The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

“What is she going to do, just wait for you in the restaurant?”

“There’s an outside pay phone—actually, there’s three of them—and she’s going to start calling them at seven. When I answer, she’ll know I’m there.”

“Which one? You said three?”

“Whichever one rings,” Susan said, and smiled. “I guess she has the numbers of all of them. If one of them is busy, she’ll try another. She’s good at this sort of thing.”

“Call your supervisor,” Matt said.

“And then what?”

“And then we go.”

“Go where?”

“Ultimately to Doylestown. But right now, just out of here.”

“I’m not due in Doylestown until seven.”

“So we’ll stop at Hershey and shoot a quick eighteen holes,” Matt said.

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it, if we could do things like that? Play some golf? Are you any good?”

“I’m very good, thank you for asking,” Matt said. “Call your supervisor, Susan.”

Armando C. Giacomo, Esq., had more than a little difficulty finding a place to park his Jaguar sedan in the parking lot shared by the 1st District and South Detectives. The three spots reserved for visitors outside the ancient, run-down building were occupied, which was not really surprising. But so were the two spots reserved for inspectors; and the two spots set aside for the two captains of the 1st District and South Detectives.

He finally figured to hell with it, and parked in an “Ab solutely No Parking at Any Time” slot near the rear door of the old, shabby building. His car was subject to being towed away there, but he suspected that before his shiny new Jaguar was hauled off, inquiries would be made to establish its ownership, and he could then explain to whoever came asking, how hard he had looked for a place to park and how reluctant he was to leave it on the street, where some happy adolescent would write his initials in the shiny green lacquer with a key.

Most cops, he knew, bore him little ill will for defending individuals alleged to have a connection with organized crime. For one thing—which explained to Manny Giacomo why the cops didn’t climb the walls and pull their hair out when a genuine bad guy walked on a legal technicality—most cops drew a line between what they did and the criminal justice system did.

They arrested the bad guys. That was their job. What happened with the lawyers and the district attorneys and juries wasn’t their concern.

There were even a few cops who really believed—as Manny Giacomo did—that even the worst scumbag was entitled to the best defense he could get, that it was on this that Justice with a capital J was really based.

And just about every cop knew that if they were hauled before the bar of justice, lowercase J, on an excessive-brutality rap or the like, they could expect to hear, “Ar mando C. Giacomo for the defense, your honor,” when they stood up to face the judge.

Just before he pushed open the door to the building, Manny Giacomo saw a new Buick coupe, bristling with an array of antennas, parked where no civilian vehicle was ever allowed to park, in one of the spots reserved for district radio patrol cars.

Mr. Michael J. O’Hara of the Bulletin is obviously up and about practicing his profession, Giacomo thought, and wondered if he could somehow put the power of the press to work defending the officers he had come to protect from the unjustified accusations of the police establishment.

Just inside the door, Lieutenant Daniel Justice of South Detectives, who had probably been waiting for him, stuck out his hand.

“Good morning, Counselor.”

“Danny the Judge!” Giacomo said, shaking his hand.

Danny needed a shave, and looked as if he had been up all night. Giacomo remembered the last time he’d seen him, he’d told him he was working Last Out. He therefore should now be home asleep.

“I thought you were working Last Out,” Giacomo said.

“You know what they say, ‘no rest for the virtuous,’ ” Danny said. “Chief Inspector Coughlin would be most grateful if you could spare him a moment of your time.”

“Before I talk to the unjustly accused police officers, you mean?”

“Now, is what I mean,” Danny said. “I’ll pass on agreeing that they’re unjustly accused.”

Danny the Judge guided Giacomo across the room to the office of the district captain and pushed open the door.