The Assassin

4:20 P.M.

Matt:

If this comes to hand after six, when I will have left the Rittenhouse, please call me at home no matter what the hour. This is rather important.

Dad.

He jammed the note in his pocket and went up the stairs. The red light on his answering machine was blinking. There were two messages. The first was from someone who wished to sell him burglar bars at a special, one-time reduced rate, and the second was a familiar voice:

"I tried to call you at work, but you had already left. Your dad and I are going to have a drink in the Rittenhouse Club. You need to be there. If you don't get this until after six, call him or me when you finally do."

The caller had not identified himself. Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin did not like to waste words, and he correctly assumed that his voice would be recognized.

And, Matt thought, there had been something in his voice suggesting there was something wrong in a new detective having gone off shift at the called-for time.

What the hell is going on?

Matt picked up the telephone and dialed a number from memory.

"Yeah?" Detective Charley McFadden was not about to win an award for telephone courtesy.

"This is Sears Roebuck. We're running a sale on previously owned wedding gowns."

Detective McFadden was not amused. "Hi, Matt, what's up?"

"I don't know, but I'm not going to be able to meet you at six. You going to be home later?"

"How much later?"

"Maybe six-thirty, quarter to seven?"

"Call me at McGee's. I'll probably still be there."

"Sorry, Charley."

"Yeah, well, what the hell. We'll see what happens. Maybe I'll get lucky without you."

Matt hung up, looked at his watch, and then quickly left his apartment.

Matt walked up the stairs of the Rittenhouse Club, pushed open the heavy door, and went into the foyer. He looked up at the board behind the porter's counter, on which the names of all the members were listed, together with a sliding indicator that told whether or not they were in the club.

"Your father's in the lounge, Mr. Payne," the porter said to him.

"Thank you," Matt said.

Brewster Cortland Payne II, a tall, angular, distinguished-looking man who was actually far wittier than his appearance suggested, saw him the moment he entered the lounge and raised his hand. Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, a heavyset, ruddy-faced man in a wellfitting pin-striped suit, turned to look, and then smiled. They were sitting in rather small leather-upholstered armchairs between which sat a small table. There were squat whiskey glasses, small glass water pitchers, a silver bowl full of mixed nuts, and a battered, but wellshined, brass ashtray with a box of wooden matches in a holder on it on the table.

"Good," Brewster Payne said, smiling and rising from his chair to touch Matt softly and affectionately on the arm. "We caught you."

"Dad. Uncle Denny."

"Matty, I tried to call you at East Detectives," Coughlin said, sitting back down. "You had already gone."

"I left at fiveafter four, Uncle Denny. The City got their full measure of my flesh for their day's pay."

An elderly waiter in a white jacket appeared.

"Denny's drinking Irish and the power of suggestion got to me," Brewster Payne said. "But have what you'd like."

"Irish is fine with me."

"All around, please, Philip," Brewster Payne said.

I have just had a premonition: I am not going to like whatever is going to happen. Whatever this is all about, it is not "let's call Good Ol' Matt and buy him a drink at the Rittenhouse Club."