"Stein and my daughter are friends," Payne offered. "That's how I came to meet him."

They are friends, Payne thought. Payne thought. But that's now. It used to be Humble Student sitting at the feet of the Master. But that's now. It used to be Humble Student sitting at the feet of the Master.

Stein was as old as he was. Amy had originally gone to University Hospital thrilled at the chance to work with him, to learn from him. They had-surprising the psychiatric fraternity; Stein had a reputation for holding most fellow psychiatrists as fools-become friends and ultimately colleagues, and Payne knew that Stein had even proposed a joint private practice to Amy, which she had declined, for reasons Payne had not understood.

"So he told my daughter," Savarese said. "But apparently, that friendship hasn't been enough to convince Dr. Payne to see my granddaughter."

Stein sends Amy a patient and she turns her-which means Dr. Stein, her guru-down? That sounds a bit odd.

"I don't really see, Mr. Savarese, what this has to do with me," Payne said.

I know d.a.m.ned well what it has to do with me. He wants me to go to Amy, who certainly had her reasons to refuse to see the granddaughter, and ask her to reconsider.

It's absolutely none of my business. Amy would first be amazed, and then, justifiably, more than a little annoyed that I was putting my nose into her practice. Particularly in a case like this.

Or is it my fault? Amelia Payne, M.D., Fellow of the American College of Psychiatry, is also Amy Payne, loving daughter of Brewster C. Payne, and has heard, time and time again, his opinions of organized crime and its pract.i.tioners. It is unlikely, but not impossible, that Amy turned down this girl either because of me, or because she doesn't want to get involved with anyone involved with the mob.

"My granddaughter is very ill, Mr. Payne," Savarese said. "Otherwise, I would not involve myself in this. Neither Dr. Seaburg, her family physician, nor Dr. Stein, is aware of our relationship. But I love her, and my daughter, and so, as one father to another, I am willing to beg for help for her."

"You want me to speak to my daughter, is that it?"

"I am begging you to do so," Savarese said simply.

Where are we? Amy has declined to see this girl for reasons that have nothing to do with me-he let me off the hook on that, when he said neither the family physician nor Dr. Stein knows he's the girl's grandfather-or with Savarese.

And the girl, obviously, should not be punished for the sins of the grandfather in any event. And in this case, he is the grandfather, not the Mafia don.

"Will you excuse me for a moment, please?" Payne said, and walked out of his office, past Mrs. Craig's desk, across the corridor and into Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson's office.

"I need the Colonel's office a moment, Janet," he said to Mawson's secretary.

He went into Mawson's office, sat on his red leather couch, and pulled the telephone to him.

It took him nearly five minutes to get Amy on the line, and when she came on the line, there was worry and concern in her voice.

"Daddy? They said it was important?"

"Indulge me for a moment, Amy," he said.

"I'm always afraid you're calling to tell me Matt got himself shot again," she said, her relief evident in her voice.

"As far as I know, the only danger Matt faces at the moment is from the understandably irate father of the girl he took from Chad Nesbitt's birthday party and who has not called home since," Payne said.

There was a short chuckle, and then-now with a tone of impatience in her voice-she asked: "What's important, then, Daddy? I'm really up to my a.s.s in work."

"Did Dr. Stein send you a patient, a young woman, by the name of Longwood?"

"Aaron sends me a lot of patients, or tries to, but that name doesn't ring a bell. Why do you ask?"

"Aaron"? It wasn't that long ago when she reverentially called him "Doctor Stein."

And: We are no longer Daddy Dear and Daughter Darling. That was The Doctor putting A Nosy Lawyer in his place.

"Her grandfather is in my office," Payne said.

"Wait a minute," Amy said. "Now I remember the name. Cynthia Longwood. A Bala Cynwyd maiden who had a traumatic experience with her boyfriend. I told Aaron, sorry, no, I have a lapful of really sick people. How did you get involved in this? Is her grandfather a client?"

"No. He's not. Her grandfather is Vincenzo Savarese."

"The gangster?"

"That has been alleged."

"Is this important to you, Daddy?"

"I don't really know how to answer that. He came here-Armando Giacomo brought him-which must have been difficult for both of them, and appealed to me as a father. I thought the decent thing to do was call you."

"Where is she?"

"University Hospital."

"Okay, I'll see her," Amy said simply.

"Thank you."

"It would be dishonest of me to say 'you're welcome, ' " Amy said. "What this is is pure curiosity. I wonder why Aaron didn't tell me who she was?"

"I don't think Dr. Stein knows who her grandfather is."

"Got to run, Daddy," Amy said, and the line went dead.

Payne returned to his office.

"I've just spoken to my daughter, Mr. Savarese," he said. "She will see your granddaughter."

Vincenzo Savarese rose slowly from the couch and walked to Payne. He put out his hand, and when Payne put out his, held it with both hands.

There are tears in his eyes!

"I am very much in your debt, Mr. Payne," Savarese said.

"Not at all."

"I am very much in your debt, Mr. Payne," Savarese repeated. "And now I will not take any more of your valuable time."

Savarese walked to Colonel J. Dunlop Mawson, politely shook his hand, and then walked out of the office.

"I owe you a big one, Brewster," Armando C. Giacomo said softly, winked at Payne, and followed Savarese out.

Walter Davis, a tall, well-built, nearly handsome man in his middle forties, had, while taking luncheon at the Rittenhouse Club, what he considered to be a splendid idea. Actually, it was the second time he had the same idea, and now he wondered why he hadn't followed up on it before.

Davis, who was the Special Agent in Charge of the Philadelphia Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was not a voting member of the Rittenhouse Club. By virtue of his office, however, he enjoyed all the privileges of membership. Similar ex officio ex officio memberships were made available to certain other public servants-the mayor; the admiral commanding the Philadelphia Navy Yard; the police commissioner; the president of the University of Pennsylvania, et cetera-highly successful pract.i.tioners of their professions whom the membership felt would, had they been in the private sector, not only have been put up for membership but would have been able to afford it. memberships were made available to certain other public servants-the mayor; the admiral commanding the Philadelphia Navy Yard; the police commissioner; the president of the University of Pennsylvania, et cetera-highly successful pract.i.tioners of their professions whom the membership felt would, had they been in the private sector, not only have been put up for membership but would have been able to afford it.

It was said that full membership in the Rittenhouse Club was something like Commodore Vanderbilt's yacht: if you had to ask how much it cost, you couldn't afford it.

Davis did not often use the Rittenhouse Club's facilities, which included an Olympic-size swimming pool, a fully equipped gymnasium in addition to its bar, lounge, and dining facilities. For one thing, it was expensive. For another, Davis was a shade uneasy about taking anything for nothing.

He tried to limit his visits to those that, at least, had a connection with the FBI. A monthly luncheon with Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernich, for example, was usually on his schedule. There were exceptions, of course. When Mrs. Davis was climbing the walls about something, dinner in the elegance of the Rittenhouse Dining Room-the only room in the building where the gentle s.e.x was welcome-did wonders to calm her down.

And today was another exception. Andrew C. Tellman, Esq.-known in their days at the University of Michigan Law School as "Randy Andy"-was in town from De troit and had called suggesting they get together.

Randy Andy was now a senior partner-he had sent Davis the engraved announcement-of the enormous De troit law firm he had joined right out of law school, when Davis had gone to Quantico to the FBI Academy.

The stiff price of taking Randy Andy to lunch at the Rittenhouse seemed justified, as sort of a statement that he hadn't done so badly himself, and the proof of that seemed to have come immediately.

"Oh, you belong to the Rittenhouse, do you?" Randy Andy had asked when Davis had suggested "one-ish at the Rittenhouse."

Davis had taken this further, arriving at the club on Rittenhouse Square a few minutes after 12:30. He wanted Randy Andy to have to ask the porter-a master of sn.o.bbery-to ask for him, and then be led into the oak-paneled lounge where he would be sitting at one of the small tables.

"I'm expecting a guest," he said to the porter, a dignified black man in his sixties.

"Yes, sir. And who are you, sir?"

"Walter Davis."

"Ah, yes, Mr. Davis. And your guest's name, Mr. Davis?"

"Tellman. Andrew C. Tellman."

"You'll be in the lounge, Mr. Davis?"

"Yes."

"I'll take care of it, sir," the porter said.

He then went to a large board behind his porter's stand. On it were listed, alphabetically, the names of the three-hundred-odd members of the Rittenhouse Club. Beside each name was an inch-long piece of bra.s.s, which could be slid back and forth in a track. When the marker was next to the member's name, this indicated he was on the premises; when away from it, that he was not.

He moved the piece of bra.s.s to indicate that Davis, W. was now on the premises.

Davis examined the board. The names listed represented the power structure of Philadelphia. And their children. Both Nesbitt, C. III and Nesbitt, C. IV had small bra.s.s plates. As did Payne, B. and Payne, M.

Davis knew Payne, B. only by reputation, that of a founding partner of the most prestigious law firm in Philadelphia, Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo & Lester.

Payne, M. he had met. Payne, M. was a policeman. Davis had once taken Inspector Peter Wohl to lunch. They had gone in Wohl's car, which had been driven by a Philadelphia police officer-Payne-in plainclothes. Officer Payne had played straight man to Wohl, while Wohl vented his annoyance at being kept waiting for Davis with "witty" remarks, and by taking him to a closet-size Italian greasy spoon in South Philadelphia for lunch, instead of to the elegant Ristorante Alfredo in Center City.

Davis had subsequently learned, from Isaiah J. Towne, his ASAC (a.s.sistant Special Agent in Charge) for counterintelligence, just who Payne was. Not only that he was Brewster Cortland Payne's son, or that he was the policeman who had, in Towne's somewhat admiring description, "blown the brains of the Northeast Serial Rapist all over the inside of his van with his service revolver," but why he had become a policeman instead of following in his father's prestigious footsteps in the practice of law.

Towne, a tall, hawk-featured, thirty-nine-year-old balding Mormon, who took his religion seriously and who had once told Davis, dead serious, that he regarded the Com munists as the Antichrist, was in charge of what were called, somewhat confusingly, FBIs. The acronym stood for Full Background Investigation. FBIs were run before the issuance of federal security clearances, and before young men were commissioned into one of the Armed Forces.

An FBI had been run on Matthew Mark Payne during his last year at the University of Pennsylvania. He had then been enrolled in the USMC Platoon Leaders' Program, which would see him commissioned a second lieutenant on his graduation.

At the last minute, young Payne had failed the precom missioning physical, and had not gone into the Marine Corps.

Towne's FBI on him, however, had already been run, and it had provided some very interesting details about Payne, Matthew Mark. For one thing, he was a very wealthy young man, largely because of an investment program established for him at age three and administered-and generously contributed to-by his father thereafter.

It also revealed that he was not Brewster Cortland Payne II's biological son. He was the biological son of Sergeant John Francis Xavier Moffitt, of the Philadelphia Police Department, who had been shot to death answering a silent burglar alarm call months before his only child was born.

The Widow Moffitt had gone to secretarial school and found employment with Lowerie, Tant, Foster, Pedigill and Payne, a top Philadelphia legal firm, as a typist.

Shortly thereafter, she had met the just-widowered Brewster Cortland Payne II, the son of the founding partner-and heir apparent to the Payne real estate fortune. Mrs. Brewster Cortland Payne II had been killed in an automobile accident returning from their summer home in the Pocono Mountains, leaving her husband and two infant children.

Brewster Cortland Payne II's reaction to his father's description of Patricia Moffitt as a gold-digging Irish trollop and his absence from their wedding had been to resign from Lowerie, Tant, Foster, Pedigill and Payne and strike out on his own.

Shortly after the birth of their first child-which coincided with the death of Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt, Jr., the chairman of the board of Nesfoods International; the a.s.sumption by Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt III, Brewster Payne's best friend, to that position; and the retention of what was then Payne & Mawson as Nesfood International's Counsel-Brewster Cortland Payne went to his wife and announced that since he loved Matt as well as his other children, it seemed only logical that he adopt him, and requested her permission to do so.

Matthew Mark Payne's rejection by the Marine Corps had been shortly followed by the death of his uncle, his biological father's brother, another policeman, Captain Richard C. "Dutch" Moffitt. Moffitt, a colorful character, who had been the commanding officer of the Highway Patrol, had, off-duty, walked in on a holdup of the Waikiki Diner on Roosevelt Boulevard, and been shot to death trying to talk the robber, a drug addict, into handing over his .22-caliber pistol.

When Matthew Mark Payne had applied for appointment as a Philadelphia police officer immediately thereafter-the only graduate, summa c.u.m laude, summa c.u.m laude, of the University of Pennsylvania to do so in anyone's memory-it was generally agreed both that it was understandable-Matt's masculinity, challenged by rejection by the Marines, would be restored by his becoming a policeman; and he probably had some childish idea about getting revenge for both his biological father and his uncle-and that his police career would end just as soon as he came to his senses. of the University of Pennsylvania to do so in anyone's memory-it was generally agreed both that it was understandable-Matt's masculinity, challenged by rejection by the Marines, would be restored by his becoming a policeman; and he probably had some childish idea about getting revenge for both his biological father and his uncle-and that his police career would end just as soon as he came to his senses.

When he surprised everyone by lasting through the rigors of the Police Academy, Chief Inspector Dennis V. Coughlin, who had graduated from the Police Academy with his best friend, John Francis Xavier Moffitt-who had knocked at Patty Moffitt's door to tell her, "Honey, Jack just had some real bad luck," and who had no intention of knocking on her door again to tell her Jack's boy had been shot-arranged to have him a.s.signed as administrative a.s.sistant to Inspector Peter Wohl.

He had been on that job less than six months when, off-duty, he spotted the van used by the Northwest Serial Rapist, attempted to question the driver, nearly lost his life when the driver attempted to run him down with the van, and then shot him in the head.

Not quite a year after that, the Philadelphia Police Department planned and executed a ma.s.sive operation intended to cause the arrest without firing a shot of a gang of a dozen armed robbers on warrants charging them with murder in connection with the robbery of Goldblatt's Department Store in South Philadelphia.

Officer Payne's role in this meticulously planned, theoretically foolproof operation was to "escort"-keep him (and incidentally himself) out of any possible danger-Michael J. "Mickey" O'Hara, the Pulitzer prize-winning Philadelphia Bulletin Philadelphia Bulletin police reporter. They were to wait in an alley a safe distance from the building in which the robbers were known to be until the arrests had been successfully accomplished. police reporter. They were to wait in an alley a safe distance from the building in which the robbers were known to be until the arrests had been successfully accomplished.

One of the robbers, wielding a .45 Colt automatic pistol, appeared where he wasn't supposed to be, in the "safe alley," and let off a volley of shots. One of them rico cheted, grazing Payne in the forehead. He was able to draw his revolver and return fire.

That evening's Philadelphia Bulletin Philadelphia Bulletin carried an "Ex clusive Photo By Michael J. O'Hara" that showed Officer Payne, blood streaming down his face-from a wound that looked a great deal worse than it was-standing, pistol in hand, over the felon he had fatally wounded in a shoot-out. carried an "Ex clusive Photo By Michael J. O'Hara" that showed Officer Payne, blood streaming down his face-from a wound that looked a great deal worse than it was-standing, pistol in hand, over the felon he had fatally wounded in a shoot-out.

Ninety percent of police officers reach retirement without once having been forced to use their pistols. A cop who, in less than two years on the job, finds himself involved in two two good shootings is obviously something out of the ordinary. good shootings is obviously something out of the ordinary.

No one was surprised when Officer Payne pa.s.sed the examination for Detective on the first attempt. He was, of course, a summa c.u.m laude summa c.u.m laude university graduate who had little trouble with the examination. He ranked second when the examination results were posted, and was promoted shortly thereafter. university graduate who had little trouble with the examination. He ranked second when the examination results were posted, and was promoted shortly thereafter.

It was said, however, that Mayor Carlucci would have had him promoted if it had been necessary to send two chief inspectors into the examination room with him to show him which end of the pencil to use, and otherwise be helpful.

Neither were many people in the Philadelphia Police Department surprised to hear that Mayor Carlucci had "suggested" that Detective Payne be rea.s.signed to Special Operations after a very short a.s.signment to one of the detective divisions.

Mayor Carlucci was aware of the value of good public relations.

What Walter Davis thought when he saw Payne, M. on the membership board of the Rittenhouse Club was first that Payne was almost certainly a regular rather than non-voting, ex officio ex officio member, and second that the FBI was always looking for outstanding young men to join its ranks. member, and second that the FBI was always looking for outstanding young men to join its ranks.

He had, he realized, had that thought before.