“Methinks thou dost protest too much,” Colt said in a surprisingly creditable British Shakespearean accent.
“Hay-zus,” Matt said, quickly. “The commissioner wants Mr. Colt to see how-”
“Hey, I thought we were friends. What’s this ‘Mr. Colt’ shit?”
“The commissioner wants Stan to see how Homicide works a job,” Matt went on. “Lassiter was next up on the wheel at Northwest when the Thirty-fifth uniform called in what turned out to be the Williamson homicide. For a couple of reasons, she’s been detailed to Homicide for the job, and Captain Quaire told her to bring Stan up to speed on the job.”
“I wondered what was going on,” Martinez said.
“I’m still wondering,” Colt said. “You want to say that again, please, slowly, in English? What’s the wheel, for example?”
When room service delivered the dinner-two rolling carts of it-in what Matt thought was an ama
zingly short time, Matt had just about finished explaining what the wheel was and how Olivia and then Homicide had become involved.
He interrupted his explanation as long as he could-the object of the exercise was to keep Colt out of the way of whatever was happening with the doers of the Roy Rogers job-and then when Colt insisted, halfway through the steaks, that he “keep talking, this is the sort of stuff I really want to hear,” he explained everything in minute detail, hoping that Olivia would follow his lead when she began to relate what had happened when she had first gone to the Williamson apartment.
She did, but even stretching it, and even with Hay-zus kicking in with detailed explanations of why things were done, and done in certain ways, there was only so much to relate, and when Olivia had finished, it was far too early to hope that Colt would have had enough and want to go to bed.
He didn’t have enough-despite his having asked a number of intelligent questions that had required long explanations-and he didn’t want to go to bed.
“You know what I’d like to do now?” Colt asked, rhetorically, and went on without waiting for a reply. “It’s only a little after ten. I’d like to take a ride. Maybe go back to that bar you took me to before, maybe go by this Special Operations place where Hay-zus works, maybe take a quick look at that warehouse where you said they keep the undercover cars… And go out to D’Allesandro’s for a real cheese steak.”
“You just finished eating,” Olivia blurted.
“I didn’t eat much,” he said. “And I really want a cheese steak. We can get the cheese steak last before we call it a night, after we see the other stuff.”
Although he sensed it was going to be futile, Matt offered objections.
“There’s a couple of problems with that, Stan,” he began.
“Like what?” Colt replied with a smile, but in a tone of voice that made it clear he was used to getting whatever he asked for.
“Well, for one thing, we’ll have to run the gauntlet of the press waiting for you downstairs.”
“The other security guys can handle that,” Colt said.
“Stan, the people downstairs are police officers, members of the Dignitary Protection Unit. Not ‘security guys.’ Security guys are rent-a-cops.”
“No offense, that’s very interesting, good to know, and I won’t make that mistake again. What else?”
“We can’t go into the IAD warehouse if we go there in my unmarked car.”
“But we could drive by it, right? If we didn’t stop?”
“Yes, we could.”
“Okay, that solves that. What the hell, if I went inside, all I’d see is a bunch of cars, right?”
“Right.”
“Anything else?”
“If we go to D’Allesandro’s, you’re probably going to be recognized, and likely mobbed by your fans.”
“Sergeant Payne,” Colt said, switching voices again, “I have a deep, one might say profound, trust that you and Detective Lassiter can shield me from the enthusiasm of my fans. Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of.”