The Assassin boh-5 Read online

  "They now work for Peter," Coughlin said.

  "Doing what, Peter?" Captain Delachessi asked.

  "They're Highway Patrolmen," Wohl replied.

  'They won't be for long," Coughlin said.

  "Sir?" Wohl asked, surprised.

  "We got the results of the detective exam today." Commissioner Marshall said. "Both of them passed in the top twenty."

  "So, incidentally, Peter, did Matt Payne," Chief Coughlin added, " He was third."

  Officer Matthew M. Payne was Peter Wohl's administrative assistant, another gift from Chief Dennis V. Coughlin.

  "I thought he might squeeze past," Wohl replied. Matt Payne had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania cum laude. Wohl didn't think he would have trouble with the detective's examination.

  "Well, hold off on congratulating him," Coughlin said. "Any of them. The results of the examination are confidential until Civil Service people make the announcement. No word of who passed is to leave this room, if I have to say that."

  "Let's try this scenario on for size," Commissioner Marshall said. "And see if it binds in the crotch. Martinez's name does not appear on the examination list as having passed. He is disappointed, maybe even a little bitter. And he asks for a transfer. They've been riding his ass in Highway, Denny tells me, because of his size. He doesn't seem to fit in. But he's still the guy who got the guy who killed Dutch Moffitt, and he deserves a little better than getting sent to some district to work school crossings or in a sector car. So Denny sends him out to the Airport Unit."

  Both Commissioner Marshall and Chief Inspector Coughlin looked very pleased with themselves.

  If there's going to be an objection to this, it will have to come from Lowenstein. He's the only one who would be willing to stand up against these two.

  Chief Lowenstein leaned forward and tapped a three-quarter-inch ash into an ashtray.

  "That'd work," he said. "Martinez is a mean little fucker. Not too dumb, either."

  From you, Chief Lowenstein, that is indeed praise of the highest order.

  "Do you think he would be willing, Chief?" Wohl asked.

  "Yeah, I think so," Coughlin said. "I already had a little talk with him. No specifics. Just would he take an interesting undercover assignment?"

  You sonofabitch, Denny Coughlin! You did that, went directly to one of my men, with something like this, without saying a word to me?

  "What we would like from you gentlemen," Commissioner Marshall said, "is to play devil's advocate."

  "Will the commissioner hold still for this?" Lowenstein said.

  "No problem," Commissioner Marshall said.

  The translation of that is that there was a third party, by the name of Carlucci, involved in this brainstorm. The commissioner either knows that, or will shortly be told, and will then devoutly believe the idea was divinely inspired.

  "What we thought," Coughlin went on, "is that Peter can serve as the connection. We don't want anyone to connect Martinez with Internal Affairs, or Organized Crime, or Narcotics. If Martinez comes up with something for them, or vice versa, they'll pass it through Peter. You see any problems with that, Peter?"

  "No, sir."

  "Anyone else got anything?" Commissioner Marshall asked.

  There was nothing.

  "Then all that remains to be done," Coughlin said, "is to get with Martinez and drop the other shoe. What I suggest, Peter, is that you have Martinez meet us here."

  "Yes, sir. When?"

  "Now's as good a time as any, wouldn't you say?"

  ****

  Officer Matthew M. Payne, a pleasant-looking young man of twentytwo, who looked far more like a University of Pennsylvania student, which eighteen months before he had been, than what comes to mind when the words "cop" or "police officer" are used, was waiting near the elevators, with the other "drivers" of those attending the first deputy commissioner's meeting. They were all in civilian clothing.

  Technically, Officer Payne was not a "driver," for drivers are a privilege accorded only to chief inspectors or better, and his boss was only a staff inspector. His official title was administrative assistant.

  There is a military analogy. There is a military rank structure within the Police Department. On the very rare occasions when Peter Wohl wore a uniform, it carried on its epaulets gold oak leaves, essentially identical to those worn by majors in the armed forces. Inspectors wore silver oak leaves, like those of lieutenant colonels, and chief inspectors, an eagle, like those worn by colonels.

  Drivers functioned very much like aides-de-camp to general officers in the armed forces. They relieved the man they worked for of annoying details, served as chauffeurs, and performed other services. And, like their counterparts in the armed forces, they were chosen as much for their potential use to the Department down the line as they were for their ability to perform their current duties. It was presumed that they were learning how the Department worked at the upper echelons by observing their bosses in action.

  Most of the other drivers waiting for the meeting to end were sergeants. One, Chief Lowenstein's driver, was a police officer. Matt Payne was both the youngest of the drivers and, as a police officer, held the lowest rank in the Department.

  There was a hissing sound, and one of the drivers gestured to the corridor toward what was in effect the executive suite of the Police Administration Building. The meeting was over, the bosses were coming out.

  Chief Delachessi came first, gestured to his driver, and got on the elevator. Next came Chief Coughlin, who walked up to his driver, a young Irish sergeant named Tom Mahon.

  "Meet me outside Shank amp; Evelyn's in an hour and a half," he ordered. "I'll catch a ride with Inspector Wohl."

  Shank amp; Evelyn's was a restaurant in the Italian section of South Philadelphia.

  "Yes, sir," Sergeant Mahon said.

  Then Chief Coughlin walked to Officer Payne and shook his hand.

  "Nice suit, Matty," he said.

  "Thank you."

  For all of his life, Officer Payne had called Chief Coughlin " Uncle Denny," and still did when they were alone.

  Staff Inspector Wohl walked up to them.

  "Officer Martinez is on his way to meet me in the parking lot," he said to Officer Payne. "You meet him, give him the keys to my car, and tell him that Chief Coughlin and I will be down in a couple of minutes. You catch a ride in the Highway car back to the Schoolhouse. I'll be there in a couple of hours. I'll be, if someone really has to get to me, at Shank amp; Evelyn's."

  "Yes, sir," Officer Payne said.

  Chief Coughlin and Inspector Wohl went back down the corridor toward the office of the police commissioner and his deputies. Sergeant Mahon and Officer Payne got on the elevator and rode to the lobby.

  "What the hell is that all about?" Mahon asked.

  "I think Coughlin and Wohl are being nice guys," Matt Payne said. "The results of the detective exam are back. Martinez didn't pass it."

  "Oh, shit. He wanted it bad?"

  "Real bad."

  "You saw the list?"

  "I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me," Matt Payne said.

  Mahon chuckled.

  "How'd you do?"

  "Third."

  "Hey, congratulations!"

  "If you quote me, I'll deny it. But thank you."

  ****

  Matt Payne had to wait only a minute or two on the concrete ramp outside the rear door of the Roundhouse before a Highway Patrol RPC pulled up to the curb.

  He went the rest of the way down the ramp to meet it. The driver, a lean, athletic-looking man in his early thirties, who he knew by sight, but not by name, rolled down the window as Highway Patrolman Jesus Martinez got out of the passenger side.

  "How goes it, Hay-zus?" Payne called.

  Martinez nodded, but did not reply. Or smile.

  "We had a call to meet the inspector, Payne," the driver said. While the reverse was not true, just about everybody in H
ighway and Special Operations knew the inspector's "administrative assistant" by name and sight.

  Payne squatted beside the car. "He'll be down in a minute," he said. "I'm to give Hay-zus the keys to his car; you're supposed to give me a ride to the Schoolhouse."

  The driver nodded.

  I wish to hell I was better about names.

  Payne stood up, fished the car keys from his pocket, and tossed them to Martinez.

  "Back row, Hay-zus," he said, and pointed. "I'd bring it over here. If anyone asks, tell them you're waiting for Chief Coughlin."

  Martinez nodded, but didn't say anything.

  I am not one of Officer Martinez's favorite people. And now that he busted the detective exam, and Charley and I passed it, that's going to get worse. Well, fuck it, there's nothing I can do about it.

  He walked around the front of the car and got in the front seat. Martinez walked away, toward the rear of the parking lot. The driver put the car in gear and drove away.

  "You have to get right out to the Schoolhouse?" Matt asked.

  "No."

  "You had lunch?"

  "No. You want to stop someplace?"

  "Good idea. Johnny's Hots okay with you?"

  "Fine."

  "You have an idea where McFadden's riding?"

  "Thirteen, I think," the driver said.

  Matt checked the controls of the radio to make sure the frequency was set to that of the Highway Patrol, then picked up the microphone.

  "Highway Thirteen, Highway Nine."

  "Thirteen," a voice immediately replied. Matt recognized it as Charley McFadden's.

  "Thirteen, can you meet us at Johnny's Hots?"

  "On the way," McFadden's voice said. "Highway Thirteen. Let me have lunch at Delaware and Penn Street."

  "Okay, Thirteen," the J-band radio operator said. J-band, the city-wide band, is the frequency Highway units usually listen to. It gives them the opportunity to go in on any interesting call anywhere in the city.

  "Highway Nine. Hold us out to lunch at the same location."

  Matt dropped the microphone onto the seat.

  "I guess you and McFadden are buying, huh?" the driver asked.

  "Why should we do that?"

  "You both passed the exam, didn't you?"

  "You heard that, did you?"

  "I also heard that Martinez didn't."

  "I think that's what the business at the Roundhouse is all about. The inspector and Chief Coughlin are going to break it to him easy."

  "I tried the corporal's exam three years ago and didn't make it," the driver said. "Then I figured, fuck it, I'd rather be doing this than working in an office anyhow."

  Was that simply a conversational interchange, or have I just been zinged?

  "I'm surprised Hay-zus didn't make it," Matt said.

  "Yeah, I was too. But I guess some people can pass exams, and some people can't."

  "You're right. You think McFadden knows we passed?"

  "He told me this morning at roll call."

  "So that means Martinez knows too, I guess?"

  "Yeah, I'm sure he knows."

  Was that why Hay-zus cut me cold, or was that on general principles?

  TWO

  Detective Matthew M. Payne, of East Detectives, pulled his unmarked car to the curb just beyond the intersection of 12^th and Butler Streets in the Tioga section of Philadelphia.

  There was a three-year-old Ford station wagon parked at the curb. Payne reached over and picked up a clipboard from the passenger seat, and examined the Hot Sheet. It was a sheet of eight-and-a-half-byeleven-inch paper, printed on both sides, which listed the tag numbers of stolen vehicles in alphanumeric order.

  There were three categories of stolen vehicles. If a double asterisk followed the number, this was a warning to police officers that if persons were seen in the stolen vehicle they were to be regarded as armed and dangerous. A single asterisk meant that if and when the car was recovered, it was to be guarded until technicians could examine it for fingerprints. No asterisks meant that it was an ordinary run-of-the-mill hot car that nobody but its owner really gave a damn about.

  The license number recorded on the Hot Sheet corresponded with the license plate on the Ford station, which had been reported stolen twenty-eight hours previously. There were no asterisks following the listing. Two hours previously, Radio Patrol Car 2517, of the 25^th Police District, on routine patrol had noticed the Ford station wagon, and upon inquiry had determined that it had been reported as a stolen car.

  The reason, obviously, that this Ford station wagon had attracted the attention of the guys in the blue-and-white was not hard for someone of Detective Payne's vast experience-he had been a detective for three whole weeks-to deduce. The wheels and tires had been removed from the vehicle, and the hood was open, suggesting that other items of value on the resale market had been removed from the engine compartment.

  The officer who had found the stolen car had then filled out Philadelphia Police Department Form 75-48, on which was listed the location, the time the car had been found, the tag number and the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number), and the condition (if it had been burned, stripped, or was reasonably intact).

  If he had recovered the vehicle intact, that is to say drivable, he would have disabled it by removing the coil wire or letting the air out of one or more tires. It is very embarrassing to the police for them to triumphantly inform a citizen that his stolen car has been recovered at, say, 12^th and Butler, and then to have the car stolen again before the citizen can get to 12^th and Butler.

  The officer who had found the car had turned in Form 75-48 to one of the trainees in the Operations Room of the 25^th District, at Front and Westmoreland Streets, because the corporal in charge was otherwise occupied. The term "trainee" is somewhat misleading. It suggests someone who is learning a job and, by inference, someone young. One of the trainees in the Operations Room of the 25^th District had in fact been on the job longer than Detective Payne was old, and had been working as a trainee for eleven years.

  The trainee did not feel it necessary to ask the corporal for guidance as to what should be done with the Form 75-48. The corporal, in fact, would have been surprised, even shocked, if he had.

  If the car had been stolen inside the city limits of Philadelphia, the trainee would have simply notified the owner, and, in the name of the district, canceled the listing on the Hot Sheet. But this Ford had been stolen from a citizen of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia. It thus became an OJ, for Other Jurisdiction.

  First, he assigned a DC (for District Control) Number to it. In this case it was 74-25-004765. Seventy-four was the year, twenty-five stood for the 25^th District, and 004765 meant that it was the four thousandth seven hundredth sixty-fifth incident of this nature occurring since the first of the year.

  Then the trainee carried the paperwork upstairs in the building, where EDD (East Detective Division) maintained their offices, and turned it over to the EDD desk man, who then assigned the case an EDD Control Number, much like the DC Number.

  The EDD desk man then placed the report before Sergeant Aloysius J. Sutton, who then assigned the investigation of the recovered stolen vehicle to Detective Matthew M. Payne, the newest member of his squad.

  Theoretically, the investigation should have been assigned to the detective "next up on the Wheel." "The Wheel" was a figure of speech; actually, it was a sheet of lined paper on a pad, on which the names of all the detectives of the squad available for duty were written. As jobs came into East Detectives, they were assigned in turn, according to the list. The idea was that the workload would thus be equally shared.

  In practice, however, especially when there was a brand-new detective on the squad, the Wheel was ignored. Sergeant Sutton was not about to assign, say, an armed robbery job to a detective who had completed Promotional Training at the Police Academy the week, or three weeks, before. Neither, with an armed robbery job to deal with, was Sergeant Sutton about to assign
a recovered stolen vehicle investigation to a detective who had been on the job for ten or twelve years, especially if there was a rookie available to do it.

  Since he had reported for duty at East Detectives, Detective Payne had investigated eight recovered stolen vehicles. During that time, nine had been reported to East Detectives for appropriate action.

  Actually, Detective Payne knew more about auto theft than all but one of the detectives who had passed the most recent examination and gone to Promotional Training with him. In his previous assignment, he had had occasion to discuss at some length auto theft with Lieutenant Jack Malone, who had at one time headed the Auto Theft Squad in the Major Crimes Division of the Philadelphia Police Department.

  Lieutenant Malone had recently received some attention in the press for an investigation he had conducted that had resulted in the Grand Jury indictment of Robert L. Holland, a prominent Delaware Valley automobile dealer, on 106 counts of trafficking in stolen automobiles, falsification of registration documents, and other autotheft-related charges.

  Detective Payne had learned a great deal from Lieutenant Malone about big-time auto theft. He knew how chop-shops operated; how Vehicle Identification Number tags could be forged; how authenticlooking bills of sale and title could be obtained; and he even had a rather detailed knowledge of how stolen vehicles could be illegally exported through the Port of Philadelphia for sale in Latin and South American countries.

  None of this knowledge, unfortunately, was of any value whatever in the investigation Detective Payne was now charged with conducting.

  Detective Payne had also learned from Lieutenant Malone that the great majority of vehicular thefts could be divided into two categories; those cars stolen by joyriders, kids who found the keys in a car and went riding in it for a couple of hours; and those stolen by sort of amateur, apprentice choppers. These thieves had neither the knowledge of the trade nor the premises or equipment to actually break a car down into component pieces for resale. They did, however, know people who would purchase wheels and tires, generators, airconditioning compressors, batteries, carburetors, radios, and other readily detachable parts, no questions asked.