t within the Department,” Brewster Payne said. “You think you’re getting special treatment, is that it?”
“Special, yeah, but I don’t know what kind of special,” Matt said. “To get into Highway, you usually need three years in the Department, and then there’s a long waiting list. It’s all volunteer, and I didn’t volunteer. And then, why in plainclothes?”
“Possibly it has something to do with ACT,” Brewster Payne said.
“With what?”
“ACT,” Brewster Payne said. “It means Anti-Crime Team, or something like that. It was in the paper yesterday. A new unit. You didn’t see it?”
“No, I didn’t,” Matt said. “Is the paper still around here?”
“It’s probably in the garbage,” Brewster Payne said.
Matt left the stove and went outside. His father shook his head and took over frying the Taylor ham.
“It’s a little soggy,” Matt called a moment later, “but I can read it.”
He reappeared in the kitchen with a grease-stained sheet of newspaper. When he laid it on the table, his father picked it up and read the story again.
“May I redispose of this?” he asked, when he had finished, holding the newspaper distastefully between his fingers.
“Sorry,” Matt said. “That offers a lot of food for thought,” he added. “This ACT, whatever it is, makes more sense than putting me in Highway. But it still smacks of special treatment.”
“I think you’re going to have to get used to that.”
“What do you mean?”
“How many of your peers in the Academy had gone to college?” Brewster Payne asked.
“Not very many,” Matt said.
“And even fewer had gone on to graduate?”
“So?”
“Would it be reasonable to assume that you were the only member of your class with a degree? A cum laude degree?”
“You think that’s it, that I have a degree?”
“That’s part of it, I would guess,” Brewster Payne said. “And then there’s Dennis Coughlin.”
“I think that has more to do with this than my degree,” Matt said.
“Dennis Coughlin was your father’s best friend,” Brewster C. Payne said. “And he never had a son; I’m sure he looks at vou in that connection, the son he never had.”
“I never thought about that,” Matt said. “I wonder why he never got married?”
“I thought you knew,” Brewster Payne said, after a moment. “He was in love with your mother.”
“And she picked you over him?” Matt said, genuinely surprised. “I never heard that before.”
“He never told her; I don’t think she ever suspected. Not then, anyway. But I knew. I knew the first time I ever met him.”
“Jesus!” Matt said.
“Would you like to hear my theory—theories—about this mysterious assignment of yours?”
“Sure.”