"Are you on the job?" Matt demanded.

"Who was that at the door?" Chad Nesbitt called down from the second floor.

"The gentleman was just about to give me his name, sir," the man said, offering Matt a patently insincere smile. That was enough to tell Matt that he was facing a rent-a-cop.

"Household Finance, Mr. Nesbitt," Matt called, raising his voice. "We want our money or the television."

"s.h.i.t." Chad chuckled. "Let him in."

"Yes, sir," the rent-a-cop said, and stood back to let Matt pa.s.s.

"Let him in anytime," Chad added. "He's safe. As a matter of fact, he's a cop. Forgive me, a detective. detective. Which probably means, come to think of it, that we'll have to count the silver after he leaves." Which probably means, come to think of it, that we'll have to count the silver after he leaves."

"You can go up, sir."

"Wachenhut?" Matt asked the man.

The Wachenhut Security Corporation provided the rent-a-cops for the Stockton Place complex.

"Nesfoods Security, sir," the man said.

"You've got a permit to carry, concealed?"

"Of course, sir."

Matt started up the stairs.

"Your name, sir?" the security man asked, and before Matt could reply, explained, "For your next visit, sir."

"Payne," Matt said. "Matt Payne."

"Did I understand Mr. Nesbitt to say you are a police officer, sir?"

"Yes, he did, and yes, I am," Matt said.

"Thank you, sir."

Matt went up the stairs.

Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV, in a sweat suit, was holding Penelope Alice Nesbitt in his arms.

"I have trouble believing you are responsible for that," Matt said.

"For what?"

"That beautiful child," Matt said. He leaned close to the baby and touched her cheek with his finger. "Fear not, sweet child, your G.o.dfather will protect you from these terrible people."

"f.u.c.k you," Chad said. "To what do we owe the honor?"

"I thought I would take you out and buy you dinner," Matt said. "I had La Bochabella in mind."

La Bochabella was an upscale Italian restaurant in the 1100 block of South Front Street, not far from Stockton Place.

"What did you do, get into it with Daffy again?" Chad asked suspiciously.

"Her, too, if she wants to go," Matt said.

Chad laughed.

"If she wants to go where?" Daffy said, walking into the room. She was also wearing a gray sweat suit.

"He wants to take us to La Bochabella," Chad said.

"By way of making up for what?" Daffy said, taking the baby from her husband.

"Actually, I hoped that by the time they came around with the check, your husband would figure, after what you did to me, Daffy, with the virgin's mother, that the least he could do was buy me dinner."

"For all you know, wisea.s.s, Susan may be be a virgin," Daffy said. "Why not? I'll need to shower first, of course." a virgin," Daffy said. "Why not? I'll need to shower first, of course."

"I can't imagine why," Matt said. "What's with the sweat suits?"

"She's trying to get her figure back," Chad said.

"Where did it go?" Matt asked, innocently.

". . . so we put in a little exercise room," Daffy said.

"You know, to keep in shape," Chad said. "You want to see it?"

"No. Not really. But while you're sharing all the sordid secrets of your married life with me, what's with the rent-a-cop?"

"He's not a rent-a-cop. He's from the company."

"What's he doing?"

"The Old Broads got together," Chad said. "The grandmothers. They went to the Old Man."

"I don't understand."

"They're worried about Penny's safety," Daffy said. "And mine, too."

"Did something happen?" Matt asked, now concerned.

"You ever hear, 'an ounce of prevention,' et cetera?" Chad said.

"You're really worried?" Matt asked. "In here?"

"Daffy's alone a lot," Chad said, a bit defensively. "With the baby."

"And a nanny, and at least one maid," Matt said. "Not to mention the rent-a-cop at the gate keeping the riffraff out."

"And now a security guy from the company," Chad said. "All right? It makes the Old Broads feel better and it makes me feel better, too, okay?"

"That guy's going to be here around the clock?" Matt asked.

"Not that that guy," Chad said. "He's a supervisor. He's a retired Jersey state trooper. He used to bodyguard the governor. What he's doing is seeing what has to be done. But yeah, there will be security people here around the clock." guy," Chad said. "He's a supervisor. He's a retired Jersey state trooper. He used to bodyguard the governor. What he's doing is seeing what has to be done. But yeah, there will be security people here around the clock."

"You should know better than most people, Matt," Daffy said, "what goes on in the city. And that the police can't stop things from happening."

"There's only so many cops, Daffy," Matt said, now defensively. "They can't be everywhere at once."

"My point exactly," Chad said.

"I like the idea of La Bochabella," Daffy said. "Ex ercise makes me hungry."

She handed the baby back to her husband.

"I'll shower first," she said.

"Give me the urchin," Matt said mischievously, "and you can shower together."

Chad took him seriously.

"Yeah," Chad said, and handed him the baby. "Good thinking. One of the perks of married life. You should try it, buddy."

"Don't drop her, Matt!" Daffy said.

"She will be a good deal safer with me, madam, than she would be in her mother's arms," Matt said solemnly.

"You're up to something, Matt," Daffy said. "I don't trust you."

"I have no idea, madam, of what you're accusing me."

"Fix yourself a drink," Chad said. "You know where it is."

"Yeah."

Fixing himself a drink proved more difficult than he thought it would be. When he went to the bar, holding the baby, it became immediately apparent that he could not easily, one-handed, either open a scotch bottle or get ice from the refrigerator.

He walked to the couch and, with infinite tenderness, laid his G.o.ddaughter down on it, far enough away from the edge so there was no chance of her falling off.

He was halfway back to the bar when Penelope Alice Nesbitt expressed her displeasure at being laid down by howling with surprising volume for someone her size.

She stopped howling the moment she was picked up again, and he carried her back to the bar, where, with great difficulty, he made himself a drink. Then he carried the baby back to the couch and sat down.

After a moment, he propped the baby up at the junction of the back and arm of the chair, and watched to see if she would start to howl again. She didn't. She liked that. She smiled and made a gurgling noise.

"Would Penny and I have made something like you, sweetheart?" Matt asked softly as he extended his finger to the baby. She took his finger in her hand.

Matt became aware that his eyes were tearing and his throat was very tight.

"s.h.i.t!" he said, and took a deep swallow of his scotch on the rocks. The emotional moment pa.s.sed.

Surprising him, Daffy returned first, dressed to go out.

"You should have gotten yourself a date," she said. "It would be like old times."

"You mean, you and Chad in the backseat of the car, making elephants-in-rut-type noises?"

"Screw you, you know what I mean," Daffy said. "Are you seeing much of Amanda these days?"

He shook his head, "no."

"Why not? She's a really nice girl."

"We never seem to be free at the same time," Matt said.

"Yeah," Daffy said, and changed the subject: "Well, since we all can't fit in your car, I'd better see about ours."

"Either this child has terminal B.O., or it needs a diaper change," Matt said.

Daffy picked up her baby and walked out of the room with her. Chad appeared a moment later, walked to the bar, poured whiskey in a gla.s.s and tossed it down, then held his finger in front of his lips in a signal that Daffy was not to know he had a little predinner drink.

Daffy reappeared, and they went down the stairs. The rent-a-cop was not in sight, and Matt wondered where he was.

When they went outside, the rent-a-cop was standing beside an Oldsmobile 98 sedan, the doors of which were open.

Daffy and Chad got in the backseat, the rent-a-cop got behind the wheel, and Matt got in the front pa.s.senger seat beside him.

"You know the La Bochabella restaurant?" Chad asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Where'd you get this?" Matt asked when they were inside. "It's new, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Chad said. "Tell him, Mr. Frazier."

"The statistics show," Frazier announced, very seriously, "that there are far fewer incidents involving Olds mobiles and Buicks than there are involving Cadillacs and Lincolns. Presumably, they don't attract the same kind of attention from the wrong kind of people."

"You're telling me your old man is going to turn in his Rolls Royce on an Olds?" Matt asked. "To avoid an incident incident ?" ?"

"No." Chad laughed. "But he's stopped going anywhere in it alone."

"You seem to feel this is funny, Matt," Daffy said. "I don't. We We don't." don't."