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luxuriously. “Detectives is overloaded with chiefs as well. If the Holloman PD has a fault, it’s lack of Indians. Your loots basically do the same work as your team members, Carmine. Your division sounds as if whoever structured it thought paperwork a terrible bogey.”
    â€œThat was Johnny Catano,” said Silvestri. “He was chief for years, but never captain. His belief was that each team of three men should be led by a lieutenant, with himself as the most senior. Carmine was made the first captain in 1966, more as a thank you than any change in structure.”
    â€œMr. Commissioner and I are aware there are too many chiefs, but it’s not easy to fix,” Carmine said. “Tell me more about your changes, Fernando.”
    â€œI want three lieutenants, who will be promoted up from the sergeants. I need an executive, Carmine, so as not to fritter away my own time on—paperwork. I’ve been brought in to get this police department in shape for the stormy times that are coming. Two assassinations within three months are appalling. We can’t let it happen again.”
    â€œAh! Hence the rotation of men like Joey Tasco and Mike Cerutti. Under the old tradition, they would have automatically stepped into the new officer slots, though it’s years since Joey’s been anywhere but the desk, and Mike anywhere but patrol. It’s brilliant. By the time you have to appoint your new loots, you’ll know who are the best men.”
    â€œSo I believe.”
    â€œYou’re right about stormy times,” Carmine said. “I’ve had to put Corey and his team on a case I wish I could take myself—is that an indictment of me, or Corey? Not of me, I contend. The Principal of Taft High found a cache of firearms in the gym. We have them in the cage already, but the kids aren’t talking and we don’t know why the cache was there. Both Taft and Travis, the two high schools, have disciples of Mohammed el Nesr and his Black Brigade among the pupils, but Mohammed is vigorously denying any BB connection.”
    â€œLieutenant Marshall should do well,” Fernando said. “It’s potentially high profile and certainly important. What was in the cache?”
    â€œThe report will be on your desk, but it’s scary. Twenty .45 caliber and ten .22 caliber semi-automatic pistols, as well as spare clips. A lot of people could have died.”
    Silvestri crossed himself. “As well for us that our high school principals are on the ball. If it’s not the Black Brigade responsible, then who is? They’re not the kind of arms high school kids have access to, and it’s not some parent’s collection. It’s an arsenal cache, not an array of different guns. Just .45s and .22s, all the same make and model.”
    â€œIt’s their potential as automatics worries me,” Carmine said.
    â€œKick ass, Carmine, including Corey’s.”
    â€œActually it’s up his alley, if he sticks to procedure. My chief worry is, what’s he not writing down?”
    Carmine took time that Friday to drive around Carew, look at houses belonging to rape victims and Gentleman Walkers. Why did Nick have to conceive such a hot dislike of Helen? He couldn’t pass up an opportunity to needle her.
    Helen had been right when she called Kurt von Fahlendorf’s house the prettiest in the district. It was a pre-Revolutionary saltbox with a pillared porch set in an acre of beautifully gardened grounds; a look around the back revealed a breezeway connecting the main structure to what, in the old days, would have been a kitchen annex. Now it was probably a guest house; someone whose family resided in West Germany would need adequate guest accommodation. The guy definitely had money, Carmine decided, between the address and the wages he must pay his gardener.
    Mason Novak, the inorganic chemist whom Mark Sugarman had called the spirit of the Gentleman