Now Sabara, who had very naturally rushed to a scene of trouble involving “his” Highway Patrol, was going to be pissed.
It can’t be helped, Peter thought. Mike’s going to have to get it through his head that Highway is now Pekach’s.
When Matthew Payne walked into the kitchen of the house on Providence Road in Wallingford, he was surprised to find his father standing at the stove, watching a slim stream of coffee gradually filling a glass pot under a Krups coffee machine.
“Good morning,” his father said. He was wearing a light cotton bathrobe, too short for him, and a pair of leather bedroom slippers. “I heard you in the shower and thought you could probably use some coffee.”
“Can I!” Matt replied. He was dressed in a button-down-collar shirt and gray slacks. His necktie was tied, but the collar button was open, and the knot an inch below it. He had a seersucker jacket in his hand. When he laid it on the kitchen table—of substantial, broad-planked pine, recently refinished after nearly a century of service—there was a heavy thump.
“What have you got in there?” Brewster C. Payne asked, surprised.
“My gun,” Matt said, raising the jacket to show a Smith & Wesson Military & Police Model .38 Special revolver in a shoulder holster. “What every well-dressed young man is wearing these days.”
Brewster Payne chuckled.
“You’re not wearing your new blue suit, I notice,” he said.
“He said, curiosity oozing from every pore,” Matt said, gently mockingly.
“Well, we haven’t had the pleasure of your company recently,” his father said, unabashed.
“I communed with John Barleycorn last night,” Matt said, “at Rose Tree. I decided it was wiser by far to spend the night here than try to make it to the apartment. Particularly since the bug is one-eyed.”
“Anything special, or just kicking up your heels?” Brewster Payne asked.
“I don’t know, Dad,” Matt said, as he took two ceramic mugs from a cabinet and set them on the counter beside the coffee machine. “All I know is that I had more to drink than I should have had.”
“You want something to eat?” Brewster Payne asked, and when he saw the look on Matt’s face, added, “If you’ve been at the grape, you should put something in your stomach. Did you have dinner?”
“I don’t think so,” Matt replied. “The last thing I remember clearly is peanuts at the bar.”
His father went to the refrigerator, a multidoored stainless steel device filling one end of the room. He opened one door after another until he found what he was looking for.
“How about a Taylor ham sandwich? Maybe with an egg?”
“I’ll make it,” Matt said. “No egg.”
Brewster Payne chuckled again, and said, “You were telling me what you were celebrating….”
“No, I wasn’t,” Matt said. “You’re a pretty good interrogator. You ever consider practicing law? Or maybe becoming a cop?”
“Touché,” Brewster Payne said.
“I was on the pistol range yesterday,” Matt said, “when Chief Matdorf, who runs the Police Academy, came out and told me to clean out my locker and report tomorrow morning, this morning, that is, at eight o’clock, to the commanding officer of Highway Patrol.” He paused and then added, “In plainclothes.”
“What’s that all about?” Brewster Payne said.
“John Barleycorn didn’t say,” Matt said. “Although I had a long, long chat with him.”
“You think Dennis Coughlin is involved?”
“Uncle Denny’s involved in everything,” Matt said as he put butter in a frying pan. “You want one of these?”
“Please,” Brewster Payne said. “Were you having any trouble in the Academy?”
“No, not so far as I know.”
“Highway Patrol is supposed to be the elite uni