"On what charges?"
McFadden did not reply directly.
"They were watching a house on Bouvier, near Susquehanna," he said, avoiding Matt's eyes. "Thinking maybe they'd get lucky and be able to grab the delivery boy."
"What delivery boy? What are you talking about?"
"You know where I mean? Bouvier, near Susquehanna?"
Matt searched his memory and came up with nothing specific, just a vague picture of Susquehanna Avenue as it moved through the slums of North Philadelphia near Temple University.
"No," Matt confessed. "Not exactly."
"You don't go in there alone, you understand?" Charley said.
Matt understood. He was not talking about it being the sort of place it was unwise for Miss Penelope Detweiler of Chestnut Hill to visit alone, he was talking about a place where an armed police officer did not go alone, for fear of his life.
He nodded.
"So they see this white girl in a Volkswagen come down Bouvier, and that attracts their attention. So she circles the block, they think looking for the house they're sitting on. And weaving. They think she's either drunk or stoned. These are not nice guys, Matt, dogooders. But the thought of what was liable to hap
pen to a white girl, stoned or drunk, going in that house was too much."
"Oh, God!"
"So one of them got out of the car and ran down the block, and the next time she came around, he flagged her down. She almost ran over him. But he stopped her, and saw she was drunk…"
"Drunk?"Matt asked.
Please, God! Drunk, not drugged.
"Drunk," Charley said. "So he put cuffs on her and got in her car. She told them she's your girlfriend. So they tried to call you, and when they couldn't find you, brought her here. They know we're pals."
"They know who she is?"
"No. Just that she's your girl. She didn't have an ID. For that matter, not even a purse. Just a couple of hundred-dollar bills in her underwear."
"What's she charged with?"
"Right now, nothing. I called in some favors."
"Jesus, Charley!"
"Yeah, well, you'd do the same for me," McFadden said.
Absolutely. The very next time that your girlfriend, Miss MaryMargaret McCarthy, R.N., who is probably the only virgin over thirteen that I know, gets herself hauled in by an undercover Narcotics officer, I'll pull in whatever favors I can to get her off.
Christ, I feel like crying.
"I don't suppose you have any handcuffs, do you?"
Jesus Christ, handcuffs? What for?
Matt shook his head, no.
McFadden reached behind him, where he wore his handcuffs draped over his belt. He handed them to Matt.
"You got a key?"