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“His name is Chason,” Sabara said. “And he’s coming to see me. When he comes in, bring him right in.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Chason is actually Detective Chason, Retired, Tommy.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you know where your father was last night, Tommy?”

“Yes, sir. He was at Captain Beidermann’s retirement party. They were classmates at the Academy.”

“Then your father was also a classmate of Detective Chason, Tommy. And he was also at Captain Beidermann’s retirement policy. Now, don’t you think you could have at least picked up a little bit of that information regarding Detective Chason before you told me a nameless civilian was on the phone?”

Officer O’Mara considered that.

“Yes, sir. I suppose I should have.”

“Good boy!” Sabara said.

“Thank you, sir,” Officer O’Mara said, pleased to have been complimented.

“Thank you for seeing me, Captain,” Phil said when Officer O’Mara—after telling Chason who his father was, and that he understood they were Academy classmates—had taken him into Sabara’s office.

“Any friend of Karl’s . . .” Sabara said. “He and I went to Wheel School together. He was a sergeant . . .”

He waved Chason into an upholstered chair.

“Now that I’m here,” Chason said, “I’m beginning to wonder if this was such a hot idea.”

“You said you wanted fifteen minutes. You’ve got it.”

“All I’ve really got is that a guy I suspect—can’t prove—has ties to the mob wants—is willing to pay a thousand dollars for—the names of some narcs, and told me a complicated bullshit story to explain why.”

“Who’s the guy you think has ties to the mob?”

“Joey Fiorello,” Phil said. “He runs a car lot on Essington Avenue—”

“I know who Joey is,” Sabara interrupted. “Why does he want the names of the narcs?”

“I don’t know, but the story he gave me is bullshit.”

“You want to start at the beginning?” Sabara said. “How did you come into contact with Joey Fiorello?”

“Well, I went out on medical disability. I got bored, so I got myself a private investigator’s license and put an ad in the yellow pages. About a year ago, Fiorello called me, said he saw the ad.”

“Called you to do what?”

“What I guess you could call a background investigation. He said he was thinking of offering a guy a job as a salesman, sales manager, and wanted to know about him. I checked out the first one, he was a solid citizen. A couple of months later, same story. Another solid citizen. And he called me a third time, just a little while ago. This time the guy was a real sleazeball, a stockbroker named Ketcham.”

“What was that name?”

“Ketcham, Ronald R. You know it?”

“Tommy!”

Officer O’Mara put his head in the door.

“See if Sergeant Washington is upstairs, will you? If he is, here, now, Tommy.”