He thought, as he very often did, it is incredible that that well-dressed, very nice young man is a policeman with a gun concealed somewhere on his person. A gun, even more incredibly, with which he has killed two people. it is incredible that that well-dressed, very nice young man is a policeman with a gun concealed somewhere on his person. A gun, even more incredibly, with which he has killed two people.

Matt spotted him and smiled and walked across the room. Brewster Payne got to his feet and extended his hand. At the last moment, he moved his hand to his son's shoulders and gave him a brief hug.

"I didn't know how long I would have to wait, so I ordered a drink."

"I am ninety seconds late, just for the record."

A waiter appeared.

"I'll have a Tuborg, please," Matt ordered.

"Your sister is annoyed with you."

"Anything else new?"

"Have you called her?"

"No."

"I think you should have. She wanted to know how things went in Las Vegas."

"Vis-a-vis Precious Penny, more smoothly than I would have thought," Matt said. "She only said 'f.u.c.k you, Matt' twice."

"What was that about?"

"Idle conversation," Matt said. "She left a message on the machine, very sweetly thanking me for going out there and fetching her home. I don't really have anything to tell Amy; that's why I didn't call her."

"That you had nothing to report would have been useful in itself. "

"Okay, I'll call her."

"You don't have to now. She went out to Chestnut Hill this morning and saw her."

"Great," Matt said. "Then that's over. Ask me what else happened in Las Vegas."

"What else happened in Las Vegas?"

Matt reached in his pocket and handed his father the $3,700 check from the Flamingo.

"And I have another three thousand in cash," Matt said as soon as he saw his father's eyebrows raise in surprise.

Brewster Payne looked at him.

"Three thousand more in cash?"

Matt nodded. "What do I do with it?"

"What were you playing?"

"Roulette."

"I didn't know you knew how to play roulette."

"Now you do. I think I have found my niche in life." He saw the look in his father's eyes and added: "Hey, I'm kidding."

"I hope so. How did this happen?"

"I started out to lose twenty dollars and got lucky and lost my mind."

"Lost your mind?"

"If I had been thinking clearly, I would have quit when I was four thousand odd ahead. But I didn't, and went back to the tables and won another twenty-seven hundred."

"Then you were smart enough to quit?"

"Then it was time to go get Penny."

Brewster Payne shook his head and tapped the check with a long, thin finger.

"The first thing you do is put enough of this in escrow to pay your taxes."

"What taxes?"

"Income taxes. Gambling winnings are taxable."

"That's outrageous!"

Brewster Payne smiled at his son's righteous indignation.

" 'The law is an a.s.s,' right?"

"That sums it up nicely," Matt said. And then he had a thought. "How does the IRS know I won? Or how much I won?"

Brewster Payne held the check up.

"You'll notice your social security number is on here. They're required to inform the IRS, and they do."

"What about the three thousand in cash?"

"An unethical lawyer might suggest to you that you could probably conceal that from the IRS and get away with it. I am not an unethical lawyer, and you you are an officer of the law." are an officer of the law."

"Jesus H. Christ!"

"Pay the two dollars, Matt. Sleep easy."

"It's not two two dollars!" dollars!"

"You're a big boy. Do what you like."

"So what do I do with it?"

"My advice would be to put it in tax-free munic.i.p.als. You've already got a good deal of money in them. If you'd like, I'll take care of it for you."

Matt's indignation had not run completely down.

"You win, we get our pound of flesh. You lose lose, tough luck, right?"

"Essentially," Brewster Payne said. "And if you would like some additional advice?"

"Sure."

"I would not tell your mother about this. Right now she thinks of you as her saintly son who went out to the desert to help a sick girl. I would rather have her think that than to have a mental picture of you at the Las Vegas c.r.a.ps tables . . ."

"Roulette."

". . . roulette tables roulette tables, surrounded by scantily dressed chorus girls."

"It's true."

"What's true?"

"They have some really good-looking hookers out there."

"But you, being virtuous, had nothing to do with them, and were rewarded by good luck at the roulette tables?"

"Absolutely. I have the strength of ten because in my heart, I'm pure."

"When do you go back to work?"

"Tomorrow, probably. I've got to go to Chief Lowenstein's office at half past one. I suspect that someone is going to tell me that when I go back to work, I say I was doing paperwork in the Roundhouse, not running out to Vegas to fetch Precious Penny."

The waiter appeared and interrupted the conversation to take their order.

"Have you plans for tonight?"

"No, sir."

"I think your mother would like to have you for dinner. She's making a leg of lamb."

"Thank you."

"Amy will be there."

"I have just been sandbagged."

"Yes," Brewster Payne said. "I had that in mind when I mentioned the lamb." He handed Matt the Flamingo check. "Take this, and the cash, to the bank. Cash this, and have them give you a cashier's check for the entire amount of money, payable to First Philadelphia. Give it to me tonight, and I'll take care of it from there."

Matt nodded, and took the check back.

"How much in taxes are they going to get?"

"You don't really want to know. It would ruin your lunch."

"I'll have the vegetable soup and the calves' liver, please," Chief Inspector Matt Lowenstein told the waiter.

"Shrimp c.o.c.ktail and the luncheon steak, pink in the middle," the Honorable Jerry Carlucci ordered.

When the waiter had gone, the mayor said, "You should have had the shrimp and steak. I'm buying."

"Most of the time when you say you're buying I wind up with the check. Besides, I like the way they do liver in here."

"I had a call from H. Richard Detweiler this morning," the mayor said.

"And?"

"And he said he wanted me to know he was very grateful for our letting the Payne kid go out there and bring his daughter home, and if there was ever anything he could for me I should not hesitate to let him know."

"You should hold off calling that marker in until you're running for governor or the Senate. Or the White House."

"All I want to do is be mayor of Philadelphia."

"Isn't that what you said when they appointed you police commissioner? That all you wanted to be was commissioner?"

"What is this, Beat Up On Jerry Carlucci Day?"

"You want a straight answer to that?"

"No, lie to me."

"I sent word to Payne to meet me in my office at half past one. I'm going to tell him, when he goes back on the job, that what he was doing was paperwork in the Roundhouse, not running out to Las Vegas, for Christ's sake, baby-sitting Detweiler's daughter. He's going to have a hard enough time proving himself over at East as it is . . ."

"I've been in a detective division. Right there in East Detectives, as a matter of fact. You don't have to tell me about detective divisions. "

". . . . without us pulling him out of there every time somebody like Detweiler wants a favor from you," Lowenstein finished.

"I'm not as dumb as I look, Matt," the mayor said. "I'm even one or two steps ahead of you."

"Are you?"

"Yes, I am. I thought you and Denny Coughlin did a dumb thing when you sent him to East Detectives in the first place."

"He made detective. What you do with new detectives is send them to out to the Academy to learn the new forms, and then to a division, to learn how to be be a detective. You tell me, why is that dumb?" a detective. You tell me, why is that dumb?"

"Because he is who he is."

"You tell me, who is he?"

"He's the guy who took down the Northwest Philadelphia serial rapist, and the guy who shot it out with that Islamic Liberation Army jacka.s.s and won. That makes him different, without the other things. Like I said, I've been in a detective division. They're really going to stay on his a.s.s to remind him he's a rookie, until he proves himself."