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“How prescient of you, Commissioner,” Hollaran said, smiling.

“How do you think you’re going to like the last-out shift in Night Command, Captain?”

The last-out-midnight to eight A.M.-shift in Night Command was universally regarded as the department’s version of purgatory for captains. Those who occupied the position usually had seriously annoyed the senior brass in one way or another. There was no relief from the midnight-to-morning hours; the occupant was required to be in uniform at all times while on duty, and he was the only captain in the department to whom the department did not issue an unmarked car.

Some Night Command captains took their lumps and performed their duties without complaint, while waiting until they were replaced by some other captain who had annoyed the hierarchy, but many heard the message and retired or resigned.

“Come on,” Hollaran said, not awed by the threat. “Matt took the exam, grabbed the brass ring, and he’s a good cop and you know it.”

“… and would be given his choice of assignment,” Coughlin went on, ignoring him. “And that he should seriously consider a couple of years in uniform.”

“And?”

“He said his three choices were going to be Special Operations, Highway, and Homicide.”

“Somehow, I can’t see Matt on a motorcycle,” Hollaran said.

“And Highway’s under Special Operations, and he’s been in Special Operations too long as it is,” Coughlin said.

“Which leaves Homicide,” Hollaran said.

“Which, since he knows he can’t stay in Special Operations forever, is really what he wants. He’s got the system figured out.”

“And that surprises you? With you and Peter Wohl as his rabbis?”

Coughlin flashed him an annoyed look.

Hollaran suddenly smiled.

“You’re having obscene thoughts again, Frank?” Coughlin asked. “Or something else amuses you?”

“The Black Buddha,” Hollaran said. “Wait till he finds out the empty sergeant’s slot in Homicide will be filled by brandnew Sergeant Payne.”

Coughlin smiled, despite himself.

“They’re pretty close,” Coughlin said. “Which makes their situation even more uncomfortable for both of them.”

“They’ll be able to handle it,” Hollaran said.

At 9:05, Detective Matthew M. Payne-a six foot tall, lithely muscled, 165-pound twenty-six-year-old with neatly cut, dark, thick hair and dark, intelligent eyes-arrived in the parking lot behind the Roundhouse, at the wheel of an unmarked, new Ford Crown Victoria.

He was neatly dressed in a tweed jacket, gray flannel slacks, a white button-down-collar shirt, and striped necktie, and when he finally found a place to park the car and got out of the car, carrying a leather briefcase, he looked more like a stockbroker, or a young lawyer, than what comes to mind when the phrase “police detective” is heard.

There seemed to be proof of this when he entered the building and had to produce his badge and identification card before the police officer guarding access to the lobby would pass him into it.

But as he was walking toward the elevator, he was recognized by a slight, wiry, starting-to-bald thirty-eight-year-old in a well-worn blue blazer. He was not a very imposing-looking man, but Matt-and others-knew him to be one of the best homicide detectives, in the same league as Jason Washington.

“As I live and breathe, the fashion plate of Special Operations, ” Detective Anthony C. Harris greeted him. “What brings you here from the Arsenal down to where the working cops work?”

“Hey, Tony!” Payne said, smiling as they shook hands. He looked quickly at his watch. “Got time for a cup of coffee?”

Harris shook his head.

“Guess who wants me to take a look at the Roy Rogers scene,” Harris said.

“South Broad? That one? I saw Mickey’s piece in the Bulletin.”

Harris nodded.