The Witness (Badge of Honor 4)

“Oh, you mean, my administrative assistant?”

“You know very well what I meant. Shouldn’t he be here?”

“I believe Officer Payne is having dinner with his parents.”

“He should be here. He could meet people.”

“He already knows people.”

“I mean the right people.”

“He already knows the right people. He told me that he and his father were going to play golf with H. Richard Detweiler and Chadwick T. Nesbitt this morning.”

“Really?”

Chadwick T. Nesbitt III and H. Richard Detweiler were chairman of the board and president, respectively, of Nesfoods, International, which had begun more than a century before as Nesbitt Potted Meats and was now Philadelphia’s largest single employer.

“Now if I were interested in social climbing, I probably could have talked myself into an invitation.”

“You don’t play golf.”

“I could learn.”

“He’s a policeman now, Peter. It doesn’t matter who his family is.”

“Mother, I have no intention of telling them, but I’ll bet you a dollar to a doughnut that if Jerry Carlucci or the commissioner knew where Matt is, they would be delighted.”

Mrs. Wohl sniffed; Peter wasn’t sure what it meant.

“I’d better go see what Cohan wants,” Wohl said. “Can I trust you to go easy on the booze?”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Peter Wohl!”

“I’ll be right back,” Wohl said. “I hope.”

Deputy Commissioner-Administration Francis J. Cohan was a fair-skinned, finely featured, trim man of fifty or so. He was dressed in a suit almost identical to Peter Wohl’s, but instead of the blue button-down collar shirt and striped necktie, he wore a stiffly starched white shirt and a tie bearing miniature representations of the insignia of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

“Happy New Year, Commissioner,” Wohl said. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

“Happy New Year, Peter,” Cohan said, smiling and offering his hand. “Yes, I did. Why don’t we get ourselves a fresh drink and find a quiet corner someplace? What is that, champagne?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When did you start drinking that?”

“As soon as I saw the bottles with ‘Moet et Chandon’ on them. This is first-class stuff.”

“It gives me a headache.”

“May I say I admire your taste in suits, Commissioner?”

Cohan chuckled. “I noticed,” he said. “Makes us look like the Bobbsey Twins, doesn’t it?”

“Did you ever notice, sir, that when a man goes someplace and sees someone else with a suit like his, he thinks, ‘Well, he certainly has good taste,’ but if a woman sees somebody with a dress like hers, she wants to go home?”

“Don’t get me started on the subject of women,” Cohan said, and put his hand on Wohl’s arm and led him to the bar. “Sometimes I think the Chinese had the right idea. Just keep enough for breeding purposes and drown the rest at birth.”

Commissioner Cohan ordered a fresh Scotch and water. “And bubbly for my son here. You’d better give him two. Those look like small glasses, and this may take some time.”