The Assassin (Badge of Honor 5)

"Not in this case, sir," Matt said quickly.

But that's bullshit. Penny is a known narcotics addict, as well as someone known to associate with known criminals. Jesus!

"And this Corporal Lanza was there?"

"Yes, sir."

"Associating with known criminals?"

"I don't know, sir."

"The truth of the matter, Payne," Wohl said, "is that, with the possible exception of somebody like Vincenzo Savarese, you wouldn't recognize a known criminal if you fell over one. Isn't that so?"

"Yes, sir."

"Tell me about the two-thousand-dollar marker," Marchessi said.

"Sir, as I was cashing out, I saw Lanza sign a marker for two thousand dollars' worth of chips. He was in the line ahead of me."

"I thought you said you didn't follow him up there."

"I didn't. He was there."

"You knew him by sight? That would suggest he knows you by sight."

"Yes, sir. But not the way that sounds, sir."

"Clarify it for me."

"I didn't know who he was. But I made him as a cop. He was carrying."

"People, other than policemen, sometimes go about armed."

"I had a gut feeling he was a cop, sir, and then he spoke to me."

"What did he say?"

"I had apparently run into him in Las Vegas, sir. And on the airplane from Las Vegas home. He recognized me. Not as a cop."

"You made him, is that what you're saying, as a cop, but he didn't make you as a cop?"

"I'm sure I could have told if he had, sir."

"I admire your confidence in your own judgment, Payne," Marchessi said. "And then what did you do?"

"I came back to Philadelphia and called Off…DetectiveMartinez and told him (a) that Lanza had been in the Oaks and Pines and (b) had signed a marker for two thousand dollars."

"And then I went to see you, sir," Martinez said to Wohl.

"Tell me, Martinez," Marchessi said. "Have you anyevidence to connect Corporal Lanza with the smuggling of narcotics, or, for that matter, of anything else, or any other criminal activity, at the airport?"

"No evidence, sir. But it has to be him."

"'Has'to be him?" Marchessi replied, softly sarcastic.

He looked at Wohl, who shrugged his shoulders.

"You two wait outside. In the corridor," Marchessi said.