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“That’s right.”

“Before this is all over, I’d be grateful if you would give me the name of your eye doctor.”

“You’re not going to try to tell me I couldn’t see that bastard? Recognize him?”

“I’m just trying to do the best job I can, Mr. Monahan,” Giacomo said. “I’m sure you understand.”

“No, I don’t,” Monahan said. “I don’t understand at all.”

NINETEEN

Lieutenant Jack Malone had just carefully rewrapped the aluminum foil around the remnants of his dinner—two egg rolls and beef-and-pepper—and was about to shoot it, basketball-like, into the wastebasket under the writing desk in his room in the St. Charles Hotel when his telephone rang.

He glanced at his watch as he reached for the telephone. Quarter past seven. Sometimes Little Jack would telephone him around this hour. His first reaction was pleasure, which was almost immediately replaced with something close to pain:

If it is Little Jack, he’s liable to ask again why I’m not coming home.

“Peter Wohl, Jack,” his caller said. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“No, sir.”

“Sorry to bother you at home, but I want to talk to you about something.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Have you had dinner?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you mind watching me eat? I’ve got to get something in my stomach.”

“Not at all.”

“You know Ribs Unlimited on Chestnut Street?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you meet me there in—thirty, thirty-five minutes?”

“Yes, sir, I’ll be there.”

“At the bar, Jack. Thank you,” Wohl said, and hung up.

What the fuck does Wohl want? Is this going to be one of those heart-to-heart talks better held in an informal atmosphere? Has word finally got to him that I was watching Holland’s body shop?

“Malone, you disappoint me. A word to the wise should have been sufficient. Get Bob Holland out of your mind. In other words, get off his case.”

Malone pushed himself out of bed and started to dress. He really hated to wear anything but blue jeans and a sweater and a nylon jacket, because sure as Christ made little apples, if I put on a suit and shirt, I will get something—slush or barbecue sauce, something—on them and have to take them to the cleaners.

“But on the other hand,” he said aloud as he took a tweed sports coat and a pair of cavalry twill trousers from the closet, “one must look one’s best when one is about to socialize with one’s superior officer. Clothes indeed do make the man.”

When he got outside the hotel, he saw that the temperature had dropped, and frozen the slush. He decided to walk. It wasn’t really that close, but if he drove, he might not be able to find a place to park when he came back, and he had plenty of time. Wohl had said thirty, thirty-five minutes.

Now I won’t soil my clothes, I’ll slip on the goddamn ice and break my fucking leg.

Ribs Unlimited, despite the lousy weather, was crowded. There was a line of people waiting for the nod of the headwaiter in the narrow entrance foyer.

Malone stood in the line for a minute or two, and then remembered Wohl had said “in the bar.”