“What?”
“I forgot about the Mayor ordering Payne into Homicide,” Wohl said. He reached for his telephone, pushed a button, and a moment later ordered, “Paul, would you get Chief Lowenstein for me, please?”
He put the telephone down.
“Drink your coffee, Mike,” he said. “The first thing you’re going to have to do is face the fact that your innocent, happy days as a staff inspector are over. You have just moved into the world of police politics, and you’re probably not going to like it at all.”
“That thought had already run through my mind,” Weisbach said. He picked up his mug and, shaking his head, put it to his mouth.
The telephone rang. Wohl picked it up.
“Good morning, Chief,” he said. “I wanted to check with you about sending Detective Payne to Homicide. Is that still on?”
He took the headset from his ear so that Weisbach could hear the Chief’s reply.
“Denny Coughlin just told me what happened to the Detweiler girl,” Lowenstein said. “I presume you’re giving Matt some time off?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, when he comes back, send him over whenever you can spare him. I’ve spoken to Captain Quaire. They’re waiting for him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And please tell him I’m sorry about what happened. That’s really a goddamn shame.”
“I’ll tell him that, sir. Thank you.”
“Nice talking to you, Peter,” Chief Lowenstein said, and hung up.
“He didn’t sound like someone about to retire, did he?” Weisbach said.
“No, he didn’t.”
One of the telephones on Wohl’s desk rang.
“This is what happens when I forget to tell Paul to hold my calls,” he said as he reached for it. “Inspector Wohl.”
“Ah, Peter,” Weisbach overheard. “How is the Beau Brummell of Philadelphia law enforcement this morning?”
“Why is it, Armando, that whenever I hear your voice, I think of King Henry the Sixth?”
“Peter, you are, as you well know, quoting that infamous Shakespearean ‘kill all the lawyers’ line out of context.”
“Well, he had the right idea, anyhow. What can I do for you, Armando?”
“Actually, I was led to believe that Inspector Weisbach could be reached at your office.”
“I’d love to know who told you that,” Wohl said, and then handed the telephone to Weisbach. “Armando C. Giacomo, Esquire, for you, Inspector.”
Giacomo, a slight, lithe, dapper man who wore what was left of his hair plastered to the sides of his tanned skull, was one of the best criminal lawyers in Philadelphia.
Wohl got up from his desk and walked to his window and looked out. He could therefore hear only Weisbach’s side of the brief conversation.
“I’ll call you back in five minutes,” Weisbach concluded, and hung up.
Wohl walked back to his desk.
“Don’t tell me,” he said. “Giacomo has been asked to represent Mr. Paulo Cassandro.”
“I’ll bet that he has,” Weisbach said. “But he didn’t say so. What he said was that it would give him great pleasure if I would have lunch with him today at the Rittenhouse Club, during which he would like to discuss something which would be to our mutual benefit.”
“I’d go, if I were you,” Wohl said. “They set a very nice table at the Rittenhouse Club.”
“Why don’t you come with me?”
“I’m not in the mood for lunch, really, even at the Rittenhouse Club.”
“He’s looking for something, which means he’s desperate. I’d like to have you there.”
“Yeah,” Wohl said, thoughtfully. “If he’s looking for a deal, he would have gone to the District Attorney. It might be interesting.”
He pushed the button for Paul O’Mara.
“Paul, call Armando C. Giacomo. Tell him that Inspector Weisbach accepts his kind invitation to lunch at the Rittenhouse Club at one, and that he’s bringing me with him.”
THIRTEEN
Peter Wohl pushed open the heavy door of the Rittenhouse Club and motioned for Mike Weisbach to go in ahead of him. They climbed a wide, shallow flight of carpeted marble stairs to the lobby, where they were intercepted by the club porter, a dignified black man in his sixties.
“May I help you, gentlemen?”
“Mr. Weisbach and myself as the guests of Mr. Giacomo,” Peter said.
“It’s nice to see you, Mr. Wohl,” the porter said, and glanced at what Peter thought of as the Who’s Here Board behind his polished mahogany stand. “I believe Mr. Giacomo is in the club. Would you please have a seat?”
He gestured toward a row of chairs against the wall, then walked into the club.
The Who’s Here Board behind the porter’s stand listed, alphabetically, the names of the three-hundred-odd members of the Rittenhouse Club. Beside each name was an inch-long piece of brass, which could be slid back and forth in a track. When the marker was next to the member’s name, this indicated he was on the premises; when away from it that he was not.
Peter saw Weisbach looking at the board with interest. The list of names represented the power structure, social and business, of Philadelphia. Philadelphia’s upper crust belonged to either the Rittenhouse Club or the Union League, or both.
Peter saw that Carlucci, J., an ex officio member, was not in the club. Giacomo, A., was. So was Mawson, J., of Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo amp; Lester, who competed with Giacomo, A., for being the best (which translated to mean most expensive) criminal lawyer in the city. Payne, B., Mawson, J.’s, law partner, was not.
And neither, Wohl noticed with interest, was Payne, M.
I didn’t know Matt was a member. That’s new.
Possibly, he thought, Detweiler, H., had suggested to Payne, B., that they have a word with the Membership Committee. Since their offspring were about to be married, it was time that Payne, M., should be put up for membership. Young Nesbitt, C. IV, had become a member shortly before his marriage to the daughter of Browne, S.
Wohl had heard that the Rittenhouse Club initiation fee was something like the old saw about how much a yacht cost: If you had to ask what it cost, you couldn’t afford it.
The porter returned.
“Mr. Giacomo is in the bar, Mr. Wohl. You know the way?”
“Yes, thank you,” Peter said, and led Weisbach into the club bar, a quiet, deeply carpeted, wood-paneled room, furnished with twenty or so small tables, at each of which were rather small leather-upholstered armchairs. The tables were spaced so that a soft conversation could not be heard at the tables adjacent to it.
Armando C. Giacomo rose, smiling, from one of the chairs when he saw Wohl and Weisbach, and waved them over.
Wohl thought Giacomo was an interesting man. His family had been in Philadelphia from the time of the Revolution. He 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 Brewster Cortland Payne’s, with clientele drawn from banks and insurance companies and familial connections.
He had elected, instead, to become a criminal lawyer, and was known (somewhat unfairly, Wohl thought) as the Mob’s Lawyer, which suggested that he himself was involved in criminal activity. So far as Wohl knew, Giacomo’s personal ethics were impeccable. He represented those criminals who could afford his services when they were hauled before the bar of justice, and more often than not defended them successfully.
Wohl had come to believe that Giacomo held the mob in just about as much contempt as he did, and that he represented them both because they had the financial resources to pay him, and also because he really believed that an accused was entitled to good legal representation, not so much for himself personally, but as a reinforcement of the Constitution.
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. He would not, in other words, represent Captain Vito Cazerra, because Cazerra could not afford him. But he would represent an ordinary police officer charged with the use of excessive force or otherwise violating the civil rights of a citizen, and do so without charge.