"What did you find out?"

"He's a cop. He's a corporal. He just made a killing in Vegas."

"Did he say where he worked?"

"At the airport."

"Did he say how much of a killing?"

"Enough to buy a Caddy. He said he's going out and buy a Cadillac tomorrow."

Mr. Baltazari thought that over, long enough for Tony to find the courage to repeat her request that they leave before the cop came looking for her.

"No," Mr. Baltazari said. "No. What I want you to do, Tony, is go back in there and give him this."

He took a finely bound leather notebook from the monogrammed pocket of his white-on-white shirt, wrote something on it, tore the page out, and handed it to her.

"What's this?"

"Joe Fierello is your uncle. He's going to give your friend a deal on a Cadillac."

"You're kidding me, right?"

"No, I'm not. You go back in there and be nice to him, and tell him you think your Uncle Joe will give him a deal on a Caddy."

"You mean stay stay with him?" with him?"

"I gotta go home now anyway, my wife's been on my a.s.s."

"Jesus, Ricco!" Tony protested.

Mr. Baltazari took out his wad of bills again, found a fifty, and handed it to Tony.

"Buy yourself an ice-cream cone or something," he said.

Tony looked indecisive for a moment, then took the bill and folded it and stuffed it into her bra.s.siere.

"I thought we were going to my place," she said.

"I'll make it up to you, baby," Mr. Baltazari said.

Detective Payne had fallen asleep in his arm chair watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers gracefully swooping around what was supposed to be the terrace of a New York City penthouse on WCAU-TV's Million Dollar Movie.

He woke up with a dry mouth, a sore neck, a left leg that had apparently been asleep so long it was nearly gangrenous, and a growling hunger in his stomach. He looked at the clock on the fireplace mantel. It was quarter to eight. That meant it was probably the worst time of the day to seek sustenance in his neighborhood. The hole-in-the-wall greasy spoons that catered to the office breakfast and lunch crowd had closed for the day.

That left the real restaurants, including the one in the Rittenhouse Club, which was the closest. That attracted his interest for a moment, as they did a very nice London broil, but then his interest waned as he realized he would have to put on a jacket and tie, then stand in line to be seated, and then eat alone.

The jacket-and-tie and eating-alone considerations also ruled out the other nice restaurants in the vicinity. Without much hope, he checked his cupboard. It was, as he was afraid it would be, nearly bare and, in the case of two eggs, three remaining slices of bread, and a carton of milk, more than likely dangerous. He nearly gagged disposing of the milk, eggs, and green bread down the Disposall.

He had a sudden, literally mouth-watering image of a large gla.s.s of cold milk to wash down a western omelette. And there was no question that his mother would be delighted to prepare such an omelette for him.

He went into his bedroom, pulled a baggy sweater over his head, and headed for the door, stopping only long enough to take his pistol, a Smith & Wesson .38 Special caliber "Chief's Special" and the leather folder that held his badge and photo ID from the mantelpiece. The holster had a clip, which allowed him to carry the weapon inside his waistband. If he remembered not to take his sweater off, his mother wouldn't even see the pistol.

He went down the narrow stairway to the third floor of the building, then rode the elevator to the bas.e.m.e.nt, and after a moment's hesitation made the mature decision to drive the Bug to Wallingford. It would have been much nicer to drive the Porsche but the Bug had been sitting for two days, and unless it was driven, the battery would likely be dead in the morning when he had to drive it to work.

As he drove out Baltimore Avenue, which he always thought of as The Chester Pike, he made another mature decision. He drove past an Acme Supermarket, noticed idly that the parking lot was nearly empty, and then did a quick U-turn and went back.

He could make a quick stop, no more than five minutes, pick up a half gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, and a package of Taylor Ham, maybe even some orange juice, and be prepared to make his own breakfast in the morning. He would be, as he had learned in the Boy Scouts to be, prepared.

The store was, as he had cleverly deduced from the near-empty parking lot, nearly deserted. There were probably no more than twenty people in the place.

He was halfway down the far-side aisle, bread and Taylor Ham already in the shopping cart, moving toward the eggs-and-milk section, when he ran into Mrs. Glover.

"Hi!" he said cheerfully.

It was obvious from the hesitant smile on her face that Mrs. Glover was having trouble placing him. That was certainly understandable. While Mrs. Glover, who presided over the Special Collections desk at the U of P library had attracted the rapt attention of just about every heteros.e.xual male student because of her habitual costume of white translucent blouse and skirt, it did not logically follow that she would remember any particular one of her hundreds of admirers.

"Matt Payne. Pre-Const.i.tutional Law," he said. He had had occasion to partake of Mrs. Glover's professional services frequently when he was writing a term paper on what had happened, and who had been responsible for it, when the fledgling united colonies had been adapting British common law to American use.

"Oh, yes, of course," she said, and he thought her smile reflected not only relief that he was not putting the make on her, but genuine pleasure at seeing him. "How are you, Matt?"

"Very well, thank you," Matt said. "It's nice to see you, Mrs. Glover."

"Nice to see you too," she said, and pushed her cart past him.

She was wearing a sweater over her blouse, Matt Payne noticed, but the blouse was still translucent and her breastworks were as spectacular as he remembered them.

"This is the police," an electronically amplified voice announced. "Drop your weapons and put your hands on your head!"

"Oh, s.h.i.t!" Matt Payne said.

There was the sound of firearms. First a couple of loud pops, and then the deep booming of a shotgun. There was a moment's silence, and then the sound of breaking gla.s.s.

Matt turned and ran and caught up with Mrs. Glover, and put his hands on her shoulders.

"Get on the floor!" he ordered.

She looked at him with terror in her eyes, and let him push her first to her knees and then flat on her stomach.

As he pushed his sweater aside to get at his pistol, and then fumbled to find his badge, he saw her looking at him with shock in her eyes.

There was the sound of another handgun firing twice.

"Motherf.u.c.ker!" a male voice shouted angrily, and there was another double booming of a shotgun being fired twice. A moment later there was the sound of a car crash.

"Everybody all right?" a voice of authority demanded loudly.

A moment later the same voice, now electronically amplified, went on: "This is the police. It's all over. There is no danger. Please stay right where you are until a police officer tells you what to do."

Matt got to his feet, and holding his badge in front of him walked toward the front of the store.

As he reached the end of the aisle, he called out, "Three six nine, three six nine," and held the badge out as he carefully stepped into the checkout area.

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?" a lieutenant holding a shotgun in one hand and a portable loudspeaker in the other demanded. He and three other cops in sight were wearing the peculiar uniform, including bulletproof vests, Stakeout wore on the job.

"Payne, East Detectives, sir."

"What are you doing in here?"

"I came in to get milk and eggs," Matt said.

"You see what happened?"

"I didn't see anything," Matt said truthfully.

There were flashing lights, and the sound of dying sirens, and Matt looked through the shattered plate-gla.s.s window and saw the first of a line of police vehicles pull up to the door.

The lieutenant made a vague gesture toward the last checkout counter. Matt saw a pair of feet extending into the aisle, and a puddle of blood.

"One there and another outside, in his car," the lieutenant said. "They had their chance to drop their guns and surrender, but they probably thought it would be like the movies. Jesus Christ!"

There was more contempt for the critters he had dropped than compa.s.sion, Matt thought.

That's the way it is. Not like the movies, either, where the cops are paralyzed with regret for having had to drop somebody. The bad dreams I have had about my shootings have been about those a.s.sholes getting me, not the other way around.

Matt looked through the hole where the plate-gla.s.s window had been. Three uniforms were in the act of pulling a man from his car. The car-crashing noise he had heard had apparently come when the doer, trying to flee, had crashed into one of the cars parked in the lot.

Matt had twice gone through the interviews conducted by the Homicide shooting team of officers involved in a fatal shooting. He blurted what popped into his mind.

"You'll spend the next six hours in Homicide."

The lieutenant's eyebrows rose.

"You been through this?" he asked.

"It goes on for G.o.dd.a.m.ned ever," Matt said, and then added, "Christ, I'll be there all night too, and I didn't even see what happened. "

The lieutenant met his eyes.

"You want to go, get out of here, now."

Matt had a quick mental image of Mrs. Glover, who looked to be on the edge of hysteria, getting carried down to the Homicide Bureau, in the Roundhouse, in a district wagon and then sitting around until one of the Homicide detectives had time to take her statement.

"I'm with somebody," Matt said. "A woman."

"Get out of here now, then," the lieutenant repeated. "Homicide, or the bra.s.s, will be coming in on this any minute."

"I owe you one," Matt said, and trotted back to where he had left Mrs. Glover lying on the floor.

She was still lying on the floor.

"It's all right," he said, and reached down and helped her to her feet. "Did you see anything? Anything at all?"

She shook her head, no.

"I told them you're with me," he said.

There was confusion in her eyes.

"We can go. Otherwise, you'll be taken to the Roundhouse and be there for hours."

"Are you a policeman or something?" she asked incredulously.

"I'm a detective," he said. "You all right? Can you walk?"

"I'm all right," she said. "What do we do about the groceries?''

"Leave them," he said, and took Mrs. Glover's arm and led her out the front of the store.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Mrs. Glover said. "That's my car!"

And then she was clinging to him, whimpering. She had looked at the ground beside her car, where the second robber Stakeout had taken down was on his back in the middle of a spreading pool of blood. He had taken a load, Matt decided, maybe two loads, of double aught buckshot.

Well, that blows any chance we had to get away from here. s.h.i.t!

SIX.

"My car's over there," Matt said, and started to lead Mrs. Glover toward it.

Mrs. Glover seemed to want the rea.s.surance of his arm around her, and stayed close to him. He was very much aware of her body against his.

He put her in the car.

"Listen," he said. "We can't leave now. Let me go talk to the lieutenant, and I'll come back."

The lieutenant told him there was nothing he could do now but wait for Homicide and the bra.s.s to show up.

That means instead of Mother's western omelette, I will have to find sustenance in a cup of coffee in a paper cup, and if I'm lucky, a stale doughnut.

The first Homicide detective to arrive at the crime scene was Detective Joe D'Amata. Matt knew him. He waited until D'Amata had taken a quick look around inside, and then gone to the body in the parking lot, and then walked up to him.

"Hey, Joe."