“Six o’clock, sir. Good morning.”
It was the voice of the tour lieutenant at Bustleton and Bowler. The voice was familiar, and so was the face he could put to it—that of a lieutenant newly assigned to Special Operations—but he could not come up with a name.
“Good morning,” Wohl said, as cheerfully as he could manage. “How goes the never-ending war against crime?”
The lieutenant chuckled.
“I don’t know about that, sir. But I can report your car is back from the garage. Shall I have someone run it over to you?”
For the first time, Wohl remembered what had happened to his car, an unmarked nearly brand-new Ford LTD four-door sedan. The sonofabitch had just died on him. He had been stopped by the red light at Mount Airy and Germantown Avenue on the way home from Commissioner Czernich’s soiree, and when the light changed, the Ford had moved fifteen feet forward and lurched to a stop.
When he tried to start it, the only thing that happened was the lights dimmed. The radio still worked, happily. He had called for a police tow truck, and then asked Police Radio to have the nearest Highway or Special Operations car meet him.
By the time the tow truck reached him, a Highway RPC, a Highway sergeant, and the Special Operations/Highway lieutenant were already there. The lieutenant had driven him home.
Wohl sat up and swung his feet out of bed, hoping to clear his brain.
“Let me think,” he said.
If they sent somebody over with his car, it would be someone who should be out on the street, or someone who was going off-duty, and thus should not be doing a white shirt a favor.
On the other hand, he was reluctant to drive his personal car over to Bustleton and Bowler for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that it might get “accidentally” bumped by a Highway Patrolman who believed Peter Wohl to be the devil reincarnate.
Peter Wohl’s personal automobile was a twenty-three-year-old Jaguar XK-120 drophead roadster. He had spent four years and more money than he liked to think about rebuilding it from the frame up.
And even if I did drive it over there, he finally decided, when the day is over I will be back on square one, since I obviously cannot drive both the Jag and the Department’s Ford back here at the same time.
“Let me call you if I need a ride, Lieutenant,” Wohl said. “If you don’t hear from me, just forget it.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll be here.”
Wohl hung up the official telephone and picked up the one he paid for and dialed a number from memory.
“Hello.”
“Peter Wohl, Matt. Did I wake you?”
“No, sir. I had to get out of bed to take a shower.”
“You sound pretty chipper this morning, Officer Payne.”
“We celibates always sleep, sir, with a clear conscience and wake up chipper.”
Wohl chuckled, and then asked, “Have you had breakfast?”
“No, sir.”
“I’ll swap you a breakfast of your choice for a ride to work. The Ford broke last night. They fixed it and took it to Bustleton and Bowler.”
“Thirty minutes?”
“Thank you, Matt. I hate to put you out.”
“You did say, sir, you were buying breakfast?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Thirty minutes, sir.”