The Assassin (Badge of Honor 5)

"I'd better get going."

Sergeant Henkels snorted.

Matt went down the corridor, the oiled wooden boards of which creaked under his footsteps, to another former classroom, this one now the office space provided for the Special Investigations Section of the Special Operations Division. He knew he could both use the phone there and receive a friendly welcome.

This time the uniformed sergeant behind the door was smiling genuinely.

"I told you he'd show up here," Sergeant Jerry O'Dowd said to Officer Foster H. Lewis, Jr., who was even larger than Sergeant Jason Washington, and thus had inevitably been dubbed "Tiny."

"I didn't expect to find you here," Matt said. "You guys know each other?"

"His dad was my first sergeant on my first job out of the Academy," O'Dowd said. "I knew him before he ate the magic growth pills."

"Hey, Matt," Tiny Lewis said, "welcome home."

They shook hands.

"Sergeant Rawlins just introduced me to Inspector Wohl," Matt said.

"Introduced you to Wohl?" Tiny asked.

"That was after my 'welcome to Special Operations' speech from Sabara. Andthen I met Sergeant Henkels."

Lewis and O'Dowd chuc

kled.

"Which is why I decided to hang out up here," O'Dowd said,

"Was…is…Malone and/or Washington looking for me?" Matt asked.

"Was," Tiny said.

"They went down to Intelligence," Jerry O'Dowd explained.

"What they wanted to tell you was that I'm now working for Malone, and we're going to work together."

Well, that's good news. And I really appreciate "work together"; he had every right to say "you 'II be working for me."

"Doing what?"

"Right now, we're waiting for the phone to ring," O'Dowd said, pointing to a desk with a brand-new telephone on it. "That's new. That's the number we're asking people to call in case they think they have a line on our lunatic. If it sounds at all…what? credible? possible?…we're to go talk to the guy who called it in, and then, if it still looks promising, call Washington and/or Sabara and/or Pekach."

"In that case, I guess I've got time for a cup of coffee."

"You'll have to make it," Tiny said, pointing at the coffee machine. "Unless you want to drink that black whatever from the machine."

"I'll make it," Matt said.

"Rough night, Detective Payne?" O'Dowd asked.

"At half past one," Matt said, more to Tiny Lewis than to O'Dowd, "Detective McFadden and Officer Martinez paid a social call."

"What did Mutt and Jeff have on their minds, so-called?" Tiny asked.

I cannot tell either of them what Hay-zus has in mind. Is that deceit or discretion?

"Not much," Matt said. "I think they simply decided that I should not be asleep while they were awake."