“Fuck it,” Matt Payne said. “The risk is too great, don’t tell him.”
Mickey turned to look at him in what looked like hurt surprise. “For the rest of your life, I will misspell your name,” he said.
He turned at Wohl. “Does he know what’s going on?”
“No. He’s just worried about me.”
“Okay, Peter,” O’Hara said after a moment. “Boy Scout’s Honor.” He held up three fingers as Boy Scouts do when giving their word of honor. “I won’t use any of this until you tell me I can.”
It took Wohl ten minutes, during which Mickey O’Hara asked a very few questions, all of which struck Matt as being penetrating.
“Okay,” Mickey said, finally. “So what are you doing here drinking beer with Wyatt Earp? Why aren’t you out catching—better still, shooting by accident, or at least running over—this rogue cop of yours?”
“Two reasons,” Wohl said. “For one thing, I think I would probably get caught if I did. More importantly, Jason Washington asked me to make myself scarce until five o’clock. That’s what I’m doing.”
“Can I stick around?”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Well, and all this time, I thought we were buddies,” O’Hara said. “How would you feel about me interviewing Arthur X? Getting his Islamic slant on this?”
“Will he talk to you?”
“Yeah, I think so. He likes being in the newspapers.” He saw the look on Wohl’s face. “Relax, I won’t give anything away.”
“If I thought you would, I wouldn’t have told you what I did.”
“I just had a better idea,” O’Hara said. “Fuck Arthur X. I know what he’s going to say. I’m going to see Sam Goldblatt and maybe Katz too.”
“Who?” Matt asked.
“Sam Goldblatt, of Goldblatt’s furniture,” O’Hara replied. “Ol’ Mr. I-have-to-think-about-my-wife-and-children. The one who covered his ass about these scumbags by having his eyesight conveniently fail. Phil Katz is Goldblatt’s nephew.”
“Oh,” Matt said, and then asked, “why?”
“‘Mr. Goldblatt, would you tell me how you feel about the people who killed both poor Mr. Cohn and now poor Mr. Monahan escaping punishment because you have bad eyesight? My one point three million readers would like to know. In case they wanted to buy a washing machine, or something, and wanted to make sure they were buying it from somebody who was always thinking about his wife and children.’”
Wohl chuckled. “I really think you would do that.”
“You’d better believe it.”
“I’ll tell you what I did do,” Wohl said. “When Goldblatt and Katz walked out of their houses this morning, they found a Highway RPC waiting for them. Highway’s going to sit on both of them for the next couple of days, at least.”
“To protect them? Or to remind them they need protection?”
“Both.”
“Mr. Goldblatt, considering what happened to poor Mr. Monahan, do you think the police are going to be able to protect you from these people you weren’t able to see well enough to identify?”
“If you added, ‘and your family,’” Wohl said, “that might not be a bad question to ask.”
“Consider it asked,” O’Hara said.
He stood up, shrugged into his fur-collared overcoat, finished off his bottle of beer, and went down the stairs.
At five minutes past four, just after Officer Charles McFadden had relieved Officer Frank Hartzog on the protection detail of Officer Matthew M. Payne, the doorbell rang.
“Who’s there?” McFadden asked, through the intercom.