Strawbridge amp; Clothier in Jenkintown.
'I wonder what she has inmind todo to Officer Payne?' Lomax asked, teeth clenched. 'Something frightfullynaughty, wouldn't you say?'
'We gonna stick a.45 down your throat, motherfucker, and blow your fucking brains out your ass!'
'On the whole, I think I prefer the lady's offer,' Wohl said.
'Yeah,' Lomax said.
'Her voice,' Wohl thought aloud, 'sounds vaguely familiar. '
'If he who has gone out again, thankGod,' Lomax said, in a credible mimicry, 'finds out, Payne is going to have a bullet in both legs.'
'We gonna cut your cock off and shove it down your throat, motherfucker!'
'I think that's more or less what the lady has in mind,' Wohl said. ' Except that she wants to bite it off and shove it down her own throat.'
'Peter, you're a dirty old man.'
'Shut it off, I've heard enough,' Wohl said. 'I'm on my way to ' counsel' Detective Harris. I shouldn't have a mind full of lewd images.'
'I don't think you missed anything. I'll play the whole thing to be sure. But that's about what the first one had on it.'
'Why do you think they're doing this, Warren?'
'I don't know,' Lomax said thoughtfully. 'Just to be a pain in the ass, maybe. Or they get their jollies talking nasty to a cop.'
'Wouldn't that get dull after a while? How many times can you say ' fuck you'?'
'I had the feeling too, that it's organized. Some of them sound like they're reading it.'
'That brings us back to why?'
'It could be, playing a psychiatrist, that they're getting a little worried, and calling Payne and Goldblatt's makes them think they're doing something useful for the revolution.'
'You think they're really revolutionaries?'
'They don't sound like bomb throwers. Christ, I've listened to enough of them.They sound either really bananas, or very calm, as if they're going about God's work. These clowns don't even sound particularly angry.'
'Yeah,' Wohl said. 'Well, thanks, Warren. It was good to see you.'
'I got some really dirty tapes back there, Peter,' Lomax said, gesturing toward a row of file tapes, 'and some blue movies, now that we know you react to them. Come back anytime.'
Martha Peebles woke thinking that she was-to her joyous surprise; four months before she would have given eight to five that she would end her life as a virginal spinster-not only a woman in love, but abetrothed woman.
David-sweet, shy David-had never actually proposed, of course, getting down on his knees and asking her to be his bride, giving her an engagement ring. But that didn't matter. He knew in his heart as she knew in hers that they were meant for each other, that it was ordained, perhaps by God, that they share life's joys and pains together, that they be man and wife.
Getting down on his knees wasn't David's style. She could not, now that she had time to think about it, imagine her father getting down on his knees either. And she already had an engagement ring. It had been her mother's.And it looked so good on her finger!
She got out of bed and put on a robe and went into the bath and watched David shave and then get dressed, and, hanging on his arm, her head against his shoulder, walked with him downstairs for breakfast.
Evans gave her, she thought, a knowing look.
Well, have I got a surprise for you! It's not what you think at all.
Evans disappeared into the kitchen, and then returned a moment later with the coffee service.
'Good morning, Miss Martha, Captain,' he said. 'It's cold out, but nice and clear. I hope you slept well?'
'Splendidly, thank you,' Martha said. 'Evans, Captain Pekach and I have a little announcement.'
David looked uncomfortable.
'I saw the ring when you came in, Miss Martha,' Evans said. 'Your mother and dad would be happy for you.'
He held out his hand to David.
'May I offer my congratulations, Captain?'
'Thank you,' David said, getting to his feet, visibly torn between embarrassment and pleasure.
Harriet Evans came through the swinging door to the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Martha.
'Oh, honey baby, I'm so happy for you,' she said, tears running down her cheeks. 'I knew the first time I saw you with the captain that he' d be the one.'
'I knew the first time I saw him that he was the one,' Martha said.
Harriet touched Martha's face and then went to Pekach and hugged him.
David's embarrassment passed. He was now smiling broadly.
I will never be as happy ever again as I am at this moment, Martha thought.
She waited until Evans and Harriet had gone to fetch the rest of breakfast, and then asked, 'Precious, would you do something for me?'
'Name it,' he said, after a just perceptible hesitation.
'I know how you feel about people and parties, precious. But I do want to share this withsomeone.''
'Who?' David asked suspiciously.
'I was thinking we could have a very few people, Peter Wohl, for example, in for cocktails and dinner. Nothing elaborate-'
'Wohl?'
'Well, he is your boss, and he was the first one who knew.'
'Yeah, I guess he was.'
'And he's not married, and I suspect that he's under terrible pressure-'
'You can say that again.'
'Well?'
'Well, what?'
'Would you ask him?'
'For when?'
'For tonight.'
'I'll ask him.'
'And maybe Captain and Mrs. Sabara?'
'I can ask.'
And I will think of one more couple. Somebody who can do David some good. I would like to ask Brewster and Patricia Payne, but with their boy in the condition he is, that probably isn't a good idea. I'll think of someone. Since my husband-to-be wants to be a policeman, it is clearly the duty of his wife-to-be to do everything in her power to see that he becomes commissioner.
'You ask the minute you get to work, and call me and tell me what they said.'
'That sounds like a wifely order.'
'Yes, I guess it does. Do you want to change your mind about anything?'
Smiling broadly, he shook his head no.
She got up and went to his end of the table and stood behind his chair and put her arms around him.
And so it was that when Assistant District Attorney Farnsworth Stillwell finally managed to get Staff Inspector Peter Wohl on the telephone at half past one that afternoon, Wohl was able to make the absolutely truthful statement, 'Well, that's very kind of you, Farnsworth, but I have previous plans.'
He was to take cocktails and dinner with Miss Martha Peebles and her fiance at Miss Peebles's residence, primarily because when Dave Pekach asked him, Pekach took him by surprise, and he could think of no excuse not
