Special Operations (Badge of Honor 2)

“But now I have to take a shower and go down to the police station.”

“Sure, I understand,” Naomi said. “How come you’re home all the time in the daytime, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I have to work a lot at night,” he explained. “So instead of paying me overtime, they give me what they call compensatory time.”

“Oh,” Naomi said.

He handed her the empty Budweiser bo

ttle, smiled, and went up the stairs at the end of the building to his apartment.

The red light on his telephone answering machine in the bedroom was flashing. That was probably Sabara, he decided. But even if it wasn’t, if it was either business, or more likely his mother, who was not yet convinced that he was really eating properly living by himself that way, it would have to wait until he had his shower.

He showered and shaved in the shower, a trick he had learned in the army, and started to dress. After he pulled on a pair of DAK slacks, he stopped. He knew Mike Sabara—now the Acting Commander of Highway Patrol, until they made it official—but they were not close friends. That made it likely that what Sabara wanted was official; that he would have to meet him somewhere, and he could not do that in lemon-colored DAKs and a polo shirt.

Barefoot, wearing only the DAKs, he pushed the PLAY button on the answering machine. The tape rewound, and then began to play. He had had a number of calls while he was outside putting the seats back in the XK-120. But most of the callers had either hung up when they heard the recorded message, or cussed and then hung up. Finally, he heard Mike Sabara’s voice:

“Inspector, this is Mike Sabara. I’d like to talk to you. Would you call Radio and have them give me a number where you can be reached? Thank you.”

This was followed by his mother’s voice (“I don’t know why I call, you’re never home”) and three more beeps and clicks indicating his callers’ unwillingness to speak to a damned machine.

He looked at his watch and decided he didn’t want to hang around until Sabara called him. He dialed the number of Police Radio from memory.

“This is Isaac Seventeen,” he said. “Would you get word to Highway One that I’m at 928-5923 waiting for his call? No. Five nine two three. Thank you.”

He decided another beer was in order, and went to the refrigerator in the kitchen and got one. Then he went back into the living room and sat down on his long, low, white leather couch and put his feet on the plate-glass coffee table before it to wait for Sabara’s call.

Peter Wohl had once had a girlfriend, now married to a lawyer and living in Swarthmore, who had been an interior decorator, and who had donated her professional services to the furnishing of the apartment when it had seemed likely they would be married. From time to time he recalled what the couch, two matching chairs, and the plate-glass coffee table had cost him, even with Dorothea’s professional discount. Everytime he did, he winced.

His door chimes went off. They were another vestige of Dorothea. She said they were darling. They played the first few bars of “Be It Ever So Humble, There’s No Place Like Home.” They were “custom,” and not only had cost accordingly, but were larger than common, ordinary door chimes, so that when, post-Dorothea, he had tried to replace them, he couldn’t, without repainting the whole damned wall by the door.

It was Naomi Schneider. He was annoyed but not surprised.

“Hi,” she said. “All cleaned up?”

“I hope so,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“Mel, my husband, asked me to ask you something,” she said.

The phone began to ring.

“Excuse me,” he said, and went toward it. When he realized that she had invited herself in, he walked past the phone on the end table and went into his bedroom and picked up the bedside phone.

“Hello?”

“Tom Lenihan, Inspector,” his caller said.

Sergeant Tom Lenihan worked for Peter’s boss, Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin. He was sort of a combination driver and executive assistant. Peter Wohl thought of him as a nice guy, and a good cop.

“What’s up, Tom?”

“The Chief says he knows you worked all weekend, and it’s your day off, and he’s sorry, but something has come up, and he wants to see you this afternoon. I’ve got you scheduled for three-thirty. Is that okay?”

“What would you say if I said no?”

“I think I’d let you talk to the Chief.” Lenihan chuckled.

“I’ll be there.”