The Assassin

THREE

"Are we celebrating something, or is this boys' night out?" Matt asked.

Coughlin chuckled.

"Well, more or less, we're celebrating something," Brewster Payne said. "Penny's coming home."

"Is she really?" Matt said, and the moment the words were out of his mouth, he realized that not only had he been making noise, rather than responding, but that his disinterest had not only been apparent to his father, but had annoyed him, perhaps hurt him, as well.

Penny was Miss Penelope Alice Detweiler of Chestnut Hill. Matt now recalled hearing from someone, probably his sister Amy, that she had been moved from The Institute of Living, a psychiatric hospital in Connecticut, to another funny farm out west somewhere. Arizona, Nevada, someplace like that.

Matt had known Penny Detweiler all his life. Penny's father and his had been schoolmates at Episcopal Academy and Princeton, and one of the major-almost certainly the most lucrative-clients of Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo amp; Lester, his father's law firm, was Nesfoods International, Philadelphia's largest employer, H. Richard Detweiler, president and chief executive officer.

After a somewhat pained silence, Brewster Payne said, "I was under the impression that you were fond of Penny."

"I am," Matt said quickly.

I'm not at all sure that's true. I am not, now that I think about it, at all fond of Penny. She's just been around forever, like the walls. I've never even thought of her as a girl, really.

He corrected himself: There was that incident when we were four or five when I talked her into showing me hers and her mother caught us at it, and had hysterically shrieked at me that I was a filthy little boy, an opinion of me I strongly suspect she still holds.

But fond? No. The cold truth is that I now regard Precious Penny (to use her father's somewhat nauseating appellation) very much as I would regard a run-over dog. I am dismayed and repelled by what she did.

"You certainly managed to conceal your joy at the news they feel she can leave The Lindens."

The Lindens, Matt recalled, is the name of the new funny farm. And it's in Nevada, not Arizona. She's been there what? Five months? Six?

There was another of what Matt thought of as "Dad's Significant Silences." He dreaded them. His father did not correct or chastise him. He just looked at the worm before him until the worm, squirming, figured out himself the error, or the bad manners, he had just manifested to God and Brewster Cortland Payne II.

Finally, Brewster Payne went on: "According to Amy, and according to the people at The Lindens, the problem of her physical addiction to narcotics is pretty much under control."

Matt kept his mouth shut, but in looking away from his father, to keep him from seeing Matt's reaction to that on his face, Matt found himself looking at Dennis V. Coughlin, who just perceptibly shook his head. The meaning was clear:You and I don't believe that, we know that no more than one junkie in fifty ever gets the problem under control, but this is not the time or place to say so.

"I'm really glad to hear that," Matt said.

"Which is not to say that her problems are over," Brewster Payne went on. "There is specifically the problem of the notoriety that went with this whole unfortunate business."

The newspapers in Philadelphia, in the correct belief that their readers would be interested, indeed, fascinated, had reported in great detail that the good-looking blonde who had been wounded when her boyfriend-a gentleman named Anthony J. "Tony the Zee" DeZego, whom it was alleged had connections to organized crime-had been assassinated in a downtown parking garage was none other than Miss Penelope Detweiler, only child of the Chestnut Hill/Nesfoods International Detweilers.

"That's yesterday's news," Matt said. "That was seven months ago."

"Dick Detweiler doesn't think so," Brewster Payne said. "That's where this whole thing started."

"Excuse me?"

"Dick Detweiler didn't want Penny to get off the airliner and find herself facing a mob of reporters shoving cameras in her face."

"Why doesn't he send the company airplane after her?" Matt wondered aloud. "Have it land at Northeast Philadelphia?"

"That was the original idea, but Amy said that she considered it important that Penny not think that her return home was nothing more than a continuation of her hospitalization."

"I'm lost, Dad."

"I don't completely understand Amy's reasoning either, frankly, but I think the general idea is that Penny should feel, when she leaves The Lindens, that she is closing the door on her hospitalization and returning to a normal life. Hence, no company plane. Equally important, no nurse, not even Amy, to accompany her, which would carry with it the suggestion that she's still under care."

"Amy just wants to turn her loose in Nevada?" Matt asked incredulously. "How far is the funny farm from Las Vegas?"

Brewster Payne's face tightened.

"I don't at all like your choice of words, Matt. That was not only uncalled for, it was despicable!" he said icily.

"Christ, Matty!" Dennis V. Coughlin said, seemingly torn between disgust and anger.

"I'm sorry," Matt said, genuinely contrite. 'That just: came out. But just turning her loose, alone,that's insane."

"It would, everyone agrees, beill-advised," Brewster Payne said. " That's where you come in, Matt."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Amy's reasoning here, and in this I am in complete agreement, is that you are the ideal person to go out there and bring her home…"

"No. Absolutely not!"

"…for these reasons," Brewster Payne went on, ignoring him. "For one thing, Penny thinks of you as her brother…"

"She thinks of me as the guy who pinned the tail on her," Matt said. "If it weren't for me, no one would have known she's a junkie."

"I don't like that term, either, Matt, but that's Amy's point. If you appear out there, in a nonjudgmental role, as her friend, welcoming her back to her life…"

"I can't believe you're going along with this," Matt said. "For one thing, Penny does not think of me as her brother. I'm just a guy she's known for a long time who betrayed her, turned her in. If I had been locked up out there for six months in that funny farm, I would really hate me."

"The reason Amy, and the people at The Lindens, feel that Penny is ready to resume her life is because, in her counseling, they have caused her to see things as they really are. To see you, specifically, as someone who was trying to help, not hurt her."

I just don't believe this bullshit, and I especially don't believe my dad going along with it.

"Dad, this is so much bullshit."

"Amy said that would probably be your reaction," Brewster Payne said. "I can see she was right."

"Anyway, it's a moot point. I couldn't go out there if I wanted to," Matt said. "Uncle Denny, tell him that I just can't call up my sergeant and tell him that I won't be in for a couple of days…"

"I'm disappointed in you, Matty," Chief Coughlin said. "I thought by now you would have put two and two together."

I'm a little disappointed in me myself, now that the mystery of my temporary assignment, report to Sergeant McElroy, has been cleared up.

"What did Detweiler do, call you?"

"He called the mayor," Coughlin said. "And the mayor called Chief Lowenstein and me."

"I don't think it entered Dick Detweiler's mind, it certainly never entered mine, that you would have any reservations at all about helping Penny in any way you could," Brewster Payne said. Matt looked across the table at him. "But if you feel this strongly about it, I'll call Amy and…"

Matt held up both hands. "I surrender."

"I'm not sure that's the attitude we're all looking for."

Matt met his father's eyes.

"I'll do whatever I can to help Penny," he said.

There was another Significant Silence, and then Brewster C. Payne reached in his breast pocket and took out an envelope.

"These are the tickets. You're on American Airlines Flight 485 tomorrow morning at eight-fifteen. A car will meet you at the airport in Las Vegas. You will spend the night there…"

"At The Lindens?"

"Presumably. And return the next morning."

Shortly afterward, after having concluded their business with Detective Payne, Chief Coughlin and Brewster C. Payne went their respective ways.

Matt spent the balance of the evening in McGee's Saloon, in the company of Detective Charley McFadden of Northwest Detectives.

Perhaps naturally, their conversation dealt with their professional duties. Detective McFadden, who had been seven places below Matt on the detective examination listing, told Matt what he was doing in Northwest Detectives,

Charley had been an undercover Narc right out of the Police Academy, before he'd gone to Special Operations where he and Matt had become friends. On his very first assignment as a rookie detective, he found that his lieutenant was a supervisor (then a sergeant) he'd worked under in Narcotics, and who treated him like a detective, not a rookie detective. His interesting case of the day had been the investigation of a shooting of a numbers runner by a client who felt that he had cheated.

Matt had not felt that Detective McFadden would be thrilled to hear of his specialization in investigating recovered stolen automobiles, and spared him a recounting. Neither had he been fascinated with Detective McFadden's report on the plans for his upcoming wedding, and the ritual litany of his intended's many virtues.

The result of this was that Matt had a lot to drink, and woke up with a hangover and just enough time to dress, throw some clothes in a bag, and catch a cab to the airport, but not to have any breakfast.

At the very last minute, specifically at 7:40 A.M., as he handed his small suitcase to the attendant at the American Airlines counter, Detective Payne realized that he had, as either a Pavlovian reflex, or because he was more than a little hung over, picked up his Chief's Special revolver and its holster from the mantelpiece and clipped it to his waistband before leaving his apartment.

Carrying a pistol aboard an airliner was in conflict with federal law, which prohibited any passenger, cop or not, to go armed except on official business, with written permission.

"Hold it, please," Officer Payne said to the counter attendant. She looked at him with annoyance, and then with wide-eyed interest as he took out his pistol, opened the cylinder, and ejected the cartridges.

"Sir, what are you doing?"

"Putting this in my suitcase," he said, and then added, when he saw the look on her face, "I'm a police officer."

That, to judge from the look on her face, was either an unsatisfactory reply, or one she was not willing to accept. He found his badge and photo ID and showed her that. She gave him a wan smile and quickly walked away. A moment later someone higher in the American Airlines hierarchy appeared.

"Sir, I understand you've placed a weapon in your luggage," he said.

"I'm a police officer," Matt said, and produced his ID again.

"We have to inspect the weapon to make sure it is unloaded," the American Airlines man said.

"I just unloaded it," Matt said, and offered the handful of cartridges as proof.

"We do not permit passengers to possess ammunition in the passenger cabins of our aircraft," the American Airlines man said.

Matt opened the suitcase again, handed the Chief's Special to the man, who accepted it as if it were obviously soaked in leper suppuration, and finally handed it back. Matt returned it to the suitcase and dumped the cartridges in an interior pocket.

By then, the American Airlines man had a form for Matt to sign, swearing that the firearm he had in his luggage was unloaded. When he had signed it, the man from American Airlines affixed a red tag to the suitcase handle reading UNLOADED FIREARM.

If I were a thief, Detective Payne thought, and looking for something to steal, I think I'd make my best shot at a suitcase advertising that it contained a gun. You can get a lot more from a fence for a gun than you can get for three sets of worn underwear.

"Thank you, sir," the man from American Airlines said. "Have a pleasant flight."

A stewardess squatted in the aisle beside him.

"May I get you something before we take off, sir?"

"How about a Bloody Mary?"

"Certainly, sir," she said, but managed to make it clear that anyone who needed a Bloody Mary at eight o'clock in the morning was at least an alcoholic, and most probably was going to cause trouble on the flight for thenice passengers in first class.

The Bloody Mary he had on the ground before they took off had made him feel a little better, and the Bloody Mary he had once they were in the air made him feel even better. It also helped him doze off. He became aware of this when a painful pressure in his ears woke him and alerted him to the fact that the airliner was making its descent to Las Vegas. The stewardess, obviously, had decided that someone who drank a Bloody Mary and a half at eight A.M., and then passed out, had no interest in breakfast.

Primarily to make sure that he still had it, he took the envelope containing the tickets from his pocket. There was something, a smaller, banknote-sized envelope, in theNESFOODS INTERNATIONAL Office of the President envelope he had not noticed before.

He tore it open. There were five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills, obviously expense money, and a note:

Dear Matt:

I am not much good at saying "Thank You," but I want you to know that Grace and I will always have you in our hearts and in our prayers for your selfless, loving support of Penny in her troubles. Our family is truly blessed to have a friend like you.

Dick

"Oh, shit," Matt moaned.

"Please put your chair in the upright position and. fasten your seat belt," the stewardess said.

There was a man wearing a chauffeur's cap holding a sign for MR. PAYNE when Matt stepped out of the airway into the terminal.

"I'm Matt Payne."

"If you'll give me your baggage checks, Mr. Payne, I'll take care of the luggage. The car is parked just outside Baggage Claim. A cream Cadillac."

"If you don't mind," Matt said, "I'll just tag along with you."

"Whatever you say, sir."

Matt looked around the terminal with interest. It was his first visit to Las Vegas. He saw that it was true that there were slot machines all over. There was also a clock on the wall. It said it was 10:15, and it was probably working, for he could see the second hand jerk, although his wristwatch told him it was 1:15.

It took him a moment to understand. He had been in the air four and a half or five hours. It was 1:15 in Philadelphia, which meant that he had missed lunch as well as breakfast. But they had changed time zones.

His bag was the very last bag to show up on the carousel, and the red UNLOADED FIREARM tag on it attracted the attention of a muscular young man with closely cropped hair, who was wearing blue jeans and a baggy sweater worn outside the jeans. He looked at the chauffeur, and then at Matt, when he saw he was with the chauffeur, with great interest, and then followed them out of the baggage room and watched them get into the cream-colored Cadillac limousine.

Clever fellow that I am, Matt thought, I will offer odds of three to one that the guy in the crew cut is a plainclothesman on the airport detail. He is professionally curious why a nice, clean-cut young man such as myself is arriving in Las Vegas with anUNLOADED FIREARMin his luggage.

The chauffeur installed Matt, whose stomach was now giving audible notice that it hadn't been fed in some time, in the back seat and then drove away from the airport.

I'm going to have to get something to eat, and right now.

He pushed himself off the seat, and with some difficulty found the switch that lowered the glass divider.

"How far is this place? I've got to get something to eat."

"The Lindens, sir, or the Flamingo?"

"What about the Flamingo?"

"My instructions are to take you to the Flamingo, sir, and then pick you up there at seven-fifteen tomorrow morning and take you out to The Lindens."

"Oh."

"They have very nice restaurants in the Flamingo, sir. It's about fifteen, twenty minutes. But I can stop…"

The Flamingo, Matt recalled, was a world-famous den of iniquity, a gambling hall where Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and other people of that ilk entertained the suckers while they were being parted from their money at the roulette and blackjack tables. He also recalled hearing that the world's best-looking hookers plied their trade in the better Las Vegas dens of iniquity.

"No. That's fine. I can wait."

There was a basket of fruit and a bottle of champagne in a cooler in Suite 9012, which consisted of a sitting room overlooking what Matt decided was The Strip of fame and legend, and a bedroom with the largest bed, with a mirrored headboard, Matt had ever seen.

The bellman also showed him a small bar, stocked with miniature bottles of liquor, and a refrigerator that held wine and beer. As soon as he had tipped the bellman, he headed for the refrigerator and opened a bottle of Tuborg, and drank deeply from it. A moment later he felt a little dizzy.

Christ, I haven't had anything to eat since that cheese-steak in McGee's. No wonder the beer's making me dizzy.

He ripped the cellophane off the basket of fruit and peeled a banana. And noticed that there was an envelope in the basket.

Flamingo Hotel amp; Casino

Dear Mr. Payne:

Welcome to the Flamingo! It is always a pleasure to have a guest of Mr. Detweiler in the house.

A $10,000 line of credit has been established for you. Should you wish to test Lady Luck at our tables, simply present yourself at the cashier's window and you will be allowed to draw chips up to that amount.

If there is any way I can help to make your stay more enjoyable, please call me.

Good luck!

James Crawford

General Manager

It took Matt only a second or two to conclude that Mr. James Crawford had made a serious error. Dick and Grace Detweiler might feel themselves blessed to have a friend like him, and they might really have him in their prayers, but there was no way they were going to give him ten thousand dollars to gamble with.

Detweiler probably entertains major clients out here, and the general manager made the natural mistake of thinking I'm one of them, someone in a position to buy a trainload of tomato soup or fifty tons of canned chicken.

The possibilities boggle the mind, but what this nice, young, nongambling police officer is going to do is find someplace to eat and then come back up here and crap out in that polo-field-sized bed.

To get to the restaurant from the lobby, it was necessary to walk past what he estimated to be at least a thousand slot machines, followed by a formidable array of craps tables, blackjack tables, and roulette tables.

He felt rather naive. As far as gambling was concerned, he had lost his fair share, and then some, of money playing both blackjack and poker, but he really had no idea how one actually shot craps, and roulette looked like something you saw in an old movie, with men in dinner jackets and women in low-cut dresses betting the ancestral estates in some Eastern European principality on where the ball would fall into the hole.

The restaurant surprised and pleased him. The menu was enormous. He broke his unintended fast with a filet mignon, hash-brown potatoes, two eggs sunny side up, and two glasses of milk. It was first rate, and it was surprisingly cheap.

He started to pay for it, but then decided to hell with it, and signed the bill with his room number.

Why should I spend my money when I'm out here doing an unpleasant errand for Dick Detweiler?

He walked past the blackjack, craps, and roulette tables and was almost past the slot machines when he decided that it would really be foolish to have been out here in Las Vegas, in one of the most famous gambling dens of them all, without having once played a slot machine.

He looked in his wallet and found that he had a single dollar bill and several twenties. There were also, he knew, two fifties, folded as small as possible, hidden in a recess of the wallet, against the possibility that some girl would get fresh and he would have to walk home.

He took one of the twenties and gave it to a young woman in a very short shirt who had a bus driver's change machine strapped around her waist.

She handed him a short, squat stack of what looked like coins, but what, on examination, turned out to be one-dollar slugs.

He found a slot machine and dropped one of the slugs in and pulled the handle. He did this again seventeen times with no result, except that the oranges and lemons and cherries spun around. On the nineteenth pull, however, the machine made a noise he had not heard before, and then began noisily spitting out a stream of slugs into a sort of a shelf on the bottom of the machine.

"Jesus Christ!"

There were more slugs than he could hold in both hands. But the purpose of the waxed paper bucket he had noticed between his machine and the next now became apparent. Successful gamblers such as himself put their winnings in them.

And wise successful gamblers such as myself know when to quit. I will take all these slugs-Jesus, there must be two hundred of them-to the cashier and turn them in for real money.

He didn't make it to the cashier's cage. His route took him past a roulette table, and he stopped to look. After a minute or two he decided that it wasn't quite as exotic or complicated as it looked in the movies about the Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo.

There were thirty-six numbers, plus 0 and 00, for a total of thirty-eight. The guy with the stick-thecroupier, he recalled somewhat smugly-paid thirty-six to one if your number came up. Since there were thirty-eight numbers, that gave the house a one-in-nineteen advantage, roughly five percent.

That didn't seem too unfair. And in another minute or two he had figured out that you could make other bets, one through twelve, for example, or thirteen to twenty-four, or odd or even, or red or black, that gave you a greater chance of winning, but paid lower odds.

Since 0 and 00 were neither odd or even, and were green, rather than black or red, the house, Matt decided, got its five percent no matter how the suckers bet.

And he also decided that since he had already made the mental decision to throw twenty dollars away, so that he could say he had gambled in Las Vegas, there was no reason to change simply because the slot machine had paid off.

He would now be able to say, he thought, as he put five of the slot machine slugs on EVEN that he had lost his shirt at roulette. That sounded better than having lost his shirt at the slot machines.

Six came up.

The croupier looked at him.

"Pennies or nickels?"

What the hell does that mean?

"Nickels," Matt said.

The croupier took his slot machine slugs and laid two chips in their place.

Obviously, a "nickel" means that chip is the equivalent of five slot machine slugs.

Matt let his two-nickel bet ride. Twenty-six came up. The croupier added two chips to the two on the board. Matt decided it was time to quit, since he was ahead. He picked up the four chips, and felt rather wise when the ball fell into a slot marked with a seven.

He waited until the wheel had been spun again, odd again, and then placed another five slot machine slugs on the green felt, this time on One to Twelve.

Nine came up. The croupier took the slot machine slugs and replaced them with three nickel chips.

"Sir, would you like me to exchange your coins for you?"

Obviously, it was for some reason impolite to play roulette with slot machine slugs.

"Please," Matt said, and pushed the waxed paper bucket to the croupier.

"All nickels?"

"Nickels and dimes," Matt said.

Two small stacks of chips were pushed across the table to him.

Matt yawned, and then again.

Jesus, what's the matter with me? I was just going to get something to eat and then crap out. How long have I been doing this?

His watch said that it was quarter to six.

Time to quit.

He watched the ball circle the wheel and then bounce around the slots before finally dropping in one.

Obviously, it is time to quit. I have been betting on 00 every fourth or fifth bet since I have been here, and that's the first time I ever won.

As the croupier counted out chips to place beside the chip he had laid on 00, Matt said, "Quit when you're ahead, I always say."

"You want to cash in, sir?"

"Please," Matt said, and pushed the stacks of chips, nickels, dimes, and quarters in front of him to the croupier.

He wondered where the cashier kept the real money to cash him out. There was no money, no cash box, in sight.

The croupier put all the chips in neat little stacks, and then said "Cash out." A man in a suit who had been hovering around in the background came up behind the croupier, looked, nodded, wrote something on a clipboard, and then smiled at Matt.

The croupier pushed a stack of chips, including some oblong ones Matt hadn't noticed before, across the felt to him.

"What do I do with these?" he wondered aloud.

"Take them to the cashier, sir," the croupier said.

Matt reclaimed his waxed paper bucket, and as he dumped the chips into it, he recalled that the polite thing to do was tip the croupier. He pushed one of the oblong chips across the table to the croupier.

"Thank you very much, sir," the croupier said. It was the first time, Matt noticed, that he had sounded at all friendly.

He walked to the cashier's cage and pushed the waxed paper bucket through what looked like a bank teller's window to a gray-haired, middle-aged woman.

She put all the chips in neat little stacks and then counted to herself, moving her lips. She looked at him.

"Would you like me to draw a check, sir?"

What the hell would I do with a check? I couldn't cash a check out here.

"I'd rather have the cash, if that would be all right."

The gray-haired woman took a stack of bills from a drawer and started counting them out. Matt was surprised to see that the bills were hundred-dollar bills, and then astonished to see how many of them she was counting out into thousand-dollar stacks. When she was finished there were four one-thousand-dollar stacks, one stack with six hundred-dollar bills in it, and a sixth stack with eighty-five dollars in it, four twenties and a five.

"Four thousand six hundred eighty-five," the gray-haired woman said.

"Thank you very much."

"Thankyou, sir."

I don't believe this.

Matt divided the money into two wads, put one in each pocket, and walked out of the casino.

The first thing Matt Payne experienced when he woke up was annoyance. He had fallen asleep with his clothes on. And then he remembered the money and sat up abruptly. It was still there on the bed. No longer in the one thick wad into which he had counted it, three or four times, but there.

He counted it again. $4,685.

Jesus H. Christ!

He put the stack of bills in the drawer of the bedside table, then undressed and took a shower. He wrapped himself in a terry-cloth robe, went back into the bedroom, sat on the enormous bed, took the money from the bedside table, and counted it again.

Then he laid on the bed with his hands laced behind his head and thought about it.

The first thing he thought was that he was a natural-born gambler, that his quick mind gave him an edge over people who lost at roulette. He knew when to bet and when not to bet.

That's so much bullshit! You were just incredibly lucky, that's all. Dumb beginner's luck. Period. If you go back down there and try to do that again, you will lose very dime of that, plus the two fifties mad money.

The thing to do is put that money someplace safe and forget about it.

He figured that he might as well round it off, to forty-five hundred, keeping one hundred eight-five to play with, and then he changed that to rounding it off to four thousand even, which left him six hundred eight-five to play with, which meant lose.

He took out his toilet kit, and with some effort managed to cram forty hundred-dollar bills into the chrome soap dish.

He looked at his watch. It was quarter after three. That was Philadelphia time. It was only a little after midnight here, but it explained why he was hungry again.

With his luck, the restaurants would be closed at this hour. He would be denied another meal.

That's not true. With my luck, the restaurant will not only be open, but the headwaiter will show me to my table with a flourish of trumpets.

The headwaiter made him wait for a table, as the restaurant was even more crowded at midnight, Las Vegas time, than it had been when he'd had lunch, or breakfast, or whatever meal that had been. He had a martini, a shrimp cocktail, and another filet mignon, and then went back to the casino.

He went to the same roulette table and gave the croupier one hundred eight-five dollars, specifying nickels, and promptly lost it all.

He moved away from the table and decided he would see if he could figure out how one bet at a craps table, as he had figured out how one bet at roulette.

There was a man at the head of the table rolling dice. He looked like a gambler, Matt decided. He had gold rings on both hands, and a long-collared shirt unbuttoned nearly to his navel, so as to display his hairy chest and a large gold medallion. And he had, one on each side of him, a pair of what Matt decided must be Las Vegas hookers of fame and legend.

Matt moved to what he hoped was an unobtrusive distance from the gambler and tried to figure out what was going on. Ten minutes later, the only thing he was fairly sure of was that the gambler was a fellow Philadelphian. The accent was unmistakable.

"Sir, if you are not going to wager, would you mind stepping aside and making room for someone who would like to play?"

"Sorry," Matt said, and pulled his wad of hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and laid one somewhere, anywhere, on the felt of the craps table. The gambler threw the dice. The hooker on his left said " ooooh" and the one on his right kissed him and gave him a little hug.

The croupier picked up Matt's one-hundred-dollar bill…

I lost. Why did I bet a hundred?

…and held a handful of chips over it.

"Quarters all right, sir?"

I won. I'll be goddamned. What did I bet on?

"Quarters are fine, thank you."

He picked up the stack of quarters, there were twelve of them, and walked away from the table.

If you have no idea what you're betting on, you have no business betting.

"Stick around," the gambler said. "I'm on a roll."

The temptation was nearly irresistible. The hooker on the left was smiling at him with invitation in her eyes. He had never been with a hooker.

Was this the time and place?

Get thee behind me, Satan! Back to the roulette table.

The Lindens was a forty-five-minute drive from the Flamingo. Matt was sorry that he had let himself be ushered into the back seat of the limousine. He certainly could have seen more of Las Vegas and the desert upfront than he could see from the back seat, through the deeply tinted windows.

But he had been more than a little groggy when he left the Flamingo. He had lost the seven hundred dollars he had walked away from the craps table with, gone to bed, woken up, and-absolute insanity-decided he could take a chance with another five hundred, and then had compounded that insanity by taking a thousand dollars, not five hundred, from the soap dish and going back to the casino with it.

When he'd finally left the table, at quarter past six, Las Vegas time, he had worked the thousand up to thirty-seven hundred. Since that obviously wouldn't fit into the soap dish, and he didn't want to have that much money in his pockets, or put it in the suitcase, he told the man in the cashier's cage to give him a check for his winnings.

By the time they had made out the check, and he'd taken another quick shower, they had called from the desk and told him his limousine was waiting for him.

There was nothing he could see for miles around The Lindens, which turned out to be a rambling, vaguely Spanish-looking collection of connected buildings built on a barren mountainside. There was a private road, a mile and a half long, from a secondary highway.

There was no fence around the place. Probably, he decided, because you would have to be out of your mind to try to walk away from The Lindens. There was nothing but desert.

In front of the main building, in an improbably lush patch of grass, were six trees. Lindens, he decided, as in Unter den Linden.

A hefty, middle-aged man in a blazer with retired cop written all over him saw him get out of the limousine and unlocked a double door as Matt walked up to it.

"Mr. Payne?"

"Right?"

"Dr. Newberry is expecting you, sir. Will you follow me, please?"

He locked the door again before he headed inside the building.

Dr. Newberry was a woman in a white coat who looked very much like the cashier in the Flamingo.

"You look very much like your sister," Dr. Newberry greeted him cordially. Matt did not think he should inform her that that must be a genetic anomaly, because he and Amy shared no genes. He nodded politely.

"It was very good of you to come out to be with Penelope on her trip home."

"Not at all."

"We believe, as I'm sure Dr. Payne has told you, that we've done all we can for Penelope here. We've talked her through her problems, and of course, we believe that her physical addiction is under control."

"Yes, ma'am."

"We've tried to convince her that the best thing she can do is put what happened behind her, that she's not the only young woman who has had difficulty like this in her life, and that she will not be the only one to overcome it."

"Yes, ma'am."

"What I'm trying to get across is that I hope you can behave in a natural manner toward Penelope. While neither you nor she can deny that she has had problems, or has spent this time with us, the less you dwell upon it, the better. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am. I think so."

Dr. Newberry got up and smiled.

"Well, let's go get her. She's been waiting for you."

She led him through a series of wide corridors furnished with simple, heavy furniture and finally to a wide door. She pushed it open.

Penny was sitting on a chair. Her shoulder-length blond hair was parted in the middle. She was wearing a skirt and two sweaters. A single strand of pearls hung around her neck. There was a suitcase beside the chair.

It was a fairly large room with a wall of narrow, ceiling-high windows providing a view of the desert and mountains. Matt saw the windows were not wide enough for anyone to climb out.

"Your friend is here, dear," Dr. Newberry said.

Penny got to her feet.

"Hello, Matt," she said, and walked to him.

Christ, she expects me to kiss her.

He put his hands on her arms and kissed her cheek. He could smell her perfume. Or maybe it was soap. A female smell, anyway.

"How goes it, Penny?"

"I'm sorry you had to come out here," she said.

"Ah, hell, don't be silly."

"Shall I have someone come for your bag?"

"I can handle the bag," Matt said.

"Well, then, Penelope, you're all ready to go. I'll say good-bye to you now, dear."

"Thank you, Dr. Newberry, for everything."

"It's been my pleasure," Dr. Newberry said, smiled at Matt, and walked out of the room.

Penny looked at Matt.

"God, I hate that woman!" she said.

He could think of no reply to make.

"Have you got any money?" she asked.

"Why?"

"Some people have been nice to me. I'd like to give them something."

What did they do, smuggle you junk?

"I don't think you're supposed to tip nurses and people like that."

"For god's sake, Matt, let me have some money. You know you'll get it back."

"When you get home, you can write them a check," Matt said.

"What are you thinking, that I'm going to take the money and run?"

As a matter of fact, perhaps subconsciously, that is just what I was thinking.

"I don't know what to think, Penny. But I'm not going to give you any money."

"Fuck you, Matt!"

He wondered if she had used language like that before she had met Tony the Zee DeZego, or whether she had learned it from him.

She picked up her bag and marched out of her room. He followed her. The rent-a-cop in the blue blazer, who, Matt thought, probably had a title like director of Internal Security Services, was at the front door. He unlocked it.

"Good-bye, Miss Detweiler," he said. "Good luck."

Penny didn't reply.

Matt got in the back seat of the limousine with her.

"Well, so how was the food?"

"Fuck you, Matt," Penny said again.