Final justice - W.E.B. Griffin [74]
He could, for example, get on his bicycle, ride into Cognac-Boeuf, take a table at La Relais, have rolls fresh from the oven, locally made butter, coffee, and a hooker of cognac placed before him, and consume them while he explained to the locals what the stories in Time and the Trib really meant.
And that was exactly what Isaac David Festung did, while Officers Hyde and Cubellis remained on patrol in Philadelphia, maintaining as well as they could peace and domestic tranquillity in the City of Brotherly Love.
[THREE]
When Captain Henry C. Quaire walked into Homicide a few minutes after eight the same morning, he saw Sergeant Matthew M. Payne sitting on a chair outside the chief of Homicide's office. Sergeant Payne rose when he saw Captain Quaire.
"Good morning, Sergeant," Quaire said, smiling, and then waved his hand toward the door of his office. "Come on in."
Matt Payne followed him into the office.
"One of your major responsibilities, Sergeant," Quaire said, pointing to his coffee machine, "is to make sure that one of your subordinates makes sure that machine is tended and ready for service by the time I walk in here."
"Yes, sir," Matt said.
Quaire poured an Emerald Society cup full, and turned to Payne.
"Help yourself, Matt, and then pull up a chair."
"Yes, sir. Thank you."
Privately, Henry Quaire was not overjoyed at the assignment of Sergeant Payne to Homicide. For one thing, he'd had nothing to do with it. Almost traditionally, the chief of Homicide had been able to select his men, and there were a number of sergeants--three, in particular, who wanted the assignment--whom Quaire considered to be far better qualified to be a sergeant in Homicide than Sergeant Payne.
But the commissioner had had his off-the-wall idea of giving the top five guys on the sergeant's list their choice of assignment, so Payne's assignment was a done deal, and there was no way he could fight it.
Not that he really wanted to, he decided. For one thing, he was off the hook about picking one of the other sergeants. If he had had to make a choice between them, two of them would not have gotten the assignment, and they--and their rabbis-- would have been disappointed, and their rabbis probably pissed.
Now they could be pissed at the commissioner.
And it wasn't as if Payne was an absolute incompetent getting shoved down his throat. He was, in fact, a pretty good cop, who would probably do a good job in Homicide before moving onward and upward in the police hierarchy. Like his rabbi, Inspector Peter Wohl, he was one of those people who seemed predestined for ever-greater responsibility and the rank that went with it.
Nor was there going to be, so far as Quaire sensed, much--if any--resentment from the Homicide guys about having a brand-new sergeant with just over five years on the job as a Homicide supervisor.
For one thing, Payne was close to the two most respected people in Homicide, Lieutenant Jason Washington and Detective Tony Harris. Washington had no problem with Payne's assignment, and when Quaire had asked Tony Harris, Harris had been almost enthusiastic.
"I've worked with him, Captain," Harris said. "He's smart as hell. And this place can use a little class. Unless I'm wrong, he's going to be dynamite on the witness stand."
Smart as hell and being dynamite on the witness stand were two desirable characteristics for anybody in Homicide.
And then there was the fact that everybody in Homicide knew that Payne had had two good shootings. The first had been the serial rapist in Northwest Philadelphia who'd tried to run Payne down in his van. That bastard had already had his next intended victim trussed up like a Christmas turkey in the back of his van when Payne had interrupted his plans with a bullet in his head.
The second was when they were rounding up the doers in the Goldblatt & Sons Furniture job, and Wohl had put Payne and Mickey O'Hara in an alley to keep them out of the line of fire, while Highway and Special Operations uniforms went in the front. One of the doers had appeared