Investigators Read online

  Giacomo, himself the son of a lawyer and whose family had been in Philadelphia from the time of the Revolution, was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Yale School of Law. He had flown Corsairs as a naval aviator in the Korean War. He could have had a law practice much like that of Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo & Lester’s, which drew most of its clientele from the upper echelons of industry, banks, insurance companies, and from familial connections.

  Manny Giacomo had elected, instead, to become a criminal lawyer, and had become known (unfairly, Payne thought, since mobsters were only a small fraction of his clients) as the mob’s lawyer. Payne had come to believe—he knew Giacomo’s personal ethics were impeccable—that Giacomo represented the mob primarily because they had the financial resources to pay him, but also because he really believed that an accused was entitled to the best legal representation he could get.

  Giacomo was also held in high regard by most police officers, primarily because he represented, pro bono publico, police officers charged with police brutality and other infractions of the law.

  Payne reached for one of the telephones on his desk and pushed a flashing button, aware that he was doing so for the same reason Mrs. Craig had put the call through: curiosity why Manny Giacomo wanted to speak to him, rather than the Colonel.

  “Armando, how are you?” Payne said.

  “Thank you for taking my call, Brewster.”

  “Don’t I always take your calls?”

  “No, I don’t think you do. Sometimes, frankly, when Mrs. Craig tells me you just stepped out of the office, I suspect that you’re at your desk and just don’t want to talk to me.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you, Armando? Isn’t that the tactic of putting someone on the defensive?”

  Giacomo laughed. “Did it work?”

  “To a degree. But it also heightened my instincts of self-preservation. What are you about to try to talk me into, Armando, that you already know I would rather not do?”

  “I need a personal favor, Brewster.”

  “Personal? Or professional?”

  “Truth to tell, a little of each.”

  “My curiosity is piqued. Go on.”

  “I represent a gentleman named Vincenzo Savarese.”

  “A ‘gentleman’ named Vincenzo Savarese? If that’s the case, your Mr. Savarese is not the same chap who immediately came to my mind.”

  Silver-haired, sixty-four-year-old Vincenzo Savarese was the head of the Philadelphia mob.

  “Mr. Savarese, my Mr. Savarese,” Giacomo said, “has never been convicted, in any court, of any offense against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or any of the other United States of America.”

  “Possibly he has a very good lawyer.”

  “I’ve heard that suggested,” Giacomo said.

  Payne chuckled.

  “What do you want, Armando?”

  “Mr. Savarese would be very grateful if you could spare him a few minutes, no more than five, of your time.”

  “He wants to talk to me?” Payne asked, incredulously. “What about?”

  “What Mr. Savarese hopes is that you will give him five minutes of your time, in person.”

  “He wants to come here?”

  “He would be grateful if you would permit him to do so.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He would prefer to discuss that with you in person.”

  “What the hell is going on, Armando?”

  “Mr. Savarese would like to ask a personal favor of you.”

  “What kind of a personal favor?” Payne asked, just a little sharply.

  There was a perceptible pause before Giacomo replied.

  “It has to do with your daughter,” Giacomo said.

  “My daughter?” Payne asked, genuinely surprised, and then, without giving Giacomo time to reply, asked another question. “Is he there with you?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, he is.”

  “I presume your client is aware that I do not accept criminal cases?”

  There was another pause before Giacomo replied.

  “Mr. Savarese has asked me to say that this is a personal matter and has nothing to do with the law.”

  “But it has something to do with my daughter?” Payne asked, rhetorically. “And when would he like to come see me?”

  “Right now, if that would be convenient,” Giacomo replied immediately. “For no more than five minutes.”

  Now there was a pause before Payne replied.

  “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, Armando, based on our past dealings.”

  “But you will see Mr. Savarese?” Giacomo asked.

  “You want to come right now? You are coming with him, Armando?”

  “Yes. And yes.”

  “Come ahead,” Payne said.

  Payne replaced the telephone in its cradle, shrugged, and then pushed the button that would cause Mrs. Craig’s telephone to tinkle.

  She didn’t answer.

  She put her head in the door.

  “You want me to find the Colonel?”

  “I don’t care what he’s doing, I want him in here with me.”

  “Very curious,” she said.

  “She said, in massive understatement,” Payne said.

  When Mrs. Irene Craig pushed open the door to Brewster Cortland Payne’s office to admit Armando C. Giacomo, Esq., and Mr. Vincenzo Savarese, Mr. Payne, who was behind his desk, stood up. So did Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson, a slim, dignified fifty-six-year-old, who had been seated in a green leather armchair to one side of a carved English (circa 1790) coffee table.

  “Good morning, Counselor,” Giacomo said, walking to Payne with his hand extended. “Thank you for receiving us on such short notice.”

  “Hello, Armando,” Payne said, and took the hand.

  Giacomo crossed to Mawson. He did not seem surprised to find him in Payne’s office.

  “It’s always a pleasure to see you, Colonel,” he said. “How nice to bump into you, so to speak, like this.”

  “It’s always a pleasure to see you, Armando,” Mawson said.

  “Gentlemen, may I introduce Mr. Vincenzo Savarese?” Giacomo said.

  Savarese was slight, and had very pale, almost translucent skin. His eyes were prominent and intelligent, and he was dressed in a conservative, nearly black single-breasted, vested suit.

  This man is a thug, Payne thought, and if the stories are true, a murderer by his own hand when he was younger—and in many other ways a criminal. I don’t want to forget that.

  Savarese crossed first to Payne.

  “I am in your debt, Mr. Payne, for receiving me under these circumstances.”

  He put out his hand. Payne took it and was surprised at how fragile and soft it was.

  Didn’t I hear someplace that he is an accomplished violinist?

  “Colonel Mawson and I were having a cup of coffee,” Payne said, gesturing toward the coffee table and the green leather furniture. “May I offer you a cup?”

  “Thank you, no,” Savarese said. “I don’t want to take any more of your and Colonel Mawson’s time than I have to.”

  “How may I be of service, Mr. Savarese?” Payne asked after Savarese had lowered himself gingerly onto the couch.

  “I hope you will believe me that I would not have troubled you if it was not absolutely necessary,” Savarese said. “May I get directly to the point?”

  “Please do,” Payne said.

  “I come to you as a father and grandfather who needs help he cannot get elsewhere for his daughter and granddaughter.”

  “Go on,” Payne said.

  “My daughter is grown, a married woman, married to . . . Her husband is Randolph Longwood, of Bala Cynwyd. Perhaps you are familiar with the name?”

  “The builder?” Colonel Mawson asked.

  “Yes, the builder. I think I should say that I have no business relationship of any kind with my son-in-law.”

  “You kn
ow Randy Longwood, Brew,” Mawson said. “He belongs to Rose Tree Hunt.”

  “Of course,” Payne said, a little uncomfortably, and more than a little surprised that the identity of Longwood’s father-in-law had escaped the Rose Tree Hunt Club Membership Committee. He had had trouble getting Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson past it, as they had had questions about the suitability for membership of a lawyer practicing criminal law.

  “My daughter has a daughter,” Savarese went on, “who has recently suffered some sort of emotional shock.”

  Payne looked at him but said nothing.

  “The nature of which we really don’t know,” Savarese continued. “Except that, whatever it was, it was quite severe. She is currently hospitalized at University Hospital. Her family physician had her admitted, and arranged for her to be attended by Dr. Aaron Stein.”

  “Stein is a fine . . .”—Payne stopped himself just in time from saying “psychiatrist”—“physician.”

  “So I understand,” Savarese said. “He has recommended that my granddaughter be seen by Dr. Payne.”

  “Stein and my daughter are friends,” Payne offered. “That’s how I came to meet him.”

  They are friends, Payne thought. But that’s now. It used to be Humble Student sitting at the feet of the Master.

  Stein was as old as he was. Amy had originally gone to University Hospital thrilled at the chance to work with him, to learn from him. They had—surprising the psychiatric fraternity; Stein had a reputation for holding most fellow psychiatrists as fools—become friends and ultimately colleagues, and Payne knew that Stein had even proposed a joint private practice to Amy, which she had declined, for reasons Payne had not understood.

  “So he told my daughter,” Savarese said. “But apparently, that friendship hasn’t been enough to convince Dr. Payne to see my granddaughter.”

  Stein sends Amy a patient and she turns her—which means Dr. Stein, her guru—down? That sounds a bit odd.

  “I don’t really see, Mr. Savarese, what this has to do with me,” Payne said.

  I know damned well what it has to do with me. He wants me to go to Amy, who certainly had her reasons to refuse to see the granddaughter, and ask her to reconsider.

  It’s absolutely none of my business. Amy would first be amazed, and then, justifiably, more than a little annoyed that I was putting my nose into her practice. Particularly in a case like this.

  Or is it my fault? Amelia Payne, M.D., Fellow of the American College of Psychiatry, is also Amy Payne, loving daughter of Brewster C. Payne, and has heard, time and time again, his opinions of organized crime and its practitioners. It is unlikely, but not impossible, that Amy turned down this girl either because of me, or because she doesn’t want to get involved with anyone involved with the mob.

  “My granddaughter is very ill, Mr. Payne,” Savarese said. “Otherwise, I would not involve myself in this. Neither Dr. Seaburg, her family physician, nor Dr. Stein, is aware of our relationship. But I love her, and my daughter, and so, as one father to another, I am willing to beg for help for her.”

  “You want me to speak to my daughter, is that it?”

  “I am begging you to do so,” Savarese said simply.

  Where are we? Amy has declined to see this girl for reasons that have nothing to do with me—he let me off the hook on that, when he said neither the family physician nor Dr. Stein knows he’s the girl’s grandfather—or with Savarese.

  And the girl, obviously, should not be punished for the sins of the grandfather in any event. And in this case, he is the grandfather, not the Mafia don.

  “Will you excuse me for a moment, please?” Payne said, and walked out of his office, past Mrs. Craig’s desk, across the corridor and into Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson’s office.

  “I need the Colonel’s office a moment, Janet,” he said to Mawson’s secretary.

  He went into Mawson’s office, sat on his red leather couch, and pulled the telephone to him.

  It took him nearly five minutes to get Amy on the line, and when she came on the line, there was worry and concern in her voice.

  “Daddy? They said it was important?”

  “Indulge me for a moment, Amy,” he said.

  “I’m always afraid you’re calling to tell me Matt got himself shot again,” she said, her relief evident in her voice.

  “As far as I know, the only danger Matt faces at the moment is from the understandably irate father of the girl he took from Chad Nesbitt’s birthday party and who has not called home since,” Payne said.

  There was a short chuckle, and then—now with a tone of impatience in her voice—she asked: “What’s important, then, Daddy? I’m really up to my ass in work.”

  “Did Dr. Stein send you a patient, a young woman, by the name of Longwood?”

  “Aaron sends me a lot of patients, or tries to, but that name doesn’t ring a bell. Why do you ask?”

  “Aaron”? It wasn’t that long ago when she reverentially called him “Doctor Stein.”

  And: We are no longer Daddy Dear and Daughter Darling. That was The Doctor putting A Nosy Lawyer in his place.

  “Her grandfather is in my office,” Payne said.

  “Wait a minute,” Amy said. “Now I remember the name. Cynthia Longwood. A Bala Cynwyd maiden who had a traumatic experience with her boyfriend. I told Aaron, sorry, no, I have a lapful of really sick people. How did you get involved in this? Is her grandfather a client?”

  “No. He’s not. Her grandfather is Vincenzo Savarese.”

  “The gangster?”

  “That has been alleged.”

  “Is this important to you, Daddy?”

  “I don’t really know how to answer that. He came here—Armando Giacomo brought him—which must have been difficult for both of them, and appealed to me as a father. I thought the decent thing to do was call you.”

  “Where is she?”

  “University Hospital.”

  “Okay, I’ll see her,” Amy said simply.

  “Thank you.”

  “It would be dishonest of me to say ‘you’re welcome, ’ ” Amy said. “What this is is pure curiosity. I wonder why Aaron didn’t tell me who she was?”

  “I don’t think Dr. Stein knows who her grandfather is.”

  “Got to run, Daddy,” Amy said, and the line went dead.

  Payne returned to his office.

  “I’ve just spoken to my daughter, Mr. Savarese,” he said. “She will see your granddaughter.”

  Vincenzo Savarese rose slowly from the couch and walked to Payne. He put out his hand, and when Payne put out his, held it with both hands.

  There are tears in his eyes!

  “I am very much in your debt, Mr. Payne,” Savarese said.

  “Not at all.”

  “I am very much in your debt, Mr. Payne,” Savarese repeated. “And now I will not take any more of your valuable time.”

  Savarese walked to Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson, politely shook his hand, and then walked out of the office.

  “I owe you a big one, Brewster,” Armando C. Giacomo said softly, winked at Payne, and followed Savarese out.

  Walter Davis, a tall, well-built, nearly handsome man in his middle forties, had, while taking luncheon at the Rittenhouse Club, what he considered to be a splendid idea. Actually, it was the second time he had the same idea, and now he wondered why he hadn’t followed up on it before.

  Davis, who was the Special Agent in Charge of the Philadelphia Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was not a voting member of the Rittenhouse Club. By virtue of his office, however, he enjoyed all the privileges of membership. Similar ex officio memberships were made available to certain other public servants—the mayor; the admiral commanding the Philadelphia Navy Yard; the police commissioner; the president of the University of Pennsylvania, et cetera—highly successful practitioners of their professions whom the membership felt would, had they been in the private sector, not only have been put up for membership but would have been able to afford it.<
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  It was said that full membership in the Rittenhouse Club was something like Commodore Vanderbilt’s yacht: if you had to ask how much it cost, you couldn’t afford it.

  Davis did not often use the Rittenhouse Club’s facilities, which included an Olympic-size swimming pool, a fully equipped gymnasium in addition to its bar, lounge, and dining facilities. For one thing, it was expensive. For another, Davis was a shade uneasy about taking anything for nothing.

  He tried to limit his visits to those that, at least, had a connection with the FBI. A monthly luncheon with Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernich, for example, was usually on his schedule. There were exceptions, of course. When Mrs. Davis was climbing the walls about something, dinner in the elegance of the Rittenhouse Dining Room—the only room in the building where the gentle sex was welcome—did wonders to calm her down.

  And today was another exception. Andrew C. Tellman, Esq.—known in their days at the University of Michigan Law School as “Randy Andy”—was in town from De troit and had called suggesting they get together.

  Randy Andy was now a senior partner—he had sent Davis the engraved announcement—of the enormous De troit law firm he had joined right out of law school, when Davis had gone to Quantico to the FBI Academy.

  The stiff price of taking Randy Andy to lunch at the Rittenhouse seemed justified, as sort of a statement that he hadn’t done so badly himself, and the proof of that seemed to have come immediately.

  “Oh, you belong to the Rittenhouse, do you?” Randy Andy had asked when Davis had suggested “one-ish at the Rittenhouse.”

  Davis had taken this further, arriving at the club on Rittenhouse Square a few minutes after 12:30. He wanted Randy Andy to have to ask the porter—a master of snobbery—to ask for him, and then be led into the oak-paneled lounge where he would be sitting at one of the small tables.

  “I’m expecting a guest,” he said to the porter, a dignified black man in his sixties.

  “Yes, sir. And who are you, sir?”

  “Walter Davis.”

  “Ah, yes, Mr. Davis. And your guest’s name, Mr. Davis?”

  “Tellman. Andrew C. Tellman.”

  “You’ll be in the lounge, Mr. Davis?”