"Any friend of Karl's . . ." Sabara said. "He and I went to Wheel School together. He was a sergeant . . ."

He waved Chason into an upholstered chair.

"Now that I'm here," Chason said, "I'm beginning to wonder if this was such a hot idea."

"You said you wanted fifteen minutes. You've got it."

"All I've really got is that a guy I suspect-can't prove-has ties to the mob wants-is willing to pay a thousand dollars for-the names of some narcs, and told me a complicated bulls.h.i.t story to explain why."

"Who's the guy you think has ties to the mob?"

"Joey Fiorello," Phil said. "He runs a car lot on Essington Avenue-"

"I know who Joey is," Sabara interrupted. "Why does he want the names of the narcs?"

"I don't know, but the story he gave me is bulls.h.i.t."

"You want to start at the beginning?" Sabara said. "How did you come into contact with Joey Fiorello?"

"Well, I went out on medical disability. I got bored, so I got myself a private investigator's license and put an ad in the yellow pages. About a year ago, Fiorello called me, said he saw the ad."

"Called you to do what?"

"What I guess you could call a background investigation. He said he was thinking of offering a guy a job as a salesman, sales manager, and wanted to know about him. I checked out the first one, he was a solid citizen. A couple of months later, same story. Another solid citizen. And he called me a third time, just a little while ago. This time the guy was a real sleazeball, a stockbroker named Ketcham."

"What was that name?"

"Ketcham, Ronald R. You know it?"

"Tommy!"

Officer O'Mara put his head in the door.

"See if Sergeant Washington is upstairs, will you? If he is, here, now, Tommy."

"Yes, sir."

"Who's Sergeant Washington?" Phil asked.

"Great big black guy? Used to work Homicide? The Black Buddha?"

"Jason's here, and a sergeant?"

"I don't how he feels about being a sergeant, but he doesn't like being here."

Officer O'Mara reported that Sergeant Washington was not in the building but Detective Harris was.

"Ask him to join us, please, Tommy," Sabara said.

"Tony Harris, too?" Phil asked.

"Equally unhappy at not being in Homicide," Sabara said.

Tony Harris came into the office two minutes later.

"Jesus, look what the tide washed up. The poor man's Sam Spade."

"f.u.c.k you, Tony!" Phil replied.

Sabara was pleased. Obviously, Harris and Chason were friends. That spoke well for Chason, who had spent twenty-six years on the job, but whom Sabara could not remember ever having seen before he walked into his office.

"Mr. Chason was just telling me that he was engaged just a few days ago to investigate Mr. Ronald R. Ketcham," Sabara said.

"No s.h.i.t?" Tony asked, looking at Phil.

Phil nodded.

"How did you know we're looking for him?"

"I didn't, but I'm not surprised. He's a sleazeball."

"You didn't see the Locate, Do Not Detain?" Sabara asked, just to be sure.

"No, I didn't."

"Who hired you to check Ketcham out?" Tony asked.

"Joey Fiorello," Phil said.

Tony grunted.

"You don't happen to know where he is, do you, Phil?"

"Sorry."

"The other interesting thing Mr. Chason had to say, Tony, was that Fiorello is also interested in learning the names of some other narcotics officers."

"Narcotics Five Squad officers?" Tony asked quietly.

"I don't know about that, but there was a drug bust at the Howard Johnson motel last Thursday. . . ."

"That's interesting," Sabara said.

"Can I ask what's going on?" Phil asked.

"That's a tough one," Sabara began. "Mr. Chason, we're working on something-I can't answer that question. You understand."

"Horses.h.i.t," Tony Harris said. "Mike, I've known Phil for twenty years. If there are two honest cops in the whole department, Phil's the other one. The more he knows about what we're trying to do, the more useful he's going to be."

That was a clear case of insubordination. Not to mention using disrespectful language to a superior officer. And, for that matter, Harris was clearly guilty of being on duty needing a shave and a haircut.

But on the other hand . . .

"The other other honest cup? You mean you and him?" honest cup? You mean you and him?"

"Well, maybe Washington and Wohl, too," Harris said. "That would make four, but I'm not so sure about Wohl. . . ."

"For the record, Tony, I told you not to tell him . . ."

"So report me."

". . . so I will tell him," Sabara finished. "With the understanding none of this leaves this room, Mr. Chason?"

"Yes, sir."

"Vincenzo Savarese's granddaughter is in the psychiatric ward of University Hospital, in pretty bad condition," Sabara began. "Somebody called up there and said she had been orally raped."

"I don't get the connection," Phil said.

"Ronald R. Ketcham is the girl's boyfriend," Tony said. "And no one seems to know where he is."

"Ketcham must be a ladies' man," Chason said. "What I heard was he was carrying on hot and heavy with a Main Line-Bala Cynwyd-princess named Longwood."

"Same girl, Phil," Tony Harris said.

"And she's Savarese's granddaughter? And this guy raped her? Don't hold your breath until you find him, Tony," Phil said and then had a chilling thought.

"Oh, s.h.i.t! And I told Joey Fiorello, who told Savarese . . ."

"How were you to know?" Tony Harris said. "Phil, let's start at the beginning again. Maybe there's something there."

"About a year ago," Phil began.

Despite his intention to rise at noon, Detective Harry Cronin had woken a little after three P.M. to the sound of cooking utensils banging in the kitchen. He rose from the couch and went into his kitchen.

"Hi, baby!" he said to Mrs. Cronin.

She gave him a sadly contemptuous look but did not reply.

"I'm sorry about last night, honey. What happened was I went by the Red Rooster-"

"And got plastered," Patty finished for him.

He accepted the accusation with a chagrined nod.

"Just because you're back on nights, Harry," Patricia said, "does not mean you're going to start going to the Red Rooster and-"

"It was a one-time thing, baby."

"It better have been, Harry," Patty said, then closed the conversation by adding, "You better take a shower and a shave. It's time for you to go to work."

"Right," Harry agreed.

When he came back downstairs, shaved, showered, and ready both to go to work and apologize, sincerely, to Patty for his lapse, she wasn't in the house.

So there had been nothing to do but go to work, and he had done so.

It turned out to be a slow night, and there had been a chance for him about ten o'clock to go into a drugstore and buy Patty a large box of a.s.sorted Whitman's chocolates as sort of a let's-be-friends-again peace offering.

Patty was always pleased when he bought her a box of Whitman's. She might forgive him. On the other hand, for the next two weeks or whatever, until the chocolates were gone, whenever she ate one, she would be reminded of why he had given them to her.

What the h.e.l.l, he decided. he decided. She has a right to be p.i.s.sed. Buy the chocolates anyway. She has a right to be p.i.s.sed. Buy the chocolates anyway.

Later, he was pleased with his decision. There was no place he could have conveniently bought flowers-which would last only a couple of days-and flowers would have been a confession he had really really f.u.c.ked up, not only had a couple more drinks than he should have had. f.u.c.ked up, not only had a couple more drinks than he should have had.

At five minutes after midnight, he got into his four-year-old Chevrolet full of resolve not to go to the Red Rooster, but home, where he would fix things up with Patty.

His route took him past a deserted NIKE site.

He slowed and took a good long look. There was nothing. No lights. No sign of activity. Zilch.

But Harry Cronin knew that something was going on in that G.o.dd.a.m.n NIKE site.

He had absolutely nothing to support this belief except the intuition that comes to intelligent men with nineteen years on the job, thirteen of them as a detective.

He had had this feeling about the NIKE site from the time the Army had moved out, although at that point it was more a logical suspicion that-deserted buildings attract illegal activity-some kind of illegal activity would take place in the future.

But the feeling Harry had then was not the feeling he had now. Now he knew knew something wrong was going on at the NIKE site, and he something wrong was going on at the NIKE site, and he knew knew that it was something more than somebody talking his girl into going into one of the buildings with mutual criminal intent to violate the still-on-the-books statutes prohibiting fornication. that it was something more than somebody talking his girl into going into one of the buildings with mutual criminal intent to violate the still-on-the-books statutes prohibiting fornication.

And Cronin didn't think it was dope. Dope dealers need a reasonably discreet location to serve their clientele. A string of people making their way through the hurricane fence from the street to the buildings and then back out would attract unwanted attention.

Philadelphia police officers had no authority inside the fence, but the moment someone walked back out through the gate in the fence, with that day's supply of joints, or whatever, they would again fall under Philadelphia police authority.

What went on inside the hurricane fence with the now-getting-a-little-rusty "U.S. Government Property. Trespa.s.sing Forbidden Under Penalty of Law" warning signs attached at twenty-five-foot intervals to the fence was absolutely none of Detective Harry Cronin's business, and he knew it.

Having reminded himself of all this, he decided to go with his gut feeling, even if that meant he would be a little late getting home and Patty would sniff his breath the minute he walked in the door.

He slowed even further, and made a U-turn and drove back to the gate in the hurricane fence.

When he got out of the car and opened the gate, it occurred to him that, in the eyes of the feds, he was probably an illegal trespa.s.ser. And with his luck, some overpaid federal bureaucrat, to make a little overtime, would make one of his twice-a-year four-hour detailed inspections of the property right about now.

That meant he would drive past the place probably faster than Harry had, without stopping. That would be four hours on his overtime time sheet.

Harry almost had second thoughts.