The Assassin Part 54

It will not be wasted, Matt decided, as he headed for Peter Wohl's apartment in Chestnut Hill. Matt decided, as he headed for Peter Wohl's apartment in Chestnut Hill. Wohl likes Chinese. What I should have done was get some of Tiny's ribs. Wohl likes Chinese. What I should have done was get some of Tiny's ribs.

Peter Wohl, a crisp white s.h.i.+rt and shaving cream behind his ears indicating he was dressed to go out, was not only not at all interested in the Chinese, but didn't even invite Matt in, much less in for a beer. He just took the envelope of photographs from Matt, muttered "thank you," and started to close the door.

"Is there anything else you need me for, sir?"

Wohl looked at him.

"I think you have made quite enough of a contribution to the Department in the last twenty-four hours for one detective, Payne. Why don't you go home? And stay there?"

He closed the door.

Matt, as well as he knew Wohl, was not sure whether Wohl was pulling his chain, or whether Wohl was still sore about his having gone to the Oaks and Pines Lodge.

Matt got back in the Porsche and drove back to Center City. He was almost at Rittenhouse Square before he thought of Evelyn.

She probably ran the answering machine out of tape, he thought as he drove into the underground garage. he thought as he drove into the underground garage. What the What the h.e.l.l h.e.l.l am I going to do about her? am I going to do about her?

The red light on the answering machine was blinking, and when he played the tape, there had been thirteen callers who had elected not to leave their names, plus two calls from, of all people, Amelia Payne, M.D., who sounded, he thought, as if she had just sat on a nail, and demanded that he call her the moment he got in.

"Screw you, Sister Mine," Matt said aloud. "I am not in the mood for you."

He carefully arranged the Chinese goldfish buckets on his coffee table, got a cold beer from the refrigerator, and sat down to his supper.

The Chinese was cold.

He carried everything to the kitchen and warmed it in the microwave, carried it back to the coffee table, and sat down again.

The doorbell sounded.

Evelyn, Jesus Christ! Well, if she's at the door, she knows I'm here. I might as well face the music.

He went to the head of the stairs and pushed the b.u.t.ton that activated the solenoid.

His visitor came through the door.

She looked up at him and called: "You miserable sonofab.i.t.c.h, how could you?"

It was not Evelyn, it was Amelia Payne, M.D.

"That would depend on which of my many mortal sins you have in mind. Come on in, Amy. Soup's on, and it's always a joy to see you."

"I have been angry with you before," Amy said as she reached the top stair. "And disgusted, but this really is despicable."

He was concerned.

Amy is really angry, and that means she thinks I have done something really despicable. But I haven't.

"Are you going to tell me what you're talking about?"

The telephone rang. Without thinking, he picked it up.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"h.e.l.lo, Matt," Evelyn said.

"I can't talk to you right now. Let me call you back."

"But you won't, will you?" Evelyn said, her voice loaded with hurt, and then she hung up.

"Jesus!" Matt said. He looked at Amy. "How about an egg roll?"

"What I'm talking about, Matt," Amy said, back in control of her temper, "is you going to bed with Penny."

Jesus Christ! How did she hear about that? The answer to that, obviously, is that Penny told her. Patients tell their psychiatrists everything everything.

"What in the world were you thinking?" Amy demanded.

She has s.h.i.+fted into her Counselor of Mankind tone of voice.

"I don't know," he said, his mouth running away with him. "What do you think about when you hop in bed with some guy?"

Amy slapped him. His vision blurred, his ears rang, and his eyes watered.

He looked at her for a moment as his eyes came back into focus.

"I should not have done that," Amy announced. But it was as if she was talking to herself.

"You're G.o.dd.a.m.ned right you shouldn't have," he replied angrily. "You slap a cop, you're likely to get slapped right back."

"Is that what it was, Matt?" Amy asked. "Just Detective Payne hopping into bed with the nearest available female?"

"It happened, Amy," Matt said.

"Like h.e.l.l 'it happened.' You didn't take her to dinner in the Poconos to look at the trees. Matt, she's a sick girl. And you know she is."

"You can believe this or not, but taking . . . but taking Penny to bed was the last thing I had in mind when we went up there."

"Why did you go up there, then?"

He met her eyes.

"I was working. I needed a girl to look legitimate."

She is not going to believe that, and that's all I'm going to tell her.

"Oddly enough, I believe you," Amy said, after a moment. "That doesn't make things any better, but I have the odd notion you're telling the truth."

"I am."

"She's in love with you," Amy said. "Or thinks she is, which is the same thing. The one thing she doesn't need right now is that kind of stress."

"She was behaving perfectly normal up there. I did not seduce the village idiot girl. Amy, she wanted wanted to." to."

"And your monumental ego got in the way, right? It never occurred to you that she wanted the approval of the Rock of Gibraltar, complete to badge and gun, wanted it so desperately that she was willing to pay for it by going to bed with you?"

He did not reply.

"So what are you going to do about it?" Amy asked.

"How does suicide strike you? I could jump out the window."

"G.o.d d.a.m.n d.a.m.n you! Don't be flip!" you! Don't be flip!"

"What am I going to do about what?"

"You haven't been listening to me. How are you going to deal with this notion of hers that she's in love with you?"

"I don't know," Matt said.

"Obviously, you're not in love with her."

Now that you bring it up, I really don't know how I feel about that.

He had a sudden, painfully clear mental image of Penny naked in his arms. Of how good that felt.

"May I speak?" Matt asked.

"I'm waiting."

"I'm not going to hurt Penny. Period. I don't really think that . . . what happened . . . hurt her."

"And what are you going to do when she realizes that you don't love her?"

"I never told her I did."

"When she learns about the rest of your harem?" Amy asked, and pointed to the telephone. "Like the one who just called?"

Matt shrugged.

"I can only repeat that I will not hurt her," Matt said.

"You've already set the stage to do exactly that. She sees you as a life preserver, someone she can lean on. I don't know how she's going to react when she finds out, inevitably, that's not true. Certainly, you're not willing to a.s.sume emotional responsibility for her. And even if you were, I don't think you could handle it."

He didn't reply.

"Penny cannot be just one more notch on your gun, Matt."

"I never thought of her that way," Matt interrupted.

Amy ignored his response.

"You can't, when she becomes an inconvenience, tell Penny, the way you told that woman on the telephone just now, 'I can't talk to you right now. I'll call you right back.' She cannot take that kind of rejection, for that matter, any rejection right now. It would put her right back in The Lindens."

"Okay, you made your point."

"You're going to have to disabuse her of the notion that she's in love with you very gently."

"I told you, you made your point."

Amy glowered at him, but after a moment her face softened.

"Okay, Matt. I have have made my point. And you're not really a sonofab.i.t.c.h. You're incredibly stupid and insensitive, of course, and you do most of your thinking with your p.e.n.i.s. A typical male, I would say." made my point. And you're not really a sonofab.i.t.c.h. You're incredibly stupid and insensitive, of course, and you do most of your thinking with your p.e.n.i.s. A typical male, I would say."

He looked at her and smiled.

"How about an egg roll?"

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Amy said, but she sat beside him on the couch and helped herself to an egg roll.

When she left, half an hour later, and he steeled himself to call Evelyn back, there was no answer.

He knew that if he stayed in the apartment he would get drunk, so he called Charley McFadden, and Charley's mother said he was out with his girlfriend.

He walked up Rittenhouse Square to the Rittenhouse Club, and stood at the bar and ordered a Scotch. There were some people there whom he knew vaguely, and who smiled at him. He moved down the bar and tried to join their conversation.

Before he finished his first drink, he realized that he was wholly disinterested in what they were talking about.

I look like them. I act like them. I am a product of the same socio-economic background. But I am no longer like them. I'm a cop.

So where does that leave me with Penny?

He motioned to the bartender, so that he could sign the chit, and then he went back to his apartment.

TWENTY-THREE.

Matt woke instantly at the first ring of the telephone, and was instantly wide awake, and aware that he was in his armchair in the living room. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was quarter past eleven.

The telephone rang a second time. On the third ring, the answering machine would kick in.

Evelyn, of course. Who else? And Jesus, I don't want to talk to her!

He picked up the telephone a half second after the answering machine began to play his message.