"I don't know. I was out too. But DeLeo said you won it fair and square. And you'd better call her right back. Mrs. Wassermann wants to hear from someone first thing."

Harrigan got up, still smiling, and went to the can, effectively cutting off further conversation. Rita laughed, but neither looked up nor broke the rhythm of her flying fingers. Dean gritted his teeth to retain his good mood.

"What's so funny?" he muttered to Rita.

"Not a thing, honey. Not a thing." She continued to bang away on her keyboard, the smile etched on her face.

Dean looked at the message again, sighed deeply and dialed the number.

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Ida Wassermann was the mother of the Wassermann twins, a pair of 30-year-old misfits whose I.Q.'s didn't equal their waist sizes. Billie and Willie were journeymen criminals, and both had spent time in jail for a number of offenses, mostly physical in nature. They hurt people for fun and money, ran errands for more talented malefactors, and generally kept themselves in constant trouble. While the pair was a definite annoyance to the Parkside police, the two were seldom a serious problem, principally because they were too stupid to get away with much, and their size-six­-feet-five and at least 500 pounds between them-made escaping detection difficult. But they did have one thing going for them. No one, save possibly their mother, could tell them apart.

This little gambit drove not only the police, but everyone else who encountered the pair, downright batty. The boys had been playing switch and swap every time it suited their fancy since they had shared a crib. Teachers, cops, girls, judges and fellow gangsters had all shared the frustration of not knowing Billie from Willie. Once a fed-up loan shark who'd had enough hog-tied the one he caught-he didn't care which-and branded a "B" on the left cheek of his backside. "I don't care who you were before, you're Billie now," rumor had it he'd said. But that didn't stop the twins. The un-branded brother let his twin burn a "B" on him as well. Then, just to make the whole business come out even, each brand­ed "W" on the other cheek.

But for the past six weeks or so, neither Billie nor Willie could be found anywhere. They were missing and the only person who gave a damn was Mrs. Wassermann, the mother of the bouncing boys.

Once Dean introduced himself, he sat with the phone several inches from his ear, unable to inject a word as she built up her tirade. He began to doodle, listing the names she was calling not only him, but the entire, inept, Parkside police force. The woman certainly had a vocabulary, and an imagination. She accused them of jailing her sons without trial, hiding them away or simply not telling her of their whereabouts. One minute they were dead for sure, the next kidnapped or in some FBI safe house. Dean waited until she stopped for a breath and then rapidly explained they were doing all they could, would be in touch, thanked her and hung up. Rita began to clap in appreciation of his performance.




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