The investigators

FIFTEEN

Susan Reynolds had to stop for a red light near the Penn-Harris hotel, and saw Matt Payne before he saw her. And when she saw him, her heart jumped.

He was leaning on the brass sign next to the revolving door, legs crossed, reading the newspaper. He was wearing a very well-cut glen plaid suit, a crisp white button-down-collar shirt, and gleaming loafers.

The son of a bitch is good-looking, she thought. And that is a very nice suit. Whatever he looks like, he doesn't look like what comes to mind when you hear the word "cop."

The light changed and she drove toward the hotel, then blew the horn to attract his attention.

She saw him lower the newspaper to look around, and then he saw her. A wide smile appeared on his face, and she remembered what he had said about her not having any trouble spotting him: "I'll be the handsome devil with the look of joyous anticipation in his eyes."

She told herself: Don't hold your breath, Matt Payne, waiting for the satisfaction of your joyous anticipation. That just isn't going to happen.

She pulled to the curb, and he opened the door and got in.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi." She pulled into traffic.

I have no idea where we're going.

"It smells good in here," Matt said.

"And you just love women who wear French perfume, right?"

"I was talking about the smell of the leather," Matt replied. "Peculiarly Porsche, so to speak."

My God! He either thinks very quickly, or he really was talking about the damned leather.

He leaned close to her and sniffed.

"But now that you mention it, I do love women who wear French perfume."

And I can smell him, too. I don't know what that after-shave is, but he didn't get a large economy bottle of it for ninety-eight cents in Woolworth's.

And he's freshly shaven. He probably took a shower and a shave, getting all ready for the big date.

I wonder what he looks like in the shower?

What's the matter with you? Stop that!

"Is where we're going far?" Matt asked. "More than, say, two miles?"

"I haven't made up my mind where we're going. Only that it's not going to take long."

"Whatever you decide is fine with me, fair maiden. But keep in mind the two-mile limitation."

"What's with two miles? What are you talking about."

"These are marvelous machines, fair maiden, the ne plus ultra of German automotive engineering. But even a 911 requires what the Germans call, I think, 'petrol.' Or, maybe, essence. It's needed, you see, to make the pistons go up and down."

Susan dropped her eyes to the dashboard. The red FUEL WARNING light was blinking, and the needle on the gas gauge pointed below Empty.

"Shit!" Susan said, and started looking for a gas station.

"These are a real bitch to start after you've run them completely dry," he said matter-of-factly.

"Among your many other qualifications, you're a Porsche expert, right?" she snapped.

"Maybe 'journeyman craftsman' would be more accurate. "

"I'm touched by your modesty," she said.

"And well you should be," he said.

She pulled into a gas station and stopped at a line of pumps. Matt opened the door and got out.

The attendant appeared.

"You mind if I do it myself?" Matt asked.

"Help yourself," the attendant said.

"How about getting me a little rag? I want to check the oil, too."

"You got it."

"The oil's fine," Susan said.

"An ounce of prevention is worth several thousand dollars ' worth of cure," Matt proclaimed solemnly. "Pop the lid, fair maiden."

"Shit," Susan said, and got out of the car to check the oil herself.

"The way you do that," Matt called to her from the gas pump, "is that there's a long thin metal thing that fits in a hole."

"Screw you, Matt."

"Who taught you all the dirty words? Good ol' Whatsisname? "

She pulled the dipstick, wiped it, dipped it again and looked at it in disbelief, and dipped it again. And again there was only a trace of motor oil on it.

"How much does it need?" Matt asked, and when she looked at him, he added, "I was watching your face."

"A lot," she confessed.

"What do you run in it?" he asked.

"Pennzoil 10W-30," she said.

"Good stuff," he said. He turned to the attendant. "Two, and possibly three, quarts of your very best Pennzoil 10W-30, please."

"You got it," the attendant said, smiling at him.

Or, condescendingly, Susan wondered, at a stupid female who doesn't have enough brains to check the oil? Well, if that's it, I deserve it. Not checking the oil was stupid.

Matt put the oil in. It took three quarts, and half of a fourth.

"It was just a little low, I would say," Matt said.

"Okay. You were right and I was wrong. I've had a lot on my mind lately, I guess, and just didn't check."

"I have a sister who does the same sort of thing," he said with a smile.

"Anyway, thank you."

"You're welcome," he said. "Can I make a request?"

"Request."

"A truce until after dinner? Hostilities can resume immediately after the second cup of coffee."

"Okay," she said after a just perceptible hesitation.

Why not? What's playing the bitch with him going to accomplish?

"Deal?" Matt asked.

He put out his hand and, without thinking about it, she took it. His hand was warm and strong.

"Deal," Susan said. She was aware her voice sounded strange.

"Good," he said. "Then pay the man, fair maiden, and we'll be on our way."

He got behind the wheel and closed the door.

"What makes you think I'm going to let you drive?" Susan demanded.

"Because we are in a state of truce," Matt replied. "And also maybe because you are grateful I kept you from running out of gas."

Why not? Same reason as before.

She gave the attendant her credit card, signed the form, and got in beside him. She was a trifle amused at the care with which he adjusted the driver's seat.

He pulled out of the station, and she saw that he was better working the gears than she was.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"To the only decent restaurant I know around here. Except, of course, the Penn-Harris. They gave me a very nice breakfast. My lunch was a disaster."

"Where is this only decent restaurant?"

"Little town called Hershey," Matt said. "They make chocolate there, you know."

"I don't want to go all the way out to Hershey."

"Not to worry, fair maiden. We now have a full tank of petrol. And I'm driving."

Susan elected not to make an issue of it.

He got on U.S. 422 and immediately pushed harder on the accelerator.

"You're going to get a ticket," Susan said.

"Fear not, fair maiden."

The speedometer was indicating seventy-five when there was the sound of a siren and the image of the flashing lights of a bubble-gum machine on a state trooper's car in the rearview mirror.

Matt immediately slowed, but did not pull off the highway onto the shoulder. The state trooper pulled alongside. Matt held his identification folder up for the trooper to see.

The trooper made a slow-it-down gesture. Matt nodded his willingness to do so. The trooper's car slowed and fell behind. Susan turned and looked out the window. The trooper had pulled his car off the road, and was about to make a U-turn back toward Harrisburg.

Back to give a ticket to some ordinary citizen for going five miles over the speed limit.

"That's outrageous!" Susan said indignantly.

"That's what's known as professional courtesy," Matt said. "You know, like sharks don't eat lawyers?"

"It's an abuse of power!"

"It's legal," he said. "Traffic officers have the option of issuing a citation or a warning. He opted to give me a warning."

"Jesus!" she said in contempt.

Five minutes later, with the speedometer indicating sixty-five-fifteen miles over the posted limit-Matt said:

"I really like the smell in here. And I am not talking about the leather."

Susan didn't reply.

He drove into the town of Hershey. The delightful smell of cocoa beans overwhelmed the smell of her perfume, and he told her so.

"That may not be a bad thing," he said. "Have you ever thought of rubbing a Hershey bar behind your ears? Or someplace more feminine? You might be able to save some money that way. What you're wearing has to be awfully expensive."

"No," she said as sternly as she could manage. But she had to smile.

He pulled into the parking lot behind the Hotel Hershey.

Susan started to open the door.

"Wait a minute," Matt ordered.

She turned and looked at him, and obediently slumped back into her seat.

He turned, so that his back was resting on the door. His hand and arm came to rest on the back of her seat. She could feel the warmth of his hand.

But it's not as if he's trying to put his arm around me or pull me over to him or anything.

"What?" she asked.

"It could have been one of those unexplained phenomena one hears about, something that happens only once in ten thousand years," Matt said.

He's talking about that damned kiss. Goddamn him, he knows what it did to me.

"What could?"

"On the other hand, it could well be a harbinger of heaven on earth," Matt said.

"Harbinger of heaven on earth"? My God! Give credit where it's due. That's one hell of a line.

"I think, before we have our supper, in the interest of scientific research, let the chips fall where they may, so to speak, we should attempt the experiment again."

"Matt…"

"You agree?"

God, if he puts his hand on my shoulder, if he touches me, I don't know what I'll do.

"Matt…"

Matt pushed himself away from the door far enough so that he could reach her right shoulder with the balls of his fingers.

"Matt, I don't want to kiss you, I'm not going-"

And then she was on his side of the Porsche, the gearshift jabbing her painfully in the back. She was breathing heavily, looking up at him, seeing that his face was really smeared with her lipstick.

"Well," Matt said. "Now we know, don't we?"

"The gearshift," Susan said.

"Oh! Sorry!" he said, and she was aware they had moved on the seat, and that they were now close enough to conduct the experiment again.

And she became aware that his hand was under her blouse.

Why don't I slap his face, or at least push his hand away?

"Don't," she ordered, and heard in her voice that it was a lie.

He kissed her again.

I've got to stop this! Why don't I just push him away?

And then she was looking at his face again, aware that she was breathing heavily. And then she was horrified to hear herself challenging, bitchily, "Well, you seem to have recovered very well from your tragic loss of Penny, haven't you?"

"I've thought about that," he replied immediately, matter-of-factly.

God, was he thinking about that, too?

"I don't think I ever loved Penny. She needed me. She was really fucked up. I got sucked into that. It was the, quote, decent, unquote, thing to do. Doing the right thing keeps getting me in trouble."

What did he say? "She needed me. She was really fucked up. I got sucked into that"?

He looked down at her again.

"Don't be a bitch, Susan."

"Sorry," she heard herself say, and that sounded very honest to her ears.

He kissed her again, and this time she became aware that the hand that had been on her breast was now between her legs.

Oh, God, I'm all wet! He'll know!

She freed herself violently, and sat erect in her seat and put her clothes in order.

My bra is loose. Did he unfasten it?

"I am not going to do this in a car," she said righteously.

"Sorry, I got carried away," he said.

That sounded sincere.

Matt opened his door and got out of the car.

What's this? What's he doing?

He walked around the rear of the Porsche and opened her door.

If he thinks I'm just going to go in there and have dinner…

She swung her feet out of the Porsche and got out.

She looked at his lipstick-smeared face, then for a moment into his eyes, and then quickly averted hers.

I'm not going in there with him looking like that!

She took the crisp white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit jacket and rubbed at his lips. When the lipstick didn't want to come off, she spat on his handkerchief and resumed rubbing with it.

I can't believe I did that.

"All right," she said finally.

He nodded and took her elbow and led her through a rear entrance into the hotel building, and down a corridor into, finally, the lobby. She saw a green neon arrow and the word "Restaurant."

God, my hair must be a mess, and my face is probably as smeared with lipstick as his was and everybody in the restaurant will see.

"Wait," Matt ordered.

He left her.

Where's he going? God, he's going to the desk. He doesn't actually expect me to go to a hotel room with him. I can't believe that this is happening. I won't let it happen. I'll just go back to the car…

Two minutes later, he was back, swinging a hotel key.

"We have a small suite overlooking the tenth green," he announced.

Susan nodded her head.

He took her arm and led her to the elevator.

I can't believe I'm doing this!

The elevator operator, an old man, held his hand out to look at the key. When the elevator stopped and the door opened, the old man said, "To the right, sir. About halfway down."

"Thank you," Matt said, and waved Susan out of the elevator in front of him.

He unlocked the door to the suite, went inside, found and snapped on the lights, and turned to Susan, still standing in the corridor.

Their eyes met, and again she averted hers, and then went through the door.

She stopped six feet from the door and looked at him.

"What did you say about Penny?" Susan asked.

He looked confused, searched his memory, and shrugged.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"You said Penny needed you. That she was really fucked up. That you got sucked into it."

"Yeah, I said that. It's true."

"And that doing the right thing keeps getting you in trouble."

"Shut up, Susan," Matt ordered with a smile.

He crossed the few steps to her, put his hand on her cheek, and tilted her face up to look at him.

Their eyes met, and this time she didn't avert hers.

She felt his fingers working the buttons of her blouse. Her breasts, because he had unfastened her brassiere, were not restrained by it.

When he put his hand on her breast, then his mouth on her nipple, she heard herself saying, softly and plaintively, "Matt, I have to sit down. Lie down."

He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, where, with one hand, he jerked the cover off the bed. Then he lowered her onto it, and as they looked into each other's eyes, took off the rest of her clothing.

Mr. Paulo Cassandro, the owner of record of Classic Livery, Inc., and its president, a 185-pound gentleman who stood six feet one inches tall, who had been summoned nevertheless, entered the living room of Mr. Vincenzo Savarese very carefully, and was immediately pleased that he had.

Mr. Pietro Cassandro, who was carried on the books of Classic Livery, Inc., as its vice president, immediately looked up at Paulo and made a gesture indicating that Paulo should wait and say nothing.

Pietro, who was twenty pounds heavier than Paulo, two inches taller, four years older, and equally well-tailored, was not, however, quite as bright. For that reason, Mr. Savarese had some years before decided that Paulo was better equipped to direct Classic Livery and Pietro was better suited to function as a companion, which translated to mean that Pietro served Mr. Savarese as a combination chauffeur, bodyguard, and guardian of Mr. Savarese's privacy.

Paulo saw why Pietro had held up his hand, fingers extended in a warning to say nothing and wait until Mr. S. was ready for him.

Mr. S. was sitting slumped in a very large, comfortable-appearing armchair, his highly polished shoes resting on its matching footstool. His eyes were closed, and his right hand was moving in time with tape-recorded music being reproduced through a pair of five-foot-tall, four-feet-wide stereophonic loudspeakers.

I know that, Paulo thought with just a little pride. That's Otello, by whatsisname, Verdi. Giuseppe Verdi. And that's the part where the dinge offs the broad.

Paulo had three times accompanied Mr. S. to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City to see a performance of the opera. He could see it now in his mind's eye.

He very carefully backed up to the wall and leaned on it, to wait for Mr. S. to have time for him.

Three minutes later, Mr. Savarese pushed himself away from the cushions of his chair, causing Paulo concern that he might have inadvertently made a noise, distracting Mr. S. from his enjoyment of the opera.

Mr. S. did not seem annoyed with him.

Maybe he turned around to see if I was here yet.

Confirmation of that seemed to come when Mr. S. turned the volume off all the way.

"Pietro, rewind the tape carefully, please, and put it away."

"You got it, Mr. S.," Pietro said.

"Thank you for coming, Paulo," Mr. S. said. "Will you have a glass of wine?"

"That would go nice, if it wouldn't be an inconvenience, Mr. S."

"Get a bottle of wine and some glasses, Pietro, please," Mr. Savarese said, then motioned Paulo into one of the chairs surrounding an octagonal game table.

"Thank you, Mr. S.," Paulo said.

"If there had been any activity with the man, you would have told me, Paulo?"

"I had one of the guys ride by there every forty-five minutes, no less than once an hour. Nothing, Mr. S."

Pietro took a bottle of an Italian Chablis from the sterling-silver cooler where it had been kept ready for Mr. S. in case he wanted a little grappa, opened it, and set it on the table. He added two glasses.

"You'll have a glass, too, Pietro," Mr. S. said, "when you have finished with the tape."

"Thank you, Mr. S."

Savarese nodded and smiled at him, then turned to Paulo.

"I have been thinking that I would like to be there when you talk with this man," he said.

"You don't mean you want to go there, Mr. S.," Paulo said in surprise.

"I think that would be best, under the circumstances," Savarese said. "I would like to personally hear what he has to say."

"What I meant, Mr. S., is that you don't want to go there, do you? I mean, I can have him at the garage, for example, or anyplace else, thirty minutes after you give me the word."

Mr. Savarese poured wine in two glasses and handed one to Paulo.

"Salute," he said.

"Salute," Paulo repeated.

Mr. Savarese took a small, appreciative sip of the wine.

"That would involve moving him," he said. "I would rather that he not be moved. I think that would be better."

"Whatever you say, Mr. S."

"Paulo, he is in a certain state of mind after having been where he has been, under those circumstances, for twenty-four hours. If we move him, that would, I think, break the spell, so to speak."

"You're right, Mr. Savarese. I didn't think about that."

Paulo was frequently reminded, when dealing with Mr. S., that if he was one and a half times as smart as Pietro, Mr. S. was like five times, ten times as smart as he was.

"There'll be no problem, nothing to worry about," Paulo said. "I'll get enough people to guard that place like fucking Fort Knox!" When he saw the pained look on Mr. S.'s face, his own colored quickly. "Sorry about that, Mr. S."

Mr. S. did not like either profanity or obscenity.

Mr. S. accepted his apology with a curt nod of the head.

"This man is strong and dangerous. Paulo?"

"No, Mr. S. He's not. Not at all."

"And there is no question in your mind that you and Pietro can deal with him in any circumstance that you can think of?"

"I don't even need Pietro, Mr. S."

"Nevertheless, I want Pietro to go along with us."

"Right, Mr. S."

"I don't want this man to see me, for obvious reasons," Mr. S. said. "Or to hear my voice."

"No problem, Mr. S."

"Although I doubt it very much, he may have had nothing to do with the problems my granddaughter is having. I don't want to close any doors that might have to later be opened, you understand?"

"Absolutely, Mr. S."

"And, of course, we don't want to be interrupted while we are talking with him."

"I understand."

"I wondered if someone saw the vehicle you previously used there if it might not cause curiosity."

"I see what you mean, Mr. S. Let me think a minute."

Mr. Savarese waited patiently.

"How about a Chevy station wagon, Mr. S.? We got a couple of them. At a big funeral, we use them to haul flowers ahead of the procession, you know, enough to cover the phony grass by the grave-"

"They are black, like the Suburban?" Mr. Savarese interrupted him.

Paulo nodded. "And they don't have any signs painted on them or anything."

"I was thinking of something more on the order of a utility vehicle."

Again he waited patiently for Paulo to give that some thought.

"What we do have is a Ford pickup, Mr. S. We keep it around with a jack and a couple of spare wheels and tires in the back, in case a hearse or a flower car has a flat."

"Does that happen often, Paulo?"

"No, Mr. S. But sometimes, you know, you get a bad tire or pick up a nail."

"Yes," Mr. Savarese said, understanding. Then he gave a dry chuckle. "The final indignity of life, Paulo, a flat tire on your way to your last resting place."

"Yeah, I see what you mean, Mr. S."

"Is there room for the three of us in this flat-tire truck?"

"You know, it's a regular pickup truck. It would be a tight squeeze. And it's sometimes dirty."

"The upholstery, you mean?"

Pietro finally came to the table and sat down.

"You heard what we have been talking about, Pietro?" Mr. Savarese asked.

"We could put a blanket or something on the seats, if they're dirty, Mr. S.," Pietro said.

"You understand, Mr. S.," Paulo explained, "we get a call there's a flat, one of the mechanics drops whatever he's doing and jumps in the pickup-"

Mr. Savarese held out his hand in such a manner as to indicate that a further explanation was not necessary.

"What I think we should do," Mr. Savarese said, "unless this interferes with your plans, Paulo…"

"My time is your time, Mr. S., you know that."

"… is send Pietro to the garage, where he will clean this flat-tire truck up as well as he can, and if necessary, as he suggested, put a clean blanket over the dirty seats, and then bring it here. By then it will be dark."

"Good thinking, Mr. S.," Paulo said.

"And in the meantime, you and I will discuss what you're going to talk to this man about."

"Right, Mr. S.," Paulo said.

Paulo Cassandro's prediction that it would be a tight squeeze in the front of the Ford pickup truck proved to be true, and the blankets-he had sent one of the Classic Livery mechanics to a dry goods store to get two nice ones-proved to be hot and slippery when installed over the greasy upholstery, and Paulo knew Mr. S. was uncomfortable.

But Mr. S. hadn't said anything. Paulo interpreted this to be another manifestation of Mr. S.'s being fair. Mr. S. knew that he was the one who had ordered the pickup, so it wouldn't be right to bitch about what happened when he got what he asked for.

At five minutes to eight, the pickup stopped outside a ten-foot-high hurricane fence in a field south of the Philadelphia International Airport. There were metal signs reading, U.S. GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. TRESPASSING FORBIDDEN UNDER PENALTY OF LAW attached at twenty-five-foot intervals to the fence.

As they had driven up to the fence, Mr. Savarese had seen where there once had been provision for floodlights to illuminate the entire perimeter of the fenced-in area. They were no longer in use. Neither was what had been contained inside the fence: a battery (four launcher emplacements) of U.S. Army antiaircraft weaponry.

During a particularly tense period of the Cold War, the installation had been one of many such batteries surrounding Philadelphia and from which, should the Russian bombers have come, NIKE rockets would have been launched to blow them out of the sky.

Roughly in the center of the four launcher emplacements (their launching mechanisms long since removed) was a windowless concrete building. Its thick concrete walls had been designed to resist anything short of a direct hit from a low-yield nuclear weapon. When the site had been active, the building had held, in four interior rooms, an additional dozen NIKE rockets, as well as some maintenance supplies and equipment.

The dozen NIKEs were to be used to reload the four launchers, a process that would take-presuming the launchers and their crews were still intact after the first Russian assault-about twenty minutes. The possibility had occurred to the planners that the shock waves generated by the first bombs dropped would almost certainly put any elevator system bringing the spare NIKEs from underground storage out of whack, even if there was, immediately post-strike, any electricity to power the elevator.

So the spare NIKEs were stored at ground level, behind thick concrete walls and heavy steel doors, in rooms from which they could be manhandled to the launchers.

Paulo Cassandro was impressed-but not surprised-when Mr. Savarese had told him about the NIKE sites, and how he thought they might come in useful at some time for some purpose. Mr. S. had said he thought they would be around for some years, deserted but in reasonably intact condition.

Wherever possible, Mr. S. had told him, they had been built on land that was cheap, which meant that no one could see much that could be done with it, and for which there was still not much demand. Now that use of the areas would require the demolition-very expensive demolition-of thick, steel-reinforced concrete before anything else could be erected on it, the land was even less desirable.

But what he had found really interesting about the NIKE sites, Mr. S. had told him, was that they were federal property, much like Fort Dix over in New Jersey. Local police did not have authority on federal property. Which meant not only that the Philadelphia police would not be patrolling the NIKE sites, but also that the federal authorities, with nothing to protect but empty, and practically indestructible, buildings, would not be giving them very much attention, either.

Mr. Savarese had told Paulo to put an eye on several of the NIKE sites and determine which of them could be put to use while attracting the least attention. And after that, to keep an eye on it, in case anything should change.

After making a careful survey of the abandoned NIKE sites, Cassandro had come up with two that seemed to meet about equally the criteria Mr. Savarese had set up. They were in reasonably remote areas, and not readily visible from the streets and highways. He had gone to Mr. Savarese and suggested that while it would obviously take twice as much manpower to keep an eye on both sites, he recommended this course of action, as it would give them two convenient places. Mr. Savarese had agreed to this, with the caveat that he did not wish to use the sites routinely, but rather as sort of emergency support, and therefore he wished to be consulted before either of the sites was used at all.

Mr. Savarese had given permission to use the sites only twice. The first time was to store a hijacked tractor-trailer load of whiskey for five days until the heat was off. In this case, the driver of the truck had been a fucking fool who had gotten brave, and when struck in the head with a crowbar suffered more severe cranial injuries than was planned, which in turn caused more police attention than was anticipated.

The second site, near Chester, had been used once for a similar purpose, this time a tractor-trailer load of sides of beef. The police seemed to be paying an unusual amount of attention to the cold-storage locker where such a cargo would normally be taken, so Mr. Savarese authorized the use of the NIKE site until distribution of the meat could be arranged. Even the sound of the diesel engine powering the refrigeration system of the insulated trailer attracted no attention in the three days and nights the trailer was at the NIKE site. But, of course, one had to consider that looking for that tractor trailer was not a high police priority.

Pietro Cassandro drove the Ford pickup to the rear (most distant from the road) gate in the hurricane fence and stopped. Paulo Cassandro got out and swung the creaking gate open and flat against the fence itself, reasoning that it would be better to have the gate open, in case a rapid departure became necessary, even if the open gate-improbably, in the dark-attracted attention.

He then walked to the building, taking from his pocket as he walked a full-face ski mask and pulling it over his head.

Pietro Cassandro drove the Ford pickup to the rear of the building, turned it around so that it was headed toward the open gate, and then got out.

"This won't take long, Mr. S.," he said.

Mr. Savarese nodded, and arranged himself more comfortably on the seat.

Pietro pulled a similar full-face ski mask over his head, then took two battery-powered floodlights from the tool bin in the bed of the truck. Then he joined his brother at the steel door to the building.

They opened the door, stepped inside, closed the door, turned on the floodlights, and walked down the corridor to the room in which, twenty-four hours before, they had left Mr. Ronald R. Ketcham to his thoughts in the dark.

The door was closed with two locking levers much like those used to secure hatches on vessels.

Pietro Cassandro opened both quickly and pushed the door inward. Paulo Cassandro, his floodlight in his left hand and a crowbar in the other, went quickly into the room.

His floodlight quickly found Ketcham, who was cowering in a far corner of the room, the too-small overcoat not quite concealing his nakedness under it. Ketcham shielded his eyes against the painful glow of light.

"On your feet, cocksucker!" Paulo ordered.

Ketcham pushed himself erect by sliding up the wall behind him.

"Can we talk?" Ketcham asked.

"Oh, we'll talk," Paulo said.

"Jesus Christ," Pietro said in disgust, "it smells like shit in here. We can't bring-"

"Shut your fucking mouth," his brother admonished him, and then addressed Ketcham. "Take the coat off and put it over your head, asshole!"

"I really think there's been some kind of misunderstanding. "

"The next time you open your mouth without being told to, you're going to eat the fucking crowbar!"

Ketcham removed the overcoat and placed it over his head as directed.

Paulo indicated the two-inch-wide white surgical-or perhaps "mortician's and embalmer's"-white gauze Ketcham had removed and which was now lying on the concrete floor, and indicated to his brother that it should be reused to make sure the overcoat over Ketcham's head did not become dislodged.

Pietro did as his brother ordered.

"Just stand there, motherfucker," Paulo ordered.

He then left the room, walked down the corridor, and opened the door to another of the NIKE storage rooms. He flashed his floodlight around it, saw nothing that bothered him, and then returned to the room where Ketcham stood naked with an overcoat over his head.

He went to Ketcham, put his hand on his arm, indicated with his finger that his brother take the other arm, then started to lead Ketcham out of the room.

"You said we could talk," Ketcham said plaintively.

"I also told you to shut your fucking mouth," Paulo replied.

They led Ketcham into the center of the other room and turned him around. Ketcham's situation was almost identical to what it had been in the first room, except in this room there was no odor of feces and urine.

Paulo wordlessly indicated to his brother that he was going after Mr. Savarese, handed his crowbar to his brother, and left the room.

He returned in two minutes, politely ushering Mr. Savarese into the room ahead of him. Mr. Savarese stood perhaps six feet from Ketcham, his delicate, fragile-looking hands folded together in front of him. He nodded his permission to Paulo to commence the conversation.

Paulo reclaimed his crowbar from his brother and walked across to Ketcham. He extended the crowbar to Ketcham's groin, gently touching both his penis and his scrotum with it.

"Oh, Jesus Christ!" Ketcham said.

"Okay. Now we'll talk," Paulo said. "Tell me about drugs."

"What drugs?" Ketcham responded, sounding genuinely confused.

Cassandro's crowbar touched Ketcham's scrotum and penis again, somewhat less gently.

"Tell me what you want to know, and I'll tell you," Ketcham said, sounding desperately determined to be agreeable.

"You know fucking well what I want to know," Paulo said. "I want to hear it from you."

There was a long pause.

"I swear to God," Ketcham finally said, "that I had nothing to do with the cops being there."

"Bullshit," Cassandro replied.

"I swear to God," Ketcham repeated. "They must have followed, been following, Williams."

"Bullshit," Paulo repeated.

Mr. Savarese held up his hand to signal the conversation should be interrupted. Paulo went to Mr. Savarese, who, very softly, asked, "Williams?"

"I think a dinge drug dealer. I'll make sure," Paulo whispered in Mr. Savarese's ear.

"I had no reason to go to the cops," Ketcham said.

"But you would turn in a drug dealer like Amos Williams to save your miserable ass, wouldn't you?" Paulo asked reasonably.

"I didn't turn him in. I swear to God, I didn't. We had a long-standing business relationship."

"So you tell me what happened, then."

"I don't know. All of a sudden, there's cops all over the motel."

"Why do you think that was?"

"I swear to God, I don't know. Except they must have been following Williams."

"What was the name of this motel?"

"You don't know?" Ketcham blurted.

Paulo picked up Ketcham's scrotum with his crowbar.

"I ask, you talk," he said.

"The Howard Johnson on Roosevelt Boulevard," Ketcham said quickly.

"Maybe your girlfriend turned you both in, is that what you're saying?"

"No. Christ no! She didn't even know what was going on."

"She was there with you, wasn't she?"

"She didn't even go in the motel. She waited outside in the car."

"You expect me to believe your lady didn't even know what the fuck you were doing?"

"She didn't," Ketcham said firmly.

"Right. Like she don't use shit herself, right?"

"She doesn't. I mean, every once in a while, a couple of lines, but she's not addicted."

"Bullshit!"

"She doesn't. She's a nice girl, from a good family."

"Who does a couple of lines every once in a while, right, and goes with you to meet with this drug dealer? Bullshit."

"It's the truth, so help me God!"

"Maybe we're talking about two different people," Paulo said. "What's this lady's name?"

"Cynthia Longwood," Ketcham said.

Paulo turned to look at Mr. Savarese, who was sadly shaking his head from side to side.

"If she was waiting outside in the car, and didn't set you and the dealer up with the cops, then what's she so upset about?"

"Why do you think?" Ketcham blurted.

This earned him a short but painful jab in the scrotum, which caused him first to double over in agony, then fall backward into a sitting position on the floor. Paulo then kicked Ketcham in the head.

"Answer the fucking question, motherfucker!"

"What the hell was I supposed to do?" Ketcham said. "The cop had just ripped me off of twenty thousand dollars, and I was handcuffed to the toilet. You think I liked what the cop did to her?"

"What cop? Did he have a name?"

"I don't know what his name is," Ketcham replied. "He was an undercover narc. Probably from that special squad of narcs."

"And what did he do to your lady that made her so upset?"

"He made her blow him," Ketcham said.

Cassandro looked at Mr. Savarese. His face was expressionless, but tears ran down both cheeks. When he saw Paulo looking at him, he gestured with his hand for him to continue.

"He made her what?" Cassandro asked.

"First he made her take off her clothes, and then he made her blow him."

"What did this cop look like?" Paulo asked.

"I don't know," Ketcham began, and then, quickly, to ward off another kick to the head or jab at his scrotum, went on. "White guy. Thirty years old. Average size-"

"What's his name, motherfucker?"

"I told you, I don't know. I never saw him before." Paulo Cassandro, sensing movement, turned to look at Mr. Savarese. Mr. Savarese was walking out of the room.

Cassandro went after him. Mr. Savarese stopped walking halfway down the corridor, took the white Irish linen handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit, and dabbed at his eyes and cheeks with it.

"What do you want me to do with this bag of shit, Mr. S.?"

"Nothing," Mr. Savarese replied.

"Nothing?" Cassandro parroted incredulously.

"Get Pietro. Make sure we will leave nothing behind that belongs to us, and then close the door."

"Whatever you say, Mr. S.," Paulo said.

Mr. Savarese nodded, then walked down the corridor toward the door and the Ford flat-tire truck outside.

They were almost back at Classic Livery, Inc., before Paulo finally understood what Mr. S. had in mind for Ketcham.

Nothing didn't mean nothing. Nothing meant that the miserable fucking cocksucker who had dishonored Mr. S.'s granddaughter would have a long fucking time in the fucking dark to think over what he had done before he died. And there wasn't even anything in that fucking room he could use to kill himself, unless maybe he could bang his fucking head against the fucking wall until his brains came out.

That's really better than what I was going to do to the bastard.

Paulo Cassandro had taken the crowbar with him, thinking it would be the thing to use to break Ketcham's fingers and arms and kneecaps and legs before he put an ice pick in his ear.

He considered Mr. Savarese's decision on how to properly deal with Ketcham one more proof of Mr. Savarese's profound wisdom.