The Assassin (Badge of Honor 5)

"Most of the time when you say you're buying I wind up with the check. Besides, I like the way they do liver in here."

"I had a call from H. Richard Detweiler this morning," the mayor said.

"And?"

"And he said he wanted me to know he was very grateful for our letting the Payne kid go out there and bring his daughter home, and if there was ever anything he could for me I should not hesitate to let him know."

"You should hold off calling that marker in until you're running for governor or the Senate. Or the White House."

"All I want to do is be mayor of Philadelphia."

"Isn't that what you said when they appointed you police commissioner? That all you wanted to be was commissioner?"

"What is this, Beat Up On Jerry Carlucci Day?"

"You want a straight answer to that?"

"No, lie to me."

"I sent word to Payne to meet me in my office at half past one. I' m going to tell him, when he goes back on the job, that what he was doing was paperwork in the Roundhouse, not running out to Las Vegas, for Christ's sake, baby-sitting Detweiler's daughter. He's going to have a hard enough time proving himself over at East as it is…"

"I've been in a detective division. Right there in East Detectives, as a matter of fact. You don't have to tell me about detective divisions."

"…without us pulling him out of there every time somebody like Detweiler wants a favor from you," Lowenstein finished.

"I'm not as dumb as I look, Matt," the mayor said. "I'm even one or two steps ahead of you."

"Are you?"

"Yes, I am. I thought you and Denny Coughlin did a dumb thing when you sent him to East Detectives in the first place."

"He made detective. What you do with new detectives is send them to out to the Academy to learn the new forms, and then to a division, to learn how tobe a detective. You tell me, why is that dumb?"

"Because he is who he is."

"You tell me, who is he?"

"He's the guy who took down the Northwest Philadelphia serial rapist, and the guy who shot it out with that Islamic Liberation Army jackass and won. That makes him different, without the other things. Like I said, I've been in a detective division. They're really going to stay on his ass to remind him he's a rookie, until he proves himself."

"He's a good kid. He can handle that."

"Sure he can, and what have we got then? I'll tell you what we'll have-one more detective who can probably work a crime scene about as good as any other detective."

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"The Good of the Department is what I'm talking about."

"Then you have lost me somewhere along the way."

"Do you know how ma

ny college graduates have applied for the Department in the last year?"

"No."

"Fifty-three."

"So?"