Final Justice (Badge of Honor 8)

The elevator door opened and Lieutenant McGuire led the way out of the building to the parking lot.

“Where’s your car, Al?” McGuire asked. “Mine’s in the garage again.”

“Mine’s right over there,” Matt said, pointing, and immediately regretted it.

The assignment of unmarked cars in the Philadelphia police department-except in Special Operations-worked on the hand-me-down principle. New cars went to the chief inspectors, who on receipt of their new vehicles handed down their slightly used vehicles to inspectors, who in turn handed down their well-used, if not worn-out, vehicles to captains entitled to unmarked cars, who passed their nearly worn-out vehicles farther down the hierarchy.

Special Operations had a federal grant for “Experimental Policing Techniques,” which

, among other things, provided money for automobiles. Special Operations vehicles were not provided out of the department budget, in other words, and the grant was worded so that “unneeded and unexpended funds” were supposed to be returned to the federal government.

The result of that was that not one dollar of “unneeded and unexpended funds” had ever been returned to Washington, and everyone in Special Operations who drove an unmarked car-down to lowly detectives and patrol officers in plainclothes assignments-drove a new vehicle.

When the annual grant money was received, new cars were purchased by Special Operations, and the used Special Operations cars were turned over to the department motor pool for assignment.

From Matt’s perspective, it was a good deal for the department all around. Once a year, the department got thirty-odd cars-most of them in excellent shape-for nothing. And the department did not have to provide-and pay for-thirty-odd unmarked cars to Special Operations.

However, from the perspective of Lieutenant McGuire- and of most other lieutenants and captains, and even more than a few more senior officers-lowly detectives and officers in plainclothes should not be driving new cars when captains and lieutenants were driving cars on the steep slope leading to the crusher.

All Lieutenant McGuire said, however, when he got in the front seat of the car beside Matt, was “I love the smell of a new car.”

They drove up Market Street to City Hall, and then around it, to the Ritz-Carlton, whose main entrance was on the west side of South Broad Street just across from City Hall.

McGuire looked at his watch again and said, “Park in front. I don’t want to be late.”

Matt pulled into space normally reserved for taxis, put a plastic covered POLICE OFFICIAL BUSINESS sign on the dashboard, and then hurried after McGuire and Nevins.

The Stan Colt advance party was in a large suite, the windows of which looked down on the statue of William Penn atop City Hall.

A buffet had been laid out-an impressive one, complete to a man in chef’s whites manning an omelet stove-and there were seven or eight people in the room, including two men in clerical collars. Matt knew the archbishop by sight, and he wasn’t one of the two, so the gray-haired one in the well-tailored suit had to be Monsignor Schneider.

In an adjacent room was a long conference table, on which water and coffee carafes, cups and saucers, and even lined pads and ballpoint pens had been laid out. There were two telephones on the table, and television sets mounted on the walls.

This suite was designed not for luxury-although it’s no dump-but as somewhere the boss can gather the underlings together and inspire them.

Matt walked into the conference room, took a telephone cord from his briefcase, and looked along the walls for a telephone jack. Finding none, he dropped to his knees and got under the table. There were two double telephone jacks, and he plugged the telephone cord into one of them.

As he backed out, he became aware of nylon-sheathed legs.

“Can I help you?” a female voice asked as he got to his feet.

“No, thanks,” he said. “I managed to get it in… ”Jesus Christ! Will you look at this! “… the hole with only a little trouble.”

“Laptop?” the blonde asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“To take notes?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She’s probably Stan Colt’s squeeze. Far too beautiful for a common man. Jesus Christ, she’s stunning!

She put out her hand.

“I’m Terry Davis,” she said. “With GAM.”

“Is that one ‘r’ and an ‘i’, or two ‘r’s and a ‘y’?”