"I was afraid to," Susan said.

"Did something happen? What were you afraid of?"

"I didn't like the way Veronica was looking at me."

"So, what did you do?"

"I came here, looking for you, and you weren't here, so I walked around the block, and came back, and walked around the block. . . . The last time I came in the hotel, I saw you getting on the elevator."

"By now, Veronica is wondering where the h.e.l.l you are. You didn't call up and say you were sick or anything?"

Susan shook her head, "no."

"Do it now. Tell her you felt dizzy and got sick to your stomach."

"I don't work for Veronica. I'd have to call my supervisor."

"Whoever. Tell whoever that you got sick and felt dizzy, and are going to see your doctor at half past three, and that you'll probably be in after that."

"You want me to go back to work?"

"No. But that may stall them a little. They may-just may-decide to wait until after you don't show up at four, or four-thirty, before deciding that you've taken off."

"What are we going to do about Jennie?"

"What is she going to do, just wait for you in the restaurant?"

"There's an outside pay phone-actually, there's three of them-and she's going to start calling them at seven. When I answer, she'll know I'm there."

"Which one? You said three?"

"Whichever one rings," Susan said, and smiled. "I guess she has the numbers of all of them. If one of them is busy, she'll try another. She's good at this sort of thing."

"Call your supervisor," Matt said.

"And then what?"

"And then we go."

"Go where?"

"Ultimately to Doylestown. But right now, just out of here."

"I'm not due in Doylestown until seven."

"So we'll stop at Hershey and shoot a quick eighteen holes," Matt said.

"That would be nice, wouldn't it, if we could do things like that? Play some golf? Are you any good?"

"I'm very good, thank you for asking," Matt said. "Call your supervisor, Susan."

Armando C. Giacomo, Esq., had more than a little difficulty finding a place to park his Jaguar sedan in the parking lot shared by the 1st District and South Detectives. The three spots reserved for visitors outside the ancient, run-down building were occupied, which was not really surprising. But so were the two spots reserved for inspectors; and the two spots set aside for the two captains of the 1st District and South Detectives.

He finally figured to h.e.l.l with it, and parked in an "Ab solutely No Parking at Any Time" slot near the rear door of the old, shabby building. His car was subject to being towed away there, but he suspected that before his shiny new Jaguar was hauled off, inquiries would be made to establish its ownership, and he could then explain to whoever came asking, how hard he had looked for a place to park and how reluctant he was to leave it on the street, where some happy adolescent would write his initials in the shiny green lacquer with a key.

Most cops, he knew, bore him little ill will for defending individuals alleged to have a connection with organized crime. For one thing-which explained to Manny Giacomo why the cops didn't climb the walls and pull their hair out when a genuine bad guy walked on a legal technicality-most cops drew a line between what they did and the criminal justice system did.

They arrested the bad guys. That was their job. What happened with the lawyers and the district attorneys and juries wasn't their concern.

There were even a few cops who really believed-as Manny Giacomo did-that even the worst sc.u.mbag was ent.i.tled to the best defense he could get, that it was on this that Justice with a capital J J was really based. was really based.

And just about every cop knew that if they were hauled before the bar of justice, lowercase J, J, on an excessive-brutality rap or the like, they could expect to hear, "Ar mando C. Giacomo for the defense, your honor," when they stood up to face the judge. on an excessive-brutality rap or the like, they could expect to hear, "Ar mando C. Giacomo for the defense, your honor," when they stood up to face the judge.

Just before he pushed open the door to the building, Manny Giacomo saw a new Buick coupe, bristling with an array of antennas, parked where no civilian vehicle was ever allowed to park, in one of the spots reserved for district radio patrol cars.

Mr. Michael J. O'Hara of the Bulletin Bulletin is obviously up and about practicing his profession, is obviously up and about practicing his profession, Giacomo thought, and wondered if he could somehow put the power of the press to work defending the officers he had come to protect from the unjustified accusations of the police establishment. Giacomo thought, and wondered if he could somehow put the power of the press to work defending the officers he had come to protect from the unjustified accusations of the police establishment.

Just inside the door, Lieutenant Daniel Justice of South Detectives, who had probably been waiting for him, stuck out his hand.

"Good morning, Counselor."

"Danny the Judge!" Giacomo said, shaking his hand.

Danny needed a shave, and looked as if he had been up all night. Giacomo remembered the last time he'd seen him, he'd told him he was working Last Out. He therefore should now be home asleep.

"I thought you were working Last Out," Giacomo said.

"You know what they say, 'no rest for the virtuous,' " Danny said. "Chief Inspector Coughlin would be most grateful if you could spare him a moment of your time."

"Before I talk to the unjustly accused police officers, you mean?"

"Now, is what I mean," Danny said. "I'll pa.s.s on agreeing that they're unjustly accused."

Danny the Judge guided Giacomo across the room to the office of the district captain and pushed open the door.

Dennis Coughlin and Michael O'Hara had apparently evicted the district captain from his office. O'Hara was sitting behind his desk. Coughlin was sitting in the one, somewhat battered, chrome-and-leather armchair.

"Mr. Giacomo, Chief," Danny announced. "Should I have his illegally parked car hauled away now, or wait awhile?"

"Declare it abandoned, have it hauled to the Academy, and tell them I said they should use it for target practice," Coughlin replied. "Good morning, Counselor."

"You heard him, Mickey," Giacomo said. "Blatantly and shamelessly threatening the desecration of a work of art."

O'Hara got up from behind the desk and walked toward the door.

"Somehow, I get the feeling that Denny would rather talk to you alone, Manny," he said, touching his shoulder as he walked past him.

Danny the Judge pulled the door closed.

"There's coffee, Manny," Coughlin said, indicating a coffee machine.

Giacomo walked to it and helped himself.

"Being a suspicious character," he said as he looked with distaste at a bowl full of packets of nondairy creamer and decided he was not going to put that terrifying collection of chemicals into his coffee, "I suspect that there may be more here than meets the eye. Or, more specifically, what I was led to believe by the vice president of the FOP."

"What did he lead you to believe?" Coughlin asked.

"For one thing," Giacomo said, taking a sip from his coffee mug-which bore the insignia of the Emerald Society, the a.s.sociation of police officers of Irish extraction-and deciding the coffee was going to be just as bad as he was afraid it would be, "the last I heard, Chief Inspector Coughlin was not running Internal Affairs."

"What did they tell you at the FOP?" Coughlin repeated.

"That several all-around sc.u.mbags engaged in the controlled-substances distribution industry had made several outrageous allegations against a number of pure-as-freshly-fallen-snow police officers."

"Well, they got the 'sc.u.mbags' part right, at least," Coughlin said.

"I am now prepared to listen to-if you are inclined to tell me-the opposing view."

He sat down at the district captain's desk and looked at Coughlin.

"Off the record, if you'd rather, Denny," he added.

"Thank you for off-the-record, Manny," Coughlin said. "Okay. We have the entire Five Squad of the Narcotics Unit under arrest. The charge right now is misprision in office."

"The entire Five Squad? That's interesting. And so is 'misprision.' And what inference, if any, should I draw from 'right now'?"

"One of the charges that may be placed against one of these officers is rape," Coughlin said.

" 'May be placed'? Was there a rape? Can you prove it?"

"There was a rape. An oral rape. We have a witness to the rape."

" 'May be placed'? I don't understand that." be placed'? I don't understand that."

"I understand, Manny, that you took Vincenzo Savarese to Brewster Payne's office, where Savarese begged Brewster to lean on his daughter to treat Savarese's granddaughter?"

"What we're talking about here, Denny, is the Narcotics Five Squad," Giacomo said. "Not Vincenzo Savarese."

"Shortly after Dr. Payne took Cynthia Longwood under her care," Coughlin went on, "a message was left for her at University Hospital-"

"I'm really disappointed in Dr. Payne. And/or Brewster Payne. If what you say is true, then either Payne told his son-which is the same thing as telling the police-or Dr. Payne clearly violated patient-physician-"

"Let me finish, Manny," Coughlin said.

"I'm about to say, Chief Coughlin, that we are back on the record."

"Give me another ninety seconds on that, Manny, please."

Giacomo considered that.

"Ninety seconds, no. We're still off the record. We go back on at my option."

"Thank you," Coughlin said.

Coughlin reached in his pocket and took out a sheet of paper and read from it, slowly: " 'Miss Cynthia Longwood was stripped naked and orally raped, by a policeman under circ.u.mstances that were themselves traumatic.' "

"Jesus!" Manny Giacomo said, and was immediately furious with himself for letting his surprise show.

"Dr. Payne believes that having suffered a traumatic experience like that is consistent with Miss Longwood's condition, which is, in Dr. Payne's opinion, very close to serious schizophrenia. I'm not too good with medical terms, Manny, but what Amy means is that if the girl gets that far, she won't come back soon, or at all."

"You're saying that one of the Five Squad narcs did this to her?"

"Yes, I am. And does Savarese know? He knows. He doesn't have the name of the cop yet."

"Aren't you presuming a lot, Denny? How do you know Savarese knows?"

"We know that Joey Fiorello hired a private investigator-a retired detective-to see who the girl's boyfriend was. His name is Ronald R. Ketcham. The retired detective told Fiorello that Ketcham wasn't quite the respectable stockbroker he's supposed to be; that he's into selling drugs. He also told Fiorello that it was logical to presume that Ketcham's girlfriend was also into 'recreational' drugs.

"Shortly after that happened, Ketcham was s.n.a.t.c.hed from the garage of his apartment. They took him to a deserted NIKE site in South Philadelphia, took his clothes away from him, and left him there in the dark overnight. The next day, they came back and asked him questions. He had no idea he was keeping company with Savarese's granddaughter. He thought that the people who had s.n.a.t.c.hed him were in the drug business."

"I don't understand what you're telling me."

"Last Thursday night, Ketcham went to the Howard Johnson motel on Roosevelt Boulevard to do a drug deal with a guy named Amos Williams. He had Savarese's granddaughter with him. The Five Squad was apparently onto both of them. They busted Williams, and the people he had with him. One of the cops went into Ketcham's room, stole twenty thousand dollars from him, handcuffed him to the toilet, and raped Savarese's granddaughter."

"You can prove all that, I suppose?"

Coughlin ignored the question.

"Ketcham told Savarese's thugs what happened. His a.s.sumption was that Williams thought he had given Williams to the Five Squad, and that Williams had sent the people to s.n.a.t.c.h him. You with me?"

"I don't know, keep talking."

"So Savarese left Ketcham in the NIKE site . . ."

That I don't believe. If Savarese thought this guy was responsible for his granddaughter getting raped-or just for getting her on "recreational" drugs-he just wouldn't walk away and leave it at that.

But the rest of this is probably true. Savarese wanted me to get an investigator for him. Jesus Christ, I'm glad I didn't do that!

". . . and told Joey Fiorello to have the private investigator find out what cops were at the Howard Johnson motel when they busted Amos Williams. They gave the guy a bulls.h.i.t story why they wanted to know, and the guy went to Mike Sabara and told him he smelled something fishy."

"How did you know that person or persons unknown had left the boyfriend in the NIKE site?"

"We're still off the record, right, Manny?"

"I'll tell you when we go back on."