to let him in.
'Hi ya, Pop.'
'Come in.'
'Hi ya, Mom?' Tony said, considerably louder.
The men shook hands.
'I'm in the kitchen, honey.'
'Nice blazer,' Lieutenant Lewis said. 'New?'
'Yeah. It is nice, isn't it?'
Tiny walked past his father into the kitchen, put his arms around his mother, who weighed almost exactly one-half as much as he did, and lifted her off the floor.
'Put me down!' she said, and turned to face him. 'Don't you look nice!'
'Thank you, ma'am,' he said. 'It's new.'
She fingered the material.'Very nice.'
'What are we eating?'
'Roast pork.'
'Pork goes nicely, he said, apropos of nothing whatever, with beer.'
'Help yourself,' she laughed. 'You know where it is.'
'You're driving a department car,' Lieutenant Lewis said.
'Yes, I am.'
'You know what it would do to your record if you had an accident and had been drinking,' Lieutenant Lewis said, and immediately regretted it.
'Well, then, I guess I better not have an accident. You want a beer, Dad?'
'Yes, please.'
'I saw your boss earlier this evening,' Lieutenant Lewis said.
'Sergeant Washington? '
'I meant Inspector Wohl,' Lieutenant Lewis said. 'Do you consider Jason Washington your boss?'
'They formed a Special Investigations Section. He's in charge. I'm in it.'
'Doing what?'
'Baby-sitting honkies,' Tiny said, with a smile.
'And what does that mean?' Lieutenant Lewis snapped.
'You know a Highway sergeant named Carter?'
Lieutenant Lewis nodded.
'That's what he said, that I was 'baby-sitting honkies.''
'Foster, I have no idea what you're talking about.'
'You heard about these screwballs calling themselves the Islamic Liberation Army threatening to get Matt Payne for blowing away one of them?'
Lewis nodded.
'Well, Wohl's got some people sitting on him-'
'You might well form the habit, Foster, of referring to Inspector Wohl as Inspector Wohl,' Lewis said.
He received a look of tolerance from his son, who went on, '-and I was supposed to be one of them. But thenSergeant Washington went toInspector Wohl and said he'd rather I stick withDetective Harris, andInspector Wohl said okay, he'd get somebody else, andSergeant Carter-'
'Your sarcasm is becoming offensive.'
'-heard about it, apparently. Anyway, he struck up a conversation with me, said he'd heard I was going to be one of the guys-the other two are McFadden and Martinez, the ex-Narcs who ran down the junkie who shot Captain Moffitt?'
He waited to see understanding on his father's face, and then went on:
'-sitting on Payne, and then that I wasn't, and how come? And I said, mine not reason why, mine but to do what the Great Black Buddha orders-'
'Is that what you call Jason Washington?' Mrs. Lewis interrupted. ' That's terrible! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!'
'Think about it, Mom,' Tiny said, unrepentant.
She did, and laughed, but repeated, 'That's terrible.'
'And?' Lieutenant Lewis prompted.
'And Carter said, 'I don't suppose it matters, in either case, what you're doing is baby-sitting a honky.' '
'Which means what?'
'How the hell do I know, Pop?'
'Watch your tone of voice, please.'
'Sorry, Dad.'
'I don't ordinarily listen to gossip-'
'Watch your father's nose grow, honey.'
'-but the word is that Harris is having a problem with liquor. Is that what Carter meant about baby- sitting?'
'I guess so. He's been on a bender. Washington's taking care of him.'
'How, taking care of him?'
'I keep him out of bars during the day, and at night he's staying with the Washingtons.'
'Martha must love that,' Mrs. Lewis said.
'Jason and Tony Harris have been close for years,' Lieutenant Foster said, thoughtfully. 'Is that how you feel about it, Foster? That you' re baby-sitting a honky?'
'Hey, Pop. Tony Harris has been good to me. And Matt Payne is sort of a friend of mine.'
''Sort of a friend'?' Mrs. Lewis asked.
'Well, I haven't been invited to the Rose Tree Hunt Club yet, but yeah. We're friends. We get along well. If Harris wasn't sick, I would have liked to be one of the guys sitting on him.'
'I don't like the idea of one police officer using the word 'honky' to describe another,' Lieutenant Lewis said.
'Pop, I didn't use it. Carter did.'
'You repeated it.'
'My mistake,' Tiny said, a hint of anger in his voice. 'Where did you see Wohl-InspectorWohl?'
'You know that your friend Payne is being protected in his apartment?'
Tiny nodded.
'I was supposed to have the midnight to eight tour before-my boss – got me out of it.'
'I was driving by and saw some activity in the garage. A lab van, specifically. So I stopped. Someone, presumably the low-lifes who are calling themselves a Liberation Army, did a job on his car.'
'What kind of a job?'
'Slashed the tires. Scraped the paint.'
'That's going too far!' Tiny said. 'That's absolutely sacrilegious! That's not an automobile, it's a work of art!'
'Now it's a work of art with flat tires and a scratched paint job,' Lieutenant Lewis said.
'And Wohl was there?'
'InspectorWohl was there. And nearly as offended by the desecration of the work of art as you are.'
'What kind of a car are you talking about?' Mrs. Lewis asked.
'A Porsche 911.'
'Very expensive,' Lieutenant Lewis said. 'Only rich people can afford them-lawyers,doctors, people like that-'
'Stop, Foster!' Mrs. Lewis said. 'Not one more word!'
'What's the matter with you?'
'You know damned well what's the matter. You are not going to needle him the rest of his life about not being a doctor! He wants to be a cop. What's wrong with that? I'm married to a cop. You should be proud that he wants to do what you do!'
