The tall, trim, simply dressed woman who looked a good deal younger than her years stood for a moment in the door to the lounge of the Union League Club, running her eyes over the people in the room, now crowded with the after-work-before-catching-the-train crowd.
Finally, with a small, triumphant smile, she pointed her finger at a table across the room against the wall.
“There,” she announced to her companion.
“I see them,” he replied.
She walked to the table, with her companion trailing behind her, and announced her presence by reaching down and picking a squat whiskey glass up from the table.
“I really hope this is not one of those times when you’re drinking something chic,” she said, taking a healthy swallow.
Mr. Brewster Cortland Payne, who had just set the drink (his third) down after taking a first sip, looked up at his wife and, smiling, got to his feet.
Patricia Payne sat down in one of the heavy wooden chairs.
“I needed that,” she said. “Denny has been trying to convince me, with not much success, that we don’t have anything to worry about. Has Inspector Wohl been more successful than he has?”
“I hope so,” Peter Wohl said. “Good evening, Mrs. Payne. Chief.”
“Peter,” Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin said. “Brewster.”
Brewster C. Payne raised his hand, index finger extended, above his shoulders. The gesture was unnecessary, for a white-jacketed waiter, who provided service based on his own assessment of who really mattered around the place, now that they were letting every Tom, Dick, and Harry in, was already headed for the table.
“Mrs. Payne, what can I get for you?”
“You can get Mr. Payne whatever he was drinking, thank you, Homer,” she said. “I just stole his.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the waiter said with a broad smile. “And you, sir?”
“The same please,” Coughlin said.
“To answer your question, Pat,” Brewster C. Payne said, “Yes. Peter has been very reassuring.”
“Did he reassure you before or after you heard about the Molotov cocktail?” Patricia Payne asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I was in the
bar of the Bellevue-Stratford, being reassured by Denny,” she said, “when Tom Lenihan came running in and said, if I quote him accurately, ‘Jesus Christ, Chief, you’re not going to believe this. They just threw a Molotov cocktail at the cars guarding Monahan.’”
“My God!” Payne said.
“At that point, I thought I had better get myself reassured by you, darling, so I called the office and they said you had come here. So Denny brought me. So how was your day?”
Both Wohl and Payne looked at Chief Coughlin, and both shared the same thought, that they had never seen Coughlin looking quite so unhappy.
“Oh, Denny, I’m sorry,” Patricia Payne said, laying her hand on his. “That sounded as if I don’t trust you, or am blaming you. I didn’t mean that!”
“From what I know now,” Coughlin said, “what happened was that when Washington picked up Monahan at Goldblatt’s to take him to the Roundhouse, somebody tossed a bottle full of gasoline down from a roof, or out of a window. It bounced off the Highway car, broke when it hit the street, and then caught fire.”
“Anyone hurt?” Wohl asked.
“No. The burning gas flowed under a car on South Street and set it on fire.”
“Monahan?”
“I got Washington on the radio. He said Monahan was riding with him. They were behind the Highway car, and one of your unmarked cars was behind them. Monahan is all right. He’s at the Roundhouse right now. The lineups at the Detention Center will go on as scheduled, as soon as they finish at the Roundhouse.”