The Witness (Badge of Honor 4)

“This is my apartment,” Payne said with a smile. “You owe us a cheese-steak.”

“I insist.”

“So do I,” Payne said, and put the neck of the Tuborg bottle to his lips.

“Well, okay,” Malone said, putting his wallet back in his pocket.

Did he do that because he is a nice guy? Or because he is the last of the big spenders? Or was I just lucky? Or has Wohl had a confidential chat with him about The New Lieutenant, and his problems, financial and otherwise?

“You two eat in the living room,” McFadden ordered, “so I can have the table in here.”

“Among Officer McFadden’s many, many other talents,” Payne said cheerfully, “he assures me that he is the product of four years of mechanical drawing in high school. He is going to prepare drawings of that goddamn old building that will absolutely dazzle Inspector Wohl.”

McFadden smiled. “My father works for UGI,” he said. “My mother wanted me to go to work there as a draftsman.” (United Gas Industries, the Philadelphia gas company.)

“My father’s a fireman,” Malone said. “I was supposed to be a fireman.”

“Let’s eat, before they get cold,” Payne said. “Or do you think I should stick them into the oven on general principles?”

McFadden laid a hand on the aluminum. “They’re still hot. Or warm, anyway.”

He opened one of the packages. Payne took plates, knives and forks, and a large package of dinner-sized paper napkins from a closet.

“You going to need any help?” he asked McFadden.

“No,” McFadden said flatly. “Just leave me something to eat and leave me alone.”

“You’d better put an apron on, or you’ll get rib goo all over your uniform,” Payne said.

“They call that barbecue sauce,” McFadden said. “‘Rib goo’! Jesus H. Christ!”

Payne handed him an apron with MASTER CHEF painted on it. Then he began to pass out the ribs, cole slaw, baked beans, salad, rolls, and other contents of the aluminum-wrapped packages.

A piece of paper fluttered to the floor. Malone picked it up. It was the cash register tape from Ribs Unlimited. Three complete Rib Feasts at $11.95 came to $35.85. They had charged Payne retail price for the BEER, IMPORT, which, at $2.25 a bottle, came to $27.00. With the tax, the bill was nearly seventy dollars.

And Payne had tipped the manager and both cooks. Christ, that’s my food budget for two weeks.

“Fuck it,” McFadden said. “Eat first, work later. McFadden’s Law.”

He sat down and picked up a rib and started to gnaw on it.

“That makes sense,” Payne said. “Sit down, Lieutenant. They do make a good rib.”

“I know. I used to take my wife there,” Malone said without thinking.

McFadden silently ate one piece of rib, and then another. He picked up his beer bottle, drank deeply, burped, and then delicately wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.

“Are you going to tell me, Lieutenant, what’s going on at half past four tomorrow morning at that school building?” McFadden suddenly asked. “He won’t tell me.”

“What makes you think something’s going on?”

“The word is out that something is,” McFadden said.

“Can I tell you without it getting all over Highway before half past four tomorrow morning?” Malone replied, after a moment’s hesitation.

“Then you’d better not tell me, Lieutenant,” McFadden said. “Not that I would say anything to anybody—just between you, me, and the lamppost, Lieutenant, the only thing Highway has going for me is that it keeps me from doing school crossing duty in a district—but Highway is going to find out, and I wouldn’t want you to think I was the one who told them.”

“He’s right, Lieutenant,” Payne said. “If Charley knows something’s going to happen, so does everybody in Highway, and they will snoop around until they find out what.”