gesture of friendliness as Martinez opened it and stepped outside.
Wohl had just about finished carefully washing his Jaguar when Detective Payne drove onto the cobblestone driveway in his silver Porsche. It showed signs of just having gone through a car wash. The way Payne was dressed, Wohl thought, he looked like he was about to pose for an advertisement in Esquire—for either Porsche automobiles, twenty-five-year-old Ambassador Scotch, or Hart, Schaffner & Marx clothing.
Payne handed Wohl a paper bag.
“Present,” he said.
“What is it?”
“The latest miracle automobile polish. It’s supposed to go on and off with no perceptible effort, and last for a thousand years.”
I am not going to ask him what’s on his mind. In his own time, he will tell me.
“And you believe this?”
“Also in the tooth fairy. But hope springs eternal. I didn’t think you would be willing to try it on the Jag, but I thought we could run a comparison test. I’ll do mine with this stuff, and you do the Jag with your old-fashioned junk . . .”
“Which comes all the way from England and costs me five ninety-five a can . . .”
"... and we’ll see which lasts longer. You’ll notice mine is also freshly washed.”
“In a car wash,” Wohl said. “I’m surprised you do that. Those brushes are supposed to be hell on a finish. They grind somebody else’s dirt into your paint.”
He’s looking at me as if I just told him I don’t know how to read.
“You don’t believe that?” Wohl asked.
“You know the car wash on Germantown Avenue, right off Easton Road?”
Wohl nodded.
“For four ninety-five, they’ll wash your car by hand.”
“I didn’t know that,” Wohl confessed.
“They don’t do a bad job, either,” Matt said, gesturing toward the Porsche.
Wisdom from the mouth of babes, Wohl thought. One is supposed to never be too old to learn.
“So I see,” Wohl said.
Payne took off his linen jacket, and then rolled up the sleeves of his light blue button-down collar shirt. Then he extended his can of car polish toward Wohl.
“You want to do a fender, or the hood, with this? Then you could really tell.”
“The bonnet,” Wohl said. “On a Jaguar the hood is the bonnet. And thank you, no.”
Matt opened the hood of his rear-engined Porsche, which was of course the trunk, and took out a package of cheese cloth.
Why don’t I spend the two bucks? Instead of using old T-shirts? Except when I can’t find an old T-shirt and have to use a towel that costs more than two bucks?
“So how is life treating you, Matt?” Wohl asked.
“I thought you would never ask,” Matt said. “The good news is that I won six thousand bucks, actually sixty-seven hundred, in Las Vegas, and the bad news is that the IRS gets their share.”
He is not pulling my leg. Jesus Christ, six thousand dollars! Nearer seven!
“What were you doing in Las Vegas?”
“I was sent out there to bring Penny Detweiler home from the funny farm.”
That was a surprising announcement, and Wohl wondered aloud: “How did you get time off?”
“Ostensibly, I was helping with the paperwork in Chief Lowenstein’s office. That is the official version.”
“Start from the beginning,” Wohl said.
Payne examined a layer of polish he had just applied to the front of the Porsche before replying. Then he looked at Wohl.
“My father asked me to meet him for drinks. When I got there, Denny Coughlin was there. They asked me how I would like to go to Nevada and bring Penny home, and I said I would love that, but unfortunately, I couldn’t get the time off. Then Uncle Denny said, ‘That’s been taken care of,’ and Dad said, ‘Here’s your tickets.’ ”
I wonder what Matt Lowenstein thought about that? Not to mention Matt’s sergeant, lieutenant, and captain in EDD.
“They won’t hassle you in East Detectives, Matt, if that’s what you’re worrying about. That couldn’t have happened without Chief Lowenstein knowing about it, ordering it. Your response should be the classic ‘mine not to reason why, mine but to do what I’m told.’ ”
“I’m not worried about East Detectives. What I’m wondering about is how you feel about me coming back to Special Operations. ”
Shit! That’s disappointing. I didn’t think he’d ask to get transferred back. I thought he was smart enough to know that would be a lousy idea, and I didn’t think he would impose on our friendship for a favor. Helping him out of a jam is one thing, doing something for him that would be blatant special treatment is something entirely