"Why do I think I'll need it?" Wohl said, also chuckling, and left.

There was a Cadillac hearse with a casket in it in the parking lot. The driver was leaning on the fender. Chrome-plated letters outside the frosted glass readMARSHUTZ amp; SONS.

Dutch was apparently going to be buried from a funeral home three blocks from his house. As soon as the medical examiner released the body, it would be put in the casket, and in the hearse, and taken there.

Wohl thought that Sabara showing up here, just so he could lead the hearse to Marshutz amp; Sons, was a rather touching gesture. It wasn't called for by regulations, and he hadn't thought that Dutch and Sabara had been that close. But probably, he decided, he was wrong. Sabara wasn't really as tough as he acted (and looked), and he probably had been, in his way, fond of Dutch.

He got in the LTD and got on the radio.

"Isaac Twenty-Three. Have Two-Eleven contact me on the J-Band."

Two-Eleven was the Second District car he had sent with Louise Dutton.

He had to wait a moment before Two-Eleven called him.

"Two-Eleven to Isaac Twenty-Three."

"What's your location, Two-Eleven?"

"We just dropped the lady at Six Stockton Place."

Where the hell is that? The only Stockton Place I can think of is a slum down by the river.

"Where?"

"Isaac Twenty-Three, that's Apartment A, Six Stockton Place."

"Two-Eleven, where does that come in?"

"It's off Arch Street in the one-hundred block."

"Okay. Two-Eleven, thank you," he said, and put the microphone back in the glove box.

He was surprised. That was really a crummy address, not one where you would expect a classy blonde like Louise Dutton to live. Then he remembered that there had been conversion, renovation, whatever it was called, of the old buildings in that area.

When Lieutenant David Pekach came out of the medical examiner's office, he found a white-cap Traffic Division officer standing next to the battered van, writing out a ticket.

"Is there some trouble, Officer?" Pekach asked, innocently.

The Traffic Division officer, who had intended to ticket the van only for a missing headlight, took a look at the legend on Pekach's Tshirt, and with an effort, restrained himself from commenting.

What he would haveliked to have done is kick the fucking hippie queer junkie's ass from there to the river, and there drown the sonofabitch, and in the old days, when he'd first come on the job, he could have done just that. But things had changed, and he was coming up on his twenty years for retirement, and it wasn't worth risking his pension, even if somebody walking around with something insulting to the police like that-Support Your Local Sheriffmy ass, that wasn't what it meantprinted on his sweatshirt and walking around on the streets really deserved to get his ass kicked.

Instead, he cited the vehicle for a number of additional offenses against the Motor Vehicle Code: cracked windshield, smooth tires, nonfunctioning turn indicators, and illegible license plate, which was all he could think of. He was disappointed when the fucking hippy had a valid driver's license.

Half a block from the medical examiner's office, Lieutenant Pekach put his copy of the citation between his teeth, ripped it in half, and then threw both halves out the van's window.

When Wohl got to the Roundhouse, he parked in the space reserved for Chief Inspector Coughlin. Coughlin was very close to the Moffitt family; more than likely he would be at the Moffitt house for a while. As he walked into the building, he saw Hobbs's car turn into the parking lot.

He was not surprised to find Chief Inspector of Detectives Matt Lowenstein in Homicide. Lowenstein was in the main room, sitting on a desk, a fresh, very large cigar in the corner of his mouth.

"Well, Inspector Wohl," Lowenstein greeted him with mock cordiality, "I was hoping I'd run into you. How are you, Peter?"

"Good afternoon, Chief," Wohl said.

"Do you think you could find a moment for me?" Lowenstein asked. "I' ve got a little something on my mind."

"My time is your time, Chief," Wohl said.

"Why don't we just go in here a moment?" Lowenstein said, gesturing toward the door of an office on whose door was lettered captain HENRY

Chief Inspector Lowenstein opened the door without knocking. Captain Quaire, a stocky, balding man in his late forties, was sitting in his shirtsleeves at his desk, talking on the telephone. When he saw Lowenstein, he covered the mouthpiece with his hand.

"Henry, why don't you get a cup of coffee or something?" Lowenstein suggested.

Captain Quaire, as he rose to his feet, said "I'll call you right back" to the telephone and hung it up. When he passed Peter Wohl, he shook his head. Wohl wasn't sure if it was a gesture of sympathy, or whether it meant that Quaire too was shocked, and pissed, by what he had done.

"Peter," Lowenstein said, as he closed the door after Quaire, "it's not that I don't think that you are one of the brightest young officers in the department, a credit to the department and your father, but when I want your assistance, the way I would prefer to do that is to call Denny Coughlin and ask for it. Not have you shoved down my throat by the Polack."

"Frankly, Chief," Wohl said, smiling, "I sort of expected you would ask me in here, thank me for my services, and tell me not to let the doorknob hit me in the ass on my way out."

"Don't be a wiseass, Peter," Lowenstein said.

"Chief, I hope you understand that what I did at the diner was at the commissioner's orders," Wohl said. He saw that Lowenstein was still angry.

"The implication, of course, is that everybody in Homicide is a fucking barbarian, too dumb to figure out for themselves how to handle a woman like that," Lowenstein said.

"I don't think he meant that, Chief," Wohl said. "I think what it was was just that I was the senior supervisor at the Waikiki Diner. I think he would have given the same orders, would have preferred to give the same orders, to anyone from Homicide."

"The difference, Peter, is that nobody from Homicide would have called the Polack. They would have followed procedure. Why did you call him?"

"A couple of reasons," Wohl said, deciding to stand his ground. " Primarily because he and Dutch were close."

"And the woman?"

"And the woman," Peter said. "I'm sorry if you're angry, but I don't see where what I did was wrong."

"Was Dutch fucking her?"

"I don't know," Peter said. "I thought it was possible when I called the commissioner, and that if they had something going on between them, what I should do was try to keep anybody from finding out."

"Maybe the Polack was already onto it," Lowenstein said.

"Excuse me?"

"Just before you came in, Peter, I talked with the Polack," Lowenstein said. "I was going to call him anyway, but he called me. And what he told me was that he wants you in on this, to deal with the Dutton woman from here on in."

"I don't understand," Wohl said.

"It's simple English," Lowenstein said. "Whatever Homicide has to do with that woman, they'll do it through you. I told the Polack I didn't like that one damned bit, and he said he was sorry, but it wasn't a suggestion. He also said that I shouldn't bother complaining to the mayor, the mayor thought it was a good idea, too. I guess that Wop sonofabitch is as afraid of the goddamned TV as the Polack is."

"Well, it wasn't my idea," Wohl said, aware that he was embarrassed. "I went to Nazareth, and went through Dutch's personal possessions, and then I went to the medical examiner's office. I was going to come here to tell you what I found-which is nothing-and then I was going to call the commissioner and tell him."