Czernick turned back to Deputy Commissioner Cohan.
“To answer your question, it happened yesterday. I don’t know how long he’s been thinking about it, but it happened about half-past ten yesterday morning. When he came home from mass, he called me up and said if I didn’t have anything important going on, I should come by and he’d give me a cup of coffee.”
“Was that before or after he read the Ledger?” Lowenstein asked.
“He asked me if I’d seen it the moment I walked in the door,” Czernick said.
“And when is all this going to happen?” Cohan asked.
“It’s happening right now, Frank,” Czernick said. “It’s effective today.”
“Am I going to get to pick a commander for this Special Operations Division?” Coughlin asked.
“Anybody you want, Denny,” Commissioner Czernick said, “just so long as his name is Peter Wohl.”
“Jesus,” Coughlin exploded, “why doesn’t he just move in here if he’s going to make every goddamned decision?” He paused, then added, “Not that I have anything against Peter Wohl. But…Jesus!”
“He doesn’t have to move in here, Denny,” Commissioner Czernick said. “Not as long as he has my phone number.”
“Did Mayor Carlucci give you his reasons for all this?” Deputy Commissioner Wilson asked. “Or for any of it?”
“No, but what he did do when he explained everything—there’s a little more I haven’t gotten to yet—was to ask me if I had any objections, if there was something wrong with it that he’d missed.”
“And you couldn’t think of anything?” Cohan asked, softly.
“He wants a Special Operations Division,” Czernick said. “He knows you don’t want it. So he gave it to Denny Coughlin. He wants Peter Wohl to run it. What was I supposed to say, ‘Peter isn’t qualified’? He thinks Mike Sabara is bad for Highway’s image. What was I supposed to say, for Christ’s sake, that ‘beauty is only skin deep’?”
Cohan shrugged. “You said there’s more,” he said.
“Just as soon as Peter Wohl has a little time to get his feet wet,” Czernick said, “Denny will ask him to recommend, from among Highway Patrol sergeants, someone to take over as the mayor’s driver. Sergeant Lucci, who is driving the mayor now, made it onto the lieutenants’ list. As soon as Peter can find a replacement for him, Lieutenant Lucci will return to ordinary superv
isory duties commensurate with his rank, in Highway.”
“You don’t happen to think,” Chief Lowenstein said, dryly sarcastic, “that Lieutenant Lucci might have in mind getting some of this ACT money for Highway, do you? Or that he might just happen to bump into the dago every once in a while, say once a week, and just happen to mention in idle conversation that Highway didn’t get as much of it as he thinks they should? Nothing like that could be happening, could it, Tad?”
“I don’t know,” Czernick said, coldly. “But if he did, that would be Peter Wohl’s problem, wouldn’t you say? Wohl’s and Denny’s?”
“What’s he really got in mind, long term, for this Special Operations?” Chief Coughlin asked.
“Long term, I haven’t any idea,” said Czernick. “Short term, yeah, I know what he’s got in mind.”
There was a pause, and when it didn’t end, Denny Coughlin said, “You going to tell us?”
“What he said, Denny, was that he thought it would be nice if he could hold a press conference in a couple of weeks, where he could announce that an Anti-Crime Team of the new Special Operations Division, which was a little suggestion of his to the Police Department, had just announced the arrest of the sexual pervert who had been raping and terrorizing the decent women of Northwest Philadelphia.”
“That scumbag is none of the Anti-Crime Team, or Special Operations, or Highway’s business,” Chief Inspector Lowenstein said, coldly angry. “Rape is the Detective Bureau’s business. It always has been.”
“It still is, Matt,” Czernick said, evenly, “except for what’s going on in Northwest Philadelphia. That’s now in Peter Wohl’s lap because Jerry Carlucci says it is.”
“He was at it again last night,” Deputy Commissioner Cohan said. “He broke into the apartment of a woman named Mary Elizabeth Flannery, on Henry Avenue in Roxborough, tied her to her bed, cut her clothes off with a hunting knife, took of his clothes, committed an incomplete act of oral sodomy on her, and when that didn’t get his rocks off, he pissed all over her. Then he tied her hands behind her back, loaded her in a van, and dumped her naked on Forbidden Drive in Fairmount Park.”
“What do you mean, dumped her naked in the park?” Lowenstein asked.
“Just that, Matt. He carried her over there in a van, then pushed her out. Hands tied behind her back. Not a stitch on her.”
“You catch somebody like that,” Lowenstein said, “what you should do is cut the bastard’s balls off and leave him to bleed to death.”
“Let’s just hope that Peter Wohl can catch him,” Czernick said.