The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

Five Squad had come up with a plan after the first time they had followed Mr. Williams to his rendezvous with Mr. Ketcham. On being notified by Hertz that Mr. Ketcham had again rented an automobile, a Five Squad plainclothes officer—who turned out to be Officer Prasko—would proceed to the Howard Johnson motel, and there await the possible arrival of Mr. Ketcham.

Herb Prasko, en route to the motel in an undercover car—a two-year-old Mercury, formerly the property of another drug dealer scumbag—had thought the odds were that he would be pissing in the wind. But you never could really tell. Sometimes people were really stupid, as Mr. Ketcham had turned out to be by returning to the same Howard Johnson motel instead of going someplace else to do his business.

But he had waited, parked just inside the motel, slumped down on the front seat of the Mercury, watching the entrance to the motel, for nearly three hours, before Ketcham had shown up.

He had a dame with him, white female, early twenties, 120 pounds, blonde, nice figure, who sat in the car while Mr. Ketcham went in the motel office for the key. Officer Prasko slipped down all the way on the seat of the Mercury as they drove past him, and then watched where they were going in the rearview mirror.

Then, when the Chevy had gone around the first row of rooms to the back, he got out of the car, trotted quickly after them, and got to the corner of the building in time to see Mr. Ketcham enter 138, a ground-floor room in about the middle of the back row of rooms.

He then went to the pay phone outside the motel office and called Sergeant Patrick J. Dolan at Narcotics and told him what he had. Dolan—who could be a prick—made him repeat everything he said, and then told him not to let the door to 138 out of his sight, as if he thought Prasko had come on the job last Tuesday and had to be told shit like that.

Five Squad would be there as soon as they could get there, Dolan said, and said to meet them on the H Band. That was the special radio frequency assigned for the use of detectives, but available for other purposes as well.

Officer Prasko then took a pair of binoculars and a walkie-talkie from the floor of the backseat of the Mercury and went up the stairs to the second-floor balcony of the first building. He stationed himself between a Coke machine and an ice machine in an alcove, from where he could see the rental Chevy and the door to 138.

He had a good view of both the door and the car, especially the car and the girl in it.

She was a looker. And she was nervous. She lit a cigarette and took only a couple of puffs before putting it out and turning to look at the door, which made her breasts stretch the thin material of her blouse. Then she lit another cigarette.

A little after that, she put her hand in her blouse and adjusted her bra, which Prasko found exciting.

What the hell was Ketcham thinking, bringing a girl like that along on a meet like this? Amos Williams was a mean son of a bitch, and the first thing he was likely to do if something went wrong was grab the girl. By the time Ketcham fixed whatever Williams didn’t like, Christ only knew what Williams and his goons would do with a white girl like that, a real looker.

“Six?” the radio went off. Too loud.

He recognized the voice. It was that of Officer Joe Grider. More important, it wasn’t Dolan’s, which was a good thing, meaning they could put Plan B into operation.

Officer Prasko adjusted the volume and the squelch before putting the microphone to his lips.

“Six,” he said.

“He still there?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s the room?”

“Around in the back. Middle. Ground floor.”

“Any sign of his friends?”

“No.”

“We’re about there. I’m going to park up the street and see who shows up.”

“What are you in?”

“The van.”

The van was not standard, but a 1971 Dodge panel truck, also formerly the property of someone who had been apprehended while illegally trafficking in controlled substances. After the forfeited vehicle had been turned over to Five Squad for undercover work, they had chipped in and had it painted in the color scheme used by—and with the logotype of—Philadelphia Gas Works.

“Who’s the super?”

“I am. Plan B,” Officer Grider replied.

“Just the van?”

“One car.”