"Oh, G.o.d, Matt!" she called softly.

NINETEEN.

Penny started to go through the door of the Birch Suite into the corridor, but then stopped and looked around.

"If I had my druthers," she said, "we would just stay here for a while longer. Like forever."

"We've already had that discussion. What we're going to do is take one more look around Las Vegas East, and then we go back to Philadelphia."

"You still haven't told me what we're-what you're you're-looking for."

"I really don't know. I think this is a b.u.m lead, but I want to be sure before I go back and say so."

"That doesn't make much sense," she said as she walked past him and out into the corridor.

Matt went to the desk, settled the bill, and then handed a bellman Penny's bag and five dollars and told him to bring the Mercedes to the door.

"I'll be out in a few minutes," he said. "I'm going to give you a chance to get a little of your money back."

From the uncomfortable smile on the desk clerk's face, Matt understood that making reference to the casino was not considered good form.

He glanced at his watch as they approached the casino door. It was quarter to two.

If it was nearly deserted at half past nine, I'll give you five to one that it will be me and the croupier again.

He was wrong. The room was not crowded, but there were gamblers at all but one of the tables.

He reached into his jacket and took out some of the hundred-dollar bills. He looked and counted. There were six.

"Here," he said, handing them to Penny.

She took the money, looked at it, and then at him, then shrugged.

"Is that the going rate?" she asked, "Or is that five hundred, plus a hundred tip?"

"Oh, Jesus Christ!"

"Sorry," she said, again sounding as if she meant it. She touched his arm, just above the elbow, and gently squeezed it. "Our new relationship is going to take some getting used to."

That, madam, qualifies as the understatement of the millennium.

She turned from him and walked directly to the blackjack table. He followed her and got there in time to watch her hand the money to the dealer.

"Quarters," she said.

This is not the first time she's done this.

He looked around the room, and then at the others at the blackjack table.

There are some people in here now who look like gamblers, as opposed to the Bible Study Group who was in here earlier. But where is it written that a gambler has to wear a two-tone coat and a pastel shirt open to his navel, like that clown at the end of the table? Or, for that matter, where is it written that a Mafioso cannot buy his clothes at Brooks Brothers and look like he went to Princeton?

He watched Penny gamble. She grew intense, to the point of pursing her lips. He had watched her apply lipstick in the room, after she had put on her underwear, before she had put her dress back on. It had been a curious mixture of innocence and eroticism. She had seen him watching her in the mirror and pursed her lips in a kiss.

She quickly lost most of her chips, and then as quickly began to increase the size of the two stacks before her, subconsciously making the stacks even as the game progressed.

She's good at this. Better than I am. I always lose my shirt playing blackjack.

She b.u.mped her rear end against him, and when he looked down, she nodded her head toward her chips.

"Not only economical," she said. "But maybe even profitable."

"The evening is young," he said.

He saw that the clown in the pastel shirt at the end of the table was looking at him curiously.

You could be a mobster, my friend. The question is, have you made me as a cop?

"Nature calls, Penny," he said. "I'll be right back."

She nodded absently.

He glanced around the room, found the rest rooms sign, and walked to it. The men's room was empty. He relieved himself, and then looked at himself in the mirror.

You don't look like a cop. Hay-zus was right about that. On the other hand, you have achieved a certain fame, or infamy, for taking down Mr. Warren K. Fletcher, aka the Northwest serial rapist, and also by getting yourself shot, getting your picture in the newspapers and everything. Is that why El Mafioso has made you?

You don't know he's made you. He may just be wondering where a nice, clean-cut young man like you gets the money to play games in here. Or he may be wondering how he can get a good-looking blonde like the one you're playing with.

And why are you so sure that guy is wrong? He probably has a used car lot in Wilkes-Barre or someplace.

Matt turned from the men's room mirror and went back into the casino. He looked around the room again, but didn't see anyone who attracted his interest. The only guy who was at all interesting was the Mafioso Used Car Salesman at Penny's table.

Penny turned and smiled when she sensed he was again standing behind her.

"Whatever you were doing, do it again," she said. "Look!"

She now had four stacks of chips in front of her, each ten, eleven, maybe twelve chips high.

"You want to quit when you're ahead?"

"Can I have fifteen more minutes?"

"Sure."

A waitress appeared, in a regular uniform, not the short skirt and mesh stockings of Las Vegas, and asked if she could get them something to drink.

"Not for me, thank you," Penny said.

"Could I get some black coffee?" Matt asked.

When the waitress delivered the coffee, Matt felt the eyes of the Used Car Salesman Mafioso on him again, and this time met his glance. The man smiled at him.

Now what the h.e.l.l does that mean? That he's made me? And is laughing at me? Or that he thinks maybe we went to elementary school together, but isn't sure?

Matt, just perceptibly, nodded his head.

His eyes dropped to the chips in front of his new friend. He was playing quarters too, but he wasn't having the luck Penny was. He was down to six chips, and he lost those in the next two hands.

He turned from the table and walked toward the cashier's window. A woman, a peroxide blonde with spectacular breastworks, trailed after him.

How come you didn't notice that before? You always react to bosoms such as those as if they were electromagnets. Matthew, my boy, you are sated, that is why. Or maybe because you have changed your criteria for magnificent b.r.e.a.s.t.s. After tonight, you will always define magnificent b.r.e.a.s.t.s as rather small, pink-tipped, and astonishingly firm.

"Time's up," Matt said to Penny. "Daddy has to go into the office early tomorrow."

"Okay," Penny said, without argument. She slid two quarter chips across the table to the dealer, and then scooped up the rest. There were so many she could barely hold them.

"He would have cashed those in for you."

"I wanted to carry them," Penny said. "To savor my triumph."

The Mafioso Used Car Salesman was leaning over the cashier's marble counter.

He's signing a-what do you call it?-an IOU? He needs more chips. He's been losing.

That bulge under his arm is a gun. In a shoulder holster. He is a Mafioso. Only Mafiosos and cops carry guns.

Christ, he's a cop cop! That's what's wrong with him!

The Mafioso/Cop slid the IOU, or whatever it was properly called, under the cashier's grill, and she slid a plastic tray full of quarter chips back out to him.

There were eight stacks of chips, each of ten chips, each chip worth twenty-five dollars. Matt did the math quickly in his head.

That tray is worth two thousand dollars! Cops can't afford that kind of gambling money. Bingo!

Vito Lanza turned from the cashier's window. The guy who looked familiar was standing behind him in line.

With the blonde who also looks familiar. And she's been doing a lot better than I have. Well, h.e.l.l, maybe with her going, my luck will change, Vito thought.

"Don't I know you from somewhere, pal?" Vito asked the young guy.

"I don't think so."

"You look kind of familiar, you know?"

"I was thinking the same thing."

"You come here a lot?"

"Second time."

"Well . . . Vegas! You ever go to Vegas?"

"Yeah, sure."

"And you was there last week, right?" Vito asked triumphantly.

"Right."

"At the Flamingo, right?"

"Right again."

"And you flew back to Philadelphia on American, right? The both of you. In first cla.s.s?"

"Right," Matt said. "So that's where it was. I knew I'd seen you somewhere."

"Well, how about that!" Vito said.

"How about that," Matt parroted.

"Small world, right?" Vito said. He handed the tray of chips to Tony, and put out his hand. "Vito Lanza. This is Tony."

"Matt Payne, this is Penny."

"Pleased to meet you," Tony said.

"Hi!" Penny said.

"How's your luck, Vito?" Matt asked.

"Aw, you know how it goes. Win a little, lose a little. The night's young."

"That's what I keep telling him," Penny said, and walked between Vito and Tony to the cashier's window and dumped her chips on the cashier's counter.

"Well, see you around," Vito said.

"See you around."

In the Mercedes, Penny leaned over and stuffed bills into Matt's jacket pocket.

"You didn't have to do that," he said.

"Yes, I did. If you're going to buy me off, it's going to take a lot more than a lousy six hundred dollars. Besides, I've got twenty-two hundred more."