possibly have his, or especially her, hand in the till,” he said. “I guess you already learned that.”
I have just been complimented.
“I’ll check this Adelaide Worner out. Where are you going to be?”
“At the bank. Tonight I’m going out to dinner.”
“Eight o’clock at the Penn-Harris too early for you?”
“No, sir. Thank you very much.”
Deitrich pulled to the curb, and Matt understood he was to get out.
“Thank you, sir.”
Deitrich nodded at him but did not speak.
Matt got out. He had no idea where he was, and had to ask directions to get back to the First Harrisburg Bank & Trust.
He called Jason Washington, was told he was not available, then tried Staff Inspector Weisbach’s number and was told he was out sick with a cold. Finally, he called Inspector Peter Wohl.
I really don’t want to talk to Wohl.
Wohl listened to his recitation of Calhoun going into a box without there being a record of it, and what he had done about it.
“Call in when you have something,” Wohl said.
“Yes, sir.”
“I had lunch with Chief Coughlin,” Wohl said. “I told him that I felt sure you were not going to do anything stupid in Harrisburg. Don’t make a liar of me, Matt.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Anything happening with your lady friend?”
“No, sir.”
Jesus, I hate to lie to him. It makes me want to throw up.
“Take care, Matt,” Wohl said and hung up.
Matt hung up, then leaned back in the high-backed executive chair.
His foot struck the attaché case half full of stolen money and knocked it over.
He sat there another minute or two, considering the ramifications of what he had done, and what he was doing.
And then he stood up, reached under the desk for the attaché case, picked it up, and walked out of the bank with it.
TWENTY
While Mr. Michael J. O’Hara of the Philadelphia Bulletin enjoyed a close personal relationship with many—indeed, almost all—of the senior supervisors of the Philadelphia Police Department, the White Shirts, as a general rule, did not provide him with the little tidbits of information from which Mr. O’Hara developed the stories in which his readers were interested.
The unspoken rules of the game were that if Mr. O’Hara posed a question to a senior White Shirt based upon what he had dredged up visiting the various districts and the special units of the Philadelphia Police Department, he would either be given a truthful answer, or asked to sit on the germ of a story, and they would get back to him later—and more important, first, before his competitors—when releasing the information would be appropriate.
The unspoken rules were scrupulously observed by both sides. The White Shirts would indeed get back to Mickey O’Hara first as soon as they could. And on his part, even if Mr. O’Hara himself uncovered the answers to the questions-on-hold, he would not print them without at least asking for the reasons he should not, and in nine occasions of ten, having been given a reason, would sit on the story until he was told it would be appropriate to publish it.
The White Shirts were aware that no manner of stern admonition to lower-ranking police officers would stop them from furnishing Mr. O’Hara with facts they thought would interest him. Ninety-five percent of the uniformed police officers of the Philadelphia Police Department thought of Mr. O’Hara as one of their own.
In each of Philadelphia’s police districts, the day-to-day administrative routines are under the supervision of a corporal. The corporal is always assisted by a “trainee,” which is something of a monumental misnomer, as the term would suggest to the layman a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, very young police officer.
Quite the reverse is true. Many trainees are veteran police officers with many years on the job, who for a variety of reasons, but often their physical condition, are not up to walking a beat, or riding around in a radio patrol car for eight hours. They don’t wish to go out on a pension, and being designated a trainee both gives them something important to do and gives the district the benefit of their long experience.
Michael J. O’Hara knew every trainee in the Philadelphia Police Department by his first name, and just about every trainee felt privileged to consider himself a friend of the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist.
When Mickey O’Hara went into the 1st District Headquarters at 24th and Wolf streets in Southwest Philadelphia, he caught the attention of the corporal behind the plate-glass window and mimed drinking from a coffee cup. The corporal smiled, gave Mickey a thumbs-up,