"Ketcham is the man they say I stole money from?"

"Yes, he is. They say you stole twenty thousand dollars from him. So does he. He also says you handcuffed him to the toilet in his motel room and then raped his girlfriend."

"That's absolute bulls.h.i.t!"

"Well, you don't have to worry about that. I'm sure I could convince a jury that an outstanding police officer such as yourself isn't capable of committing the crimes the police say you did."

"That's a weight off my shoulders to hear you say that, Mr. Giacomo."

"What you have to worry about, you despicable a.s.shole, is what Vincenzo Savarese is going to do to you."

"Huh?"

"The girl you made suck your c.o.c.k, you contemptible pervert, is Vincenzo Savarese's granddaughter. The only reason you're alive at this moment is that the cops got lucky and got to you before Savarese did."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Giacomo."

"You stupid piece of s.h.i.t!" Giacomo, his face red with fury and disgust, shouted. "You're not even smart enough to know when to stop lying, are you?"

Armando C. Giacomo stormed out of the interview room, slamming the door behind him.

He walked directly to the c.o.ke machine against the wall and fed it some money.

Coughlin walked over to him.

"That was quick," Coughlin said.

"I'm very good, Denny. You know that. I presume you have a stenographer on call?"

"Over there, reading the Daily News, Daily News," Coughlin said, nodding toward a middle-aged Latin woman sitting in a chair.

"I'm going to give that piece of slime a couple of minutes to ruminate on what his alternatives are, and then I will go in and offer him your deal. I would be very surprised if he declined it."

"Thank you, Manny."

"Between you, me, and the c.o.ke machine, Denny, it posed a problem of personal morality for me."

"How's that?"

"My personal inclination was to get him off-and I really think I could have-and then let Vincenzo . . . what would almost certainly have transpired, transpire. Six years in a federal country club doesn't strike me as a fair payback for what he did to that girl. I know her."

"Do me one more favor, Manny. Reason with . . . the grandfather. Convince him that this is the way, that this is enough."

"I'll try," Giacomo said. "But don't, as they say, hold your breath."

Susan Reynolds and Matt Payne had a very late lunch in Trainer's Restaurant outside Allentown.

Neither of them had had any appet.i.te in the Penn-Harris, and they had ridden most of the way down U.S. 222 to Allentown in silence. In his mind, Matt was going over all of the things that could go wrong with the scheme, all the things that had to be done, and trying very hard to ignore a feeling of impending doom. He wondered, idly, once or twice, what Susan was thinking about, but didn't ask.

By the time they got to Allentown, however, they were both hungry, and Susan directed them to Trainer's, which she said was on the way to Doylestown.

"What are we going to do now?" Susan asked when they had finished their coffee and were waiting for the check.

"First thing, you're going to show me where your friend Chenowith lives," Matt said.

He knew that she wasn't going to like this announcement at all, and waited for what he was sure would be an angry reaction. He didn't get it.

"He's not my friend, Matt. I've told you that and told you that."

"I still want to see where he lives."

"Why?"> "So, when this is over, I can take the cops there," Matt said. "You may be in jail."

The waitress appeared with the check in time to hear the last part of the sentence.

Matt smiled at her in what he hoped was a disarming way.

"Or married, or have entered a convent," he added.

The waitress smiled. Susan shook her head at Matt.

When they got back in the car, Matt asked, "How do I get to Chenowith's house?" again expecting a negative response, and being surprised when he didn't get one.

"Go into Doylestown, turn right at the Crossroads Diner," Susan said.

"Is that where you're going to meet her?"

"That's where I met her the last time," Susan said. "She may change her mind this time."

"But she is going to call you there, right?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to cut over through Quakertown and go down Route 611," he said.

"Any special reason?"

"No."

"I'm a little afraid of showing you the house," Susan said a minute or two later.

"Don't start now," Matt said. "I want to be in a position where I can truthfully tell the FBI that you led me to the place."

"What if she leaves the baby in the house when she comes to meet me?" Susan asked.

"The FBI is not going to go after him with guns blazing if they know there's a baby around," Matt said.

"He's crazy, Matt, you know that. What's the FBI going to do if he starts shooting his machine gun?"

"The way that happens is that they will surround the place. Then somebody will get on a bullhorn and tell him-h.e.l.l, you've seen the movies-'This is the FBI. We have you surrounded. Come out with your hands on your head, and no harm will come to you.' "

"And what if he starts shooting his machine gun? The both of them start to shoot their machine guns?"

"They'll look out the window and they won't see anything to shoot at. The FBI's not going to stand there in the open where they can get shot. They're not stupid."

"And if Bryan doesn't come out with his hands on his head?"

"Probably nothing. They don't want to start shooting unless they have to. With or without knowing there's a baby inside. After a long time-a long, long time-they might shoot some tear gas into the place. But that's it. Once they have the place surrounded, that's it. They can wait; time is on their side."

She didn't reply.

"And with that thought in mind, probably the smartest thing we could do right now would be to call Jack Matthews, have him meet us, you show him where Chenowith is, and let the FBI do their thing."

"If I show you where the house is, you'll have to promise you won't tell the FBI until after we meet with Jennie."

"Jesus!"

"Promise!"

"Okay, okay."

Several minutes later, moving down a narrow, winding road, Matt said: "You know what worries me the most? That your friend Jennie, once I put the arm on her, is not going to listen to one G.o.dd.a.m.n word you say to her about keeping her mouth shut until she sees a lawyer. You're not going to be the friend trying to save her a.s.s, trying to keep her baby from getting hurt, but the traitorous b.i.t.c.h who turned her in to the cops."

"And?"

"She starts screaming that you were in on this whole thing from the beginning. If she and Chenowith are going down, I think it's entirely likely they'll want to take you down with them."

"I was, more or less," Susan said. "I'll just have to take that risk."

"Another option, of course, is for me to stop the car and start slapping you around until you tell me where the b.a.s.t.a.r.d is."

"Oh, stop it!"

"That's the best idea I've had all day," he said. "I really have no idea at all why I'm going along with this bulls.h.i.t idea just to try to save your friend, who, I am growing more and more convinced, is just as dangerous as her boyfriend."

"You could slap me around all day, and I'd never tell you where the house is," Susan said.

She believes that. She's probably never been slapped in her life.

Could I slap her?

Yes, I could.

And get her to tell me where this G.o.dd.a.m.n house is?

Yes, I could.

And the FBI takes the house, and the a.s.shole shoots off his homemade terrorist machine gun, and the FBI blows him, his girlfriend, and the baby away.

And whose fault would that be?

For the rest of her life, for the rest of our life, I would be the son of a b.i.t.c.h responsible for poor Jennie and/or her precious child getting blown away.

Not Jennie herself. Not even Chenowith. He's crazy, so it's not even his fault, no matter what the son of a b.i.t.c.h does.

Me. I would be the son of a b.i.t.c.h.

He looked over at Susan.

Moot point. No, I never could slap the information out of her. Not for any gentlemanly reasons, but because I could not stand the way she would look at me for having betrayed her.

Susan seemed to be able to read his mind.

She looked at him.

"Could you really slap me around?"

"Absolutely," he said.

"You are really terrible," she said, but she took his hand.

He saw a sign reading "Doylestown 8 Miles."

He freed his hand and reached across and punched the b.u.t.ton opening the glove compartment. Then he reached in and took out the microphone.

"Radio check, please," he said into it.

There was no answer.

"I keep forgetting this is a police car," she said.

"Well, if we had come in your red Porsche, we would have been a lot easier to spot, wouldn't we, especially if someone-for example, the FBI-was trying to keep tabs on the owner of a red Porsche?"

He reached across her again and changed frequencies. He again asked for a radio check, and again there was no answer.

He tried it on every frequency he had available. There was a reply on the last one.

"Who wants a radio check?" a female voice responded.

"I'm a Philadelphia unmarked pa.s.sing through Doylestown. I wanted to see if there was anyone I could talk to."

"You got the Bucks County sheriff's administrative channel, Philadelphia."

"Well, thank you very much," Matt said. "Nice to talk to you."