"There's an attic apartment," he said.

"Oh."

"Come on up. It won't take me a minute."

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea."

"You mean, you don't want to see my etchings?"

"What happened last night was obviously insane. Maybe we better leave it at that."

"I like what happened last night."

"You should be running around with girls your own age, not having an affair with someone my age. And vice versa."

"I don't seem to have much in common with girls my own age," Matt said. "And I don't think that was the first time in the recorded history of mankind that…"

"A woman my age took a man your age into her bed?"

"Right."

"Go change your clothes, Matt. I'll wait here."

"You don't want to do that."

"Yes, I do."

"Whatever you say," Matt said, and got out of the Bug and went to the elevator.

When he reached the top step of the narrow stairway leading into his apartment, he saw the red light blinking on his telephone answering machine. He pulled his sweater over his head, tossed it onto the couch, went to the answering machine, and pushed the PLAY MESSAGES switch

"Matt, I know you're there, pick up the damned telephone."

That was Amelia Payne, M.D. He wondered what the hell she wanted, and then realized she probably wanted a report on Penny Detweiler's trip home.

Then Brewster Cortland Payne II's voice: "Matt, Amy insisted I try to get you to call her. She's positive you're there and just not picking up. She wants to talk to you about Penny. Will you call her, please? Whenever you get home?"

The next voice was Charley McFadden's: "Matt, Charley. Give me a call as soon as you can. I gotta talk to you about something. Oh. How was Las Vegas?"

Something's wrong. I wonder what? Well, it'll have to wait.

"Matt, this is Penny. I just wanted to say 'thank you' for coming out there to get me. I forgot to thank you at the airport. When you have a minute, call me, and I'll buy you an ice-cream cone or lunch or something. Ciao."

Oh, Christ, I don't want to get sucked into that!

"Matt, this is Joe D'Amata. They took your lady friend's car to the Plymouth place in Upper Darby. I called her house, and there was no answer. If we'd left it at the scene, there would be nothing left but the ignition switch."

Jesus, why didn't I think about just calling Joe from her house? Because you were thinking with your dick, again, Matthew!

"Payne, this is Al Sutton. If you were thinking of coming to work this morning, don't. They want you in Chief Lowenstein's office at half past one."

Now, what the hell is that about? Something to do with last night?

He pushed the REWIND button and went into his bedroom and laid out fresh clothes on his bed. He picked a light brown suit, since he was possibly going to see Chief Lowenstein and did not want to look like Joe College. Then he took his clothing off.

The doorbell rang.

He searched for and found his bathrobe and went to the intercom.

"Yeah?"

"You were right, I don't want to wait down there," Mrs. Glover said. "May I come up?"

He pushed the door release button and heard it open. She came up the stairs.

"That wasn't exactly true," she said. "Curiosity got the best of me."

"They took your car to the Plymouth place in Upper Darby," Matt said. "There was a message on the machine. Let me grab a shower, and I'll take you out there."

"They don't open until nine-thirty," she said.

"Well, we'll just have to wait."

He smiled uneasily at her, and then walked back in the apartment toward his bedroom.

"Matt…"

He turned.

"Was that true, what you said, about you don't have much in common with girls your own age?"

"Yes, it was."

"You're a really nice guy. Be patient. Someone will come along."

"I hope so," he said, and turned again and went and had his shower.

When he came out, he sensed movement in his kitchen. He cracked the door open. Mrs. Glover was leaning against the refrigerator. She had a cheese glass in one hand, and a bottle of his cognac in the other.

"I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not."

"You want one?"

"No. I don't want to smell of booze when I go to work."

"When do you have to be at work? Is taking me back to Upper Darby going to make you late?"

"No. I've got until half past one."

She looked at him, and then away, and then drained the cheese glass.

"What I said before," she said, "was what my father told me when Ken and I broke up. That I was a nice girl, that I should be patient, that someone would come along."

What the hell is she leading up to? Am I the someone?

"I'm sure he's right."

"Now, you and I are obviously not right for each other…"

Damn!

"…but what I've been thinking, very possibly because I've had more to drink in the last twelve hours than I've had in the last six months, is that, until someone comes along for you, and someone comes along for me…"

"The sky wouldn't fall? There will not be a bolt of lightning to punish the sinners?"

She raised her head and met his eyes.

"What do you think?"

"I think I know how we can kill the time until the Plymouth place opens."

"I'll bet you do," she said, and set the cheese glass and the bottle of cognac on the sink and then started to unbutton her blouse.

As Matt Payne was climbing the stairs to his apartment at quarter to seven, across town, in Chestnut Hill, Peter Wohl stepped out of the shower in his apartment and started to towel himself dry.

The chimes activated by his doorbell button went off. They played "Be It Ever So Humble, There's No Place Like Home." One of what Wohl thought of as the "xylophone bars" was out of whack, so the musical rendition was discordant. He had no idea how to fix it, and privately, he hated chimes generally and "Be It Ever So Humble" specifically, but there was nothing he could do about the chimes. They had been a gift from his mother, and installed by his father.

He said a word that he would not have liked to have his mother hear, wrapped the towel around his middle, and left the bathroom. He went through his bedroom, and then through his living room, the most prominent furnishings of which were a white leather couch, a plateglass coffee table, a massive, Victorian mahogany service bar, and a very large oil painting of a Rubenesque naked lady resting on her side, one arm cocked coyly behind her head.

The ultrachic white leather couch and plate-glass coffee table were the sole remnants of a romantic involvement Peter Wohl had once had with an interior decorator, now a young suburban matron married to a lawyer. The bar and the painting of the naked lady he had acquired at an auction of the furnishings of a Center City men's club that had gone belly up.

He unlatched the door and pulled it open. A very neat, very wholesome-looking young man in a blue suit stood on the landing.

"Good morning, Inspector," the young man said. His name was Paul T. (for Thomas) O'Mara, and he was a police officer of the Philadelphia Police Department. Specifically, he was Wohl's new administrative assistant.

Telling him, Peter Wohl thought, that when I say between seven and seven-fifteen, I don't mean quarter to seven, would be like kicking a Labrador puppy who has just retrieved his first tennis ball.

"Good morning, Paul," Wohl said. "Come on in. There's coffee in the kitchen."

'Thank you, sir."

Officer O'Mara was a recent addition to Peter Wohl's staff. Like Peter Wohl, he was from a police family. His father was a captain, who commanded the 17^th District. His brother was a sergeant in Civil Affairs. His grandfather, like Peter Wohl's father and grandfather, had retired from the Philadelphia Police Department.