full of nuns, and these thieves were almost always juveniles, who were treated as wayward children, and instead of going to jail entered a program intended to turn them into productive, law-abiding adults.
Very few strippers were ever caught, either, because they were skilled enough to strip a car of everything worth a couple of dollars in less than half an hour. They waited for the local RPC to drive past, in other words, and then stripped the car they had boosted secure in the knowledge that the RPC wouldn’t be back in under an hour.
But under the law, it was felony theft and had to be investigated with the same degree of thoroughness as, say, a liquor store burglary.
In practice, Detective Payne had learned, such investigations were assigned to detectives such as himself, in the belief that not only did it save experienced detectives for more important jobs, but also might, in time, teach rookies to be able to really find their asses with both hands.
Carrying the clipboard with him, Detective Payne got out of his car and walked to the station wagon. He was not surprised when he put his head into the window to see that the radio was gone from the dash, and that the keys were still in the ignition.
Moreover, these thieves had been inconsiderate. If they had been considerate, they would have dumped this car by a deserted lot, or in Fairmount Park or someplace not surrounded by occupied dwellings. Now he would have to go knock on doors and ask people if they had seen anyone taking the tires and wheels off the Ford station wagon down the street, and if so, what did they look like.
An hour later, he finished conducting the neighborhood survey. Surprising him not at all, none of the six people he interviewed had seen anything at all.
He got back in the unmarked car and drove back to East Detectives. Not without difficulty, he found a place to park the car in the tiny parking lot, went inside, found an empty desk and a typewriter not in use, and began to complete the paperwork. Once completed, he knew, it would be carefully filed and would never be seen by human eyes again.
At five minutes to four, when his eight-to-four tour would be over, Detective Payne became aware that someone was standing behind him. He turned from the typewriter and looked over his shoulder. Sergeant Aloysius J. Sutton, a ruddy-faced, red-haired, stocky man in his late thirties, his boss, was smiling at him.
“I wish I could type that fast,” Sergeant Sutton said admiringly.
“You should see me on a typewriter built after 1929,” Payne replied.
Sutton chuckled. “You got time for a beer when we quit?”
“Sure.”
The invitation surprised him. Having a beer with his newest rookie detective did not seem to be Sutton’s style. But it was obviously a command performance. Rookie detectives did not refuse an invitation from their sergeant.
“Tom & Frieda’s, you know it?”
Matt Payne nodded. It was a bar at Lee and Westmoreland, fifty yards from East Detectives.
“See you there.”
Sergeant Sutton walked away, back to his desk just outside Captain Eames’s office, and started cleaning up the stuff on the desk.
What the hell is this all about? Jesus Christ, have I fucked up somehow? Broken some unwritten rule? It has to be something like that. I am about to get a word-to-the-wise. But what about?
At five past four, Matt Payne left the squad room of East Detectives and walked down the street to Tom & Frieda’s. Sergeant Sutton was not in the bar and grill when he got there, and for a moment, Matt was afraid that he had been there, grown tired of waiting, and left. Left more than a little annoyed with Detective Payne.
But then Sutton, who had apparently been in the gentlemen’s rest facility, touched his arm.
“I’m sorry I’m late, Sergeant.”
“In here, you can call me Al. We’re . . . more or less . . . off duty.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Ortlieb’s from the tap all right?”
“Fine.”
“What you have to do is find a bar where they sell a lot of beer, so what they give you is fresh. Most draft beer tastes like horse piss because it’s been sitting around forever.”
He is making conversation. He did not bring me here because he likes me, or to deliver a lecture on the merits of fresh beer on draft. I wish to hell he would get to it.
“You got anything going that won’t hold for three days?” Sergeant Al