The Victim (Badge of Honor 3)

"And then contact me and tell me when Captain Duffy will be able to see me."

"Where will you be, Inspector?"

"Around," Wohl said. "Around."

"Come on, Peter!" Washington said.

"You made your point, Jason. Leave it," Wohl said. He bumped hips with Matt, signaling he wanted to get up, then picked up the envelope with the photographs. When Matt was standing in the aisle, Wohl dropped money on the table and started to walk away. Then he turned. " Good job, Jason, coming up with the photographs. Thank you."

"Just don't do something with them that will make me regret it," Washington said.

"I told you to leave it, Jason!" Wohl said, icily furious. Then he walked out of the Oak Lane Diner and got in his car. Neither Jason Washington nor Matt Payne was surprised to see him head back downtown rather than toward Bustleton and Bowler. The Philadelphia office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was downtown.

"Until a moment ago," Washington said, "there was an element of humor in this. Now it's not at all funny."

"So he tells the FBI what he thinks of them. So what?"

Washington looked at him, as if surprised that Matt could ask such a stupid question.

"I really don't understand," Matt said.

"The FBI doesn't like criticism," he explained. "Especially in a case like this, where it's justified. So instead of admitting they acted like horses' asses, they will come up with a good reason why they didn't happen to mention to us that they had men on DeZego. 'A continuing investigation' is one phrase they use; 'classified national security matters' is another one. And they go to Commissioner Czernick and say, 'We thought we had an agreement that whenever one of your people wants something from us, he would go through Captain Duffy's Office of Extradep

artmental Affairs. Your man Wohl was just in here making all kinds of wild accusations and behaving in a most unprofessional manner."'

"But they were wrong," Matt protested.

"We don't like to admit it, but we need the FBI, use it a lot. The NCIC is an FBI operation. They have the best forensic laboratories in the world. They sometimes tip us off to things. They pass out spaces at the FBI Academy. You get an FBI expert to testify in court, the jury believes him if he announces the moon is made of green cheese. The bottom line is that we need them as much, maybe more, than they need us. For another example, the FBI was 'consulted' before we got the federal grant to set up Special Operations. If they had said-even suggested-that we wouldn't use the money wisely, we wouldn't have gotten it. So we try to maintain the best possible relationship with the FBI."

"And Wohl doesn't know that?"

"Wohl's angry. He has every right to be. He doesn't get that way very often, but when he does-"

"Shit," Matt said.

"Let's just hope he cools off a little before he storms through the door and tells the SAC what he thinks of him and the other assholes," Washington said.

"The what?"

"SAC, special agent in charge," Washington explained, translating. "There are also AACs, three of them, which stands for assistant agent in charge. But as pissed as Peter is, he's going to see the head man, not one of the underlings."

He slid off the seat and stood up.

"If you hear anything, let me know, and vice versa," he said.

"If that goddamn Dolan hadn't gotten clever-"

"Don't be too hard on him," Washington said. "I think one of the reasons Peter Wohl is so angry is that he knows that if he had a chance to take pictures of a couple of FBI clowns on a surveillance, he would have mailed them to their office too. I've pulled their chain once or twice myself. There's something in their anointed-by-theAlmighty demeanor that brings that sort of thing out in most cops."

He smiled at Matt and then walked out of the diner. Matt got in the Porsche and turned right onto North Broad Street.

A minute or two later he glanced at the passenger seat and saw that he still had the two envelopes with duplicate sets of photographs Washington had given him in City Hall.

He felt sure that the order to "give one to Chief Lowenstein and the other to Chief Coughlin" Washington had given him was intended only to unnerve Sergeant Dolan.

Since the pictures were of two goddamn FBI agents, they really had no value at all.

A moment later he had a second thought:Or did they?