Final justice - W.E.B. Griffin [18]
Nevins was one of the two sergeants permanently assigned to Dignitary Protection.
"God loves me," he said. "You're early. I was afraid you'd show up on time, and I put out the arm for you, and radio reported they couldn't find you." He offered no explanation, instead turned and, raising his voice, called across the lobby, "Lieutenant Payne's here."
Lieutenant Gerry McGuire, the commanding officer of Dignitary Protection--a somewhat plump, pleasant-looking forty-five-year-old--walked across the lobby to them. He was--surprising Matt--in uniform.
"I tried to have Al reach out for you, Matt," McGuire said. "I'm glad you're here. We're going to do this, now, in the Ritz-Carlton."
"Who's coming to town, sir?" Matt asked.
"Stan Colt," Lieutenant McGuire said.
"My life is now complete," Matt said.
Stan Colt was an almost unbelievably handsome and muscular actor who had begun his theatrical career in a rock band, used the fame that had brought him to get a minor part in a police series on television, and then used that to get his first role in a theatrical motion picture, playing a detective. That motion picture had been spectacularly successful, largely, Matt thought, because of the special effects. There had been a half-dozen follow-ons, none of which Matt had seen--the first one had reminded him of the comic books he'd read as a kid; in one scene Stan Colt had fired twenty-two shots without reloading from a seven-shot .45 Colt, held sideward--but he understood they had all done exceedingly well at the box office.
"Matt," McGuire said, "be aware that the mayor and the commissioner look upon him as a Philadelphia icon, right up there with Benjamin Franklin." He looked at his watch and added, "I mean now, we're due there at nine-thirty."
He waved Matt ahead of him across the lobby. Sergeant Nevins followed them.
"What's going on at the Ritz-Carlton?" Matt asked.
"Mr. Colt's advance party is there," Lieutenant McGuire replied. "And possibly the archbishop, though more likely Monsignor Schneider. And the commissioner said he might drop by. Colt's people are calling it a 'previsit breakfast conference. ' "
"What's going on?"
"West Catholic High School is going to give Mr. Colt his high school diploma," McGuire said. "Which he apparently didn't get before he went off to show business and fame. In connection with this, there will be two expensive lunches, two even more expensive dinners, and a star-studded performance featuring Mr. Colt and a number of friends. The proceeds will all go to the West Catholic Building Fund. The archbishop, I understand, is thrilled. And the mayor and the commissioner are thrilled whenever the archbishop is thrilled."
"I get the picture," Matt said.
The elevator door opened and Lieutenant McGuire led the way out of the building to the parking lot.
"Where's your car, Al?" McGuire asked. "Mine's in the garage again."
"Mine's right over there," Matt said, pointing, and immediately regretted it.
The assignment of unmarked cars in the Philadelphia police department--except in Special Operations--worked on the hand-me-down principle. New cars went to the chief inspectors, who on receipt of their new vehicles handed down their slightly used vehicles to inspectors, who in turn handed down their well-used, if not worn-out, vehicles to captains entitled to unmarked cars, who passed their nearly worn-out vehicles farther down the hierarchy.
Special Operations had a federal grant for "Experimental Policing Techniques," which, among other things, provided money for automobiles. Special Operations vehicles were not provided out of the department budget, in other words, and the grant was worded so that "unneeded and unexpended funds" were supposed to be returned to the federal government.
The result of that was that not one dollar of "unneeded and unexpended funds" had ever been returned to Washington, and everyone in Special Operations who drove an unmarked car--down to lowly detectives and patrol officers