The Witness (Badge of Honor 4)

“Help Malone, you mean?”

“Yeah. Don’t you?”

“Yeah. I would. But I think it would be stupid. And probably dangerous.”

“To your job, you mean? I don’t think you’d be likely to get shot or anything trying to catch Holland.”

“Yeah, to my job. I like my job.”

“Right. You get your rocks off stumbling around fall-down buildings in the dark with a tape measure, right?”

“You’d better finish those drawings while you can still draw a reasonably straight line.”

“Yeah. Jesus, it’s getting late, isn’t it?”

He sat down at the table. Matt went around picking up the remnants of the meal and the empty beer bottles. When he opened the cabinet under the sink, to put rib bones in the garbage can, he saw the martini glass. It had Helene’s lipstick on it. It had somehow gotten broken when they had been thrashing around on the couch.

As the memories of that filled his mind’s eye, he felt a sudden surge of desire.

My God, I’d like to be with her again!

“You going to tell me what’s happening at half past four tomorrow morning?” Charley asked.

“They know who the doers are on that Goldblatt furniture job—”

“The Islamic Liberation Army?”

“—and they’re going to pick them up all at once.”

“Highway, you mean?”

“No. Special Operations. ACT.”

“Jesus, that’s interesting. How come not Highway?”

“A couple of reasons. I think Wohl wants Special Operations—the ACT guys—to do something on their own. And I think he’s concerned that this Islamic Liberation Army thing could get out of hand.”

“What do you mean, ‘out of hand’?”

“He doesn’t want a gang of armed robbers to get away with it, or get special treatment, because they’re calling themselves a liberation army.”

“That liberation army business is bullshit, huh?”

“Yeah. And finally, Chief Lowenstein told Wohl he wanted Highway to pick up these guys. I think Wohl wants to make the point that he will take requests, or suggestions, from Lowenstein, but not orders. In other words, if Lowenstein had said he wanted ACT to make the arrests, Wohl would have sent Highway.”

“If the ACT guys blow it, Wohl’ll have egg on his face.”

“Yeah,” Matt said, “and if you should happen to be around Castor and Frankford at that time of the morning, Wohl would figure out where you heard what was happening and I would have egg, or worse, on mine.”

“Yeah, I suppose. Shit! Okay. I won’t be there.”

Matt finished cleaning up and then stood and looked over Charley’s shoulder as he worked. It became quickly apparent that Charley was a quite competent draftsman.

I didn’t learn a damned thing in high school, for that matter in college, that has any practical value.

“I wish I could do that,” Matt said.

“So do I,” McFadden said. “Then I could get the fuck out of here.”