Part 15 (1/2)

”Forget it,” Matt said.

”Talk about looking like a cop!” Martinez said. ”Did you see the baby-blue pants and the hat on Inspector Wohl? It looked like he was going to play f.u.c.king golf or something! Jesus H. Christ!”

”Is he as good as they say he is?” DeBenedito asked, ”or does he just have a lot of pull?''

”Both, I'd say,” Matt said. His knees hurt. He pushed himself back onto the seat as DeBenedito drove around City Hall and then up Market Street.

The Highway Patrol pulled to the curb on the south side of Rittenhouse Square as a foot-patrol officer made his way down the sidewalk. He looked on curiously as the cop in the pa.s.senger seat jumped out and opened the rear door so that a civilian in a tuxedo could get out. (The inside handles on RPCs are often removed so that people put in the back can't get out before they're suppose to.) ”Good night, Hay-zus,” Matt said, and raising his voice, called, ”Thanks for the ride, Sergeant.”

”Stay off parking garage roofs, Payne,” Sergeant DeBenedito called back as Jesus Martinez got back in and slammed the door.

”Good morning,” Matt said to the foot-patrol cop.

”Yeah,” the cop responded, and then he watched as Matt let himself into the Delaware Valley Cancer Society Building. It was a renovated, turn-of-the-century brownstone. Renovations for a long-term lease as office s.p.a.ce to the Cancer Society had been just about completed when the architect told the owner he had found enough s.p.a.ce in what had been the attic to make a small apartment.

Matt had found the apartment through his father's secretary and moved in when he'd gone on the job. A month ago he had learned that his father owned the building.

The elevator ended on the floor below the attic. He got out of the elevator, thinking it was a good thing Amanda had been willing to park his car for him before catching a cab to Merion; he would need his car tomorrow, for sure, and then walked up the narrow flight of stairs to the attic apartment.

The lights were on. He didn't remember leaving them on, but that wasn't at all unusual.

He walked to the fireplace, raised his left leg, and detached the Velcro fasteners that held his ankle holster in place on the inside of his leg and took it off. He took the pistol, a five-shot .38 caliber Smith & Wesson Chief's Special from it. He laid the holster on the fireplace mantel and then wiped off the pistol with a silicone-impregnated cloth.

Jason Was.h.i.+ngton had told him about doing that; that anytime you touched the metal of a pistol, the body left minute traces of acidic fluid on it. Eventually it would eat away the bluing. Habitually wiping it once a day would preserve the bluing.

He laid the pistol on the mantel and, starting to take off his dinner jacket, turned away from the fireplace.

Amanda Spencer was standing by the elbow-high bookcase that separated the ”dining area” from the ”kitchen.” Both, in Matt's opinion, were too small to be thought of without quotation marks.

”Welcome home,” Amanda said.

Matt dismissed the first thought that came to his mind: that Amanda was here because she wanted to make the beast with two backs as wishful-to-the-nth-degree thinking.

”No rent-a-cop downstairs?” he asked. ”I should have told you to look in the outer lobby. They can usually be found there, asleep.”

”He was there. He let me in,” Amanda said.

”I don't understand,” Matt said.

”Either do I,” she said. ”What happened where you went with Peter Wohl?”

”There was a dead cop,” Matt said. ”A young one. Now that I think about it, I saw him around the academy. Somebody shot him.”

”Why?”

”No one seems to know,” Matt said. ”Somebody called it in, a dead cop in the gutter. When they got there, there he was.”

”How terrible.”

”He had been to Vietnam. He was about to get married. He was a relative of Sergeant DeBenedito.”

”Who?”

”He was at the garage,” Matt said. ”And then he was at Colombia and Clarion-where the dead cop was. Wohl had him drive me home.”

”Oh.”

”Amanda, I'll take you out to Merion. But first, would you mind if I made myself a drink?”

”I helped myself,” she said. ”I hope that's all right.”

”Don't be silly.”

He started for the kitchen. As he approached her, Amanda stepped out of the way, making it clear, he thought, that she didn't want to be embraced, or even patted, in the most friendly, big-brotherly manner.

In the kitchen he saw that she had found where he kept his liquor, in a cabinet over the refrigerator; a squat bottle of twenty-four-year-old Scotch, a gift from his father, was on the sink.

He found a gla.s.s and put ice in it, and then Scotch, and then tap water. He was stirring it with his finger when Amanda came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him.

”I wanted to be with you tonight,” she said softly, her head against his back. ”I suppose that makes me sound like a s.l.u.t.”

”Not unless you announce those kind of urges more than, say, twice a week,” he said.

Oh, s.h.i.+t, he thought, you and your f.u.c.king runaway mouth! What the h.e.l.l is the matter with you ?

Her arms dropped away from him and he sensed that she had stepped back. He turned around.

”I suppose I deserved that,” she said.

”I'm sorry,” Matt said. ”Jesus Christ, Amanda, I can't tell you how sorry I am I said that.”

She looked into his eyes for a long time.

”You'll be the second, all right? I was engaged,” she said.

”I know,” he said.

”You do?”

”I mean, I know you're not a s.l.u.t. I have a runaway mouth.”

”Yes, you do,” she agreed. ”We'll have to work on that.” She put her hand to his cheek. He turned his head and kissed it.

When he met her eyes again, she said, ”I knew you were going to be trouble for me the first time I laid eyes on you.”

”I'm not going to be trouble for you, I promise.”

She laughed.