“Don’t worry about it,” Sonny said. “Charley McFadden and I are old pals. We were in the same class at Bishop Neuman High School.”
“What about the one with me?”
“You were in pretty fancy company. That was Payne. You remember when a detective shot that sicko in the Northwest who was carving up women?”
“That was him?”
“That was him.”
“What was this all about?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Everything’s under control. Now, order me a cup of coffee. I got to make a telephone call.”
“Right.”
Sonny Boyle went to the pay phone by the door to the men’s room and called Frankie Foley’s house. Frankie’s mother said he was at work, and gave him the number of the warehouse at Wanamaker’s where Frankie worked.
It took some time to get Frankie on the phone—his boss obviously didn’t like him getting personal calls at work—but finally he came on the line and Sonny told him that two Special Operations detectives were asking questions about him, that one of the detectives was a real hotshot, the cop that shot the Northwest Serial Rapist in the head, and that they seemed to think Frankie had something to do with the Narcotics cop who got himself hit.
He assured Frankie that of course he hadn’t told them a fucking thing.
EIGHTEEN
The radio went off as Matt Payne and Charley McFadden headed north on South Broad Street.
“William Fourteen.”“That’s me,” Matt said.
Charley looked around, found the microphone on its hook under the dash, and picked it up.
“Fourteen,” he said.
“What’s your location?”
“South Broad, near City Hall.”
“Meet the Inspector at the schoolhouse.”
“En route,” Charley said, and replaced the microphone. “Well, at least we know where to go,” he said.
“I hope we did the right thing,” Matt said. “I’ll bet your ol’ buddy was on the phone before we turned the corner, telling Foley we were asking about him.”
“Hey,” Charley said, his tone making it clear he thought it was a naive observation. “What’s the difference? Bad guys think there’s a cop behind every tree.”
Fifteen minutes later, he gave Matt a smug glance when the same question and answer was paraphrased by Inspector Wohl and Sergeant Washington.
“Is this going to cause a problem?” Wohl asked. “Foley will know now we’re interested in him.”
“Malefactors,” Washington intoned solemnly, “in my experience, see the menacing forces of exposure and punishment lurking behind every bush. Often this causes them to do foolish things.”
Wohl chuckled.
“I do see a jurisdictional problem,” Washington went on. “On one hand, we are interested in Mr. Foley’s possible involvement with the Inferno job, which would put him in Wally Milham’s basket. On the other, Mr. Boyle suggested Mr. Foley has something to do with Officer Kellog’s murder, which would fall into Joe D’Amata’s zone of interest. Or possibly mine, if I am to follow allegations of corruption in the Narcotics Five Squad.”
Wohl smiled again.
“Going along with your ‘menacing forces of exposure and punishment’ theory, Jason, it seems to me that you are the most menacing of all.”
“I will interpret that as a compliment,” Washington said.