'I am being-what was it you said?-being 'set apart' as it is,' Matt said. 'Why not?'
'I really do understand, Matt.'
'If I am sexually assaulted by one or more sex-crazed females driven into a frenzy when they see me in that car…'
'What?' his father asked, chuckling.
'I'll tell you how it was,' Matt said, and smiled, and went out of the kitchen, pausing for a moment to throw an affectionate arm around Brewster C. Payne.
Payne, sipping his coffee, went to the kitchen window and watched as Matt opened one of the four garage doors, then emerged a moment later behind the wheel of the Porsche.
He should not be a policeman, he thought. He should be in law school. Or doing almost anything else.
Matt Payne tooted 'Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits' on the Porsche's horn, and then headed down the driveway.
TEN
Officers Jesus Martinez and Charles McFadden arrived together, in Officer McFadden's Volkswagen, at Highway Patrol headquarters at quarter to eight, determined to be on time and otherwise to make a good first impression. They were both wearing business suits and ties, McFadden a faintly plaided single-breasted brown suit, and Martinez a sharply tailored double-breasted blue pinstripe.
He looked, McFadden accused him, not far off the mark, like a successful numbers operator on his way to a wedding.
The available parking spaces around the relatively new building were all full. There were a row of Highway motorcycles parked, neatly, as if in a military organization, at an angle with their rear wheels close to the building; and a row of Highway radio cars, some blue-andwhites identifiable by the lettering on their fenders, and some, unmarked, by their extra radio antennae and black-walled high-speed tires.
There were also the blue-and-whites assigned to the Seventh District, the Seventh District's unmarked cars, and several new-model cars, which could have belonged to any of the department's senior officers.
And there was a battered Chevrolet, festooned with radio antennae, parked in a spot identified by a sign as being reserved for Inspectors.
'That's Mickey O'Hara's car,' Charley McFadden said. 'I wonder what he's doing here?'
'There was a woman kidnapped last night,' Hay-zus said. 'It was on the radio.'
'Kidnapped?' McFadden asked.
'Couple of people saw some nut forcing her into a van, with a knife,' Hay-zus said.
They had driven through the parking area without having found a spot to park. McFadden drove halfway down the block, made a U-turn, and found a parking spot at the curb.
'That'sabducting,' McFadden said.
'What?'
'What you said was kidnapping was abducting,' McFadden said. ' Kidnapping is when there's ransom.'
'Screw you,' Hay-zus said, in a friendly manner, and then, 'Hey, look at them wheels!'
A silver Porsche was coming out of the parking lot, apparently after having made the same fruitless search for a place to park they had.
'I'd hate to have to pay insurance on a car like that,' McFadden said.
'You got enough money to buy a car like that, you don't have to worry about how much insurance costs,' Hay-zus said.
Both of them followed the car as it drove down Bowler Street past them.
'I know that guy,' Charley McFadden said. 'I seen him someplace.'
'Really? Where?'
'I don't know, but I know that face.' Jesus Martinez looked at his watch, a gold-cased Hamilton with a gold bracelet and diamond chips on the face instead of numbers, and on which he owed eighteen (of twentyfour) payments at Zale's Credit Jewelers.
'Let's go in,' he said. 'It's ten of.'
McFadden, not without effort, worked himself out from under the Volkswagen's steering wheel, then broke into a slow shuffle to catch up with Martinez.
They went into the building through a door off the parking lot, through which they could see Highway Patrolmen entering.
They looked for and found the to-be-expected window counter opening on the squad room. A Corporal was leaning on the counter, filling out a form. They waited until he was through, and looked at them curiously.
'We were told to report to the Commanding Officer of Highway at eight,' Hay-zus said.
'You're a police officer?' the Corporal asked, doubtfully.
'Yeah, we're cops,' Charley McFadden said.
'I know you,' the Corporal said. 'You're the guy who ran down the shit who was the doer in Captain Moffitt's shooting.'
McFadden almost blushed.
'Wewere,' he said, nodding at Martinez. 'This is my partner, Hay-zus Martinez.'
'What do you want to see the Captain about? The reason I ask is that he's busy as hell right now; I don't know when he'll be free.'
'Beats me,' McFadden said. 'We was told to report to him at eight.'
'Well, have a seat. When he's free, I'll tell him you're here. There' s a coffee machine and a garbage machine around the corner.' He pointed.
'Thanks,' Charley said, and walked around the corner to the machines, not asking Hay-zus if he wanted anything. Hay-zus was a food freak; he didn't eat anything that had preservatives in it, or drink anything with chemical stimulants in it, like coffee, which had caffeine, or Coke, which had sugar and God only knows what other poison for the body.
When Charley returned, a minute or two later, holding a Mounds bar in one hand and a can of Coke in the other, Hay-zus nodded his head toward the counter. The guy they had seen in the Porsche, the one Charley said he knew from someplace, was talking to the Corporal. As Charley watched, he turned and headed for where Hay-zus was sitting on one of the row of battered folding metal chairs.
Charley walked over and sat down, and then leaned over Hay-zus.
'Don't I know you from somewheres?'
'Is your name McFadden?' Matt Payne asked.
'Yeah.'
'I was at your house the night you got Gerald Vincent Gallagher.'
'You were?' Charley asked. 'I don't remember that.'
'I was there with Chief Coughlin,' Matt said. 'And Sergeant Lenihan.'
'Oh, yeah, I remember now,' Charley said, although he did not. 'How are you?'
'Fine,' Matt said. 'Yourself?'
There was a sort of stir as someone else came through the door from the parking lot. Matt recognized Peter Wohl; he wondered if Wohl would recognize him.
Wohl recognized all three of the young men on the folding metal chairs. He gave them a nod, and kept walking toward his office.
God damn it, you 're a commanding officer now. Act like one.
He turned and walked to the three of them, his hand extended first to Martinez.
'How are you, Martinez?' he said, and turned before Martinez, who wasn't quite sure of Wohl's identity, could reply. 'And McFadden. How' s it going? And you're Payne, right?'
'Yes, sir.'
'I'll be with you as soon as I'm free,' Wohl said. 'The way things are going, that may be a while.'
'Yes, sir,' McFadden and Martinez said, having found their voices.
