The Wachenhut Security guards who stood in the Colonial-style guard shack at the entrance to Stockton Place in Society Hill were chosen by Wachenhut with more care than their guards at the more than one hundred other locations Wachenhut protected in the Philadelphia area.
Not only was Wachenhut’s regional vice president for the Philadelphia area resident in one of the luxury apartments behind the striped-pole barrier, but so were executives of other corporations, which employed large numbers of Wachenhut Security personnel.
Number 9 Stockton Place, for example, a triplex constructed behind the facades of four of the twelve pre-Revolutionary brownstone buildings on the east side of Stockton Place, was owned by NB Properties, Inc., the principal stockholder of which was Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt III and was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick T. Nesbitt IV.
Mr. Nesbitt IV was working his way upward in the corporate ranks-he had recently been named a vice president-of Nesfoods International, of which his father was chairman of the executive committee. Four of Nesfoods International’s Philadelphia-area manufacturing facilities employed the Wachenhut Corporation to provide the necessary security, as did many other Nesfoods establishments around the world.
It therefore behooved Wachenhut to put its best security foot forward, so to speak, on Stockton Place.
It wasn’t only a question of providing faultless around-the — clock security-Wachenhut had learned how to do that splendidly over the years-but to do so in such a manner as not to antagonize those being protected, and their guests.
The senior security officer on duty in the shack when the Porsche Carrera rolled up was a retired soldier who had spent twenty years in the Corps in the military police. His retirement pay wasn’t going as far as he’d thought it would, and since he had enlisted at seventeen and retired at thirty-eight, he’d still been a young man who wanted to work.
Wachenhut had been glad to have him, assigned him- with a raise in pay-to Stockton Place after only six months on the job, and made him a supervisor eighteen months after he had joined the firm. His superiors thought he would be capable of handling the sometimes delicate Stockton Place assignment, and he had proven them right.
When the silver Porsche Carrera slowed as it approached the barrier, the senior security officer on duty nodded at it, then spoke softly to the trainee.
“Now this guy doesn’t look like he’s either about to break into an apartment, or try to sell something. Very few burglars drive cars like that. So you smile at him, ask him who he wishes to see, and then for his name. Then you say ‘Thank you very much, sir,’ raise the barrier, and call whoever he said he’s going to see and tell them he’s coming.”
“Got it,” the trainee said, and stepped out of the guard shack.
“Good evening, sir,” he said to the driver. “How may I help you?”
“Matthew Payne to see Mr. Nesbitt,” Matt said.
“Thank you, sir,” the trainee said, and stepped inside the guard shack, and pushed the button that raised the barrier. Before the Porsche was past the barrier, the Wachenhut supervisor was on the interior telephone.
“Like this,” he said, and then when the phone was answered, said, “This is the gate. We have just passed a Mr. Payne to see Mr. Nesbitt.”
Matt pulled the Porsche to the curb in front of Number 9, got out, walked to the red-painted door, and pushed the doorbell.
The door was opened almost immediately by Mr. Nesbitt IV, who looked very much like Matt Payne but a little shorter and a little heavier.
“Hello, you ugly bastard,” he said. Then he raised his voice. “Dump the dope! The cops are here!”
Then he embraced Matt.
“Thanks for coming. And for Christ’s sake, behave yourself. ”
The ground floor foyer of Number 9 was open to a skylight in the roof, invisible from the street. To the right was the door to the elevator, and to the left the door to the stairs. There were balconies on the first and second floors of the atrium.
Mrs. Chadwick T. Nesbitt IV, the former Daphne Elizabeth Browne, known for most of her life as “Daffy,” a tall, attractive blonde, appeared on the upper balcony, looked down, smiled, and called, “Matt, how nice! Come up.”
Matt and Chad got on the elevator, and when the door closed, and he was reasonably sure he couldn’t be heard, Matt asked, “ ‘How nice’? Is she into the sauce?”
Chad laughed.
“Looketh not ye gift horse in ye mouth,” he said.
The elevator stopped, and the door opened, revealing the living room of the apartment. Floor-to-ceiling tinted glass walls provided a view of the Delaware River, the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, and on the New Jersey shore, mounted on now-disused buildings, a huge illuminated sign showing a steaming bowl of soup and the legend “Nesfoods Delivers Taste and Nutrition!”
Daffy Nesbitt kissed Matt on the cheek, then turned and cried, “Terry, this is Chad’s and my oldest friend in the world.”
Sitting on the thickly carpeted floor with Miss Penelope Alice Nesbitt, aged twenty-two months, was Terry Davis.
She smiled at Matt’s pleased surprise.
Matt looked at Mrs. Nesbitt.