take the chance,” Charley said. “If I was in your shoes, I think I’d eat my gun.”
“Maybe that’s what I should have done when I saw the cars outside.”
“Too late for that, now, Timmy. You’re going down.”
“Shit!”
In Detective McFadden’s professional judgment, Officer Calhoun was about to cry. Which meant that he had swallowed the good cop-bad cop routine hook, line, and sinker. He hadn’t thought it would be this easy, but on the other hand, Calhoun had never had a reputation for being very smart, just a good guy.
“What are you going to do, Timmy?” Charley asked sympathetically.
Calhoun looked up at McFadden. There were tears in his eyes.
“What the hell can I do?”
“Timmy, how the hell did you ever get into this mess?” Charley asked. “Didn’t you even think what would happen to Monica when you were caught?”
“We weren’t supposed to get caught!” Calhoun said indignantly. “That fucking Phebus said there was no way in the fucking world we were going to get caught!”
Bingo! Former Sergeant Anton C. Phebus! I’ll be damned!
“You’re going to have to give them Phebus, Timmy. Before somebody else does. It’s not like you’d be ratting on another cop. He’s not a cop anymore, he’s a lawyer, an assistant D.A., for Christ’s sake! And he got you into this.”
“We weren’t supposed to get caught,” Calhoun said. “Shit!”
“What we’re going to do now, Timmy, is get on the phone to Sergeant Washington, who is my boss, and a good guy. You’re going to tell him that as soon as we get to Philadelphia you’re going to give him Phebus. He already knows about Phebus, of course, but with a little luck, you’ll be giving him Phebus before anybody else on the Five Squad does. That should help you.”
Calhoun nodded.
“I’ll be right back, Timmy,” Charley said.
“Where are you going?”
Charley didn’t reply.
Detective Martinez was leaning on the wall just outside the men’s room.
“Anything?”
“You remember good old Sergeant Anton C. Phebus?”
“Yeah. What about him?”
“He’s the brains behind the whole thing.”
“No shit?”
“No shit,” Charley said. “See if you can borrow an office with a phone. I want to get Calhoun on the phone, talking to Washington, before he changes his mind.”
Although he scanned the lobby for her carefully, Matt Payne did not see Susan Reynolds when he returned to the Penn-Harris Hotel a few minutes after twelve.
As he got on the elevator, he decided he would call her at the Department of Social Services. Even with her line tapped, it would raise no suspicions on the FBI’s part if he telephoned and asked her if she was free for lunch.
As he put the key in the door of Suite 612, he sensed movement, and glanced down the corridor. Susan was trotting toward him, obviously distraught.
“Hi!” he said. “I was just about to call you.”
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“Calm down,” he said, opened the door, and waved her inside ahead of him.
He closed the door and put his arms around her.
“Where the hell were you?” she asked, her voice muffled against her chest.
“I was out arresting a dirty cop,” he said. “My boss just told me I was at the head of his good-guy list.”
She pushed away from him and looked up into his face.
“Say what you’re thinking,” she said.
“I’m not thinking anything,” he said.
“Yes, you are.”
“There was a certain irony in that, wouldn’t you think?”
“In other words, what you’re going to do for Jennie makes you feel dirty?”
“Whatever I wind up doing, honey, it’s not going to be for your pal Jennie.”
“I could meet her by myself, Matt, and try to reason with her. I really hate what this is going to do to you.”
“That’s very tempting, but for several reasons, it wouldn’t work,” Matt said. “And I’m a big boy. I know what I’m doing.”
“Why wouldn’t it work?”
“Well, I think it’s entirely possible that the FBI has got somebody on you—besides that woman in your office, I mean. If they see you leaving town, they’ll follow you—keeping track of a Porsche isn’t hard. And the minute you meet poor Jennie, surprise, surprise! Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred bucks. I don’t want you to go to jail, honey.”
“You don’t know the FBI is watching me. Watching me that close, I mean.”
“They’re tapping your phones twenty-four hours a day. Your pal keeps calling—it doesn’t matter what name she gives, I told you that, they know who it is. They’re under pressure to put the arm on Chenowith and Company. They may not have