Commissioner Czernich followed the Mayor into his office and took up a position three feet in front of the Mayor’s huge, ornately carved antique desk. The Mayor’s secretary appeared carrying a steaming mug of coffee bearing the logotype of the Sons of Italy.
The Mayor sat down in his dark green high-backed leather chair, leaned forward to glance at the documents waiting for his attention on the green pad on his desk, lifted several of them to see what was underneath, and then raised his eyes to Czernich.
“What’s so important?”
Commissioner Czernich laid a single sheet of paper on the Mayor’s desk, carefully placing it so that the Mayor could read it without turning it around.
“Sergeant McElroy brought that to my house while I was having my breakfast,” Commissioner Czernich said, a touch of indignation in his voice.
The Mayor took the document and read it.
CITY OF PHILADELPHIA MEMORANDUM TO: POLICE COMMISSIONER FROM: COMMANDING OFFICER, DETECTIVE BUREAU SUBJECT: COMPENSATORY TIME/RETIREMENT
1. The undersigned has this date placed himself on leave (compensatory time) for a period of fourteen days.
2. The undersigned has this date applied for retirement effective immediately.
3. Inasmuch as the undersigned does not anticipate returning to duty before entering retirement status, the undersigned’s identification card and police shield are turned in herewith.
Matthew L. Lowenstein
Chief Inspector
82-S-1AE (Rev. 3/59) R ESPONSE TO THIS MEMORANDUM MAY BE MADE HEREON IN LONGHAND
“Damn!” the Mayor said.
Czernich took a step forward and laid a chief inspector’s badge and a leather photo identification folder on the Mayor’s desk.
“You did not see fit to let me know Chief Lowenstein was involved in your investigation,” Czernich said.
“Damn!” the Mayor repeated, this time with utter contempt in his voice, and then raised it. “Jack!”
Lieutenant Fellows pushed the door to the Mayor’s office open.
“Yes, Mr. Mayor?”
“Get Chief Lowenstein on the phone,” the Mayor ordered. “He’s probably at home.”
“Yes, sir,” Fellows said, and started to withdraw.
“Use this phone,” the Mayor said.
Fellows walked to the Mayor’s desk and picked up the handset of one of the three telephones on it.
“This makes the situation worse, I take it?” Commissioner Czernich asked.
“Tad, just close your mouth, all right?”
“Mrs. Lowenstein,” Fellows said into the telephone. “This is Lieutenant Jack Fellows. I’m calling for the Mayor. He’d like to speak to Chief Lowenstein.”
There was a reply, and then Fellows covered the microphone with his hand.
“She says he’s not available,” he reported.
“Tell her thank you,” the Mayor ordered.
“Thank you, Ma’am,” Lieutenant Fellows said, and replaced the handset in its cradle and looked to the Mayor for further orders.
“Take a look at this, Jack,” the Mayor ordered, and pushed the memorandum toward Fellows.
“My God!” Fellows said.
“I had no idea this mess we’re in went that high,” Commissioner Czernich said.
“I thought I told you to close your mouth,” the Mayor said, then looked at Fellows. “Jack, call down to the courtyard and see if there’s an unmarked car down there. If there is, I want it. You drive. If there isn’t, call Special Operations and have them meet us with one at Broad and Roosevelt Boulevard.”
“Yes, sir,” Fellows reported, and picked up the telephone again.
The Mayor watched, his face expressionless, as Fellows called the sergeant in charge of the City Hall detail.
“Inspector Taylor’s car is down there, Mr. Mayor,” Fellows reported.
“Go get it. I’ll be down in a minute,” the Mayor ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
The Mayor watched Fellows hurry out of his office and then turned to Commissioner Czernich.
“How many people know about that memo?”
“Just yourself and me, Mr. Mayor. And now Jack Fellows.”
“Keep-” the Mayor began.
“And Harry McElroy,” Czernich interrupted him. “It wasn’t even sealed. The envelope, I mean.”
“Keep it that way, Tad. You understand me?”
“Yes, of course, Mr. Mayor.”
The Mayor stood up and walked out of his office.
“Sarah,” the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia said gently to the gray-haired, soft-faced woman standing behind the barely opened door of a row house on Tyson Street, off Roosevelt Boulevard, “I know he’s in there.”
She just looked at him.
She looks close to tears, the Mayor thought. Hell, she has been crying. Goddamnitalltohell!
“What do you want me to do, Sarah?” the Mayor asked very gently. “Take the door?”
The door closed in his face. There was the sound of a door chain rattling, and then the door opened. Sarah Lowenstein stood behind it.
“In the kitchen,” she said softly.
“Thank you,” the Mayor said, and walked into the house and down the corridor beside the stairs and pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen.
Chief Matthew L. Lowenstein, in a sleeveless undershirt, was sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over a cup of coffee. He looked up when he heard the door open, and then, when he saw the Mayor, quickly averted his gaze.
The Mayor laid Lowenstein’s badge and photo ID on the table.
“What is this shit, Matt?”
“I’m trying to remember,” Lowenstein said. “I think if you just walked in, that’s simple trespassing. If you took the door, that’s forcible entry.”
“Sarah let me in.”
“I told her not to. What’s on your mind, Mr. Mayor?”
“I want to know what the hell this is all about.”
Lowenstein raised his eyes to look at the Mayor.
“OK,” he said. “What it’s all about is that you don’t need a chief of detectives you don’t trust.”
“Who said I don’t trust you? For God’s sake, we go back a long way together, twenty-five years, at least. Of course I trust you.”
“That’s why you’re running your own detective squad, right? And you didn’t tell me about it because you trust me? Bullshit, Jerry, you don’t trust me. My character or my professional competence.”
“That’s bullshit!”
“And I don’t have to take your bullshit, either. I’m not Taddeus Czernich. I’ve got my time on the job. I don’t need it, in other words.”
“What are you pissed off about? What happened at that goddamned party? Matt, for Christ’s sake, I was upset.”
“You were a pretty good cop, Jerry. Not as good as you think you were, but good. But that doesn’t mean that nobody else in the Department is as smart as you, or as honest. I’m as good a cop, probably better- I never nearly got thrown out of the Department or indicted-than you ever were. So let me put it another way. I’m sick of your bullshit, I don’t have to put up with it, and I don’t intend to. I’m out.”
“Come on, Matt!”
“I’m out,” Lowenstein repeated flatly. “Find somebody else to push around. Make Peter Wohl Chief of Detectives. You really already have.”
“So that’s it. You’re pissed because I gave Wohl Ethical Affairs?”
“That whole Ethical Affairs idea stinks. Internal Affairs, a part of the Detective Bureau, is supposed to find dirty cops. And by and large, they do a pretty good job of it.”
“Not this time, they didn’t,” the Mayor said.
“I was working on it. I was getting close.”
“There are political considerations,” the Mayor said.
“Yeah, political considerations,” Lowenstein said bitterly.
“Yeah, political considerations,” Carlucci said. “And don’t raise your nose at them. You better hope I get reelected, or you’re liable to have a mayor and a police commissioner you’d really have trouble with.”
“We don’t have a police commissioner now. We have a parrot.”