The Assassin

TWENTY-TWO

"Ihave just had one of my profound thoughts," Officer Howard Hansen said to Sergeant Bill Sanders as they watched Corporal Vito Lanza drive his Cadillac into the area reserved for police officers on duty at the airport.

"And you're going to tell me, right?"

"I'm not saying Lanza is a nuclear physicist, but he's not really a cretin, either…"

"What's a cretin?"

"A high-level moron."

"Really?"

"Take my word for it, a cretin is a high-level moron. You want to hear this or not?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"So for the sake of argument, let's say Lanza is smart enough to know that people, especially other cops, are going to ask questions about that Cadillac of his. 'Where did he get the money?'"

"So?"

"He doesn't seem to give a damn, does he?"

"Howard, what are you talking about?"

"If I were dirty and had bought a Cadillac with dirty money, I wouldn't drive it to work."

"Maybe you're smarter than Lanza."

"And maybe he inherited the money and isn't dirty, and if somebody asks him, he can say 'I got it from my mother's estate,' or something."

"And what about those Guinea gangsters we saw at his house? What were they doing, selling Girl Scout cookies?"

"If I was dirty, I think I'd be smart enough to tell the Mob to stay away from my house. And the Mob, I think, is smart enough to figure that out themselves."

Sergeant Sanders grunted, but did not reply.

After a moment, Hansen said, "Well, what do you think?"

"I think I'm going to call Swede Olsen and tell him that after Lanza bought Girl Scout cookies from Paulo Cassandro, Jimmy the Knees, and Gian-Carlo Rosselli, he went to work, and does he want us to keep sitting on him or what."

He opened the door of the Pontiac and went looking for a telephone.

Officer Paul O'Mara stuck his head in Peter Wohl's office.

"Inspector," he said, "there's a Captain Olsen on 312. You want to talk to him?"

"Paul, for your general fund of useful knowledge," Wohl replied as he reached for his telephone, "unless the commissioner is in my office, or the building's on fire, I always want to talk to Captain Olsen."

He punched the button for 312.

"How are you, Swede? What's up?"

"Inspector, I put Bill Sanders and Howard Hansen on Lanza. You know them?"

"Hansen, I do. Good cop. Smart. What about them?"

"Sanders is a sergeant. Good man. He just called from the airport. Lanza just went to work. They picked him up at his house. Before he went to work, Paulo Cassandro paid him a visit at his house."

"Vincenzo Savarese's Paulo Cassandro?" Wohl asked, and then, before Olsen could reply, went on, "We're sure about that?"

"Sanders said he went in, was inside maybe five minutes, and while he was, Gian-Carlo Rosselli and Jimmy the Knees Gnesci rode around the block in Rosselli's Jaguar."

"I suppose it's too much to hope, Swede, that we have photographs?"

"We have undeveloped film," Olsen said. "But Hansen's pretty good with a camera."

"I know. How soon can we have prints?"

"As soon as I can get it to the lab in the Roundhouse. Our lab is temporarily out of business, which is really why I called. I'm out of people, Inspector, I was hoping maybe you could help me out."

"When are younot going to be out of people?"

"I had the feeling this was special, and that we should have good people on it. I'll be out ofgood people until about eight o'clock tonight:"

"This is special," Wohl interrupted without meaning to.

"…when I have two good people coming in. What I need between now and then is some way to get Hansen's film to the Roundhouse lab. And if possible to relieve them."

"They don't like overtime?"

"I like to change people. I don't want Lanza to remember seeing them on Ritner Street."

"Yes, of course," Wohl said, feeling more than a little stupid. " Swede, let me get right back to you. Where are you? Give me the number."

He wrote the number down, put the telephone in its cradle, and then sat there for a moment, thinking.

I need one, better two, good men from now until eight. Who's available? Jason Washington won't do. Every cop in the Department knows him. Tony Harris? Jerry O'Dowd?

He pushed himself out of his chair and walked quickly out of his office, stopping at O'Mara's desk.

"Call the duty lieutenant and find out what kind of an unmarked car we have that doesn't look like an unmarked car," he ordered, and then walked out without further explanation.

He walked quickly down the corridor to the door of the Special Investigations Section and pushed it open. Detective Tony Harris was there, and so were Sergeant Jerry O'Dowd, Officer Tiny Lewis, and Detective Matthew M. Payne. Only Lewis was in uniform.

'Tony," Wohl began without preliminaries, "do you know a cop named Vito Lanza, now a corporal at the airport?"

"Yeah, I know him. He's sort of an asshole."

"Damn! Jerry?"

"No," O'Dowd said, after a moment to think it over. "I don't think so."

"What's going on around here?" Wohl asked.

"We're waiting for the phone to ring," Matt Payne said.

"I'm beginning to suspect the mad bomber is not going to call," Tony Harris said.

"Spare me the sarcasm, please," Wohl snapped.

"Sorry," Harris said, sounding more or less contrite.

"I need somebody to surveil Lanza from right now until about eight," Wohl said. "O'Dowd, I think you're elected."

"Yes, sir."

"You know a Sergeant Sanders? Officer Hansen?"

"Both."

"Okay. They're sitting on Lanza, who went on duty at three at the airport. I presume they're parked someplace where they can watch Lanza's car."

"Yes, sir."

"I've got O'Mara looking for an unmarked car for you."

"I've got my car here, Inspector, if that would help."

"No. You might have to follow this guy, and you'd need a radio."

"Let him take mine," Harris said.

You have tried, Detective Harris, and succeeded in making amends, for letting your loose mouth express your dissatisfaction for being here, instead of in Homicide.

"Good idea. Thank you, Tony," Wohl said. "How are you with a camera, O'Dowd?"

"I can work one."

"Take Larsen's camera from him," Wohl ordered. "Payne, you follow him down there. On the way, unless there's some around here, get some film. I'm sure it's 35mm. Sergeant O'Dowd will have the rolls of film Hansen has shot. Take them to the Roundhouse, have them developed and printed. Four copies, five by seven. Right then. If they give you any trouble, call me. Take a look at the pictures. See if you recognize anybody from your trip to the Poconos. If you do, call me. In fact, call me in any case. Then take three copies of the prints to Captain Olsen, in Internal Affairs. Bring the fourth set out here, and leave them on my desk."

"Yes, sir."

"Could I help, sir?" Officer Lewis asked.

"Looking for a little overtime, Tiny? Or are you bored waiting for the phone to ring?"

The moment the words were out of his mouth, Wohl regretted them, and wondered why he had snapped at Lewis.

"More the bored than the overtime, sir," Tiny Lewis said. There was a hurt tone in his voice.

"When do you knock off here?"

"Five, sir."

"When your replacement comes, change into civilian clothing, and then go see if you can make yourself useful to Sergeant O'Dowd. You don't know Corporal Lanza, do you?"

"No, sir."

"Tony, you sit on the phone. I'll have the duty lieutenant send somebody to help you. Or maybe O'Mara?"

"O'Mara would be fine," Harris said.

Wohl had another thought.

"Let me throw some names at you two," he said, nodding at O'Dowd and Lewis. "Do you know Paulo Cassandro, Gian-Carlo Rosselli, or Jimmy the Knees Gnesci?"

Tiny Lewis shook his head, no, and looked embarrassed.

"Cassandro, sure," O'Dowd said. "The other two, no."

"Five sets of prints, Matt," Wohl ordered. "The first three to Captain Olsen, then take a set to the airport and give them to Sergeant O'Dowd, and then bring the last set here. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"We have," Wohl explained, "photographs of these three going into Corporal Lanza's house. If he leaves the airport before you're relieved, follow him. See if he sees these guys again."

"And if he does?"

'Try to get a picture of them together. But not if there is any chance he'll see you. Pictures would be nice, but we already have some. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Get going, this is important. You think you can find Sergeant Sanders?"

"It would be helpful to know where he is."

"Near where Lanza would park his car. If you can't find him, call me."

"Yes, sir."

For some reason, the words to "Sweet Lorraine" had been running through Marion Claude Wheatley's mind all afternoon, to the point of interfering with his concentration.

Something like that rarely happened. He often thought that if there was one personal characteristic responsible for his success, it was his ability to concentrate on the intellectual task before him.

This was true, he had reflected, not only at First Philadelphia Bank amp; Trust, but had also been true earlier on, at the University of Pennsylvania, and even in Officer Candidate School in the Army. When he put his mind to something, he was able to shut everything else out, from the noises and incredibly terrible music in his barracks, to the normal distractions, visual and audible, one encountered in an office environment.

He had been working on a projection of how increasing production costs in the anthracite fields, coupled with decreased demand (which would negatively affect prices to an unknown degree) would, in turn, affect return on capital investment (and thus stock prices) in a range of time frames. (One year, two years, five years, and ten years.)

It was the sort of thing he was not only very good at, but really enjoyed doing, because of the variable factors involved. Normally, working on something like this, nothing short of an earthquake or a nuclear attack could distract him.

But "Sweet Lorraine" kept coming into his mind. For that matter, into his voice. He several times caught himself humming the melody.

He had no particular feelings regarding the melody. He neither actively disliked it, nor regarded it as a classic popular musical work.

That left, of course, the possibility that the Lord was sending him a message. He considered that possibility several times, and could make no sense of it.

He thought he had it once; it might be the name of someone close to the Vice President, but that wasn't it. He called the Free Public Library and a research librarian told him the Vice President's wife's name was Sally. And she couldn't help him when he asked if she happened to know if there was someone on the Vice President's staff named Lorraine, maybe his secretary.

She had the secretary's name, Patricia, and she said, as far as she could tell, everyone else on the Vice President's staff was a male.

That left only one possibility, presuming that it was not simply an aberration, that the Lord was alerting him to something that would happen later, something that, when he saw it, would answer the mystery.

Once he had come to that analysis, he had been able to return toA Projection of Anthracite Production Economic Considerations without having his concentration disrupted. He made good progress, and was very nearly finished when the sounds of people getting ready to go home broke into his concentration again.

Marion was so close to being finished with theOne-Year Time Frame that he considered staying and finishing it, but finally decided against that. He knew himself well enough to know that if he finished theOne-Year he would be tempted to just keep going.

The priority, of course, was to get the things on the list not yet acquired. The list was just about complete. All he needed now was the chain and two more AWOL bags. He would get the chain today, and the remaining two AWOL bags tomorrow. It would not be wise to return to the Super Drugstore at all, and certainly not so soon.

First the chain and then the AWOL bags. Perhaps, when he went shopping for the chain, he would see another store that had AWOL bags on sale. Perhaps even bags that met the metal zipper and other criteria, but which at least would not haveSouvenir of Someplace painted on them, and with a little bit of luck would be of a different design.

Marion waited, of course, until the office herd had thundered out and ridden the cattle cars down to the lobby before putting theA Projection of Anthracite Production Economic Considerations material back into its folders and then into his desk file.

When he came out onto Broad Street, he had an interesting thought. Instead of looking for a hardware store in the streets down toward the river, he would get on a bus and ride up North Broad Street.

He vaguely remembered seeing a decent-looking hardware store in a row of shops on the west side of North Broad Street, five or six blocks north of the North Philadelphia Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

He started to walk up South Broad Street toward City Hall. As he approached it, he decided he would let the Lord decide, by His timing of the traffic lights that controlled the counterclockwise movement of vehicular traffic around City Hall, whether He wanted him to go to North Broad Street by walking through the City Hall passageways, or if He preferred that Marion turn right at Market Street and walk the long way around, on the sidewalk past John Wanamaker's, et cetera.

The Lord apparently wanted him to get to North Broad Street quickly, for just as he approached Market Street, the vehicular light turned to red, the pedestrian light turned to green, and without breaking stride he was able to cross the street and enter the archway of City Hall.

The same thing happened as he emerged from the north archway. The vehicular light turned to red and the pedestrian to green just as he reached the street, and he was again able to keep walking without stopping at all.

And then as he reached the bus stop at the next corner, a bus was just swallowing the last of the line of people who had been waiting for it. Marion climbed aboard without having to break pace.

He thought for a moment that the Lord had wanted him to board this particular bus, but then decided that wasn't true. There was only one empty seat, and that was on the right side of the bus. If the Lord had wanted him to get on this bus, He would have saved him a seat on the left side, from which he could look for the hardware store he remembered seeing somewhere past the North Philadelphia Station.

Perhaps, Marion thought, by the time we get to the North Philadelphia Station, someone now sitting on the left side will have gotten off the bus and I can move over.

Sometime later, Marion wasn't sure how much later, because he had been thinking that he had forgotten to factor intoA Projection of Anthracite Production Economic Considerations the cost of new federal government mine safety regulations, he became aware that the bus was not moving.

He looked out the window. They were stopped at Ridge Avenue. The bus was now filled with mutterings. His fellow passengers were growing angry that the bus wasn't moving. Marion raised himself in his seat and tried to look out the windshield. There was a long line of cars in front of the bus, but he could see nothing that explained why they weren't moving.

Marion glanced out the side window again, and saw that they were stopped in front of the hotel that belonged to that rather amusing, viewed in one light, and rather pathetic, viewed in another, religious sect founded by a Philadelphia black man who called himself Father Divine.

Father Divine had convinced an amazing number of colored people, and even some white people, that he had been anointed by the Lord to bring them out of their misery, spiritual and temporal, primarily by turning over all of their assets to him.

His wife, Marion recalled, had been a white woman, and she had lived rather well as the mate of Father Divine. They were supposed to own property and businesses all over Philadelphia. And New York too. And Washington, D.C.

He wondered if Mrs. Father Divine was still living well, now that Father Divine had been called to Heaven.

I wonder what Father Divine said to Saint Peter?

There really had been a lot of money. The hotel, before they bought it, with cash, closed the bar, and renamed it, after Mrs. Divine, of course, the Divine Lorraine Hotel, had been a rather decent hotel.

The Divine Lorraine Hotel!

The bus began to move.

Marion broke out in a sweat.

When the bus stopped in front of the old Reading Railroad Terminal at Lehigh Avenue, not far at all from the Pennsylvania Railroad's North Philadelphia Station, the four people sitting in the two seats to the left of Marion all got up at once and exited the bus.

Marion quickly moved across the aisle. The sweating had stopped, but it left him feeling clammy and uncomfortable.

There is no question that the Lord wants me to do something in connection with, the Divine Lorraine Hotel. But what?

Three blocks past the North Philadelphia Station, Marion saw the hardware store he thought he remembered. And it was even larger, and thus more likely to carry what he needed to complete the list, than he had remembered.

He got off the bus at the next stop, crossed North Broad Street, and walked back toward the hardware store.

He passed a Super Discount Store, the windows of which were emblazoned with huge signs reading SALE!

And in one of the windows, under a SALE! sign with an arrow pointing downward there was a stack of AWOL bags. These were not only of better quality than the three he had bought on Market Street, but of different design. Their straps went completely around the bag. They had metal zippers, and they did not haveSouvenir of Asbury Park, NJ., and a fish leaping out of the surf gaudily painted on their sides.

Marion went into the Super Discount Store and bought two of the AWOL bags, one in a rather nice shade of dark blue, the other in sort of a rusty brown. He put the blue one inside the brown one, and thought that he would have plenty of space left over for the chain.

The clerk in the hardware store told Marion that they stocked a wide variety of chains, and if Marion would tell him what he wanted the chain for, six lengths each twenty-two inches long, they could make sure he was getting the right thing.

Marion was fairly certain that the man was more garrulous than suspicious, but he could not, of course, tell him what he really wanted the chain for. He had considered this sort of question coming up, of course, and was ready for him. He told the clerk that he had to lock six steel casement windows, and that he would also need six padlocks.

The clerk told him that not only did the store stock a wide array of padlocks, but that he thought it would be possible to furnish six locks all of which would operate with the same key.

Marion told him that would be unnecessary but nice.

The clerk was similarly garrulous when Marion informed him that he would need both duct and electrical tape. Marion was astonished at the wide selection available, and made his choice by selecting the most expensive tapes he was shown. That would, he believed, make the clerk happy.

Marion was not annoyed with the clerk. Quite to the contrary. In this day and age it was a pleasant surprise to find a clerk who seemed genuinely interested in pleasing the customer.

He paid for the tape and the chain, and put it all in the AWOL bag, shook the clerk's hand, thanked him for his courtesy, and went back out onto Broad Street.

That completed acquisition of the items on the list.

But now there was a new problem. The Divine Lorraine Hotel.

Was that simply coincidence? Thinking of "Sweet Lorraine" to the point of distraction all day? Or is the Lord telling me something?

Marion stood on the curb for a minute or two, considering that problem.

A taxicab, thinking he was seeking a ride, pulled to the curb.

Marion was on the verge of waving it away, when he suddenly had a thought, almost as if the Lord had put it there.

There were half a dozen ways to get from where I stand to the house. Only one of them leads back past the Divine Lorraine Hotel. If the Lord has nothing in mind vis-a-vis the Divine Lorraine Hotel, the chances are five, or more, out of six that the taxi driver will elect not to pass in front of the Divine Lorraine Hotel. On the other hand, if the taxi driver elects to drive past the Divine Lorraine Hotel, the odds that the Lord wishes me to do something involving the hotel would certainly be on the order of six to one.

Marion got in the taxicab and gave him his address.

The driver headed right down North Broad Street. When they reached Ridge Avenue, the traffic light was red. Marion looked out the window at the Divine Lorraine Hotel.

When the traffic light turned green, and the taxi driver put his foot to the accelerator, the car stalled.

Marion broke out in another sweat.

He looked at the Divine Lorraine Hotel again. A very large colored lady with some kind of white napkin or something wrapped around her head and neck smiled at him.

Marion smiled back.

A taxi pulled up in front of the hotel, and a man got out and carried suitcases toward the door.

It is a hotel still, I forgot that. A hotel that caters, apparently, to those who believe in Father Divine, whom they believe is either God, or close to Him. It would follow, therefore, that a Christian of that persuasion would stay at the Divine Lorraine Hotel.

Any Christian! That's what it is, of course. How could I have been so stupid? The Lord wants me to go there. But why? It is not mine to question the Lord, but it would help me to carry out His will if I knew what He wanted of me.

The answer came: I have probably made an error somewhere, and the Secret Service is looking for me. Or will be looking for me at the house after I carry out the Lord's will and disintegrate the Vice President.

No one would think of looking for Marion Claude Wheatley in the Divine Lorraine Hotel.

Thank you, Lord! Forgive me for taking so long to understand what it was You wanted of me.

The taxi driver got the motor running again.

Marion leaned back against the cushions. He felt euphoric.

I am in the Lord's hands. I walk through the valley of death, but I feel no evil, for Thou art with me.

Matt's Volkswagen started with difficulty, and he made the immediate decision to swap cars at his apartment as his first order of business. The one thing he did not need was to have the Bug die on him when he was running errands for Peter Wohl.

The Bug performed flawlessly on the way from the Schoolhouse to the basement garage of his apartment and he wondered if swapping cars was now such a good idea. Silver Porsche 911s attracted attention; battered Bugs did not.

He walked out of the basement garage, waving at the rent-a-cop on duty, went to the convenience store around the corner and bought five rolls of 36-exposure ASA 200 Kodak black and white film, and went back to the garage.

The Porsche was conspicuous, but on the other hand, people didn't think of cops when they saw one. And the Bug might just have been teasing me when it ran so well on the way down here.

He drove out to the airport, and found Sergeant Jerry O'Dowd with less trouble than he thought he would have. O'Dowd gave him a roll of film, then told him to wait a second, and removed the film from the camera and gave him that too.

"I haven't taken any pictures," O'Dowd said. "But I forgot to ask Hansen if he had."

"I'll be back as soon as I can."

O'Dowd handed him several bills.

"How about stopping at a Colonel Sanders and getting my supper? You better get something for Lewis too."

"Sergeant, you don't make enough money to feed Tiny," Matt said.

He drove to the Roundhouse and for once found a parking spot without trouble. And there was no trouble getting the film souped and printed right away, either.

"Inspector Wohl called," the civilian in charge behind the counter said. "It'll take me forty-five minutes, if you have something else to do."

There was no fried chicken place anywhere near the Roundhouse that Matt could think of. And Jerry O'Dowd had specified fried chicken. But on the other hand, Jerry was a gentleman of taste, and as such would certainly prefer Chinese to fried chicken, no matter how many spices and flavors it was coated with.

He walked to Chinatown, bought a Family Dinner For Four, and went back to the photo laboratory.

The prints were already coming off the large, polished stainlesssteel drier. Matt looked at all of them. He recognized no one but Corporal Vito Lanza, and decided that he would not have recognized Lanza in uniform if he didn't know who he was looking at. Corporal Lanza did not look like the guy on the airplane home from Vegas or in the back rooms of the Oaks and Pines Lodge.

He called Peter Wohl from the photo lab, first at the School-house and then at his apartment.

Wohl only grunted when he told him he recognized no one but Lanza, but then said, "Remind Sergeant O'Dowd of what I said about making sure Lanza, or anyone else, doesn't see him taking pictures."

"Yes, sir."

"I'll wait here for you, Matt," Wohl said, and hung up.

Matt delivered three sets of photographs to Captain Olsen in Internal Affairs, and then drove back to the airport. Tiny Lewis had joined O'Dowd while he had been gone, and had had the foresight to bring supper-barbecued ribs-for the both of them with him.

Tiny was not at all reluctant to add a little Chinese to his supper menu, however, and accepted half of the food Matt had brought with him.

It will not be wasted, Matt decided, as he headed for Peter Wohl's apartment in Chestnut Hill. Wohl likes Chinese. What I should have done was get some of Tiny's ribs.

Peter Wohl, a crisp white shirt and shaving cream behind his ears indicating he was dressed to go out, was not only not at all interested in the Chinese, but didn't even invite Matt in, much less in for a beer. He just took the envelope of photographs from Matt, muttered "thank you," and started to close the door.

"Is there anything else you need me for, sir?"

Wohl looked at him.

"I think you have made quite enough of a contribution to the Department in the last twenty-four hours for one detective, Payne. Why don't you go home? And stay there?"

He closed the door.

Matt, as well as he knew Wohl, was not sure whether Wohl was pulling his chain, or whether Wohl was still sore about his having gone to the Oaks and Pines Lodge.

Matt got back in the Porsche and drove back to Center City. He was almost at Rittenhouse Square before he thought of Evelyn.

She probably ran the answering machine out of tape, he thought as he drove into the underground garage. What the hell am I going to do about her?

The red light on the answering machine was blinking, and when he played the tape, there had been thirteen callers who had elected not to leave their names, plus two calls from, of all people, Amelia Payne, M.D., who sounded, he thought, as if she had just sat on a nail, and demanded that he call her the moment he got in.

"Screw you, Sister Mine," Matt said aloud. "I am not in the mood for you."

He carefully arranged the Chinese goldfish buckets on his coffee table, got a cold beer from the refrigerator, and sat down to his supper.

The Chinese was cold.

He carried everything to the kitchen and warmed it in the microwave, carried it back to the coffee table, and sat down again.

The doorbell sounded.

Evelyn, Jesus Christ! Well, if she's at the door, she knows I'm here. I might as well face the music.

He went to the head of the stairs and pushed the button that activated the solenoid.

His visitor came through the door.

She looked up at him and called: "You miserable sonofabitch, how could you?"

It was not Evelyn, it was Amelia Payne, M.D.

"That would depend on which of my many mortal sins you have in mind. Come on in, Amy. Soup's on, and it's always a joy to see you."

"I have been angry with you before," Amy said as she reached the top stair. "And disgusted, but this really is despicable."

He was concerned.

Amy is really angry, and that means she thinks I have done something really despicable. But I haven't.

"Are you going to tell me what you're talking about?"

The telephone rang. Without thinking, he picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Matt," Evelyn said.

"I can't talk to you right now. Let me call you back."

"But you won't, will you?" Evelyn said, her voice loaded with hurt, and then she hung up.

"Jesus!" Matt said. He looked at Amy. "How about an egg roll?"

"What I'm talking about, Matt," Amy said, back in control of her temper, "is you going to bed with Penny."

Jesus Christ! How did she hear about that? The answer to that, obviously, is that Penny told her. Patients tell their psychiatrists everything.

"What in the world were you thinking?" Amy demanded.

She has shifted into her Counselor of Mankind tone of voice.

"I don't know," he said, his mouth running away with him. "What do you think about when you hop in bed with some guy?"

Amy slapped him. His vision blurred, his ears rang, and his eyes watered.

He looked at her for a moment as his eyes came back into focus.

"I should not have done that," Amy announced. But it was as if she was talking to herself.

"You're goddamned right you shouldn't have," he replied angrily. " You slap a cop, you're likely to get slapped right back."

"Is that what it was, Matt?" Amy asked. "Just Detective Payne hopping into bed with the nearest available female?"

"It happened, Amy," Matt said.

"Like hell 'it happened.' You didn't take her to dinner in the Poconos to look at the trees. Matt, she's a sick girl. And you know she is."

"You can believe this or not, but taking: but taking Penny to bed was the last thing I had in mind when we went up there."

"Why did you go up there, then?"

He met her eyes.

"I was working. I needed a girl to look legitimate."

She is not going to believe that, and that's all I'm going to tell her.

"Oddly enough, I believe you," Amy said, after a moment. "That doesn't make things any better, but I have the odd notion you're telling the truth."

"I am."

"She's in love with you," Amy said. "Or thinks she is, which is the same thing. The one thing she doesn't need right now is that kind of stress."

"She was behaving perfectly normal up there. I did not seduce the village idiot girl. Amy, shewanted to."

"And your monumental ego got in the way, right? It never occurred to you that she wanted the approval of the Rock of Gibraltar, complete to badge and gun, wanted it so desperately that she was willing to pay for it by going to bed with you?"

He did not reply.

"So what are you going to do about it?" Amy asked.

"How does suicide strike you? I could jump out the window."

"Goddamn you! Don't be flip!"

"What am I going to do about what?"

"You haven't been listening to me. How are you going to deal with this notion of hers that she's in love with you?"

"I don't know," Matt said.

"Obviously, you're not in love with her."

Now that you bring it up, 1 really don't know how I feel about that.

He had a sudden, painfully clear mental image of Penny naked in his arms. Of how good that felt.

"May I speak?" Matt asked.

"I'm waiting."

"I'm not going to hurt Penny. Period. I don't really think that… what happened…hurt her."

"And what are you going to do when she realizes that you don't love her?"

"I never told her I did."

"When she learns about the rest of your harem?" Amy asked, and pointed to the telephone. "Like the one who just called?"

Matt shrugged.

"I can only repeat that I will not hurt her," Matt said.

"You've already set the stage to do exactly that. She sees you as a life preserver, someone she can lean on. I don't know how she's going to react when she finds out, inevitably, that's not true. Certainly, you're not willing to assume emotional responsibility for her. And even if you were, I don't think you could handle it."

He didn't reply.

"Penny cannot be just one more notch on your gun, Matt."

"I never thought of her that way," Matt interrupted.

Amy ignored his response.

"You can't, when she becomes an inconvenience, tell Penny, the way you told that woman on the telephone just now, 'I can't talk to you right now. I'll call you right back.' She cannot take that kind of rejection, for that matter, any rejection right now. It would put her right back in The Lindens."

"Okay, you made your point."

"You're going to have to disabuse her of the notion that she's in love with you very gently."

"I told you, you made your point."

Amy glowered at him, but after a moment her face softened.

"Okay, Matt. Ihave made my point. And you're not really a sonofabitch. You're incredibly stupid and insensitive, of course, and you do most of your thinking with your penis. A typical male, I would say."

He looked at her and smiled.

"How about an egg roll?"

"You bastard!" Amy said, but she sat beside him on the couch and helped herself to an egg roll.

When she left, half an hour later, and he steeled himself to call Evelyn back, there was no answer.

He knew that if he stayed in the apartment he would get drunk, so he called Charley McFadden, and Charley's mother said he was out with his girlfriend.

He walked up Rittenhouse Square to the Rittenhouse Club, and stood at the bar and ordered a Scotch. There were some people there whom he knew vaguely, and who smiled at him. He moved down the bar and tried to join their conversation.

Before he finished his first drink, he realized that he was wholly disinterested in what they were talking about.

I look like them. I act like them. I am a product of the same socio-economic background. But I am no longer like them. I'm a cop.

So where does that leave me with Penny?

He motioned to the bartender, so that he could sign the chit, and then he went back to his apartment.