Part 59 (2/2)
”Okay. Then I will take pity on you and tell you I already told him I was going to tell you to accept. But now you know how the phones work in here, I'd get on it. Call him and ask him what he thinks. Even money he'll say go ahead.”
”And if he doesn't?”
”Thanks again for lunch, Peter,” Coughlin said and walked out of the Grill Room.
Susan led Matt three blocks from the First Harrisburg Bank & Trust to a Pennsylvania Dutch restaurant.
The place was spotless, and the waitress, a tall blonde about as old as Susan looked, Matt thought, like a visual definition of innocent and wholesome. She wore a starched white lace hat on top of her blond hair, which was parted in the middle and done up in a bun at her neck. Her white cotton blouse-b.u.t.toned to the neck-was covered with an open black sweater. Her black skirt was more than halfway down her calves, and her starched white ap.r.o.n matched the cap. No makeup, of course.
She smiled gently, and apparently sincerely, at Susan and Matt.
I wonder what she would do if she knew she was about to serve two felons?
”Are you going to have lunch with us?” she asked. There was a Germanic accent to her speech.
”That depends on what you have,” Matt said.
She looked at him curiously.
”Please,” Susan said and kicked him under the table.
When the waitress left, Matt asked, ”Did I say something wrong?”
”She's Amish, I think,” Susan said. ”But whatever, she's what they call plain people, and she would not understand your smart-a.s.s wit.”
”How am I going to order lunch if I don't know what's on the menu?”
Susan inclined her head toward the waitress, who was pus.h.i.+ng a large-wheeled cart toward their table.
”What a big-city sophisticate like you would probably call prix fixe,” Susan said. ”As much as you want, all one price. But don't be a pig; take only what you intend to eat. It hurts them when you don't eat everything on your plate. They think you didn't like it.”
”Yes, Mother,” Matt said.
There was an enormous display of food in bowls and on platters arranged on the cart.
Matt took roast pork, beef pot roast, potatoes au gratin, lima beans, apple sauce, beets, succotash, two rolls, b.u.t.ter, what looked to him like some kind of apple pie, iced tea, and coffee.
The wholesome waitress smiled at him approvingly, then served Susan approximately one-third as much food.
”Did you hear what I said about eating everything?” Susan said when the waitress had rolled the cart away.
”I intend to,” Matt said.
She shook her head in disbelief.
”Do you know what happened when you put that briefcase under your desk?”
”No,” Matt said, curious and therefore serious, ”what? I think it's safe there, if that's what you mean.”
”That's not what I mean,” she said. ”You had a choice to make, and you made one. Have you thought about that?”
”I didn't have any choice,” he said. ”You know that.”
”Could you put yourself in Jennifer's shoes? Did she have any choice?”
”Oranges and lemons, Susan,” Matt said. ”And how did Jennifer manage to intrude herself on what I thought until sixty seconds ago was going to be a nice lunch?”
”She called this morning. Just before I went to the bank.”
”And?”
”I told her I was busy and that she would have to call back.”
”How much of the conversation did your pal from the FBI hear? Or record?”
”All of it. But there's nothing-”
”It was one more call in a series of recent calls. They'll think that something is about to happen. If I were in charge, I would tighten surveillance. We don't need that.”
”What do I tell her? She'll keep calling until I talk to her.”
”Tell her to call you tomorrow,” Matt said.
”And what do I tell her tomorrow?”
”Between now and then, we'll think of something.”
”What are you going to do with the mon-the briefcase?”
”Take it to my room.”
”And then?”
”I don't know. I've been kicking the idea around that maybe we can-somehow, but don't ask me how-use your returning the loot to our advantage. It would at least show a change of heart. I don't know how much good that would do.”
She looked at him but said nothing.
”Eat your succotash, like a good girl,” Matt said. ”An other option, of course, is to get rid of it. Then-”
”You mean destroy it?”
Matt nodded, and went on: ”Then it would be your word against Chenowith that you ever had it.”
”His and Jennifer's,” Susan said. ”She'll go along with whatever he says.”
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