The Fruit of Islam was a group, estimated to be as many as one hundred, of Arthur X's followers, all at least six feet tall, who served as Arthur X's bodyguard.
"So when are you going to pick these people up?" Tommy Callis asked.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Lowenstein said. "I want to do it like Gangbusters."
"I don't know what that means, Matt," Callis said carefully.
"I want warrants issued for all the people that Mr. Monahan has identified from photographs. I want them-this is where Peter and the Highway Patrol come in-picked up all at one time, say tomorrow morning at six. I then want Mr. Monahan to pick them out of a lineup, one at a time, as soon as possible, after the arraignment, before the preliminary hearing. I want them charged with first degree murder and armed robbery. Then I want to run them past a municipal court in the Roundhouse who is not going to release them on their own recognizance or on two-bit bail. I want you to run them past the Grand Jury just as soon as that can be arranged, and then I want them on the docket just as soon as that can be arranged. Unless there is some reason not to, I want them all tried together, and I want one of the best assistant DAs in the Homicide Unit, preferably the head man, to prosecute. I would not be unhappy if you could find the time to prosecute yourself, Tommy."
Tommy Callis thought that over a minute.
"You haveone witness."
"He's a good one. Credible."
"One," Callis repeated.
"You're suggesting those thugs would get to him?"
"What have they got to lose? It's already murder one. And he could get sick, or drop dead or something."
"That's where Peter comes in again. Right now, I've got a couple of Northwest Detectives on Mr. Monahan. That's just to be sure. Just as soon as this thing starts, I want Peter toconspicuously protect Mr. Monahan."
"Meaning what?"
"A Highway car parked around the clock in front of his house. If he insists on going to work, Highway will take him back and forth, and park in front of Goldblatt's while he's working."
"He could still have a heart attack, or something."
"And he could get struck by lightning," Lowenstein said. "Anything's possible. I think it's more possible that we could come up with a couple, maybe six, eight, ten more witnesses."
"Explain that to me, Matt."
"Peter will also put Highway people on the other witnesses."
"What for?" Callis asked, without thinking.
"To protect them, of course. We are dealing with dangerous people here. While the witnesses, if they are to be believed, can't identify the doers, the doers don't know that."
"Christ, Matt, I don't know," Callis protested.
"Once they come to understand that they are in some danger whether or not they testify, they may decide that the only way they canreally protect their asses is by making sure these scumbags are put away. An assistant DA, with good persuasive skills, might be able to jolt their memories a little. I also thought I would ask Peter to have Washington have a word with the witnesses."
"The Afro-American witnesses, you mean?"
"All of them. Jason is a formidable sonofabitch, in addition to being very persuasive."
"You're suggesting, 'Here is this big blackgood guy, who will protect me from thebad black guys'?" Callis asked.
"Why not?" Lowenstein said. "And I'm going to suggest to Peter that when we make the arrests, it might be a good idea to use black Highway guys. A couple of them, anyway, at each site."
"Yeah," Wohl said thoughtfully. "Good idea."
Callis thought about that a moment.
"I presume Commissioner Czernick thinks this is a good idea?" he asked, finally.
"I haven't had the opportunity to discuss this with the commissioner," Lowenstein said.
"What?" Callis asked disbelievingly.
"Commissioner Czernick is a very busy man," Lowenstein said. "And besides, he won't fart unless The Dago tells him to. Or authorize anything that's not in the book. If I went to Tad Czernick, he would check with The Dago before he said anything. And I know, and so do you, Tommy, that the mayor would rather not know about this until it was over."
Callis looked at his watch. "My God, and it's only quarter after eight!"
"The early bird gets the worm," Lowenstein said.
"You haven't said much about this, Peter."
"I haven't had anything to say."
"Well, whatdo you think about this?"
"If Special Operations is called upon by Chief Lowenstein to assist the Detective Division, we would of course do so."
Callis picked up his coffee cup and found that it was empty.
He held it up impatiently and Sergeant Mahoney quickly went to take it from him.
He tapped his fingertips together impatiently for a moment, said " Christ!" and then picked up one of the two telephones on his desk.
"Ask Mr. Stillwell to come in here, please," he said. "Tell him it'sjust ask him to come in right away, please."
Wohl glanced at Lowenstein, whose eyebrows rose in surprise. When he saw Wohl looking at him, he gave a barely perceptible shrug.
Farnsworth Stillwell was an assistant district attorney. Generally speaking, there were three kinds of assistant district attorneys, young ones fresh from law school, who took the job to pay the rent and gain experience, and left after a few years; the mediocre ones who had just stayed on because the hoped-for good offer had not come; and the ones who stayed on because they liked the job and were willing to work for less than they could make in private practice.
Farnsworth Stillwell did not fall into any of the three categories. He came from a wealthy, socially prominent family. He had gone from Princeton into the Navy, become a pilot, and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and some other medals for valor flying off an aircraft carrier off Vietnam. He had been seriously injured when he tried to land his damaged aircraft on returning to his carrier after a mission.
There had been six months in a hospital to consider what he wanted to do with his future now that a permanently stiff knee had eliminated the Navy and flying. He had decided on public service. He'd gone to law school, found and married a suitable wife, and then decided the quickest way to put himself in the public eye was by becoming an assistant district attorney.
He was, in Peter Wohl's judgment, smart-perhaps even brilliant-in addition to being competent. He was tall, thin, getting gray flecks in his hair, superbly tailored, and charming. Wohl had come to know him rather well in the latter stages of the Judge Findermann investigation, and during the prosecution. There had been overtures of friendship from Stillwell. Without coming out and saying so, Stillwell had made it clear that he thought that he and Wohl, as they rose in the system, could be useful to each other.
Obviously, Stillwell was going places, and Wohl was fully aware of the political side of being a cop, particularly in the upper ranks. But he had, as tactfully as he could manage, rejected the offer.
There was something about the sonofabitch that he just didn't like. He couldn't put his finger on it, and vacillated between thinking that he just didn't like politicians, or archetypical WASPs, (and that consequently he was making a mistake) and a gut feeling that there was a mean, or perhaps corrupt, streak in Stillwell somewhere. Whatever it was, he knew that he did not want to get any closer to Farnsworth Stillwell, professionally or personally, than he had to.
He wondered now, as they waited for Stillwell to show up in Callis's office, what Matt Lowenstein thought of him.
"You wanted to see me, boss?" Stillwell called cheerfully as he strode, with an uneven gait, because of his knee, into Callis's office.
Then he saw Lowenstein first, and then Wohl, D'Amata, and Pelosi.
"Chief Lowenstein," he said. "How nice to see you. And Peter!"