The Investigators Part 28

"I didn't hear anything like that. But I would be surprised if she didn't do some 'recreational drugs.' That's pretty common among people like that. You heard what happened to the Detweiler girl, her father owns half of Nesfoods?"

Joey Fiorello shook his head, "no."

"I know who they are," Joey said. "What about the girl?"

"She stuck a needle in her arm in Chestnut Hill and was dead before she could take it out."

"No s.h.i.+t?"

"Killed her like that," Chason said, snapping his fingers. "Anyway, after you put aside whatever s.h.i.+t you need for yourself and your girlfriend, you sell the rest. You put away enough money to buy another twenty thousand worth later on, and you live good on what's left over."

"And you think Ketcham is doing this?"

"Like I said, I can't prove it, but yeah, Joey, I'd bet on it."

"Can I ask you a personal question, Phil?"

"You can ask," Chason said. "But I won't promise to answer."

"You're a retired police officer," Joey said. "You get this feeling about somebody like this, dealing drugs, doing what you think he's doing with the stockbroker business, you feel you got to tell the cops?"

"No," Chason said. "For one thing, like I said, I can't prove any of this. And for another, if I did, they'd probably tell me to mind my own business."

"What do you think his chances are of getting caught dealing drugs?"

"He'll get caught eventually," Chason said. "If he don't get killed first, in some drug deal gone bad, or kill himself, the way that Detweiler girl did."

"Well, one thing for sure," Joey said. "We don't want this son of a b.i.t.c.h walking around the lot, do we?"

"I wouldn't if I was you, Joey," Chason said.

"Phil, I don't want anybody to know I was even thinking thinking of giving this son of a b.i.t.c.h a job. It would be embarra.s.sing, if you know what I mean." of giving this son of a b.i.t.c.h a job. It would be embarra.s.sing, if you know what I mean."

"What I do, Joey, like it says in the phone book, is confidential confidential investigations. What I told you, you paid for. It's yours. I just forgot everything I told you." investigations. What I told you, you paid for. It's yours. I just forgot everything I told you."

"I appreciate that, Phil," Joey said.

Chason nodded his head.

"How long did it take you to come up with all this, Phil?"

"No longer than usual. I'm going to bill you for ten hours, plus, I think, about sixty bucks in expenses."

"Two things, Phil. First of all, I think it took you like twenty twenty hours," Joey said. "And I figure you had maybe two hundred in expenses." hours," Joey said. "And I figure you had maybe two hundred in expenses."

"You don't have to do that, Joey."

"Don't tell me what I have to do, Phil, please, as a favor to me. Second thing, how would you feel about being paid in cash, instead of with a check? Are you in love with the IRS?"

"I don't have a thing in the world against cash, Joey."

"That's good, because I just happen to have some cash the IRS don't know about, either," Joey said.

He got up from his desk and went into what looked to Phil Chason like a closet. He returned in a minute with an envelope.

"You want to check it, to make sure it's all right?" Joey asked.

"I'm sure it is, Joey," Chason said, and put the envelope in his suit jacket pocket.

Joey offered him his hand.

"We'll be in touch," Joey said.

Chason started out of the office.

"Phil, you want to get out of that piece of s.h.i.+t you're driving, I'll make you a deal on something better."

"Not right now, Joey, but I'll consider that an open offer."

"It's an open offer," Joey said.

Chason left the office. Joey went to the venetian blinds and watched through them until Chason had left the lot.

Then he left his office.

"I've got to see a man about a dog, Helene," he said.

He went out and got into a red Cadillac Eldorado convertible and drove off the lot. Six blocks away, he pulled into an Amoco station and stopped the car by an outside pay phone.

He dropped a coin in the slot and dialed a number from memory.

"This is Joey. I need to talk to him," he said.

"Yes?" a new voice responded a minute later.

"This is Joey, Mr. S.," Joey said. "I just left the retired cop. I think we had better talk, if you have time."

"Come right now, Joey," Vincenzo Savarese said.

TWELVE.

Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin looked up from the mountain of paper on his desk and saw Michael J. O'Hara sitting on his secretary's desk.

"How long have you been out there, Mickey?" Coughlin called.

"You looked like you were busy," O'Hara said.

"I told him I'd let you know he was out here," Veronica Casey, Coughlin's secretary, said.

"Never too busy for you, Mickey," Coughlin said, motioning for O'Hara to come into his office.

"Oh, you silver-tongued Irishman, you," O'Hara said, and slumped into one of the two armchairs in the room. "What's going around here you don't want me to know about?"

"There's a long list of things like that," Coughlin said. "You have something specific in mind?"

"Actually, what I had in mind was that you and I should go somewhere and have a little sip of something. Maybe two sips. Maybe even, if you don't have something on, dinner. You got plans?"

"No," Coughlin said. He looked at his watch. "I didn't realize it was so late." He raised his voice. "Go home, Veronica!"

"You sure?"

"I'm sure. Put this stuff away, and we'll start again in the morning."

"Okay," she said, coming into the office and gathering up the papers on Coughlin's desk. "He skipped lunch," she said to O'Hara, "so eat first before you do a lot of sipping."

"Okay," O'Hara said. He waited until she had left the office, and then said, "She's in love with you. Why don't you marry her?"

"She has a husband, as you d.a.m.ned well know."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Go to h.e.l.l, Mickey," Coughlin said, laughing. "But she's right. I didn't have any lunch. I need to put something in my stomach."

"Fish, fowl, or good red meat?"

"Clams and a lobster comes to mind," Coughlin said.

"Bookbinder's?"

"That's close," Mickey said.

"Too far to walk," Coughlin said. "Where's your car?"

"In the No Parking zone by the door," Mickey said. "I'll bring you back here, if you like."

Michael J. O'Hara's Buick was indeed parked in the area immediately outside the rear door of the police administration building, in an area bounded by signs reading "No Parking At Any Time."

The joke went that there were only two people in the City of Philadelphia who would not get a parking ticket no matter where they left their cars, one being the Hon. Jerome H. Carlucci, the mayor, and the other being Mickey O'Hara.

That wasn't exactly true, Coughlin thought as he got into O'Hara's car. But on the other hand, it was close. He himself didn't dare leave his car parked where Mickey had parked the Buick, confident he would not find a parking ticket stuck under his wiper blade when he returned for it.

Mickey enjoyed a special relations.h.i.+p with the Police Department of the City of Philadelphia shared by no other member of the press. Coughlin had often wondered why this was so, and had decided, finally, that while some of it was because he was a familiar sight at funerals, weddings, promotion parties, and meetings of the Emerald Society (and, for that matter, at gatherings of the German, black, and Jewish police social organizations as well), it was basically because he was trusted by everybody from the guy walking a beat to Jerry Carlucci.

He never broke a confidence, and he never published anything bad about a cop until he gave the cop a chance to tell his side of the story.

And while he did not fill his columns with puff pieces about the Philadelphia Police Department, he very often found s.p.a.ce to make sure the public learned of some unusual act of kindness, or heroism, or dedication to duty of ordinary cops walking beats.

And that was probably, Denny Coughlin thought, because Mickey O'Hara, in his heart, thought of himself as a cop.

Not that Mickey ever forgot he was a journalist. Denny Coughlin had thought of Mickey as a personal friend for years, and he was sure the reverse was true. But he also understood that the reason Mickey had appeared at his office to offer to take him to dinner was less that they were friends than that Mickey had questions he hoped he could get Coughlin to answer.

The door chimes sounded, playing "Be It Ever So Humble, There's No Place Like Home."

"Who the f.u.c.k f.u.c.k is that?" Inspector Peter Wohl wondered aloud, in annoyance that approached rage. is that?" Inspector Peter Wohl wondered aloud, in annoyance that approached rage.

Amelia Alice Payne, M.D., who had been lying with her head on his chest, raised her head and looked down at him.

"Oh, my goodness goodness! Are we going to have to wash our naughty naughty little mouth out with soap?" she inquired. little mouth out with soap?" she inquired.

"Sorry," Wohl said, genuinely contrite. "I was just thinking how nice it is to go to sleep with you like this. And then that G.o.dd.a.m.ned G.o.dd.a.m.ned chime!" chime!"

Amy was not sure whether he meant naked in each other's arms, or s.e.xually sated, but in either case she agreed.

She kissed his cheek, tenderly, and then, eyes mischievous, said innocently, "I wonder who the f.u.c.k it could possibly be?"

"What am I doing? Teaching you bad habits?" Peter asked, chuckling.

"Oh, yes," she said.

She pushed herself off him and got out of bed, then walked on tiptoes to peer out through the venetian blinds on the bedroom window.

There was enough light, somehow, for him to be able to see her clearly.

"My G.o.d, it's Uncle Denny!" Amy said.

What the h.e.l.l does Denny Coughlin want this time of night?

"We had the foresight, you will recall," Peter said, chuckling, "to hide your car in my garage."

"You think he wants to come in?" Amy asked, very nervously.

On the one hand, Amy, you march in front of the feminist parade, waving the banner of modern womanhood and gender equality, and on the other, you act like a seventeen-year-old terrified at the idea Uncle Denny will suspect that you and I are engaged in carnal activity not sanctioned for the unmarried.

"No," Peter said. "I'm sure all he wants to do is stand outside the door."

He got out of bed.

"You just get back in bed and try not to sneeze," Peter said. "And I will try to get rid of him as quickly as I can."