my staff inspectors, carried away with enthusiasm, tapped the line of a Superior Court judge without getting the necessary warrant.”
“Ouch!” Peter said.
“I didn’t believe it, of course,” Marchessi said. “I don’t know what I would have done if somebody had discovered the tap.”
“What, to change the subject, Chief, do we do about this?”
“Well, I think we’ve already been shifted into high gear, whether or not we like it,” Marchessi said.
He pushed one of the buttons on his telephone, then picked up the receiver.
“Ollie, can you come in here a minute?” he said, and hung up.
Less than a minute later, Captain Richard Olsen, a large, blond-haired man of forty, wearing a blue blazer and a striped necktie, opened Marchessi’s door without knocking.
“Sir?”
“Come in and close the door, Ollie. You remember Peter, of course?”
“What brings you slumming, Inspector?”
Captain Olsen, whose exact title Wohl could not remember, provided administrative services to the fourteen staff inspectors assigned to the Internal Investigations Bureau. The staff inspectors, from whose ranks Wohl had been transferred to command of Special Operations, handled sensitive investigations, most often involving governmental corruption. Wohl liked and respected him.
“How are you, Ollie?”
“Ollie,” Marchessi asked, “if I wanted around-the-clock, moving surveillance of an off-duty Airport Unit corporal, starting right now, what kind of problems would that cause?”
Olsen thought that over for a minute.
“What squad is he assigned to?”
“Three squad, four to midnight,” Wohl furnished.
“I can handle the next twenty-four hours, forty-eight, with no trouble. After that, I’ll need some bodies. What are we looking for?”
“For openers, association with known criminals. Ultimately, to catch him smuggling drugs out of the airport.”
“Watching him on the job would be difficult.”
“I’m wondering if I can strike a deal with the feds. I know goddamned well they have people undercover out there. If I told them I’ll give them a name, if they let us have the arrest . . .”
“And if they won’t go along?” Wohl asked.
“That would bring us back to Hay-zus, wouldn’t it, Peter?” Marchessi said thoughtfully.
“Yeah,” Wohl said.
“You call it, Peter, you know him better than I do.”
“We’d be betting that Lanza has accepted the story that Martinez is out there because he failed the detective’s examination,” Wohl thought aloud. “And I would have to impress on Martinez that all, absolutely all, that he’s to do is watch him on the job. . . . Screw the feds. I don’t like the idea of having the feds catch one of our cops dirty. Let’s go with Martinez.”
“I have no idea,” Olsen said, “who or what either of you are talking about.”
“I think we should bring Martinez back in here,” Marchessi said. “I don’t think we need Payne. Except to tell him to keep his nose out of this.”
“I’ll handle Payne,” Wohl said. “I don’t think you need me, either, do you, Chief?”
“No. And you’re on the mad bomber too, aren’t you? How’re you doing?”
“We don’t have a clue who he is,” Wohl said, getting off the couch. “Thank you very much, Chief. You’ve been very understanding. ”
“I have some experience, Peter, with bright young men who sometimes get carried away. Every once in a while, they even catch the bad guys. You might keep that in mind.”
“Just between you, me, and the Swede here, I’m not nearly as angry with those two as I hope they think I am,” Wohl said.
“You could have fooled me,” Marchessi said. “Send in Martinez, will you, Peter?”
“I guess I’ll be seeing you, Peter?” Olsen said, extending his hand.
“More than you’ll want to, Ollie,” Wohl said.
At 9:24, Mr. Pietro Cassandro pulled up before Ristorante Alfredo’s entrance at the wheel of a Lincoln that had been delivered to Classic Livery only the day before. On the way from his home, Mr. Vincenzo Savarese had been concerned that there was something wrong with the car. It smelled of something burning.
Mr. Cassandro had assured Mr. S. that there was no cause for concern, that he had personally checked the car out himself, that it was absolutely okay, and that what Mr. S. was smelling was the preservatives and paint and stuff that comes with a new car, and burns off after a few miles. Like stickers and oil, for example, on the muffler.
Mr. S. had seemed only partially satisfied with Pietro’s explanation, and Pietro had decided that maybe he’d made a mistake in picking up Mr. S. in the car before he’d put some miles on it. He would never do so again. The next time Mr. S. was sent a new car,