“How do you do?” Payne said.
“Nice to meet you,” Davis said absently, forcing a smile. He had begun to suspect that the luncheon was not going to go well. “Peter, I was thinking about Alfredo’s—”
“That’s a Mob-owned joint,” Wohl said, as if shocked at the suggestion. “I don’t know about the FBI, but we local cops have to worry about where we’re seen, isn’t that so, Officer Payne?”
“Yes, sir, we certainly do,” the young cop said, playing straight man to Wohl.
“Besides, the veal is better at Shank & Evelyn’s than at Ristorante Alfredo, wouldn’t you say, Officer Payne?”
“Yes, sir, I would agree with that.”
“Officer Payne is quite a gourmet, Walter. He really knows his veal.”
“Okay, Peter, I give up,” Davis said. “I’m sorry about making you wait. I really am. It won’t happen again.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Walter. Anyway, Officer Payne and I don’t have anything else to do but wait around to buy the FBI lunch, do we, Officer Payne?”
“Not a thing, sir.”
“I’m buying the lunch,” Davis said.
“In that case, you want us to go back and stand around on the curb for a while?”
“So, how are things, Peter?” Davis said, smiling. “Not to change the subject, of course?”
“Can’t complain,” Wohl said.
Davis had seen that they had turned left onto South Broad and were heading toward the airport.
“Where is this restaurant?” Davis asked.
“In South Philly. If you want good Italian food, go to South Philly, I always say. Isn’t that so, Officer Payne?”
“Yes, sir,” Officer Payne replied. “You’re always saying that, sir.”
“So tell me, Officer Payne, how do you like being Inspector Wohl’s straight man?”
Officer Payne turned and smiled at Davis. “I like it fine, sir,” he said.
Nice-looking kid, Davis thought.
A few minutes later Payne turned off South Broad Street, and then onto Christian, and then south onto 11th Street. A 3rd District sergeant’s car was parked in a Tow Away Zone at a corner.
“Pull up beside him, Matt,” Wohl ordered, and, when Payne did so, rolled down the window.
What Davis thought of as a real, old-time beat cop, a heavyset, florid-faced sergeant in his fifties, first scowled out of the window and then smiled broadly. With surprising agility, he got out of the car, put out his hand, and said, “Goddamn, look who’s out slumming. How the hell are you, Peter—Inspector?”
He saw me, Davis thought, and decided he should not call Wohl by his first name in front of a stranger, who is probably a senior police official.
“Pat, say hello to the headman of the FBI, Walter Davis,” Wohl said. “Walter, Sergeant Pat McGovern. He was my tour sergeant in this district when I got out of the Academy.”
“Hello, sir, an honor I’m sure,” McGovern said to Davis.
“How are you, Sergeant?”
McGovern looked at Payne, decided he wasn’t important, and nodded at him.
“Anything I can do for you?” McGovern asked.