As Commissioner Coughlin had risen upward through the ranks, his rabbi had been Captain, and ultimately the Hon. Jerome H. "Jerry" Carlucci, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, who had liked to boast that he had held every rank in the police department except policewoman, before answering the people's call to elective public office.
And His Honor, too, had had a rabbi. His had been-ultimately, before he retired-Chief Inspector Augustus Wohl, whose only son Peter had entered the Police Academy at twenty, two weeks after he had graduated from Temple University.
Wohl did think that learning about Dignitary Protection would do Detective Payne some good-the more a cop knew about the department, the better-but another major reason was efficiency.
Whoever sat in at the meetings at Dignitary Protection would be expected to report to Wohl precisely what had happened, and what would be asked of Special Operations.
Matt Payne not only had the ability to write a report quickly and accurately, but he had almost permanently attached to his right wrist a state-of-the-art laptop computer, on which and through which the final reports of what happened at the Dignitary Protection meeting would be written and transmitted to Inspector Wohl's desktop computer long before Detective Payne himself could return to Special Operations headquarters in what once had been the U.S. Army's Frankford Arsenal.
As Payne was about to push open the door to the auditorium, Sergeant Al Nevins, a stocky, barrel-chested forty-five-year -old, trotted across the lobby and caught his arm.
Nevins was one of the two sergeants permanently assigned to Dignitary Protection.
"God loves me," he said. "You're early. I was afraid you'd show up on time, and I put out the arm for you, and radio reported they couldn't find you." He offered no explanation, instead turned and, raising his voice, called across the lobby, "Lieutenant Payne's here."
Lieutenant Gerry McGuire, the commanding officer of Dignitary Protection-a somewhat plump, pleasant-looking forty-five-year-old-walked across the lobby to them. He was-surprising Matt-in uniform.
"I tried to have Al reach out for you, Matt," McGuire said. "I'm glad you're here. We're going to do this, now, in the Ritz-Carlton."
"Who's coming to town, sir?" Matt asked.
"Stan Colt," Lieutenant McGuire said.
"My life is now complete," Matt said.
Stan Colt was an almost unbelievably handsome and muscular actor who had begun his theatrical career in a rock band, used the fame that had brought him to get a minor part in a police series on television, and then used that to get his first role in a theatrical motion picture, playing a detective. That motion picture had been spectacularly successful, largely, Matt thought, because of the special effects. There had been a half-dozen follow-ons, none of which Matt had seen-the first one had reminded him of the comic books he'd read as a kid; in one scene Stan Colt had fired twenty-two shots without reloading from a seven-shot.45 Colt, held sideward-but he understood they had all done exceedingly well at the box office.
"Matt," McGuire said, "be aware that the mayor and the commissioner look upon him as a Philadelphia icon, right up there with Benjamin Franklin." He looked at his watch and added, "I mean now, we're due there at nine-thirty."
He waved Matt ahead of him across the lobby. Sergeant Nevins followed them.
"What's going on at the Ritz-Carlton?" Matt asked.
"Mr. Colt's advance party is there," Lieutenant McGuire replied. "And possibly the archbishop, though more likely Monsignor Schneider. And the commissioner said he might drop by. Colt's people are calling it a 'previsit breakfast conference. ' "
"What's going on?"
"West Catholic High School is going to give Mr. Colt his high school diploma," McGuire said. "Which he apparently didn't get before he went off to show business and fame. In connection with this, there will be two expensive lunches, two even more expensive dinners, and a star-studded performance featuring Mr. Colt and a number of friends. The proceeds will all go to the West Catholic Building Fund. The archbishop, I understand, is thrilled. And the mayor and the commissioner are thrilled whenever the archbishop is thrilled."
"I get the picture," Matt said.
The elevator door opened and Lieutenant McGuire led the way out of the building to the parking lot.
"Where's your car, Al?" McGuire asked. "Mine's in the garage again."
"Mine's right over there," Matt said, pointing, and immediately regretted it.
The assignment of unmarked cars in the Philadelphia police department-except in Special Operations-worked on the hand-me-down principle. New cars went to the chief inspectors, who on receipt of their new vehicles handed down their slightly used vehicles to inspectors, who in turn handed down their well-used, if not worn-out, vehicles to captains entitled to unmarked cars, who passed their nearly worn-out vehicles farther down the hierarchy.
Special Operations had a federal grant for "Experimental Policing Techniques," which, among other things, provided money for automobiles. Special Operations vehicles were not provided out of the department budget, in other words, and the grant was worded so that "unneeded and unexpended funds" were supposed to be returned to the federal government.
The result of that was that not one dollar of "unneeded and unexpended funds" had ever been returned to Washington, and everyone in Special Operations who drove an unmarked car-down to lowly detectives and patrol officers in plainclothes assignments-drove a new vehicle.
When the annual grant money was received, new cars were purchased by Special Operations, and the used Special Operations cars were turned over to the department motor pool for assignment.
From Matt's perspective, it was a good deal for the department all around. Once a year, the department got thirty-odd cars-most of them in excellent shape-for nothing. And the department did not have to provide-and pay for-thirty-odd unmarked cars to Special Operations.
However, from the perspective of Lieutenant McGuire- and of most other lieutenants and captains, and even more than a few more senior officers-lowly detectives and officers in plainclothes should not be driving new cars when captains and lieutenants were driving cars on the steep slope leading to the crusher.
All Lieutenant McGuire said, however, when he got in the front seat of the car beside Matt, was "I love the smell of a new car."
They drove up Market Street to City Hall, and then around it, to the Ritz-Carlton, whose main entrance was on the west side of South Broad Street just across from City Hall.
McGuire looked at his watch again and said, "Park in front. I don't want to be late."
Matt pulled into space normally reserved for taxis, put a plastic covered POLICE OFFICIAL BUSINESS sign on the dashboard, and then hurried after McGuire and Nevins.
The Stan Colt advance party was in a large suite, the windows of which looked down on the statue of William Penn atop City Hall.
A buffet had been laid out-an impressive one, complete to a man in chef's whites manning an omelet stove-and there were seven or eight people in the room, including two men in clerical collars. Matt knew the archbishop by sight, and he wasn't one of the two, so the gray-haired one in the well-tailored suit had to be Monsignor Schneider.
In an adjacent room was a long conference table, on which water and coffee carafes, cups and saucers, and even lined pads and ballpoint pens had been laid out. There were two telephones on the table, and television sets mounted on the walls.
This suite was designed not for luxury-although it's no dump-but as somewhere the boss can gather the underlings together and inspire them.
Matt walked into the conference room, took a telephone cord from his briefcase, and looked along the walls for a telephone jack. Finding none, he dropped to his knees and got under the table. There were two double telephone jacks, and he plugged the telephone cord into one of them.
As he backed out, he became aware of nylon-sheathed legs.