“I’m still here.”
“I’ve got Special Agent Lutherberg on the line. He wants to know what this is all about.”
“It’s about the Secret Service needing the names of two men you ran and identified.”
“That’s not really telling us very much, is it?”
“That’s all I’m going to tell you.”
“Hold one.”
“Agent Castillo?”
“I’m still here.”
“Special Agent Lutherberg said to tell you he’ll be happy to discuss this with you first thing in the morning if you want to come into the office.”
“In other words, he’s not going to get me the information I need now?”
“He’ll be happy to talk to you about it in his office in the morning.”
“I’d like to leave a message for him—one that applies to you, too—if that would be possible.”
“Certainly.”
“Fuck you, you candy-ass bureaucratic sonofabitch. I’m going to do whatever I can to burn your ass, his ass, and the ass of the special agent in charge over this. You would be wise to deliver the message and dig out the information that I need, because someone who can get you people off your candy asses will be calling shortly.”
He slammed the phone down in its cradle.
“They do try one’s patience on occasion, don’t they?” Chief Kramer asked, innocently.
Charley took out his cellular telephone and punched an autodial key.
It was answered on the second ring.
“Three-zero-six.”
“Charley Castillo. I need to speak with Joel Isaacson right now.”
“Hold one.”
That took three minutes.
“Isaacson.”
“Charley, Joel.”
“I knew I wasn’t going to get any sleep. What’s up, Don Juan?”
“I think there’s a very good chance we have an ID on the guys who stole the 727,” Charley began, explained why, and related the details of his telephone conversation with the duty officer of the Philadelphia office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“My, we do use some really naughty words when we’re peeved, don’t we?” Isaacson said.
“Peeved is the fucking understatement of the year, the fucking decade. Can you do anything about those bastards, Joel?”
“I think so, yes. Where are you?”
“I’m in the Homicide Bureau of the Philadelphia Police Department. But call me on the cellular.”