"So you know he has diarrhea of the mouth?"
"I used those very words, Mr. Mayor, when Icounseled him last night," Peter said.
Carlucci glowered at Wohl for a moment and then laughed. " Youcounseled him, did you, Peter?"
"Yes, sir."
"I don't know why the hell I'm laughing," the mayor said. "That was pretty goddamn embarrassing at the Browne place. Dick Detweiler was goddamn near hysterical. Christ, hewas hysterical."
"Mr. Mayor," Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin said, "I think any father naturally would be upset to learn that his daughter was involved with narcotics."
"Particularly if he heard it third hand, the way Detweiler did," the mayor said icily, "instead of, for example, from a senior police official directly."
"Yes, sir," Coughlin said.
His Honor the Mayor was not through.
"Maybe anIrish police official," Carlucci said. "The Irish are supposed to be good at politics. An Irishman could have told Detweiler about his daughter with a little Irish-what is it you call your bullshit, Denny, the kind you just tried to lay on me?-blarney."
"Sir," Wohl said, "it could have been worse."
"How the hell could it have been worse?" the mayor snapped. "Do you have any idea how much Detweiler contributed to my last campaign? Or phrased another way, howlittle he, and his friends, will contribute to my next campaign unless we put away, for a long time-and more importantly, soon-whoever popped his daughter?"
"We have information that Miss Detweiler was involved with Tony the Zee, Mr. Mayor. He may not know that. Payne didn't tell him."
The mayor looked him, his eyebrows raised in incredulity.
"Oh,shit!" he said. "How good is your information?"
"My source is Payne. He got it from the Nesbitt boy-the Marine?who got it from the Browne girl," Wohl said.
"Then it's just a matter of time until Detweiler learns that too," the mayor said.
"Even if that's true, Mr. Mayor," Dennis Coughlin said, "I don't see how he could hold that against you."
The mayor snapped his head toward Coughlin and glowered at him a moment. "I hope that's more of your fucking blarney, Denny. I would hate to think that I have a chief inspector who is so fucking dumb, he believes what he just said."
"Jerry, for chrissake," Chief Inspector Matt Lowenstein said. It was the first time he had spoken. "Denny's on your si
de. We all are."
Carlucci glared at him, then looked as if he were going to say something but didn't.
"I really don't see, Jerry," Coughlin said reasonably, "how he could hold his daughter's problems against you."
"Okay," Carlucci said, his tone as reasonable, "I'll tell you how. We have a man who has just learned his daughter is into hard drugs. And, according to Peter, here, is about to learn that she has been running around with a guinea gangster. What's your information, Peter? What does 'involved with' mean? That she's been fucking him?"
"Yes, sir. Payne seemed pretty sure it was more than a casual acquaintance."
"Okay. So what we have here is a guy who is a pillar of the community. Hiswife is a pillar of the community. They have done everything they could for their precious daughter. They have sent her to the right schools and the right churches and seen that she associates with the right kind of people- like young Payne, for example. And all of a sudden she gets herself popped with a shotgun, and then it comes out that she's a junkie and fucking a guinea gangster. How can that be? It's certainly nother fault, and it's certainly nottheir fault. So it has to be society's fault. And who is responsible for society? Who is supposed to put gangsters and drug dealers in jail? Why, thepolice are. That's why wehave police. If thepolice had done their job, there would be no drugs on the street, and if thepolice had done their job, that low-life guinea gangster would have been put in jail and would not have been getting in precious Penny's pants. That's what Detweiler called his daughter last night, by the way: 'precious Penny.' Is any of this getting through to you, Denny?"
"Yeah, sure," Coughlin said resignedly. "It's not fair, but that's the way it is."
"Nothing personal, Denny, but that's the first intelligent thing you've said so far this morning," the mayor said. He let that sink in a moment, then turned to Peter Wohl. "What I told Detweiler last night-not knowing, of course, that his precious Penny was fucking DeZego-was that we were close to finding the man who had shot her. How much more of an asshole is that going to make me look like, Peter?"
"We may be on to something," Wohl said carefully.
"Christ, I hope so. What?"