The Assassin (Badge of Honor 5)

"And what if she calls yourGiGi and asks to speak to you?"

"We will have just gone out for pizza or something, and will have to call back. When we get where you're taking me, I'll have to call GiGi and let her know where we are. Don't worry. GiGi is very reliable."

He glanced at her and found that she had shifted on her seat so that she was turned to him. She smiled naughtily at him.

****

By ten minutes after five, there were very few people left on the tenth floor of the First Pennsylvania Bank amp; Trust Company, and it would probably be possible to exit the building without being jammed together in an elevator, but Marion Claude Wheatley liked to be sure of things, so he waited until 5:25 before locking his desk and his filing cabinets and walking to the bank of elevators.

Except for a stop at the seventh floor, where it picked up two women-probably secretaries, they seemed a little too bright to be simple clerks-the elevator went directly to the lobby, and it really could not be called crowded with only the three of them on it, and Marion was pleased that he had decided to wait the additional fifteen minutes.

When he left the South Broad Street entrance of the building he turned right, toward City Hall, until he reached Sansom Street, and then walked east on Sansom to South 12^th, and then north to Market. That way, he had learned, he could avoid the rush of people headed toward City Hall at this hour of the day.

On Market Street, he turned east, toward the Delaware, and then changed his plans when he saw the Reading Terminal. He had planned to do some of the necessary shopping, take the things home, and then do something about supper. But now it seemed to make more sense to have a little something to eat at one of the concessionaire stands in the Reading Terminal Market before shopping. That would obviate having to worry about supper when he got home. He would, so to speak, be killing two birds with one stone.

Marion believed that the efficient use of one's time was a key to success.

He sat at a counter and had a very nice hot roast beef sandwich with french fried potatoes and a sliced tomato, finishing up with a cup of decaffeinated coffee.

Then he went back out onto Market Street, crossed it again, and after looking in the window of the Super Drugstore on the corner of 11^th Street and seeing exactly what he wanted, he went in and bought an AWOL bag. It was on sale, for $3.95, and it had a metal zipper, which was important.

The reason it was on sale, he decided, was because it had a picture of a fish jumping out of the waves on it, with the legend, Souvenir of Asbury Park, N.J. Whoever had first ordered the bags had apparently overestimated the demand for them, and had had to put the excess up for sale, probably at a loss.

Overestimating demand, Marion thought, was a common fault with many small businesses. The petroleum business did not have, simplistically, that problem. They didn't have to produce their raw material, pump oil from the ground, until they were almost certain of a market. And even if that market collapsed, it was rarely that oil had to be put up for immediate sale. It could be stored relatively inexpensively until a demand, inevitably, arose.

He insisted on getting a paper bag for the AWOL bag-he was not the sort of person who wished to be seen walking through Center City, Philadelphia, with a reddish-orange bag labeledSouvenir of Asbury Park, N.J. -and then continued walking east on Market Street.

A very short distance away, just where he had remembered seeing them, which pleased him, there was a tacky little store with a window full of "leather" attache cases, on SPECIAL SALE.

Special Sale, my left foot,Marion thought. It was a special sale only because money would change hands. He went in the store, and spent fifteen minutes choosing an attache case that (a) looked reasonably like genuine leather, (b) was deep and wide enough to hold the shortwave transmitter, (c) had its handles fastened to the case securely. The last thing he could afford was to have a handle pull loose, so that he would drop the shortwave transmitter onto the marble floors of 30^th Street Station.

He did not insist on a paper bag for the attache case. He thought he would submit that to a little test. He would stop in on the way home, in one of the cocktail lounges along Chestnut Street that catered to people in the financial industry. He would put the " leather" attache case out where people who customarily carried genuine leather attache cases could see it, and see if anyone looked at it strangely.

He had solved the problem of supper, had one AWOL bag and the attache case, and there was time, so why not?

EIGHTEEN

North of Doylestown, on US Route 611, approaching Kintnersville, Matt became aware of a faint siren. When he glanced in the rearview mirror, he saw that it was mounted in a State Police car, and that the gumball machine on the roof was flashing brightly.

"Shit," he said.

Penny turned in her seat and giggled.

There was no place to pull safely to the side of the road where they were, so Matt put a hand over his head in a gesture of surrender, slowed, and drove another mile or so until he found a place to stop.

"Mother will not be at all surprised that we wound up in jail," Penny said cheerfully. "She expects it of you."

Matt got out of the car, making an effort to keep both hands in view, and then went back to the State Police car. A very large State Policeman, about thirty-five, got out, and straightened his Smoky-theBear hat.

"Good evening, sir," the State Policeman said, with the perfect courtesy that suggested he was not at all unhappy to be forced to cite a Mercedes driver for being twenty-five or thirty miles over the speed limit.

"Good evening," Matt replied, and took his driver's license from his wallet. "There's my license."

"I'll need the registration too, please, sir."

Matt took out the leather folder holding his badge and photo ID and handed that over.

"That's what I do for a living. How fraternal are you feeling tonight?"