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A deal was struck. Mr. Lanier was permitted to go on his way with the Key, it being understood that within the next two weeks Mr. Lanier would come up with information that would lead Officers Martinez and McFadden to at least twice that much coke, and those in possession of it.

Mr. Lanier thought of himself as an honorable man and lived up to his end of the bargain. Officers Martinez and McFadden rationalized the somewhat questionable legality of turning Mr. Lanier and the Key of coke lose because it ultimately resulted in both the confiscation of three Keys and the arrest and conviction of three dopers who they otherwise wouldn't have known about. Plus, of course, they had scared the shit out of Marvin P. Lanier. It would be some time before he worked up the balls to go back into the messenger business.

They had not, in the three months after their encounter with Mr. Lanier, before they had been transferred from Narcotics, unduly pressed him for additional information. They viewed him as a long-term asset, and asking too much of him would have been like killing the goose who laid the golden egg. It would not have been to their advantage if Mr. Lanier had become suspected by those in the drug trade and removed from circulation.

"Do you think he spotted us?" Hay-zus asked. By then he had brought the RPC almost to a halt, and was looking for a spot in the flow of southbound traffic into which he could make a U-turn.

"He spotted the Highway car," McFadden replied. "But he was so busy shagging ass out of there, I don't think he saw it was you and me."

Hay-zus found a spot and, tires screaming, moved into it.

"Why do you think Marvin was so nervous?" Charley asked excitedly. "Shit, stop!"

"What for?" Hay-zus asked, slowing, although he was afraid he would lose Marvin in traffic.

"Marvin forgot his jack," Charley said. "Somebody's liable to run into it. And besides, I think we should give it back to him."

Hay-zus saw the large Cadillac jack where Marvin had left it. He turned on the flashing lights and, checking the rearview mirror first, slammed on the brakes.

Charley was out of the car and back in it, clutching the jack, in ten seconds.

"Marvin will probably be very grateful to get his jack back," he said as Hay-zus wound up the RPC. "And besides, if Big Bill wants to know how come we left the expressway, we can tell him we were trying to return a citizen's property to him."

"We got no probable cause," Hay-zus said.

"All we're going to ask him is what he heard about Officer Magnella. And/or that guinea gangster, what's his name?"

"DeZego," Hay-zus furnished.

"I guess he spotted us," Charley McFadden said. The proof of that was that Marvin's Cadillac was in the left lane, traveling at no more than forty-six miles per hour in a fifty-mile-per-hour zone."

"What do we do?" Hay-zus asked.

"Get right on his ass and stay there. Let the cocksucker sweat a little. We can stop him when he gets off the expressway. "

Mr. Lanier left the Schuylkill Expressway via the Zoological Gardens exit ramp.

"Pull him over now?"

"Let's see where he's going," Charley said. "If he's dirty, he'll try to lose us. If he's not, he'll probably go home. He lives on 48^th near Haverford, and he's headed that way."

"Why follow the fucker home?"

"So we can let his neighbors see how friendly he is with the Highway Patrol," Charley said. "That ought to raise his standing in the community."

"You can be a real prick sometimes, Charley," Hay-zus said admiringly.

Scrupulously obeying all traffic regulations, and driving with all the care of a school-bus driver, Mr. Lanier drove to his residence just off Haverford Avenue on North 48^th Street. As the RPC turned onto 48^th, Charley bumped the siren and turned the flashing lights on.

Mr. Lanier got out of his car and smiled uneasily at the RPC, which pulled in behind him.

"He didn't run," Hay-zus said.

"He's nervous," Charley said as he retrieved the jack and opened the door. "Hello there, Marvin," he called cheerfully and loudly. "You forgot your jack, Marvin."

Marvin P. Lanier looked at McFadden and Martinez, finally recognizing them, and then suspiciously at the jack.

Charley thrust it into his hands.