The relationship between Inspector Wohl and Detective Payne was unusual. Generally, it was believed that Wohl had elected to become Payne's rabbi, which was to say he had seen in the younger man the intelligence and character traits that would, down the pike, make him a fine senior police officer, and had chosen to be his mentor. That was true, but the best explanation of their relationship Peter had ever heard had come from his mother, who had said Matt was the little brother he had never had.

Wohl turned and walked out of the room, pausing before Washington's desk.

"If he shows any signs of slowing up-much less trying to leave-use your whip," he said.

"Yes, sir," Washington said.

Detective Payne replaced the headset, then held his hand, middle finger extended, in a very disrespectful gesture, over his head.

Wohl went down the corridor, got into his official unmarked car, and headed downtown for his meeting with Chief Inspector Lowenstein.

Five minutes later, the telephone in the Investigations Section rang. Sergeant Washington answered it, called out "Matt!" and when there was no answer, got up and walked to Payne's desk, tapped him on the shoulder, and then pointed to the telephone.

Payne took his earphones off, punched an illuminated button on the telephone on the desk, and picked it up.

"Payne," he said.

"Would you hold please for Mr. Nesbitt?" a female voice said.

"No," Payne said.

"Excuse me?"

"You tell Mr. Nesbitt when he finally learns how to dial a telephone himself, I'll be glad to talk to him," Payne said, and hung up.

He looked over at Washington.

"That pisses me off," he announced.

"What, specifically, causes you to have an uncontrollable impulse to pass water?" Washington asked.

"Would you hold please for Mr. More Important Than You Are?" Matt said in a high soprano.

Washington chuckled.

Less than a minute later, the telephone rang again.

Washington let it ring until it penetrated Matt's concentration and he reached for it.

"Detective Payne," he said.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV demanded.

"If you want to talk to me, Chad, you call me."

"That's what secretaries are for," Nesbitt said.

"Now that you have me, what's on your mind?"

"Tonight."

"As a matter of fact, I was just about to call you, myself, about tonight."

"You are coming?"

"That's what I was going to call about. I will not be coming."

"Why the hell not?"

"I seem to have come down with a virus."

"What kind of a virus?"

"Some kind of Asiatic flu. Not to worry, it will only last twenty-four hours. They call it, 'The Don't Go To Chad's Birthday Party Virus.' "

"You want to tell me why not?"

"You really want to know?"

"I really want to know."

"Okay. Daffy will try to fix me up with one of her airheaded friends."

"I promise that won't happen."

"Reason number two: At least one of our friends will ask me to fix a little ticket he got for running through a red light into a busload of nuns while under the influence. "

"If that happens, tell him to go fuck himself. You're very good at that."

"Reason three: Daffy, carried away with her notions of having become a wife, mother, and homemaker, will probably try to cook."

"It's being catered, of course. So you will be there, right?"

"Chad, I don't want to."

"Do it for me, buddy. We've been going to each other's birthday parties since we were in diapers. And hell, we never see each other anymore. Penelope Alice is your goddaughter. "

That was all true. Chad Nesbitt had been Matt Payne's best friend since they had worn short pants. And they rarely got together anymore. And Penelope Alice Nesbitt, Chad and Daffy's firstborn, named after the late Penelope Alice Detweiler, with whom, before she inserted too much-or bad-heroin into her veins, Matt had fancied himself in love, was indeed his goddaughter.

He sighed.

"I'll be there," Matt said. "Against my better judgment. "

He hung up before Chad could reply and went back to work.

The festivities that would commemorate the birth twenty- five years before of Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV were, in the opinions of his mother and his mother-in-law (Mrs. Soames T. Browne), far more important than a simple birthday party.

It would, so to speak, if not introduce, then reintroduce the young couple to Philadelphia society. There had been a number of problems. For one thing, Chad had gone off into the Marines three days after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania.

A suitable wedding, given that, would have been difficult under any circumstances, but it had been further complicated by the unfortunate business of Daffy's best friend-Penny Detweiler, who was to have been her maid of honor-getting herself involved with drugs and gangsters.

Their hearts went out, of course, to Grace and Dick Detweiler, who were old and dear friends, but that didn't change the fact that Penny not being Daphne's maid of honor because she was in Hahnemann Hospital recuperating from being shot did cast a pall upon a wedding.

And then the Marines had sent Chad off to Okinawa, without Daffy, for more than two years. She had waited for him in her parents' home in Merion-married woman or not, her taking an apartment alone didn't make any sense-and then Chad had come home, and the second thing he'd done after taking off his hat was to get her in the family way.

And while she was pregnant, Chad had gone to work for Nesfoods, starting at the bottom, of course, as a retail salesman. His father-now chairman of the Executive Committee of Nesfoods International-had started out that way. And, for that matter, so had his grandfather. And Dick Detweiler, Nesfood's chief executive officer. And his father.

But you can't really have much of a social life when you're working as a retail salesman at the bottom of the corporate ladder, and with a pregnant wife.

Things were a good deal better now. Chad had proved his worth, and shortly before the baby was born, had been promoted. He was now an assistant vice president, Sales.

And the baby was healthy and adorable. Chad and Daffy had named her Penelope Alice, after Penny Detweiler, who had broken everyone's heart, not just her parents', by taking one illegal drug too many and killing herself.

Both Grandmother Nesbitt and Grandmother Browne believed that naming the baby after poor Penny wasn't the wise thing to do, but there's no talking to young people.

Look to the good, look to the future.

At least they had their own place now. Number 9 Stockton Place, in Society Hill. Large enough, and nice enough, to have their first real party.

Society Hill-around Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell in central Philadelphia-was where the social elite of pre-Revolutionary Philadelphia made their homes. It was said, with some accuracy, that Society Hill had gone downhill from the moment the loyal subjects of His Majesty King George III, alarmed at the presence in nearby Valley Forge of a rebel named George Washington and his ragtag revolutionary army, had begun to leave town.

Society Hill had continued its slow but steady decline to a slum for the next century and a half. Then a real estate developer had decided there was probably a good deal of money to be made by gutting the old houses and converting them into upscale accommodations for the affluent.

In the process of gaining clear title to the blocks of property involved, it was discovered that an alley called Stockton Place had never been deeded to the City of Philadelphia. That being the case, it was the prerogative of the owner to declare it private property and keep the riffraff out. Exclusiveness sells, as they say in the real estate trade.

At considerable expense, a sufficient quantity of cobblestones had been acquired, and Stockton Place was re-paved with them. As soon as that was done, one end of the alley was permanently closed with a brick wall, and at the other end, a Colonial-style guard shack was erected. A striped pole, controlled by a Wachenhut Corporation rent-a-cop, ensured that no one but the residents or their authorized guests was permitted to tread, or drive upon, the newly laid cobblestones.