"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 damn."

Chad chuckled.

"The both of you are shits," 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 pissed 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 partition, 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 ass," 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.

"Hello," 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, button-down-collar shirt and slipped his feet into tasseled loafers. Just before he left his bedroom, he took his Smith amp; 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 button to summon the elevator, however, he had had second thoughts about the passkey.

For one thing, the very fact that he had it constituted 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 constitute 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 asshole to let us in anywhere anymore," Charley had announced, and handed him a freshly cut key. "We now have passkeys of our very own."

The asshole to whom Detective McFadden referred was the assistant manager assigned 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 crap," Charley announced triumphantly. "I had four copies made-"

"I thought it was illegal to duplicate a passkey," 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 passkey 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 assignment 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 Krass Brothers-was a mean little man who suffered from a monumental Napoleonic complex.

What Tony Harris thought of Charley's boosting a passkey from a hotel maintenance man-and more important, how he reacted-would, Matt had realized, instantly decide the matter once and for all.

Tony Harris, de jure, just one of the four detectives assigned to the Investigations Section, was de facto far more than just the detective in charge of the surveillance by virtue of his eighteen years' seniority. He had spent thirteen of those eighteen years as a homicide detective, and earned a department-wide reputation as being among the best of them.

He was consequently regarded with something approaching awe by Detectives Payne, McFadden, and Martinez, who had less than a year's service as detectives.