“I’ll have Washington call you after the line-up. Lineups.”
“Lineups. Lineups, for Christ’s sake,” Lowenstein said, chuckling. He touched Wohl’s arm, nodded at Coughlin, and walked out of the room.
“I appreciate your concern for Matt, Peter,” Coughlin said.
“Don’t be silly.”
“Well, I do,” Coughlin said, and then he left.
Wohl started to follow him, but as he passed through the commissioner’s office, the commissioner’s secretary asked him how Matt was doing, and he stopped to give her a report.
In the elevator on the way to the lobby, he remembered that he had promised Matt to have a word with his father. He stopped at the counter, asked for a phone book, and called Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo & Lester.
Brewster C. Payne gave him the impression he had expected him to call. He asked where Wohl was, and then suggested they have a drink in the Union League Club.
“Thank you, I can use one,” Peter said.
“I think we can both use several,” Payne said. “I’ll see you there in a few minutes.”
Wohl started to push the telephone back to the corporal on duty, and then changed his mind and dialed Dave Pekach’s number and explained why a Highway car was going to have to be at Goldblatt’s.
Lari Matsi came into Matt Payne’s, carrying a small tray with a tiny paper cup on it.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
“I’m watching The Dating Game on the boob tube. That tell you anything?”
“Maybe you have more culture than I’ve been giving you credit for,” she said. “Anyway, take this and in five minutes you won’t care what’s on TV.”
“I don’t need that, thank you.”
“It’s not a suggestion. It’s on orders.”
“I still don’t want it,” he said.
She was standing by the side of the bed. She looked down at it, and grew serious.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to have that in here.”
He followed her eyes, and saw that she was looking at the revolver Wohl had given him, its butt peeking out from a fold in the thin cotton blanket.
He took the revolver and put it inside the box of Kleenex on the bedside table.
“Okay?” he asked.
“No. Not okay. You want to tell me what’s going on here?”
“Like what? I’m a cop. Cops have guns.”
“They moved you in here, and your name is not Matthews, which is the name on the door.”
“I don’t suppose you’d believe that I’m really a rock-and-roll star trying to avoid my fans?”
“Do they really think somebody’s going to try to—do something to you?”
“No. But better safe than sorry.”
“I suppose this is supposed to be exciting,” she said. “But what I really feel is that I don’t like it at all.”