answer serious posers like how many eggs would I have if I divided a dozen eggs by six. But I got through that, too. At eleven, I'm supposed to be in the Municipal Services Building, across from City Hall, for a physical, and, I think, some kind of an interview with a shrink.'
'That's all there is to it?'
'Well, they took my fingerprints, and are going to check me out with the FBI, and there's some kind of background investigation they'll conduct here, but for all practical purposes, yes, that's it.'
'I wonder how your mother is going to react to this?'
'I don't know,' Matt said.
'She lost a husband who was a policeman,' Brewster Payne said. 'That' s going to be on her mind.'
Matt grunted.
'I want to do it, Dad, at least to try it.'
'You've considered, of course, that you might not like it? I don't know what they do with rookie policemen, of course, but I would suspect it's like anything else, that you start out doing the unpleasant things.'
'I didn't really want to go in the marines, Dad,' Matt said. 'Not until after they told me they didn't want me, anyway. It was just something you did, like go to college. But I reallywant to be a cop.'
Brewster Payne cocked his head thoughtfully and made a grunting noise.
'Well, I don't like it, and I won't be a hypocrite and say I do,' Brewster Payne said.
'I didn't think you would,' Matt said. 'I sort of hoped you would understand.'
'The terms are not mutually exclusive,' Payne said. 'I do understand, and I don't like it. Would you like to hear what I really think?'
'Please.'
'I think that you will become a police officer, and because this is your nature, you will do the very best you can. And I think in… say a year… that you will conclude you don't really want to spend the rest of your life that way. If that happens, and you do decide to go to law school, or do something entirely different-'
'Then it wouldn't be wasted, is that what you mean?' Matt interrupted.
'I was about to say the year would bevery valuable to you,' Brewster Payne said. 'Now that I think about it, far more valuable than a year in Europe, which was a carrot I was considering dangling in front of your nose to talk you out of this.'
'That's a very tempting carrot,' Matt said.
'The offer remains open,' Payne said. 'But to tell you the truth, I would be disappointed in you if you took it. It remains open because of your mother.'
'Yeah,' Matt said, exhaling.
'And also for my benefit,' Brewster Payne said. 'When your brothers and sister come to me, and they will, crying 'Dad, how could you let him do that?' I will be able to respond that I did my best to talk you out of it, even including a bribe of a year in Europe.'
'I hadn't even thought about them,' Matt said.
'I suggest you had better. You can count, I'm sure, on your sister trying to reason with you, and when that fails, screaming and breaking things.'
Matt chuckled.
'I will advance the proposition, which I happen to believe, that what you're doing is both understandable, and with a little bit of luck, might turn out to be a very profitable thing for you to do.'
'Thank you,' Matt said.
Brewster Payne stood up and offered his hand to Matt.
Matt started to take it, but stopped. They looked at each other, and then Brewster Payne opened his arms, and Matt stepped into them, and they hugged each other.
'Dad, you're great,' Matt said.
'I know,' Brewster Payne said. He thought, I don't care who his father was; this is my own, beloved, son.
When Peter Wohl walked into Homicide, Detective Jason Washington signaled that Captain Henry C. Quaire, commanding officer of the Homicide Division, was in his office and wordlessly asked if he should tell him Wohl was outside.
Wohl shook his head, no, and mimed drinking a cup of coffee. Washington went to a Mr. Coffee machine, poured coffee, and then, still without speaking, made gestures asking Wohl if he wanted cream or sugar. Wohl shook his head again, no, and Washington carried the coffee to him. Wohl nodded his thanks, and Washington bowed solemnly.
'We should paint our faces white,' Wohl said, chuckling, 'and set up on the sidewalk.'
'Well, we'd probably make more money doing that than we do on the job,' Washington said. 'Mimes probably take more home in their begging baskets every day than we do in a week.'
Wohl chuckled, and then asked, 'Who's in there with him?'
'Mitell,' Washington said. 'You hear about that job? The old Italian guy?'
Wohl shook his head no.
'Well, he died. We just found out-Mitell told me as he went in that he just got the medical examiner's report- of natural causes. But his wife was broke, and didn't have enough money to bury him the way she thought he was entitled to be buried. So she dragged him into the basement, wrapped him in Saran Wrap, and waited for the money to come in. That was three months ago. A guy from the gas works smelled him, and called the cops.'
'Jesus Christ!' Wohl said.
'The old lady can't understand why everybody's so upset,' Washington said. 'After all, it washer basement andher husband.'
'Oh, God.' Wohl laughed, and Washington joined him, and then Washington said what had just popped into Wohl's mind.
'Why are we laughing?'
'Otherwise, we'd go crazy,' Wohl said.
'How did I do with the TV lady?' Washington asked.
'She told me she thought you were a very nice man, Jason,' Wohl said.
'I thought she was a very nice lady,' Washington said. 'She looks even better in real life than she does on the tube.'
'I don't suppose anything has happened?' Wohl asked.
'Gerald Vincent Gallagher's under a rock someplace,' Washington said. 'He'll have to come out sooner or later. I'll let you know the minute I get anything.'
'Who's got the Nelson job?' Wohl asked.
'Tony Harris,' Washington said. 'Know him?'
Wohl nodded.
Detective Jason Washington thought that he was far better off, the turn of the wheel, so to speak, than was Detective Tony Harris, to whom the wheel had given the faggot hacking job.
The same special conditions prevailed, the close supervision from above, though for different reasons. The special interest in the Moffitt job came because Dutch was a cop, and it came from within the department. If Dutch hadn't been a cop, and the TV lady hadn't been there when he got shot, the press wouldn't really have given a damn. It would have been a thirty-second story on the local TV news, and the story would probably have been buried in the back pages of the newspapers.
But the Nelson job had everything in it that would keep it on the TV and in the newspapers for a long time. For one thing, it was gory. Whoever had done in Nelson had been over the edge; they'd really chopped up the poor sonofabitch. That in itself would have been enough to make a big story about it; the public likes to read about 'brutal murders.' But Nelson was rich, the son of a big shot. He lived in a luxurious apartment. And there was the (interesting coincidence) tiein with the TV lady. She'd found the body, and since everybody figured they knew her from the TV, it was as if someone they knew personally had found it.
And so far, they didn't know who did it. Everybody could take a vicarious chill from the idea of having
