As Payne did, he watched Coughlin go back to his leather chair. Coughlin wasn’t wearing the double-breasted jacket of his suit, and Payne noticed that he also wasn’t wearing his Smith amp; Wesson snub-nosed.38 Special revolver. Nor did he have the well-worn holster threaded on his belt on the right side.
Coughlin had slipped the five-shot revolver, butt forward, into that same holster every morning for thirty- seven years, since the day he reported on the job as a rookie detective. Payne knew that it was the same standard sidearm that Philadelphia Police Department cops had carried for damn near forever, including his father and his uncle when they were killed.
Then Payne saw, sitting on top of a copy of The Peace Officer, the official publication of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5, a new black molded plastic clamshell box. It had the logotype GLOCK-the big G circling the smaller LOCK-molded into its top and bottom.
“That’s not a new pistol, is it, Uncle Denny?”
Coughlin looked at it with a sour face.
“Yours?” Payne pursued.
“Mariani insisted.”
Payne raised his eyebrows at the mention of the police commissioner.
“Since the department now is issuing the Glock 17,” Coughlin went on in explanation, “he said that I needed to set an example.”
Payne nodded, then said, “Why not one of the other Glocks, the optional models?”
Police Commissioner Mariani had lobbied-and, remarkably, won the battle-for the city to allow the police to carry more firepower. The Philadelphia Police Department issued to every officer on the force a Glock Model 17-at no cost, after they of course had qualified with the weapon at the department gun range. The 17 was a semiautomatic pistol chambered for the nine-millimeter round. It could hold eighteen rounds, one in the throat and seventeen in the magazine.
The commissioner, even more remarkably, had also lobbied for and, beyond belief, gotten approval for four Alternative Service Weapons. These were also Glock models, two of the models chambered in.40-caliber and two in.45-caliber.
It had been remarkable because there were those of the mind-set-said mind-set more often than not being of one’s head being deeply stuck in the sand, or firmly up one’s ass-that it was a danger to the very public they were sworn to protect for the police to carry such powerful weapons.
All sorts of wild-eyed hysteria surfaced during the debates as to just how powerful a firearm a police officer should have. There had even been a troop of protesters who-perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not-looked like they might rob a bank at any moment. They had marched on City Hall carrying posters bearing a red circle with a diagonal bar across photos of Clint Eastwood as “Dirty Harry,” the movie character cop who’d terrorized the sensibilities of San Franciscans.
But in the streets of Philly, as more and more gun battles with bad guys-and gun battles between the bad guys themselves-showed that damn near none of the thugs carried a.38-caliber or similar-size weapon, cooler heads successfully argued that the cops were being outgunned.
For a Philly cop to carry one of the larger-caliber pistols as his duty weapon, there were rules, of course. Chief among them: The officer had to buy the larger-caliber gun with personal funds. The department would issue only the Model 17 at no cost. Second, the alternative weapon had to be inspected. Which meant undergoing a mandatory inspection by a department armorist at the police department firing range.
Then there was the actual qualification test. If the officer successfully completed this, she or he was given a certification card that had to be carried on their person at all times. There was also the rule that the pistols could be loaded only with department-issued ammunition-165-grain tactical rounds in.40-caliber and 230-grain tactical rounds in.45-caliber. That ammo had to be used exclusively, whether the officer was on duty or off duty. Finally, upon meeting all the requirements to carry one of the larger-bore Glocks, the officer had to give the department- issued Model 17 back to the department.
There were absolutely no exceptions to the rules-except, of course, one.
The Special Operations Bureau was tasked, as its name suggested, to perform particularly extraordinary ops. Emphasis on extraordinary. And it was in that environment that Matt Payne, before the police force even began issuing Glocks, began carrying his Colt Officer’s Model.45-caliber semiautomatic. Even after leaving Special Operations (and its commander, Peter Wohl, his rabbi) for Homicide, he continued carrying it, having successfully argued that (a) it had been grandfathered in as an approved weapon, and (b) it could be considered not as powerful as the Glock.45 because it held fewer of the 230-grain tactical rounds that he fed it.
Payne devoutly believed that his Colt, a smaller version of the dependable John Browning-designed Model 1911 semiautomatic that many argued damn near single-handedly won the Second World War, was superior to the Glock in almost every way. And its size sure as hell made it better for concealed carry.
Matt motioned toward the pistol box. “May I?”
Coughlin snorted. “Go ahead. But be damned careful, Matty. When you’re around guns, they tend to go off.”
Matt looked quickly at him and saw that Coughlin was smiling.
Matt unsnapped the two silver latches, opened the box, and removed the weapon. He automatically took care to keep the muzzle pointed down, then ejected the magazine and pulled back the slide enough to see that no round was in the chamber.
“Nice,” he said.
“Damn thing’s a monster compared to my.38.” He paused. “Which, I might add, served me just fine.”
“You never had to use it, Uncle Denny.”
“Precisely.”
“So why the nine-millimeter?”
“You’re not listening, Matty. I’m supposed to be setting an example. Besides, my.38 was fine. Why carry around an elephant gun? And I sure as hell didn’t want to have to buy a damned gun. If Mariani is forcing me to take one, it’d damn well better be a free one.”
Payne put the pistol back in the box, closed the lid, and snapped the latches shut.
“You know what they say about a nine-millimeter, don’t you, Uncle Denny?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“It’s a.45 set to ‘stun.’ ”
Coughlin grunted.
“Thank you for that educational ballistic tip, Marshal Earp.”
Payne shrugged and smiled.
“ ‘If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared,’ ” Payne quoted.
Coughlin’s Irish temper flared: “Jesus H. Christ, Matty!”
Payne put his hands up, palms out. “Hey, Niccolo Machiavelli said that, not me. Early 1500s, I believe it was.”
“If you think that kind of talk’s going to help with your case…” He paused, shaking his head. “Well, I suppose we actually should get into that, into why you’re here.”
“I heard-” Payne began just as the intercom speaker on the phone buzzed.
“Hold that thought, Matty.”
Coughlin pushed a button. “Yeah? What is it, Frank?”
“Call for you holding on line four, Chief,” Hollaran’s voice came over the speaker. “Sorry to interrupt, but I think you want this one. Could be educational for Sergeant Payne to listen in on.”
Coughlin looked to the bottom edge of the phone and saw the blinking red light under one of the row of five buttons, three of which were regular phone lines and two of which were secure lines.
He punched the SPEAKERPHONE button on the phone base, then punched the button above the blinking light and said, “Commissioner Coughlin.”
“How’s my favorite small-town police chief?” a soft feminine voice inquired.
Coughlin’s face lit up and Payne smiled at the sound of the voice.
Coughlin then glanced beyond Payne. Across the room was his I Love Me wall, and there he saw the picture of him standing beside the diminutive Liz Justice. The photograph had been taken two years earlier, when the
