohl said. "Tell the Vice President to stay the h.e.l.l home."

"No way," Larkin chuckled. "What I think I should do now is go back to the office and see if I can lean on the Defense Department to come up with some names. Can Matt take me?"

"Sure. On your way back, go see Hay-zus Martinez. Tell him . . ." He stopped, and then went on. "h.e.l.l, when all else fails, tell the truth. Tell Hay-zus that other people are watching Lanza. If he goes back to work, he is to stay away from Lanza. If he sees him doing something, he is to telephone either Captain Olsen or me. He's not to do anything about it."

"If he goes back to work?" Matt asked.

"His mother said he has the flu. Make sure he understands the message, Matt."

"Yes, sir."

"If he goes off half-c.o.c.ked, he's liable to blow the whole thing," Wohl went on.

"I'll tell him, sir."

"And then come back here, of course, so Captain Sabara can have his car back."

"Yes, sir."

The red light was blinking on the answering machine when Matt came into his apartment at twenty minutes after five.

I don't want to listen to any G.o.dd.a.m.ned messages. I'm just going to have to bite the G.o.dd.a.m.ned bullet.

He reached down and pushed the ERASE b.u.t.ton before he could change his mind. Nothing happened.

You have to play the G.o.dd.a.m.ned messages before you can erase them! d.a.m.n!

He pushed the PLAY b.u.t.ton and walked into the kitchen and took a beer from the refrigerator. He could hear that there had again been a number of callers who had elected not to leave their names.

Nature called, and he went to the bathroom off his bedroom. He had just begun to void his bladder when there was a familiar voice, somewhat metallically distorted.

Penny! Jesus, I can't understand a word she's saying! I wonder what the h.e.l.l she wanted?

By the time he had zipped up his fly and returned to the answering machine, all the recorded messages, including the hangups, had played.

Do I want to push REWIND so that I can hear what Precious Penny wants? No No, I do not not want to hear what Precious Penny wants want to hear what Precious Penny wants.

He pushed the ERASE b.u.t.ton, and this time it worked.

Banis.h.i.+ng forever into the infinite mystery of rearranged microscopic metallic particles whatever Penny wanted to tell me. Why did I do that?

He went into the kitchen, picked up the beer bottle, returned to the telephone, and dialed Evelyn's number.

It was a brief, but enormously painful conversation, punctuated by long, painful silences.

He told Evelyn the truth. He could not see her tonight because he was on orders to keep himself available. That was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Peter Wohl had even told him to take an unmarked car home with him in case he would need a car with radios and a siren.

Evelyn, her voice made it quite plain, did not believe a word he was saying. Nor did Evelyn believe him when he said he really didn't know about tomorrow, but that he thought the same thing would be true then. That was also the unvarnished truth. Until they found the lunatic who wanted to disintegrate the Vice President, everyone would be either working or keeping themselves available around the clock for a summons.

But he couldn't tell Evelyn that, of course. Not just on general principles, but because Wohl had made it an order. They didn't want the lunatic knowing they were looking for him, which he would if it got into the newspapers or on television.

He told her he would call her when he was free, and Evelyn didn't believe that, either. In this latter incidence, he had not told her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Even as he spoke, he had wondered if maybe Evelyn would take a hint, that her feminine pride would be offended, and if he didn't call, she would give up.

He strongly suspected that Evelyn was crying when she hung up.

"s.h.i.+t!" he said aloud after he slammed the handset into its cradle.

Then he went into the kitchen and put a cork in the beer bottle and put it back into the refrigerator. He took down a bottle of Scotch and after carefully pouring a dollop into a shot gla.s.s, he tossed it down. And then had another.