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He felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

That’s it!

Death.Before.Dishonor had posted a comment at the end of that article that said, “Fuck you!” and something else.

It was listed right after mine.

He clicked on the link, then scrolled down. He found his comment and the one after it:

From Hung.Up.Badge.But.Not.Gun (9:50 a.m.):

Amen to both of you, Indy1 amp; WWBFD. I spent enough time walking the beat to see everything at least once. And nothing is as insidious as what these drugs do to families of every walk of life. I say, Shoot?em all and let the Good Lord sort?em out.

Recommend [4] Click Here to Report Abuse From HowYouseGuysDoin’ (9:22 a.m.):

And amen to that! I?ll provide the ammo! This nonsense has got to stop. The inmates are running the asylum!

Recommend [1] Click Here to Report Abuse He scrolled farther down the list. There were four other comments.

But not one from Death.Before.Dishonor.

And clearly not the one that ranted about “fuck you!”-oh, and said that drugs were no different from booze and hookers.

It’s gone now.

Huh. Guess someone reported it as abuse, and they pulled it off.

Stanley Dowbrowski quickly clicked back to the article on the Temple University Hospital murder.

He scrolled down and saw that the Death.Before.Dishonor comment was still there.

He clicked on the printer icon, and in a minute his color printer was spitting out sheets with the article and all of its comments on it.

Then he reached over and picked up the phone. He punched in a number.

Great.

Got his answering machine.

“Yo, Tony,” he said to the answering machine. “Stanley Dowbrowski here. Sorry to bother you this late at home. But I got something weird here. Not sure what. Or even if it’s really anything. But it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. It’s about that shooting at the hospital. And the motel that blew up over on Frankford. That damn thing rattled the hell out of my windows this morning. Thought the world was coming to an end. Anyway, give me a call when you can. 555-1840. Later.”

Stanley Dowbrowski then picked up his James O. Born cop novel and wheezed his way down the hall to the bedroom.

IX

ONE

140 South Broad Street, Philadelphia Wednesday, September 9, 8:45 P.M.

Captain Francis X. Hollaran pointed to his wristwatch and said to First Deputy Police Commissioner Dennis V. Coughlin, “You’re on in fifteen, boss.” Both were wearing suits and ties.

Coughlin nodded.

From the corner of the room, he looked around at the audience. People were beginning to fill the fifty seats set up around the ten round tables in the western wing of the Grant Room of the Union League of Philadelphia. The room, thirty-seven feet square with ten-foot-high ceilings, was elegantly decorated with stunning chandeliers, dark wood-paneled walls, rich burgundy drapery, and thick deep-red-patterned woolen carpeting. A waitstaff in understated black outfits served light hors d’oeuvres and drinks, the latter being mostly coffee and water and soft drinks but also a fair number of cocktails.

The crowd was composed mostly of men. All were well-dressed and well-groomed.

And well-connected.