knew I never could get in this place. And even if I did, Lanza would recognize me. I had to find out.”
“Once again, Martinez, cut the crap. Let’s have it.”
“Payne went up there, Inspector.”
"You asked Payne to follow this guy?” Wohl asked incredulously.
“I asked him if he would, if I found out Lanza was going up there.”
“And you heard he was going up there?”
“No. Payne went up there on his own. Last night. And he called me about five this morning and told me he saw Lanza sign a marker for two thousand dollars.”
“How did he know who Lanza was?”
“He was carrying, and Payne made him as a cop, and then Lanza recognized Payne. . . .”
“Lanza made Payne?”
“Not as a cop. He recognized him from Las Vegas, or something like that. But Payne said he was sure Lanza did not make him as a cop.”
I don’t need this. A bona fide lunatic is trying to disintegrate the Vice President of the United States, and we have no idea who he is or where he is, and I don’t need to be distracted by a possibly dirty cop at the airport, or another proof that Matt Payne has a dangerous tendency to charge off doing something stupid.
“What we have here is a lucky gambler. The only law we know he’s broken is to gamble in the Poconos. We wouldn’t have a police department if every cop who gambles got fired.”
“This guy is dirty, Inspector. I know it,” Martinez said.
On the other hand we have here a guy who gambles big time in Las Vegas, had almost ten thousand dollars in cash in his glove compartment yesterday, and yet was signing a marker for two thousand in a joint in the Poconos. Which means, unless he used the ten thousand to pay off his mortgage or something, that he lost it, and signed a marker for more. The money bothers me. Cops do not have that kind of money. Honest cops don’t.
And Martinez is not Matt Payne. He had two years undercover in Narcotics, and was damned good at it. He’s had the time to develop the intuition. And he’s not going off half-cocked, either, strictly on intuition. The last time he was here, he wouldn’t give me this guy’s name.
Wohl got up from the table and went into his bedroom. He took a small notebook from his bedside table, looked up a number, and dialed it.
“Chief Marchessi, this is Peter Wohl. Sorry to disturb you at home, sir. I think our man has come up with something. Have you got time in your schedule this morning to talk to us, sir?”
There was a pause.
“Thank you, Chief. We’ll be there.”
He hung up and went back in the kitchen.
“At half past eight, Hay-zus, we’re going to see Chief Inspector Marchessi at Internal Affairs. You know where it is?”
“Yes, sir. At Third and Race.”
“Be there.”
“Yes, sir.”
When Martinez had gone, Wohl went to the phone on the coffee table in his living room and dialed another number, this one from memory.
There was no answer on Detective Payne’s line, and his answering machine did not kick in, although Wohl let it ring a long time.
Finally, he hung up and looked at his watch.
Christ, I won’t get any breakfast at all!
At ten minutes past seven, Matt Payne very nearly drove Miss Penelope Detweiler’s Mercedes into the wrought-iron gate of the Detweiler estate in Chestnut Hill.
He stopped so suddenly that Penny was thrown against the dashboard.
“When the hell did you start closing the goddamned gate?”
“No, I don’t think I’m hurt, but thank you for asking, darling.”
“Sorry. Are you all right?”
“I’m going to be sore all over,” Penny said innocently. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Whatever am I going to do about you, Matthew darling?”
“What’s with the gate?”
“There’s some kind of a machine on it. It closes automatically at ten, something like that, and then opens automatically when it gets light in the morning.”
“Not this morning.”
He got out of the car and went to a telephone box and lifted a telephone receiver. It rang automatically.
“May I help you?” a voice said.
“Princess Penelope seeks entrance to the castle,” Matt said.
“Yes, sir,” the voice, which Matt now recognized as that of Jensen, the chauffeur, said. He did not seem amused.
The right half of the double gates creaked majestically open.
“I’ll tell you something else that gate does,” Matt said as he drove through it. “It permits your parents to know when your boyfriends bring you home.”