'You know Charley, don't you, Mike?' Pekach asked.
'Yeah, sure,' Sabara said, offering his hand. 'How are you, McFadden?'
At least this one, he thought, looks like a Highway Patrolman.
The other one, in Captain Sabara's mind, was Officer Jesus Martinez; theother of the first two probationary Highway Patrolmen. Jesus Martinez was just barely over Departmental height and weight minimums. It wasn't his fault, but he just didn't look like a Highway Patrolman. He looked, in Captain Sabara's opinion, like a small-sized spic dressed up in a cut-down Highway Patrol uniform.
'Charley, you went in on that shots fired, hospital case at Goldblatt's, didn't you?' Pekach asked.
'Yes, sir. Quinn and I were at City Hall when we heard it.'
'What did you find?'
'Nothing. They were long gone-they had stashed a van out in back-when we got there.'
'You hear anything on the scene about the doers?'
'Spades in bathrobes,' McFadden said, 'Is what we heard. Dumb spades. They-Goldblatt's-don't keep any real money in the store.'
'What do you think about this?' Captain Sabara said, and handed him a photocopy of the press release that had been sent to Mickey O'Hara at theBulletin.
'What the hell is it?' McFadden asked.
'What do you think it is, Charley?' Pekach asked.
'I think it's bullshit.If this thing is real, and they're going to have a war with the Jews, how come the guy they shot was an Irishman?'
'Good question,' Pekach said. 'If you had to guess, Charley, what would you say?'
'Jesus, Captain, I don't know. I don't think this Liberation Army is for real-is it?'
'That seems to be the question of the day, Charley,' Pekach said, and then changed the subject. 'I don't seem to see you much anymore. How do you like Highway?'
'It's all right, I guess,' Charley replied. 'But sometimes, Captain, I sort of miss Narcotics.'
'Narcotics or undercover?' Pekach pursued.
'Both, I guess.'
'If you don't catch up with Payne tonight, I'll tell him you were looking for him,' Pekach said.
McFadden understood he was being dismissed.
'Yes, sir. Good night, Captain.' He faced Sabara and repeated, ' Captain.'
Sabara nodded and smiled.
When McFadden had closed the door behind him, Sabara said, 'There are three hundred young cops out there with five, six years on the job who would give their left nut to be in Highway, and that one says, 'It's all right, I guess.''
'Butyour three hundred young cops never had the opportunity to work forme inNarcotics,' Pekach said.
'Oh, go to hell,' Sabara chuckled. 'You're no better than he is.'
'He wasn't much help, was he?'
'No, he wasn't. Did you think he would be?'
'Wohl said he thought we should find out what we could about Goldblatt's. I was trying.'
'You really think Special Operations is going to wind up with that job?'
'I wouldn't be surprised. Carlucci probably sees a story in the newspapers, 'Mayor Carlucci announced this afternoon that the Special Operations Division arrested the Islamic Liberation Army-' '
'All eight of them,' Sabara interrupted. 'That's if thereis an Islamic Liberation Army. And anyway, Highway could handle it without the bullshit.'
'That's my line, Mike. Write this on your forehead:'Pekach is Highway,I'm Special Operations.' '
Sabara chuckled again. 'What the hell is Wohl up to?'
'I guess he's just trying to cover his ass,' Pekach replied. 'In case he does-in other words, we do-get that job.'
Charley McFadden drove home, took a bottle of Schlitz from the refrigerator, carried it into the living room, sat on the couch, and dialed Matt Payne's apartment. It rang twice.
'Matthew Payne profoundly regrets, knowing what devastating disappointment it will cause you, that he is not available for conversation at this time. If you would be so kind as to leave your number at the beep, he will know that you have called.'
'Shit!' Charley said, laughing, and hung up.
'Watch your mouth, Charley!' his mother called from the kitchen.
Charley hoisted himself out of the couch and went up the stairs, two at a time, to his bedroom. He took his pistol from its holster, put it in the sock drawer of his dresser, and took his snub-nosed Colt.38 Special and its holster out of the drawer. Then he took off his uniform. He rubbed the Sam Browne belt and its accoutrements with a polishing cloth, took a brush to his boots, and then arranged everything neatly in his closet, where, with the addition of a clean shirt, it would be ready for tomorrow.
Then he dressed in blue jeans and a sweatshirt that had WILDWOOD BY THE SEA and a representation of a fish jumping out of the water painted on it. He slipped his feet into loafers and completed dressing by unpinning his badge from his leather jacket and pinning it to a leather badge and ID case and putting that in his left hip pocket, and by slipping the spring clip of the Colt holster inside his trousers just in front of his right hip.
He went down the stairs three at a time, grabbed a quilted nylon zipper jacket from a hook by the front door, and, quickly, so there would be no opportunity for challenge, called out, 'I'm going down to Flo amp; Danny's for a beer, Ma. And then out for supper.'
Flo amp; Danny's Bar amp; Grill was on the corner. He slid onto a bar stool and Danny, without a word, drew a beer and set it before him.
'How they hanging, kid?'
'One lower than the other.'
Charley looked at his watch. It was quarter to six. He had to meet Margaret at the FOP at seven. It would take fifteen minutes to drive there. There was plenty of time.
Maybe too much. She doesn't like it when I smell like a beer tap.
'Danny, give me an egg and a sausage,' he said.
Harry fished a purple pickled egg and a piece of pickled sausage from two glass jars beside the cash register and delivered them on a paper napkin. Charley took a bite of the egg, and walked to the telephone and put the rest of his egg in his mouth as he dropped a dime in the slot and dialed a number.
'Hello.'
'You and your goddamn wiseass answer machine messages. Where have you been?'
'Running errands.'
'You want to have a beer or something?'
'Just one. I got a date.'
'Me too. At seven.'
'You want to come here? Where are you?'
'Home. FOP?'
'Fifteen minutes?'
'Good.'
Matt Payne hung up.
Charley paid for the beer, the egg, and the sausage, and got in his car and drove to the FOP. Matt Payne's Porsche was already in the parking lot, and he found him at the bar.
There was just time to order a beer and have it served when he heard Margaret's soft voice in his ear.
'Hi!'
'Well, as I live and breathe, Florence Nightingale,' Matt said, smiling.
'Hello, Matt.'
'You're early,' Charley said.
