Part 31 (1/2)

”They just got Gerald Vincent Gallagher, Chief,'' Lenihan said.

”Good,” Coughlin said. ”Where? How?”

”Lieutenant Pekach just phoned,” Lenihan said. ”Two of his guys-one of them that young plainclothes guy who identified the girl-went looking for him on their own. They spotted him at the Bridge Street Terminal. He ran. Officer McFadden chased him down the elevated tracks. Gallagher slipped, fell onto the third rail, and then a train ran over him.”

Denny Coughlin's face froze. His eyes were on Lenihan, but Lenihan knew that he wasn't seeing him, that he was thinking.

Dennis V. Coughlin was only one of eleven chief inspectors of the Police Department of the City of Philadelphia. But it could be argued that he was first among equals. Under his command (among others) were the Narcotics Unit; the Vice Unit; the Internal Affairs Division; the Staff Investigation Unit; and the Organized Crime Intelligence Unit.

The other ten chief inspectors reported to either the deputy commissioner (Operations) or the deputy commissioner (Administration), who reported to the first deputy commissioner, who reported to the commissioner. Denny Coughlin reported directly to the first deputy commissioner.

Phrased very simply, there were only two people in the department who could tell Denny Coughlin what to do, or ask him what he was doing: the first deputy commissioner and the commissioner himself. On the other hand, without any arrogance at all, Denny Coughlin believed that what happened anywhere in the police department was his business.

”Tom, is Inspector Kegley out there?”

”Yes, sir, I think so.”

”Would you tell him, please, unless there is a good reason he can't, I would like him to find out exactly what happened?”

”Yes, sir.”

”I mean right now, Tom,” Coughlin said. ”He doesn't have to give me a white paper, just get the information to me.” Coughlin looked at his watch. ”I'll be at Dutch's wake, say from six o'clock until it's over. Are you going over there with me?”

”Yes, sir,” Lenihan said, and departed.

Two minutes later, Lenihan was back.

”Inspector Kegley's on his way, sir. He said he'd see you at Marshutz & Sons,” he reported.

”Good, Tom. Thank you,” Coughlin said. Staff Inspector George Kegley had come up through the Detective Bureau, and had done some time in Homicide. He was a quiet, phlegmatic, soft-eyed man who missed very little once he turned his attention to something. If there was something not quite right about the pursuit and death of Gerald Vincent Gallagher, Kegley would soon sniff it out.

Coughlin returned his attention to the file on his desk. It was a report from Internal Affairs involving two officers of the Northwest Police Division. There had been a party. Officer A had paid uncalled-for personal attention to Mrs. B. Mrs. B had not, in Officer B's (her husband's) judgment, declined the attention with the proper outraged indignation. She had, in fact, seemed to like it. Whereupon Officer B had belted his wife in the chops, and taken off after Officer A, pistol drawn, threatening to kill the sonofab.i.t.c.h. No real harm had been done, but the whole matter was now official, and something would have to be done.

”I don't want to deal with this now,” Dennis V. Coughlin said, although there was no one in his office to hear him.

He stood up, took his pistol from his left desk drawer, slipped it into his holster, and walked out of his office.

”Come on, Tom,” he said to Sergeant Lenihan, ”let's go.”

FOURTEEN.

Patrick Coughlin, a second-generation Irish-American (his father had been born in Philadelphia three months after his parents had immigrated from County Kildare in 1896) had spent his working life as a truck diver, and had been determined that his son Dennis would have the benefits of a college education.

But in 1946, despite an excellent record at Roman Catholic High School, Dennis V. Coughlin had been suspended from LaSalle College for academic inadequacy after his second semester. He had been on academic probation after the first semester.

Once Denny Coughlin had flunked out of LaSalle, life at home had been difficult, and he had enlisted in the navy for four years, in exchange for a navy promise to train him as an electronics technician. He was no more successful in the navy electronics school than he had been at LaSalle, and the navy found itself wondering what to do with a very large young man for the forty-two months remaining on his enlistment.

Shortly after reporting aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Coral Sea as an engineman striker, the Coral Sea's master at arms had offered him a chance to become what was in effect a s.h.i.+pboard policeman. That had far more appeal than long days in the hot and greasy bowels of the s.h.i.+p, and Denny jumped at it.

It wasn't what he thought it would be, marching into waterfront bars and hauling drunken sailors back to the s.h.i.+p, after beating them on the head with a nightstick. There was some of that, to be sure, and once or twice Denny Coughlin did have to use his nightstick. But not often. A sailor had to be both foolhardy as well as drunk to take on someone the size of Coughlin. And Denny learned that a kind word of understanding and reason was almost always more effective than the nightstick.

He found, too, that often the sailors were the aggrieved party to a dispute, that the saloonkeepers were in the wrong. And he found that he could deal with the saloonkeepers as well as he could with sailors. He sensed, long before he could put it into words, that the cowboys really had used the right word. He was a peace officer, and he was good at it.

After eighteen months of sea duty aboard the Coral Sea, he was a.s.signed as a sh.o.r.e patrolman attached to the U.S. Naval Hospital, Philadelphia. He worked with the Philadelphia police, and came to the attention of several senior officers, who saw in him just what the department was looking for in its recruits: a large, healthy, bright, pleasant hometown boy with an imposing presence. The police department was suggested to him as a suitable civilian career when his navy hitch was up. With his navy veteran's preference, he had no trouble with the civil service exam. Once that was out of the way, Captain Francis X. Halloran had a word with the Honorable Lawrence Sheen, M.C., and shortly after that Bosun's Mate Third Cla.s.s Dennis V. Coughlin was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy or the convenience of the government to accept essential civilian employment-law enforcement.

Three weeks after taking off his navy blues, Dennis V. Coughlin reported to the police academy for training.

On his first day there, he met John X. Moffitt, just back from a three-year hitch in the marines. They were of an age, they had much in common, and they became buddies. When they graduated from the academy, they were both a.s.signed downtown, Denny Coughlin to the Ninth District, Jack Moffitt to the Sixth/Without much trouble, they managed to have their duty schedules coincide, so they spent their off-duty time together, drinking beer and chasing girls, except for Tuesday nights, when Jack Moffitt went to meetings of the marine corps reserve.

He needed the money, Jack Moffitt argued, and there wasn't going to be a war anyway; Denny should join up too. Denny did not. Jack was called back to the Marines on seventy-two-hours' notice, a week after they had both learned they had pa.s.sed the detective's exam, in August 1950.

Jack was back in just over a year, medically retired as a staff sergeant for wounds received in the vicinity of Hangun-Ri, North Korea, where he also earned the Silver Star. He went back to work in the West Detective Division; Denny Coughlin was then in the Central Detective Division.

But things weren't the same between them, primarily because of Patricia Stevens, whom Jack had met when she went with the girls from Saint Agnes's to entertain the boys in the navy hospital. Denny was best man at their wedding, and Patty used to have him to supper a lot, and she helped the both of them prepare for the sergeant's examination.

A month after Jack Moffitt died of gunshot wounds suffered in the line of duty, a month before Matt was born, Denny Coughlin had made a rare visit to his parish rectory, for a private conversation with Monsignor Finn. It took some time before Finn realized what Denny Coughlin really wanted to talk about, and it was not his immortal soul.

”You don't want to marry the girl, Denny,” Monsignor Finn said, ”because you feel sorry for her, or because she's your friend's wife; nor even to take care of the baby when it comes. And you sure don't want her to marry you because she needs someone to support her and the baby. Now you'll notice that I didn't say you don't want to marry the girl. What I'm saying to you is, have a little patience. Time heals. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if Patty Moffitt saw in you the same things she saw in Jack, G.o.d rest his soul. But you want to be sure, son. Marriage is forever. You don't want to be jumping into it. What I'm saying is just keep being what you are, a good friend, until Patty gets over both her grief and the baby. Then if you still feel the same way ...”

Dennis V. Coughlin had still felt the same way six months later, and a year later, but before he could bring himself to say anything, Patty Moffitt had gone to work, trying to work her way up to be a legal secretary, and then she'd taken Matt for a walk in his stroller, and she'd run into Brewster Cortland Payne II taking his motherless kids for a walk, and then it had been too late.

Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin had been at Dutch Moffitt's wake at the Marshutz & Sons Funeral Home for about an hour when he saw Matt Payne, standing alone, and called him over. He shook his hand, and then put his arm around his shoulders.

”I'd like you to meet these fellows, Matt,” he said. ”Gentlemen, this is Matt Payne, Dutch's nephew.”

Matt was introduced to two chief inspectors, three inspectors, two captains, and a corporal who had gone through the academy with Dutch Moffitt and was being tolerated by the bra.s.s for being a little drunk, and just a shade too friendly.

”When you get a moment, Uncle Denny, could I talk to you?”

”You bet you can,” Denny Coughlin said. ”Excuse us, fellows.” He took Matt's arm and led him far down a wide corridor in the funeral home. Finally, they found an empty corner.

”I joined the police department,” Matt announced.

”How's that again?”

”I said I'm going to be a policeman,” Matt repeated.

”And when did this happen?''

”Today.”

”I'll be d.a.m.ned,” Dennis V. Coughlin said. ”Let me get adjusted to that, Matt.”

”So far only my dad knows,” Matt said.

”Your dad is dead,” Coughlin said, and was immediately contrite. ”Ah, Christ, why did I say that? I'm proud to claim Brewster Payne as a friend, and you couldn't have had a better father.''