Part 18 (1/2)
When he left the tiny office, Sandow's civilian was asleep in his chair, and when wakened, not in what could be called a charming frame of mind.
Matt rode the curved elevator down to the lobby and left the building. As he walked up to his car, a scruffy-looking character got out of a beat-up car, took a good look, without smiling, at Matt, then walked toward the Roundhouse.
I know that face, Matt thought. Matt thought. From where? From where?
He unlocked the unmarked car and got in.
I've seen that face somewhere, recently.
Like an hour ago!
Officer Timothy J. Calhoun's photograph in his records was a mug shot of a freshly scrubbed, cleanly shaven, crew-cutted inmate of the Police Academy.
He looks like a b.u.m, because undercover guys in Narcotics have to look like b.u.ms. When Captain Pekach was a lieutenant in Narcotics, he wore his hair in a pigtail.
I wonder what Calhoun's doing at the Roundhouse at midnight?
Matt pulled the key from the ignition switch and got out of the car in time to see Officer Calhoun enter the Roundhouse.
He walked quickly after him, and had his identification folder in his hand when he entered the building.
He showed it to the corporal on duty.
”The guy who just came in here?” Matt asked.
The corporal jerked his thumb to Matt's right, to the door leading to Central Lockup.
Matt went through the door. It led into sort of a corridor. To his left, on the other side of a gla.s.s wall, was the magistrate's court. Here, after being transported to Central Lockup and being booked, prisoners were brought before the magistrate to determine if they could be freed on their own recognizance, on bail, or at all. To his right were several rows of chairs where the prisoner's family, friends, or, for that matter, the general public could watch the magistrate in action.
At the end of the corridor was a locked door with a gla.s.s panel leading to the Central Lockup and the booking sergeant's desk.
Matt went and looked through the panel.
A uniform came to the window and indicated with a jerked thumb that he would prefer that Matt go away. Matt showed him his detective's identification, which visibly surprised the uniform, who then moved to open the door.
Matt shook his head, ”no.”
The uniform shrugged and walked away.
Matt looked into the booking area. Officer Timothy J. Calhoun of the Narcotics Five Squad, now in the company of another scruffy-looking character, whom Matt recognized from the photograph on his records but could not put a name to, was watching the process by which two district uniforms were relieved of responsibility for four prisoners.
Two of the latter were black, and dressed in flashy clothing. The other two were white, and dressed in a manner that suggested to Matt that they had white-collar jobs of some sort; had been out on the town; had decided that acquiring and ingesting one controlled substance or another would add a little excitement to the evening; had been in the process of acquiring same from the black gentlemen, whereupon all four had been busted by members of the Five Squad.
There was nothing else to see.
Matt turned and walked back out of the corridor, then changed direction. He motioned for the corporal behind the plate gla.s.s to open the door to the lobby of the Roundhouse. Once inside, he availed himself of the facilities of the gentlemen's rest room, and then finally left the building.
He got back in the unmarked car and backed it out of its parking slot.
As he drove out of the parking lot, Officer Timothy J. Calhoun and the other male Caucasian suspected of also being a police officer attached to the Five Squad of the Narcotics Unit, walked toward him.
He didn't have the headlights on, so there was no blinding light to interfere with Officer Calhoun's view of the driver of the unmarked car. Confirmation that Officer Calhoun recognized him as the man who had been in the parking lot a few minutes earlier seemed to come when Matt glanced in his rearview mirror and saw that Officer Calhoun had stopped en route to his car, turned, and was looking curiously at Matt's car.
On what is that curiosity based? Simply that he remembered seeing me before, and a policeman's mind picks up on things like that? Or because his sensitivity to things like that has been increased because he's a dirty cop?
He almost certainly made this thing as an unmarked car. So what is a young guy doing driving a new unmarked car? Is he going to put that together and decide it's a Special Operations unmarked car? And come up with a suspicion that Special Operations is watching him?
That would be illogical. There are a hundred other reasons why somebody from Special Operations would be at the Roundhouse at this hour having nothing to do with the Five Squad.
But if I were a dirty cop, I would be a little paranoid.
Did I do something stupid, following him into the Roundhouse? Did he see me looking through the window?
Well, to h.e.l.l with it. It's done.
Matt turned the headlights on as he left the parking lot, and headed for Rittenhouse Square.
”Who was that in the unmarked car?” Officer Tom Coogan inquired of Officer Timothy Calhoun as soon as they were inside the well-worn Buick Special.
”I just made him,” Calhoun said. ”Remember the guy that popped the sicko, the serial rapist? Blew his brains out?”
”John Wayne, something like that?”
”Payne. His name is Payne.”
”That was him?”
”That was him, I'm sure. That f.u.c.king new unmarked car makes me sure. He's one of them hotshots in Special Operations. Every one of them f.u.c.kers gets a new car, did you know that?”
”I heard it,” Coogan said. ”I ran into Charley McFadden-remember him?-at the FOP.”
”I remember him, sure. He made detective, didn't he?”
”Him and the spic. Martinez. Mutt and Jeff both made detective, and both of them are in Special Operations, and both run around in brand-new unmarked cars.”
”There's a moral in there, Coogan. Shoot a bad guy, and get yourself promoted.”
”Mutt and Jeff didn't shoot shoot a bad guy, they tossed him under an elevated train,” Coogan replied. a bad guy, they tossed him under an elevated train,” Coogan replied.
Calhoun laughed.
”What the f.u.c.k do they do out there in Special Operations?” he asked.
”Who the f.u.c.k knows? They're Carlucci's fair-haired boys. They caught that loony tune who wanted to blow up the vice president. s.h.i.+t like that.”
”How do you get in Special Operations?”
”Shoot a bad guy, I told you. Get your picture on TV.”