The Assassin Part 12

"I'm sorry I don't have any pajamas to offer you," Mrs. Glover said at the door to the spare bedroom.

"I don't wear them anyway. I'll be all right."

"If you need anything, just ask," she said, and gave him her hand. "And thank you for everything."

"I didn't do anything," he said.

She smiled at him and pulled the door closed.

He looked around the room, and then went and sat on the bed and took his clothing off. He rummaged in the bedside table and came up with a year-old copy of Scientific American. Scientific American. He propped the pillows up and flipped through it. He propped the pillows up and flipped through it.

He could hear the sound of a shower running, and had an interesting mental image of Mrs. Glover at her ablutions.

"s.h.i.+t," he said aloud, turned the light off, and rearranged the pillow.

He had a profound thought: No good deed goes unpunished. No good deed goes unpunished.

The sound of the shower stopped after a couple of minutes. He had an interesting mental image of Mrs. Glover toweling her bosom.

A moment later he heard the bedroom door open.

"Matt, are you asleep?"

"No."

He sensed rather than heard her approach the bed. When she sat on it, he could smell soap and perfume.

Maybe perfumed soap?

She found his face with her hand.

"I've been separated from my husband for eleven months," Mrs. Glover said. "I haven't been near a man in all that time. Not until now."

He reached up and touched her hand. She caught his hand, locked fingers with him, and then moved his hand to the opening of her robe, directed it inside, and then let go.

His fingers found her breast and her nipple, which was erect. She put her hand to the back of his head and pulled his face to her breast.

When he tried to pull her down onto the bed, she resisted, then stood up.

"Not here," Mrs. Glover said throatily. "In my bed."

At quarter to seven the next morning, Detective Matt Payne drove into the garage beneath the Delaware Valley Cancer Society Building, and turned to look at Mrs. Glover, whose Christian name, he had learned two hours before, was Evelyn.

"What is this?" she asked.

"This is where I live. Where I have to change clothes."

"The signs says this is the Cancer Society."

"There's an attic apartment," he said.

"Oh."

"Come on up. It won't take me a minute."

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea."

"You mean, you don't want to see my etchings?"

"What happened last night was obviously insane. Maybe we better leave it at that."

"I like what happened last night."

"You should be running around with girls your own age, not having an affair with someone my age. And vice versa."

"I don't seem to have much in common with girls my own age," Matt said. "And I don't think that was the first time in the recorded history of mankind that . . ."

"A woman my age took a man your age into her bed?"

"Right."

"Go change your clothes, Matt. I'll wait here."

"You don't want to do that."

"Yes, I do."

"Whatever you say," Matt said, and got out of the Bug and went to the elevator.

When he reached the top step of the narrow stairway leading into his apartment, he saw the red light blinking on his telephone answering machine. He pulled his sweater over his head, tossed it onto the couch, went to the answering machine, and pushed the PLAY MESSAGES switch.

"Matt, I know you're there, pick up the d.a.m.ned telephone."

That was Amelia Payne, M.D. He wondered what the h.e.l.l she wanted, and then realized she probably wanted a report on Penny Detweiler's trip home.

Then Brewster Cortland Payne II's voice: "Matt, Amy insisted I try to get you to call her. She's positive you're there and just not picking up. She wants to talk to you about Penny. Will you call her, please? Whenever you get home?"

The next voice was Charley McFadden's: "Matt, Charley. Give me a call as soon as you can. I gotta talk to you about something. Oh. How was Las Vegas?"

Something's wrong. I wonder what? Well, it'll have to wait.

"Matt, this is Penny. I just wanted to say 'thank you' for coming out there to get me. I forgot to thank you at the airport. When you have a minute, call me, and I'll buy you an ice-cream cone or lunch or something. Ciao."

Oh, Christ, I don't want to get sucked into that!

"Matt, this is Joe D'Amato. They took your lady friend's car to the Plymouth place in Upper Darby. I called her house, and there was no answer. If we'd left it at the scene, there would be nothing left but the ignition switch."

Jesus, why didn't I think about just calling Joe from her house? Because you were thinking with your d.i.c.k, again, Matthew!

"Payne, this is Al Sutton. If you were thinking of coming to work this morning, don't. They want you in Chief Lowenstein's office at half past one."

Now, what the h.e.l.l is that about? Something to do with last night?

He pushed the REWIND b.u.t.ton and went into his bedroom and laid out fresh clothes on his bed. He picked a light brown suit, since he was possibly going to see Chief Lowenstein and did not want to look like Joe College. Then he took his clothing off.

The doorbell rang.

He searched for and found his bathrobe and went to the intercom.

"Yeah?"

"You were right, I don't want to wait down there," Mrs. Glover said. "May I come up?"

He pushed the door release b.u.t.ton and heard it open. She came up the stairs.

"That wasn't exactly true," she said. "Curiosity got the best of me."

"They took your car to the Plymouth place in Upper Darby," Matt said. "There was a message on the machine. Let me grab a shower, and I'll take you out there."

"They don't open until nine-thirty," she said.

"Well, we'll just have to wait."

He smiled uneasily at her, and then walked back in the apartment toward his bedroom.

"Matt ..."

He turned.

"Was that true, what you said, about you don't have much in common with girls your own age?"

"Yes, it was."

"You're a really nice guy. Be patient. Someone will come along."

"I hope so," he said, and turned again and went and had his shower.

When he came out, he sensed movement in his kitchen. He cracked the door open. Mrs. Glover was leaning against the refrigerator. She had a cheese gla.s.s in one hand, and a bottle of his cognac in the other.

"I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not."

"You want one?"

"No. I don't want to smell of booze when I go to work."

"When do you have to be at work? Is taking me back to Upper Darby going to make you late?"

"No. I've got until half past one."

She looked at him, and then away, and then drained the cheese gla.s.s.

"What I said before," she said, "was what my father told me when Ken and I broke up. That I was a nice girl, that I should be patient, that someone would come along."

What the h.e.l.l is she leading up to? Am I the someone?

"I'm sure he's right."

"Now, you and I are obviously not right for each other . . ."

d.a.m.n!

". . . but what I've been thinking, very possibly because I've had more to drink in the last twelve hours than I've had in the last six months, is that, until someone comes along for you, and someone comes along for me . . ."

"The sky wouldn't fall? There will not be a bolt of lightning to punish the sinners?"

She raised her head and met his eyes.

"What do you think?"

"I think I know how we can kill the time until the Plymouth place opens."

"I'll bet you do," she said, and set the cheese gla.s.s and the bottle of cognac on the sink and then started to unb.u.t.ton her blouse.

As Matt Payne was climbing the stairs to his apartment at quarter to seven, across town, in Chestnut Hill, Peter Wohl stepped out of the shower in his apartment and started to towel himself dry.

The chimes activated by his doorbell b.u.t.ton went off. They played "Be It Ever So Humble, There's No Place Like Home." One of what Wohl thought of as the "xylophone bars" was out of whack, so the musical rendition was discordant. He had no idea how to fix it, and privately, he hated chimes generally and "Be It Ever So Humble" specifically, but there was nothing he could do about the chimes. They had been a gift from his mother, and installed by his father.

He said a word that he would not have liked to have his mother hear, wrapped the towel around his middle, and left the bathroom. He went through his bedroom, and then through his living room, the most prominent furnis.h.i.+ngs of which were a white leather couch, a plate-gla.s.s coffee table, a ma.s.sive, Victorian mahogany service bar, and a very large oil painting of a Rubenesque naked lady resting on her side, one arm c.o.c.ked coyly behind her head.

The ultrachic white leather couch and plate-gla.s.s coffee table were the sole remnants of a romantic involvement Peter Wohl had once had with an interior decorator, now a young suburban matron married to a lawyer. The bar and the painting of the naked lady he had acquired at an auction of the furnis.h.i.+ngs of a Center City men's club that had gone belly up.

He unlatched the door and pulled it open. A very neat, very wholesome-looking young man in a blue suit stood on the landing.

"Good morning, Inspector," the young man said. His name was Paul T. (for Thomas) O'Mara, and he was a police officer of the Philadelphia Police Department. Specifically, he was Wohl's new administrative a.s.sistant.

Telling him, Peter Wohl thought, Peter Wohl thought, that when I say between seven and seven-fifteen, I don't mean quarter to seven, would be like kicking a Labrador puppy who has just retrieved his first tennis ball. that when I say between seven and seven-fifteen, I don't mean quarter to seven, would be like kicking a Labrador puppy who has just retrieved his first tennis ball.

"Good morning, Paul," Wohl said. "Come on in. There's coffee in the kitchen."

"Thank you, sir."

Officer O'Mara was a recent addition to Peter Wohl's staff. Like Peter Wohl, he was from a police family. His father was a captain, who commanded the 17th District. His brother was a sergeant in Civil Affairs. His grandfather, like Peter Wohl's father and grandfather, had retired from the Philadelphia Police Department.

More important, his father was a friend of both Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin and Chief Inspector (Retired) Augustus Wohl. When Officer O'Mara, who had five years on the job in the Traffic Division, had failed, for the second time, to pa.s.s the examination for corporal, both Chief Coughlin and Chief Wohl had had a private word with Inspector Wohl.

They had pointed out to him that just because someone has a little trouble with promotion examinations doesn't mean he's not a good cop, with potential. It just means that he has trouble pa.s.sing examinations.