Page 28

He nodded.

"Good!"

Something between contempt and pity flashed in Matt's eyes. He stood up and looked around impatiently for the waitress. When she came to the table, he quickly signed the bill and reclaimed his credit card.

"I haven't finished my beer," Penny said coldly.

"You can have another on the airplane," he said, as coldly. "Let's go."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Detective, sir," Penny said. The waitress gave the both of them a confused look.

****

"You're in luck, Mr. Lanza," the not-too-bad-looking ticket clerk at the American counter said. "This is the last first-class seat on

6766."

"When you're on a roll, you're on a roll," Vito Joseph Lanza said with a smile. He pulled the wad of bills with the hundreds on the outside from the side pocket of his yellow slacks, flicked it open, and waited for her to tell him how much it was going to cost him to upgrade the return portion of his thirty-days-in-advance, touristclass, round-trip ticket to first class. Then he counted out what she told him.

She made

change, handed him the upgraded ticket and a boarding pass, and said, "Gate 28. They're probably just about to board. Thank you, Mr. Lanza."

"Yeah. Right. Sure," Vito said, stuffed the wad back in his trousers, and looked around for directions to Gate 28.

They were not yet boarding Flight 6766, non-stop service to Philadelphia, when he reached Gate 28. He leaned against the wall and lit a Pall Mall with the gold Dunhill lighter he'd bought in the casino gift shop just before going to bed about three that morning.

I probably could have picked up another couple of grand, if I'd have stuck around, he thought, but the cards had started to run against me, and the one thing a good gambler has to know is when to quit. I certainly wouldn't have lost it all back, but I would probably have lost some, and quitting the way I did, I sort of have the Dunhill to show for quitting when that was the smart thing to do.

He had taken only a couple of puffs when the ticket lady got on the loudspeaker and announced that they were preboarding. Women with small children, people who needed assistance in boarding, and of course passengers holding first-class tickets, who could board at their leisure.

Vito had to wait until a couple of old people on canes and what looked like a real Indian-Indian lady with three kids got on, but he was the first passenger in the first-class cabin. He checked his boarding pass, and then found his seat, on the aisle, on the left, right against the bulkhead that separated the first-class compartment from the tourist-class section.

As soon as he'd dug the seat belt out from where someone had stuffed it between the seats, a stewardess appeared, squatted in the aisle, and asked if she could get him something to drink before they took off.

They don't do that in the back of the airplane, he thought.

"Scotch, rocks," Vito said.

She smiled and went forward and returned almost immediately with his drink. Two things surprised him, first that it came in a plastic cup-Jesus, for what they charge you to sit up here, you'd think they'd at least give you a real glass-and that she didn't hold her hand out for any money. First he thought that they maybe ran a tab, but then he remembered that drinks in first class were on the house.

He examined his surroundings.

Class, he decided. The seats are wide and comfortable, and real leather. This is the way to travel.

He reached up and touched the back of the seat in front of him. That was real leather too.

He watched the other passengers get on. A lot of them looked, he noticed, at the only passenger in first class. He wondered for a moment if the ticket counter had been handing him a line about being lucky to get the only remaining seat in first class, but then some other first-class passengers got on and he decided that maybe she had been telling him the truth.

A good-looking blonde came into the cabin. Nice ass, Vito thought. For some reason she looked familiar. Not a movie or TV star, he decided. She isn't good-looking enough for that. But I'm almost sure I seen her someplace.

A Main Line type came on behind her, wearing a tweed jacket and a dress shirt with no tie. He had the boarding pass stubs in his hand. He glanced at them and stopped the blonde at the second row of seats from the front on the right, asked her did she want the aisle or the window. As she was getting in to sit in the window seat, the young guy looked around the cabin and smiled and nodded at Vito.

I remember him. He was at the craps table in the Flamingo when I was really hot. She wasn't there. I would have remembered her. Neither of them is wearing a wedding ring. She doesn't look like the kind of girl who would go off to Vegas with some guy she isn't married to for a couple of days. Maybe they're brother and sister.

He watched as the stewardess took their order, and then came back with a couple of cans of beer.

Jesus, if it's free booze up here, why drink beer?