The Assassin (Badge of Honor 5)

"And laughed at," Larkin said. "But that's what Toner's deputy is going to do tomorrow morning, tell Duffy everything. I told you, we're going to go through the motions. And maybe we'll get lucky. But maybe lucky won't cut it."

"So what do you want from us?" Wohl asked.

"I thought maybe you could tell me what you could do," Larkin said.

The question surprised Wohl; it was evident on his face.

"My dad was not a fan of police vehicles," he said after a moment. "He always said the beat cop, who knew everybody on his beat, could usually stop trouble before it happened. Unfortunately, we don't have many beat cops these days. But that strikes me as the way to go."

"Excuse me?" Larkin said.

"We'll need a good profile, written in simple English, not like a psychiatrist's case record, of this guy. We spread that around the Department, into every district, every unit. 'Does anybody think they know this guy?' And I'll have Dave distribute it, using the Highway Patrol. They're in and out of districts all over the city; they have friends everywhere, in other words. Make it look like a job, not like the brass in the Roundhouse are smoking funny cigarettes,"

"Could you do that?" Larkin asked.

"Not without stepping on Duffy's toes, and a lot of other people' s," Wohl said. "Do you know Chief Lowenstein?"

"Only that he runs the Detective Division."

"As a fiefdom," Wohl said. "How soon are you going to have the psychological profile you mentioned?"

"Ours, probably tomorrow, the day after. And the FBI's a day or two after that."

"Can that be speeded up?"

"I can have them in your hands, hand carried, within an hour of their delivery to my office in Washington," Larkin said. "Sooner, if you want it read over the phone. But I can't rush our shrink, and certainly not the FBI's."

"Okay. Then we'll have to go with Amy," Wohl said.

"Who?" Larkin asked.

"Dr. Payne. Detective Payne's sister."

"Oh, yeah."

"She'll give us a profile. I'll translate it into English."

****

The doorman of the large, luxurious apartment building in the 2600 block of the Parkway in which Amelia Alice Payne, M.D., lived paid only casual attention to the blue Ford as it dropped a passenger, a nicely dressed young man, outside his heavy plate-glass doors.

But then, as the young man stepped inside the lobby, the doorman saw, out of the corner of his eye, that the Ford, instead of driving onto the road leading to the parking lot and/or the Parkway had moved into an area close to the door where parking was prohibited to all but the management of the building and those tenants whose generosity to the doorman deserved a little reward.

"Hey!" the doorman called after the nicely dressed young man. " Your friend can't park there."

Matt Payne's childhood and youth had been punctuated frequently by the parental folklore that hay was for horses, and was not a suitable form of address for fellow human beings, the result of which being that he did not like to be addressed as "Hey!"

He turned to the doorman.

"Oh, I think he can," he said.

"Hey, he either moves the car, or I call the cops."

"There's a cop," Matt said helpfully as Jerry O'Dowd, in the full regalia of a sergeant of the Highway Patrol, got out of the car and strode purposefully toward the door.

"What's going on here?" the doorman asked.

"We're finally going to close the floating craps game on the tenth floor," Matt said. "Gambling is illegal, you know."