different. But, on the other hand, the only thing he’s known since he’s joined the Department is special treatment.
“Matt,” Wohl said carefully. “I think your coming back to Special Operations would be, at the very least, ill-advised. And let me clear the air between us. I’m a little disappointed that you can’t see that, and even more disappointed that you would ask.”
Wohl saw on Matt’s face that what he had said had stung. He hated that. But he had said what had to be said.
Matt bent over the front of the Porsche and applied wax to another two square feet. Then he straightened and looked at Wohl again.
“Well, I suspected that I might not be welcomed like the prodigal returning to the fold, but just to clear the air between us, Inspector, I didn’t ask to come back. You or anybody else. I was told to report to Chief Lowenstein’s office at half past one yesterday, and when I got there, a sergeant told me to clean out my locker in East and report to Special Operations Monday morning.”
“Goddammit!” Wohl exploded.
“I could resign, I suppose. Suicide seems a bit more than the situation calls for,” Matt said.
“You can knock off the ‘Inspector’ crap. I apologize for thinking what I was thinking. I should have known better.”
“Yeah, you should have known better,” Matt said. It was not the sort of thing a very junior detective should say, and it wasn’t expressed in the tone of voice a junior detective should use to a staff inspector who was also his division commander. But Wohl was not offended.
For one thing, I deserve it. For another, in a strange perverted way, that was a remark by one friend to another.
“I wouldn’t have said what I said, obviously, if I had known you were coming back,” Wohl said. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“It was on the teletype,” Matt said, and reached into the Porsche and handed Wohl a sheet of teletype paper. “Charley McFadden took that home from Northwest Detectives.”
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“I wonder,” Wohl said, and there was sarcasm and anger in his voice, “why no one thought I would be interested in this?”
“Maybe what you need is a good administrative assistant, to keep something like this from happening again,” Matt said.
“No,” Wohl said. “I’ve got an administrative assistant. Until I figure out what to do with you, you can work for Jason Washington.”
Before the words were out of his mouth, Wohl had modified that quick decision. Matt would possibly wind up working for Jason somewhere down the line, he decided, but where he would go to work immediately was for Jack Malone.
Malone could use some help, certainly, in his new role in Dignitary Protection. And if Matt were working with him, he would not only learn something that would broaden his general education, but also just might keep Malone from doing something stupid. Malone was a good cop, but working with the feds was always risky.
Wohl decided this was not the time to tell Matt he had changed his mind. Instead, he changed the subject.
“We’re invited to a party,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Steak, you know, barbecue, at Martha Peebles’s. Dave Pekach called up right after you did, invited me and, when I said you were coming over, said to bring you too.”
“Fine,” Matt said. “Maybe he’ll glad to have me back.”
“It is not nice to mock your superiors. Detective Payne. Make a note of that. Carve it in your forehead with a dull knife, for example.”
Payne laughed, and Wohl smiled back at him.
I am glad he’s back.
He remembered an insight he’d had about Matt Payne several months before, when Matt was still in Special Operations and had found himself in trouble not of his own making, and Wohl had jumped in with both feet in his defense before asking why. The reason, he had finally concluded, was that he thought of Matt as his younger brother.
“How is the Detweiler girl?” Wohl asked.
“She looks all right,” Matt said.
“People do lick their drug problems, Matt.”
“And I’ll bet if you looked hard enough, you could find a pig who really can whistle.”
“Is that a general feeling, or is there something specific?”
Matt looked at him and shrugged helplessly.
“She told me she was in love with Tony the Zee,” Matt said.
“Have you considered that may be simple female insanity, not connected with narcotics?”