Final Justice Part 73

". . . but despite that, I'm going to do you a favor."

"Oh, G.o.d!"

"I probably really shouldn't tell you this, but Chad said I should."

"You're in the family way again?"

"No, G.o.dd.a.m.n it!"

"Can we get to the point of this fascinating conversation, please?"

"We're having a few people in here before we make an appearance at the Four Seasons thing," Daffy said.

"What people?" Matt asked.

"Old friends of ours, of yours," Chad said.

"And I want you to show up in black tie and spare us your usual bad manners," Daffy said.

"What's in it for me?"

"Terry," Chad Nesbitt chimed in.

"She's the door prize?"

Chad laughed.

"I can't imagine why," Daffy said. "But she really likes you. She asked if you would be coming."

Now, that's interesting!

Detective La.s.siter's cellular phone was reported out of service. And messages left on her answering machine and at Northwest Detectives asking that she call him had brought no response.

"Tell me more," Matt said.

"You could take Terry to the Colt dinner at the Four Seasons and then to La Famiglia."

"Whose idea is that?"

"Mine," Daffy said. "She's not throwing herself at you."

"Well, I don't know. I like it better when they throw themselves at me."

"Suit yourself, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Daffy said.

"What time is this drunken brawl of yours?"

"Five-ish," Daffy said.

"What was that all about?" Dr. Payne inquired, asking the question her mother had just, reluctantly, decided was none of her business and couldn't ask.

"Daffy wants me to go by Society Hill before the Colt dinner at the Four Seasons. They're having people in. What I think they really want is for me to entertain one and all by telling them all about Homer C. Daniels."

"That's unkind, Matt," Patricia Payne said. "They're your oldest friends."

"And they're playing cupid again," Matt said, "trying to pair me off with Terry Davis."

"So you're not going?" Amy asked.

"As Mother says, Chad and I go back a long way," Matt said, realizing as he said it that it sounded transparently lame.

[TWO].

At 11:48, when Matt Payne left La Famiglia-an upscale restaurant on South Front Street just below Market Street, overlooking the Delaware River-he was just about convinced that he was going to get lucky with Terry Davis.

Everything had gone well, from his immediately being able to put his hands on the little box with the studs for his dress shirt when he hastily changed into a dinner jacket at his apartment-that almost never happened-through the drinks at Chad and Daffy's place until now.

Terry had looked very good indeed when he went into the party, and she did in fact seem glad to see him. And he'd even gotten along with the people Chad and Daffy had in. Many of them he'd known all his life. Usually, however, when he saw them socially, they gave him the impression that he'd done something terrible that had moved him far below the salt. Like being a cop. So he didn't often see them socially. When he did, he often, in Daffy's words, showed his a.s.s, and embarra.s.sed everybody.

Tonight there had been none of that, with one minor exception.

"I didn't know, Payne, until I saw you on the tube, that you were a sergeant," J. Andrew Stansfield III had said, coming up to where Matt was looking out the windows onto the Delaware.

"That's right, Stansfield."

Matthew M. Payne, Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV, and J. Andrew Stansfield III had graduated from Episcopal Academy together. Stansfield had gone on to Princeton, then the Harvard School of Business Administration, and then found employment with Stansfield & Stansfield, Commercial Realtors.

"I'm afraid I actually don't know what that means," Stansfield said.

"It means I make four percent more than I made when I was detective," Matt said. "It comes to right over two thousand a year."

"That's all?" Stansfield said, genuinely surprised.

Then his face showed that he suspected Payne was pulling his leg.

"Well, there are certain professional privileges," Matt said.

"For example?"

"For example, when Terry and I leave here for the Four Seasons, my car is parked right outside on the cobblestones of Stockton Place," Matt said. "If you tried to park there, Stansfield, you'd be towed."

"Yes, I know," J. Andrew Stansfield had said, nodding and seeming a bit confused. Terry Davis had squeezed his arm, and when he looked at her, her eyes were smiling.

And Terry had smelled very nice indeed in his Porsche on the way to the Four Seasons, where he was able-because Sergeant Al Nevins of Dignitary Protection was there awaiting the arrival of Stan Colt and wanted to talk to him-to park very near the door.

"We're playing games later," Nevins said. "The limo will take Colt and the Bolinskis-"

"Bolinski as in 'The Bull'?" Matt interrupted.

Nevins nodded.

"-the limo will take them back to the Ritz, where they will go inside, get on the elevator, go to the bas.e.m.e.nt and out into the alley, where they will get into a Suburban and go to La Famiglia."

"Clever," Matt said.

"With a little luck it will work," Nevins said.

Casimir Bolinski, L.L.D., Esq., whom Matt had never met before, turned out to be a very nice guy who would have been perfectly happy to stay in an anteroom off the dining room with Matt and Terry-whom he knew-during the banquet, had not his wife found him.

"Honey, we're going to La Famiglia after this. I don't want to eat any of that fancy French food. . . ."

"You're going to go in there and sit next to the cardinal and the monsignor, you're going to drink only water, and when they introduce you, you're going to hand him this."

She handed him an envelope containing a check.

"Jesus Christ, Antoinette! That much?"

"You graduated West Catholic," Mrs. Bolinski said. "You owe them. They tossed Mickey and Stan out. They don't. Anyway, it's deductible."

Mrs. Bolinski, looking not unlike a tugboat easing an aircraft carrier down a river, had then escorted her husband into the dining room.

Terry Davis again smelled delightfully in the Porsche on the way from the Four Seasons to La Famiglia, but there he couldn't park the Porsche in front, and instead had to take it to the adjacent parking lot.

There were red plastic cones-the kind used to mark lanes on highways-in the first half-dozen parking places by the entrance.

But Terry held his hand as they walked from where he finally found an empty slot, which he decided was more than enough compensation for the inconvenience.

At dinner, he found himself seated beside Casimir Bolinski, Esq., and across from Michael J. O'Hara, who, sensing they had an appreciative audience in Terry Davis, entertained her with stories of their time at West Catholic High School.

The cardinal had not come to La Famiglia, but Monsignor Schneider was there, sitting beside Stan Colt.

More than once, during a meal that began with an enormous antipasto and ended with spumoni onto which a shot of Amaretto had been poured, Miss Davis's knee brushed against Matt's. Often enough to allow himself to think it wasn't entirely accidental.

And there was another indication of good things to come at the first of the two goodnight and farewell sessions. The first was held inside the restaurant.

"You're just going to have to come to the coast, Matt," Stan Colt said. "You make him come, Terry."

"I will," Terry had said, and squeezed his arm again.

Matt was surprised when they actually left the restaurant that the Cla.s.sic Livery body wagon with darkened windows wasn't waiting on the sidewalk for Colt and party, but then he saw Sergeant Nevins and half a dozen men he knew to be detectives discreetly lining the path to the parking lot.

When they got there, Matt saw that the body wagon, Mickey O'Hara's Buick Rendezvous, a black Oldsmobile, and three unmarked cars were in the s.p.a.ces that had been blocked off by the red lane markers.

There was a second goodnight and farewell session there. Monsignor Schneider seemed reluctant to say good night, making Matt wonder how deep the cleric had gone into the wine.

But finally everybody was loaded into the vehicles, and they left. Terry took Matt's hand again and then leaned against him, suggesting an arm around her shoulders would not be unwelcome. They walked through the parking lot toward the Porsche.

The only problem now seemed where to go: My apartment's a dump to begin with, and a mess after that quick shower and jump into the dinner jacket. And there's probably something, hair, lipstick on a towel, whatever, that'll give away that Olivia-screw her!-has been there.

Terry's staying at the Ritz-Carlton, but if we go there, she may not want them to know I went to her room, and it will be a brief kiss and I had a lovely time.

Can I suggest another hotel?

Screw it. The apartment it is.

He opened the door to the Porsche for her, then got in and started the engine. He saw that the parking slot in front of him was empty.

If there's not a concrete block in the way, I can just drive through.

There was not and he did.

He turned left-the only entrance/exit was where he came in, and he would have to drive to the end of the line, and then out that way-and flicked the headlights onto high.

"What the f.u.c.k is that?" he asked aloud, and then he accelerated rapidly and braked as quickly.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Terry said. She had seen what he had.

There was a man propped up against the rear of one of the parked cars, his legs sprawled in front of him. A woman was kneeling beside him, wiping at his face. He was bleeding from the mouth.

Matt jumped out of the car.

"What happened?"

"What does it look like?" the woman snapped. "We were mugged."

"I gave him my wallet, why did they have to do this?" the man asked, and spit. What looked like part of a tooth came out of his mouth.

"Have you got a cell phone?" the woman demanded. "We need an ambulance."

Matt reached for his cell phone.

"My G.o.d, they're coming back!" the man said.

Matt saw where he was looking.

At the extreme end of the parking lot, there were two young men in dark clothes.

"You're sure that's them?" Matt asked.

"That's them, that's them, that's them," the woman said.

"Stop right there," Matt called, loudly. "I'm a police officer."

The two started running.

One of them had what could be a sawed-off shotgun, or a softball bat.

"Where the h.e.l.l were you when we needed you?" the woman asked.