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He strongly suspected that Evelyn was crying when she hung up.

"Shit!" he said aloud after he slammed the handset into its cradle.

Then he went into the kitchen and put a cork in the beer bottle and put it back into the refrigerator. He took down a bottle of Scotch and after carefully pouring a dollop into a shot glass, he tossed it down. And then had another.

All it did was make him feel hungry.

And I don't want to be shit-faced if Wohl summons me to singlehandedly place into custody our lunatic. Or more likely, orders me to play taxi driver to Mr. Larkin again.

What I will do is grab a shower, change clothes, call in and say I'm going to supper, and then go either to the Rittenhouse Club or the Ribs Place and have my supper, not washing anything down with wine or anything else.

He was vaguely aware, as he showered, of a noise that could very possibly be the sound of his doorbell, but he wasn't sure, and he wasn't concerned. It could not be Evelyn. There was no way she could have made it into Center City from Upper Darby that quickly. And if Wohl or anybody else at Special Operations wanted him, they would have phoned. It could be Charley McFadden, or Jack Matthews, but in that happenstance, fuck 'em, let 'em wait.

When he turned the shower off, there was no longer a question whether the doorbell was being run. Whoever was pushing it was playing "Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits" on it.

Still dripping, Matt wrapped a towel around his waist and headed for the solenoid button. The doorbell musician played another verse of "Shave and a Haircut" before he got to the button.

"Keep your goddamned pants on!" he called as he looked down the stairwell.

The door opened. Penny came in.

"Tired of me so soon, are you?"

"Jesus! Penny, this is a very bad time."

She stopped halfway up the stairs. She saw that he was dressed in a towel.

"Am I interrupting anything?" she asked, and Matt did not like either her tone of voice or the kicked puppy look in her eyes.

"Come on in," he said. "There's always room for one more in an orgy."

"Is someone with you, Matt?" Penny asked, quite seriously.

"Hell, no. Come on in. You caught me in the shower."

Her face changed. The smile came back on her face and into her voice.

"I knew you were here, the guard told me," she said.

Jesus, she looks good!

"Make yourself at home," Matt said. "Let me get some clothes on."

She was by then at the head of the stairs.

"You called," she said. "And said that if I came into Center City, we could go to the movies."

"Did I?"

"And Daddy, over Mommy's objections, said he thought it would be all right, if I came home right after the movie, if I drove myself."

He looked at her. Their eyes met.

"Are you sore, Matt?" Penny asked softly.

"No, of course not," he said.

And then somehow, his arms went around her, and her face was on his chest, and he could feel her breath and smell her hair.