“I was with you last night, Captain, at Captain Beidermann’s retirement party. I was hoping you’d remember.”
“Oh, of course,” Sabara lied kindly. “My memory is failing.”
“I used to be a detective,” Chason said. “I went out on medical disability after twenty-six years on the job.”
“How can I help you, Mr. Chason?”
“Karl and I went to the Academy together. I just found out that he meant it when he told us last night he was going to Florida in the morning. Otherwise, I would have gone to him.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve stumbled onto something that bothers me. And I don’t want to go to Narcotics with it. Or Major Crimes. Or Intelligence.”
“Stumbled onto what?” Sabara asked, a trifle impatiently.
“I was hoping you’d have fifteen minutes to hear me out.”
“This concerns Narcotics? This is Special Operations, we don’t deal—”
“Narcotics and the mob,” Phil said. “I really think I wouldn’t be wasting your time.”
“You want to see me now, is that it?”
“I’d like to, yes.”
“You know where I am?”
“Frankford and Castor?”
“Right. I’ll be expecting you.”
“Thank you.”
Sabara hung up and then raised his voice: “Tommy!”
Officer O’Mara appeared.
“Just for your general information, Officer O’Mara, that unnamed civilian who called me has a name.”
“Yes, sir?”
“His name is Chason,” Sabara said. “And he’s coming to see me. When he comes in, bring him right in.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Chason is actually Detective Chason, Retired, Tommy.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Do you know where your father was last night, Tommy?”
“Yes, sir. He was at Captain Beidermann’s retirement party. They were classmates at the Academy.”
“Then your father was also a classmate of Detective Chason, Tommy. And he was also at Captain Beidermann’s retirement policy. Now, don’t you think you could have at least picked up a little bit of that information regarding Detective Chason before you told me a nameless civilian was on the phone?”
Officer O’Mara considered that.
“Yes, sir. I suppose I should have.”
“Good boy!” Sabara said.
“Thank you, sir,” Officer O’Mara said, pleased to have been complimented.
“Thank you for seeing me, Captain,” Phil said when Officer O’Mara—after telling Chason who his father was, and that he understood they were Academy classmates—had taken him into Sabara’s office.
“Any friend of Karl’s . . .” Sabara said. “He and I went to Wheel School together. He was a sergeant . . .”
He waved Chason into an upholstered chair.
“Now that I’m here,” Chason said, “I’m beginning to wonder if this was such a hot idea.”
“You said you wanted fifteen minutes. You’ve got it.”
“All I’ve really got is that a guy I suspect—can’t prove—has ties to the mob wants—is willing to pay a thousand dollars for—the names of some narcs, and told me a complicated bullshit story to explain why.”
“Who’s the guy you think has ties to the mob?”
“Joey Fiorello,” Phil said. “He runs a car lot on Essington Avenue—”
“I know who Joey is,” Sabara interrupted. “Why does he want the names of the narcs?”
“I don’t know, but the story he gave me is bullshit.”
“You want to start at the beginning?” Sabara said. “How did you come into contact with Joey Fiorello?”
“Well, I went out on medical disability. I got bored, so I got myself a private investigator’s license and put an ad in the yellow pages. About a year ago, Fiorello called me, said he saw the ad.”
“Called you to do what?”
“What I guess you could call a background investigation. He said he was thinking of offering a guy a job as a salesman, sales manager, and wanted to know about him. I checked out the first one, he was a solid citizen. A couple of months later, same story. Another solid citizen. And he called me a third time, just a little while ago. This time the guy was a real sleazeball, a stockbroker named Ketcham.”
“What was that name?”
“Ketcham, Ronald R. You know it?”
“Tommy!”
Officer O’Mara put his head in the door.
“See if Sergeant Washington is upstairs, will you? If he is, here, now, Tommy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who’s Sergeant Washington?” Phil asked.
“Great big black guy? Used to work Homicide? The Black Buddha?”
“Jason’s here, and a sergeant?”
“I don’t how he feels about being a sergeant, but he doesn’t like being here.”
Officer O’Mara reported that Sergeant Washington was not in the building but Detective Harris was.
“Ask him to join us, please, Tommy,” Sabara said.
“Tony Harris, too?” Phil asked.
“Equally unhappy at not being in Homicide,” Sabara said.
Tony Harris came into the office two minutes later.
“Jesus, look what the tide washed up. The poor man’s Sam Spade.”