"Lowenstein and Coughlin will be there. And Mike Weisbach. And Sabara. You're a detective. You figure it out."

It wasn't hard to make a good guess. Matthew Lowenstein and Dennis V. Coughlin were generally regarded as the most influential of all the chief inspectors of the Philadelphia Police Department. Michael Weisbach was a staff inspector, generally regarded as one of the best of that group of senior investigators. Captain Michael J. Sabara was deputy commander of Special Operations.

"Not Captain Pekach?" Matt asked.

"Not Captain Pekach. I think the mayor heard him say 'if there was anything dirty in Narcotics, I would know about it' once too often."

"That makes it official? We're going to get stuck with that Five Squad business?" Matt asked.

"This makes it, I'd guess, a sure thing. Official will probably come down on Monday."

"d.a.m.n!"

"Sorry about golf, Matt. I was really looking forward to it."

"Yeah, me, too."

"I'll call you when I know how bad it is," Wohl said.

"d.a.m.n," Matt repeated.

The phone went dead in his ear.

He held it a moment in his hand, as his mind ran through all the ramifications-none of them pleasant-of the mayor "suggesting" to Police Commissioner Taddeus Czernich that Special Operations-not Internal Affairs-conduct an investigation of alleged corruption in the Five Squad of the Narcotics Unit.

He looked up at the ceiling, where a clock on the bedside table projected the time of day. It was 9:15 A.M. He had gone to bed after two. He had planned to sleep until noon, by which time he presumed he would be rested, clear-eyed, and capable of parting Peter Wohl-who was a pretty good golfer-from, say, a hundred dollars at Merion.

Now he was awake, and once awake, he stayed awake. What was he going to do now? And, for that matter, for the rest of the day?

A call of nature answered that question for the immediate future. Matt put the telephone in its cradle, got out of bed, and went into his tiny bathroom. He was subjecting a rather nasty-looking bug who had fallen into the water closet to a strafing attack when the telephone rang again.

He c.o.c.ked his head toward the open door so that he could hear what Caller Number Two had on his or her mind.

The prerecorded message played, and there came the beep.

"Matt, d.a.m.n you, I know know she's there, and I she's there, and I absolutely absolutely have to talk to her this have to talk to her this instant instant! Pick up the telephone!"

The voice was that of Mrs. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV.

Without taking his eyes from the bug he had under relentless aerial attack, Matt raised his left hand, center finger extended, the others bent, over his head and in the general direction of the loudspeaker on the telephone answering device.

Dear Daffy, Matt reasoned, Matt reasoned, is almost certainly referring to good ol' blue-eyed, blond-haired, splendidly knockered, Whatsername-Susan Reynolds-with whom I struck out last night. is almost certainly referring to good ol' blue-eyed, blond-haired, splendidly knockered, Whatsername-Susan Reynolds-with whom I struck out last night.

Daffy thinks she came here with me.

Can it be that the Sweet Susan-Daffy knows her well-has been known to do with others what she would not do last night with me?

d.a.m.n!

He flushed the toilet by depressing the lever with his foot, pulled his T-shirt over his head, and stepped into his tiny shower stall. He had just finished what he thought of as Phase One (rinse) of his shower and reached for the soap to commence Phase Two (soap) when the telephone rang again.

He slid the shower door open to listen.

This time it was Mr. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV himself.

"Matt, if you're there, for Christ's sake, answer the phone! Daffy's climbing the walls!"

Matt walked naked and dripping to the telephone and picked it up.

"She's not here, whoever she is," he said.

"Then where the h.e.l.l is she?" Chad Nesbitt challenged.

"Since I'm not even sure who you're talking about, pal-"

"Susan Reynolds, of course," Chad said shortly.

"Not here. The last time I saw the lady, she was in your dining room."

"She's not with you?" Chad asked, obviously surprised, and went on before Matt could reply. "But she was, right?"

"Listen carefully. She is not here. She has never been here. Let your imagination soar," Matt said. "Consider the possibility that she left your place with someone else."

"You were putting the make on her, Matt," Chad challenged.

"Indeed I was. But the lady proved to be monumentally uninterested."

"She didn't call home," Chad said.

"Thank you for sharing that with me."

"She always calls her mother before she goes to sleep," Chad said.

"How touching!"

Daffy Browne Nesbitt came on the line. "Don't be such a sarcastic son of a b.i.t.c.h, Matt. Honestly, you're a real s.h.i.t!"

"I would appreciate it if you would attempt to control your foul tongue when under the same roof as my G.o.ddaughter," Matt said solemnly.

"She didn't call her mother last night," Chad said. "So her mother called her. At the Bellvue. And then she called here."

"Why did she call there?"

"I just told you," Chad said, somewhat impatiently. "There was no answer at the Bellvue. Then she called here, at half past two. Daffy told her that she had gone with you to listen to jazz."

"Daffy told her what? Why?"

"I certainly didn't want to tell her mother that she was in your apartment," Daffy said.

"Have you been eavesdropping all along, Daffy, or did you just come on the line? The reason I ask is because I have already told Chad that your pal is not now, and never has been, in my apartment."

"Then where is she?" Daffy challenged indignantly.

"This is where I came in. I haven't the foggiest idea where she might be, Daffy, and"-he shifted into a Clark Gable accent-"frankly, my dear, I don't give a d.a.m.n."

Chad chuckled.

"The both of you are s.h.i.ts," Daffy said, and hung up.

"You might try washing her mouth out with soap," Matt said.

"She's upset. She lied to Susan's mother, and now she's been caught at it."

"I'm the one who should be p.i.s.sed about that, old buddy. She told Mommy that the family virgin was out with me."

"You're close," Chad said. "Be a good chap, won't you, and go by the Bellvue?"

"You're as close as I am, Chad," Matt protested.

The Bellvue-Stratford Hotel, on South Broad Street, was nowhere near equidistant between Matt Payne's apartment-which consisted of a bedroom, a bath not large enough for a bathtub, a kitchen separated from the dining area by a no longer functioning sliding part.i.tion, and a living room from which one could, if one stood on one's toes, catch a glimpse of a small area of Rittenhouse Square, four floors below, through one of two eighteen-inch wide dormer windows-and the Nesbitt triplex on Stockton Place.

"No, it's not," Chad replied. "And you know it. Besides, I can't leave Daffy and the baby alone!"

"Perish the thought! That nanny you just imported is to impress the neighbors, right? You certainly couldn't trust her to watch the kid, could you?"

"Daffy's right. Sometimes you are a sarcastic a.s.s," Chad said.

"What am I supposed to do at the Bellvue?"

"See what you can find out. See if her car's there, for example. And call me."

"What kind of a car?"

"Daffy, what kind of a car does Susan drive?" Matt heard Chad call, and then he came back on the line. "Oddly enough, one like yours. Only red."

"A 911? A red 911?"

"That's what Daffy says."

"That's why I asked."

"Thanks, pal," Chad said, and the line went dead.

Matt put the phone back in its cradle, but didn't take his hand from it.

"Matthew, my boy," he said aloud. "You have just been had. Again."

Then he dialed a number from memory.

On the second ring, the phone was picked up.

"h.e.l.lo," his mother said.

"This is the son who never seems to find time to even drop by for a cup of coffee," Matt said.

"Is it really?"

"Do you think you could throw in a doughnut?"

"If I thought the offer was genuine, I would be willing to go so far as a couple of scrambled eggs and a slice of Taylor ham. Whatever it takes. Sometime this year, I would dare to hope?"

"How about in an hour?"

"I will believe my extraordinary good fortune only when you physically appear. But I will light a candle and leave it in the window."

"Good-bye, Mother."

Matt returned and finished his shower and toilette, shaving while under the shower.

He dressed quickly, in a single-breasted tweed jacket; gray flannel trousers; a white, b.u.t.ton-down-collar shirt and slipped his feet into ta.s.seled loafers. Just before he left his bedroom, he took his Smith & Wesson Undercover Model .38 Special-caliber revolver from the bedside table, pulled up his left trouser leg, and strapped it on his ankle.

He started down the steep, narrow flight of stairs that led to the third-floor landing, then stopped and went back into his living room. He pulled open a drawer in a cabinet, took from it a key, and slipped it into his pocket.

"Be prepared," he said aloud, quoting the motto of the Boy Scouts of America. An almost astonishing number of things he had learned as a Boy Scout had been of real use to him as a police officer. The key, so far as he knew, would open the lock of every guest room in the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel. That might come in handy.

By the time he had gone quickly down the stairs to the third-floor landing and pushed the b.u.t.ton to summon the elevator, however, he had had second thoughts about the pa.s.skey.

For one thing, the very fact that he had it const.i.tuted at least two violations of the law. For one thing, it was stolen. For another, it could be construed to be a "burglar's tool." To actually use it would const.i.tute breaking and entering.

He had come into possession of the key while he had been-for four very long weeks-a member of an around-the-clock surveillance detail in the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel. The Investigation Section of the Special Operations Division of the Philadelphia Police Department had been engaged in developing evidence that a Central Division captain and a Vice Squad lieutenant were accepting cash payments from the proprietress of a call girl ring in exchange for permitting her to conduct her business.

During the surveillance, his good friend, Detective Charles Thomas "Charley" McFadden, had arrived to relieve him, not only an hour and five minutes late but wearing a proud and happy smile.

"We won't have to ask that a.s.shole to let us in anywhere anymore," Charley had announced, and handed him a freshly cut key. "We now have pa.s.skeys of our very own."

The a.s.shole to whom Detective McFadden referred was the a.s.sistant manager a.s.signed by the Bellvue-Stratford management to deal with the police during their investigation, and who had made it clear that he would rather be dealing with lepers.

"Where did you get them?" Matt had asked.

"I lifted one off the maintenance guy's key rings while he was taking a c.r.a.p," Charley announced triumphantly. "I had four copies made-"

"I thought it was illegal to duplicate a pa.s.skey," Matt had interrupted.

"-and dropped the key just where the guy thought he must have dropped it," Charley had gone on, his face suggesting that Matt's concern for the legality of the situation was amusing but not worthy of a response. "One for me, one for you, one for Jesus, and one for Tony Harris."

Matt had decided at that time that what Jesus thought of the purloined pa.s.skey was wholly irrelevant. He and Detective Jesus Martinez were not mutual admirers. Detective Martinez often made it clear that he regarded Detective Payne as a Main Line rich kid who was playing at being a cop, and whose promotion to detective, and a.s.signment to Special Operations, had been political and not based on merit.

On his part, Detective Payne thought olive-skinned Detective Martinez-who was barely above departmental minimums for height and weight and had a penchant for gold jewelry and sharply tailored suits from Kra.s.s Brothers-was a mean little man who suffered from a monumental Napoleonic complex.