Special Operations

"Hi!" she said.

"I thought you were going to bed."

"I'm on my way," she said.

"Can I take you?"

There you go, O'Hara, both fucking feet in your mouth!

"I didn't mean that the way it sounded," Mickey said. "I mean, I got my car…"

"I'm probably going nowhere near where you are," she said, after a just perceptible pause.

"Where?"

"Roxborough."

"Practically on my way," he said.

"Really?"

"Really."

It would be on my way if you were going to Mexico City.

"Where's your car?" she asked.

He pointed to it.

"You're sure you're really going that way?" she asked.

"Positive."

Miss Travers didn't seem to think anything was wrong with his car, but Mickey managed to drop into their conversation that he was about to get a new one, that he was thinking of either a Mercury or Buick.

More importantly, she told him her first name was Mary, and that she would love to have di

"I know," Mickey said. "TheBulletin goes to bed at half-past two."

"You mean that's when you quit for the day?"

He nodded and she smiled at him, and he thought,We already have something in common.

Forty minutes later, when he steered the battered Chevrolet Impala off North Broad Street and into the parking lot behind the Thirtyfifth District Station, where he stopped in a space markedINSPECTOR PARKING ONLY, Mickey still wasn't sure he really believed what had happened.

I've got a date with Mary Travis. Tonight. Tomorrow morning. At five minutes after three, at the front door of the Bellevue-Stratford.

And that wasn't all that had happened.

I'm making as much dough as the fucking Police Commissioner, for Christ's sake!

He sat there for a moment, then lit a cigarette. Then he got out of the car, entered the building through a door markedPOLICE USE ONLY and went inside. He waved at the uniformed cops in the ground-floor squad room, then climbed the stairs to the second floor, which housed the Northwest Detectives Division.

On the landing at the top of the stairs were several vending machines, a garbage can, and two battered chairs. A concrete block wall with a wide open window counter and a door separated the landing from the squad room of Northwest Detectives. A sign beneath the window counter readPOLICE PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT, and just inside the door the desk man, a detective, sat at a battered desk.

Mickey walked through the door, waved at the desk man, and exchanged casual greetings, a nod of the head, or a smile, with the half dozen detectives working at their own battered desks, then took a quick, practiced glance at the large, yellow legal pad on the desk man's desk. On it, the desk man would have written the names of any citizens brought into the squad room for "interviews" on the shift. It was an informal record, intended primarily to remind the desk man who had hauled in who, and was responsible for the critter. If a citizen got as far as the detective squad room, the odds were the "interview" would be followed by an arrest.

Mickey found nothing that looked particularly interesting, so he walked across the squad room to a small alcove at the rear, which held a coffee machine. He helped himself to a cup, black, then tucked a dollar bill in the coffee kitty can.

When he came out of the alcove, he looked into the window of the small office used by the Lieutenants of Northwest Detectives. Lieutenant Teddy Spa

Lou Natali, a slight, olive-ski

"How goes it, Mickey?" Spa

"Can't complain," Mickey said, and turned to Lou Natali. "What do you say, Lou?"

"Haven't seen you around lately, Mick," Natali said, "You been sick or something?"

"I took a couple of weeks off," Mickey said.

"You go down to the shore?" Spa

"The shore?" Mickey asked.

"You told me, Mick, the last time I saw you, that what you needed was to go lay on the beach."

"I just hung around the house and watched the wallpaper peel," Mickey said.

"So what's new, Mick?" Natali asked, chuckling.

What's new? I'm now making a thousand bucks a week, less a hundred for the Bull, plus a Buick Super, Mercury Monterey, or equivalent automobile. And I just met a really interesting girl. That's what's new.

"Nothing much," Mickey said. "You tell me."

Both police officers shrugged their shoulders.

Mickey was disappointed. He had had a gut feeling when he saw Lou Natali that something was up. Mickey knew both of them well enough not to press the question. Probably nothing was. If there was, either Spa

"Tell me about the naked lady in Fairmount Park," Mickey said. "I heard the call last night."

"Every car in the District, plus half the Highway Patrol, went in on that, Mick," Spa

"Tell me," Mickey said.

"Off the record?"

Goddamn, I knew there was something!

"Sure."

"You heard, I suppose, about the guy who's been raping women in Manayunk and Roxborough?"

Mickey nodded.

"From what I understand, he's the same guy who dumped the woman in Fairmount Park."

"Raped her first, you mean?"

"Not quite," Spa

"I don't know what you mean," Mickey said.

"He's not even screwing them anymore," Spa

"Jesus!" Mickey said. "Worse?"

"What he did last night was put a knife to her throat and make her take it in the mouth. Then when he couldn't get his rocks off, he pissed all over her. Then he tied her hands behind her back and dumped her out on Forbidden Drive."

"Nice fella," Mickey said.

"Sure as Christ made little apples," Natali said, "unless they bag this scumbag, he's going to kill somebody. Cut 'em up, probably. I'm afraid he's going to start going after young girls."

"Jesus," Mickey said. He felt a little sick to his stomach when he thought of some slimeball doing something like that to a nice girl like Mary Travis. "You got anything going?"

"Not much. No good description. All we know is that he's a white guy with a van. And likes to wear a mask," Spa

"You didn't get that here, Mickey," Natali said. "What I'm worried about is that I don't want to give the sonofabitch any ideas."

Mickey made a gesture signifying that he wouldn't violate the confidence.

"Who's got this job?" Mickey asked. "Dick Hemmings," Spa

"Who was the cop who answered the call?" Mickey asked.

"Bill Dohner," Spa

"Well, then I guess I'd better get down there," Mickey said. "And start earning my living."