Page 118

"What's the problem, Inspector?"

"There's no problem at all, Sergeant," Chief Wohl said. "My son has got the cockamamie idea that I'm too drunk to drive."

"Hello, Chief," Big Bill said. "Nice to see you again, sir."

"I was just telling Matt Payne about Jerry Carlucci and the gorilla suit," Chief Wohl said. "You ever hear that story?"

"No, sir," Big Bill said. "You can tell me on the way home. Inspector, I'll have a car pick up mine and meet me at the chief's house. Okay?"

"Fine," Wohl said. "Or we could wait for a two-man car."

"No, I'll take the chief. I want to hear about the gorilla suit." He winked at Peter Wohl.

Peter Wohl found his father's coat and helped him into it. Matt saw for the

first time that Chief Wohl had a pistol.

I guess once a cop, always a cop.

"You tell Mother going to Groverman's Bar was your idea, Dad?" Peter said.

"I can handle your mother, don't you worry about that," Chief Wohl said. He walked over to Matt and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, son. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but Peter thinks you're going to make a hell of a cop."

"I said 'in twenty years or so' is what I said," Peter Wohl said.

Chief Wohl and Sergeant Henderson left.

Wohl walked past Matt, into his bedroom, and returned in a moment carrying sheets and blankets and a pillow. He tossed them at Matt.

"Make up the couch. Go to bed. Do not snore. Leave quietly in the morning. You are still working with Jason?"

"Yes, sir. I'm to meet him at the Roundhouse at eight."

"Try not to breathe on him," Wohl said. "I would hate for him to get the idea that you've been out till all hours drinking."

"Yes, sir. Good night, sir."

At his bedroom door Peter Wohl turned. "When you hear the gorilla suit story again, and you will, remember that the first time you heard it, you heard it from the source," he said.

"Yes, sir."

"Good night, Matt," Wohl said, and closed the door.

Matt undressed to his underwear. The last thing he took off was his ankle holster. He laid it on the table beside his tuxedo trousers.

My gun, he thought. The tool of the policeman's trade. Chief Wohl still carries his. And Chief Wohl thinks I'm a cop. A rookie, maybe, but a cop. He wouldn't 't have told that story to a civilian, about the mayor when he was a cop, putting on a gorilla suit and knocking some wiseass around. I wouldn't tell it to my father; he's a civilian and wouldn't understand. And Chief Wohl wasn't kidding when he said that Inspector Wohl told him he thought I could make a good cop.

Matt Payne went to sleep feeling much happier than when he had walked in the door.

SIXTEEN

Matt Payne's bladder woke him with a call to immediate action at half past five. It posed something of a problem. There was only one toilet in Peter Wohl's apartment, off his bedroom. It was either try to use that without waking Wohl or going outside and relieving himself against the wall of the garage, something that struck him as disgusting to do, but he knew he could not make it to the nearest open diner or hamburger joint.

When he stood up, the decision-making process resolved itself. A sharp pain told him he could not wait until he got outside.

On tiptoe he marched past Wohl, who was sleeping on his stomach with his head under a pillow. He carefully closed the door to the bathroom, raised the lid, and tried to accomplish what had to be done as quietly as possible. He had just congratulated himself on his skill doing that and begun to hope that he could tiptoe back out of Wohl's room undiscovered when the toilet, having been flushed, began to refill the tank. It sounded like Niagara Falls.

Finally it stopped, with a groan like a wounded elephant. Matt opened the door and looked. Wohl did not appear to have moved. Matt tiptoed past the foot of Wohl's bed and made it almost to the door.