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"Yes, sir. Twelve to twelve with the overtime."

"I haven't made up my mind what to do with you," Wohl said. "Let your sergeant know where you're going to be, in case Washington or somebody wants to talk to you, and then report for duty at four. Maybe by then Captain Pekach can find somebody to sit on the both of you. Separately, I mean. Together you're dangerous."

"Yes, sir," they chorused.

"Dave," Wohl said, turning to Pekach, "as soon as D'Amata gets Sherlock Holmes and his partner the shotgun, tell D'Amata what happened in the Ristorante Alfredo," Wohl ordered.

"Yes, sir."

The door opened. Matt Payne put his head in.

"Can't find Washington, sir. He doesn't answer the radio, and he's not at home."

"What I told you to do, Payne, is find him. Not report that you can't. Get in a car and go look for him. The next time I hear from you, I want it to be when you tell me Detective Washington is on his way here."

"Yes, sir," Matt said, and quickly closed the door again.

The telephone rang. Obviously his calls were being held. So the ring indicated that this call was too important to hold.

"Inspector Wohl," he said, answering it himself.

"Dennis Coughlin, Peter."

"Good morning, Chief."

"We're due in the mayor's office at 10:15. You, Matt Lowenstein, and me."

"Yes, sir."

"He's mad, Peter. I guess you know."

"Yes, sir."

The phone went dead.

Well, that explains Chief Lowenstein's inexplicable spirit of enthusiastic cooperation. He knew we were all going to have a little chat with the mayor. He can now go on in there and truthfully say that this very morning, when I asked for it, he gave one more of his brighter detectives and asked if there was anything else he could do for me.

SEVENTEEN

Detective Jason Washington did not like Sergeant Patrick J. Dolan, and he was reasonably convinced the reverse was true.

Specifically, as Washington drove his freshly waxed and polished, practically brand-new unmarked car into the parking lot behind the former district station house that was now the headquarters for both the Narcotics and Intelligence Divisions at 4^th and Girard and parked it beside one of the dozen or more battered, ancient, and filthy Narcotics unmarked cars, he thought,Iwill have to keep in mind that Dolan thinks I'm a slick nigger. It would be better for me if he thought I was a plain old, that is to say, mentally retarded nigger, but he is just smart enough to know that isn't so. He knows that Affirmative Action does not go so far as to put mentally retarded niggers to work as Homicide detectives.

I will also have to remember that in his own way Dolan is a pretty good cop, that is to say, that a certain degree of intelligence does indeed flicker behind that profanely loudmouthed mick exterior. He is not really as stupid as I would like to think he is, notwithstanding that really stupid business of hauling Matt Payne over here in the belief that he was dealing drugs.

Most important, I will have to remember that what Dolan hasn't told me-and there is something he hasn't told me-is because he doesn't even know he saw it. The dumb mick has tunnel vision. He was looking for a drug bust and saw two rich kids, one driving a Mercedes and one driving a Porsche, and he was so anxious to put them in the bag, what was important to him, a good drug bust, that he just didn't see Murder One going down.

Inside the building, Washington found Sergeant Patrick J. Dolan in the office of Lieutenant Mick Mikkles.

"Good morning, sir," Jason Washington said politely. "And thank you, Sergeant, for making yourself available."

"I'm due in court in an hour," Sergeant Dolan said. "What's on your mind, Washington?"

"I need a little help, Sergeant," Washington said. "I'm getting nowhere with the DeZego job."

"You probably won't," Dolan said. "You want to know what I think?"

"Yes, I really do."