Coughlin chuckled.
"Well, more or less, we're celebrating something," Brewster Payne said. "Penny's coming home."
"Is she really?" Matt said, and the moment the words were out of his mouth, he realized that not only had he been making noise, rather than responding, but that his disinterest had not only been apparent to his father, but had annoyed him, perhaps hurt him, as well.
Penny was Miss Penelope Alice Detweiler of Chestnut Hill. Matt now recalled hearing from someone, probably his sister Amy, that she had been moved from The Institute of Living, a psychiatric hospital in Connecticut, to another funny farm out west somewhere. Arizona, Nevada, someplace like that.
Matt had known Penny Detweiler all his life. Penny's father and his had been schoolmates at Episcopal Academy and Princeton, and one of the major-almost certainly the most lucrative-clients of Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo amp; Lester, his father's law firm, was Nesfoods International, Philadelphia's largest employer, H. Richard Detweiler, president and chief executive officer.
After a somewhat pained silence, Brewster Payne said, "I was under the impression that you were fond of Penny."
"I am," Matt said quickly.
I'm not at all sure that's true. I am not, now that I think about it, at all fond of Penny. She's just been around forever, like the walls. I've never even thought of her as a girl, really.
He corrected himself: There was that incident when we were four or five when I talked her into showing me hers and her mother caught us at it, and had hysterically shrieked at me that I was a filthy little boy, an opinion of me I strongly suspect she still holds.
But fond? No. The cold truth is that I now regard Precious Penny (to use her father's somewhat nauseating appellation) very much as I would regard a run-over dog. I am dismayed and repelled by what she did.
"You certainly managed to conceal your joy at the news they feel she can leave The Lindens."
The Lindens, Matt recalled, is the name of the new funny farm. And it's in Nevada, not Arizona. She's been there what? Five months? Six?
There was another of what Matt thought of as "Dad's Significant Silences." He dreaded them. His father did not correct or chastise him. He just looked at the worm before him until the worm, squirming, figured out himself the error, or the bad manners, he had just manifested to God and Brewster Cortland Payne II.
Finally, Brewster Payne went on: "According to Amy, and according to the people at The Lindens, the problem of her physical addiction to narcotics is pretty much under control."
Matt kept his mouth shut, but in looking away from his father, to keep him from seeing Matt's reaction to that on his face, Matt found himself looking at Dennis V. Coughlin, who just perceptibly shook his head. The meaning was clear:You and I don't believe that, we know that no more than one junkie in fifty ever gets the problem under control, but this is not the time or place to say so.
"I'm really glad to hear that," Matt said.
"Which is not to say that her problems are over," Brewster Payne went on. "There is specifically the problem of the notoriety that went with this whole unfortunate business."
The newspapers in Philadelphia, in the correct belief that their readers would be interested, indeed, fascinated, had reported in great detail that the good-looking blonde who had been wounded when her boyfriend-a gentleman named Anthony J. "Tony the Zee" DeZego, whom it was alleged had connections to organized crime-had been assassinated in a downtown parking garage was none other than Miss Penelope Detweiler, only child of the Chestnut Hill/Nesfoods International Detweilers.
"That's yesterday's news," Matt said. "That was seven months ago."
"Dick Detweiler doesn't think so," Brewster Payne said. "That's where this whole thing started."
"Excuse me?"
"Dick Detweiler didn't want Penny to get off the airliner and find herself facing a mob of reporters shoving cameras in her face."
"Why doesn't he send the company airplane after her?" Matt wondered aloud. "Have it land at Northeast Philadelphia?"
"That was the original idea, but Amy said that she considered it important that Penny not think that her return home was nothing more than a continuation of her hospitalization."
"I'm lost, Dad."
"I don't completely understand Amy's reasoning either, frankly, but I think the general idea is that Penny should feel, when she leaves The Lindens, that she is closing the door on her hospitalization and returning to a normal life. Hence, no company plane. Equally important, no nurse, not even Amy, to accompany her, which would carry with it the suggestion that she's still under care."
"Amy just wants to turn her loose in Nevada?" Matt asked incredulously. "How far is the funny farm from Las Vegas?"
Brewster Payne's face tightened.
"I don't at all like your choice of words, Matt. That was not only uncalled for, it was despicable!" he said icily.
"Christ, Matty!" Dennis V. Coughlin said, seemingly torn between disgust and anger.
"I'm sorry," Matt said, genuinely contrite. 'That just: came out. But just turning her loose, alone,that's insane."
"It would, everyone agrees, beill-advised," Brewster Payne said. " That's where you come in, Matt."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Amy's reasoning here, and in this I am in complete agreement, is that you are the ideal person to go out there and bring her home…"
"No. Absolutely not!"
"…for these reasons," Brewster Payne went on, ignoring him. "For one thing, Penny thinks of you as her brother…"
"She thinks of me as the guy who pinned the tail on her," Matt said. "If it weren't for me, no one would have known she's a junkie."
"I don't like that term, either, Matt, but that's Amy's point. If you appear out there, in a nonjudgmental role, as her friend, welcoming her back to her life…"
"I can't believe you're going along with this," Matt said. "For one thing, Penny does not think of me as her brother. I'm just a guy she's known for a long time who betrayed her, turned her in. If I had been locked up out there for six months in that funny farm, I would really hate me."
"The reason Amy, and the people at The Lindens, feel that Penny is ready to resume her life is because, in her counseling, they have caused her to see things as they really are. To see you, specifically, as someone who was trying to help, not hurt her."
I just don't believe this bullshit, and I especially don't believe my dad going along with it.
"Dad, this is so much bullshit."
"Amy said that would probably be your reaction," Brewster Payne said. "I can see she was right."
"Anyway, it's a moot point. I couldn't go out there if I wanted to," Matt said. "Uncle Denny, tell him that I just can't call up my sergeant and tell him that I won't be in for a couple of days…"
"I'm disappointed in you, Matty," Chief Coughlin said. "I thought by now you would have put two and two together."
I'm a little disappointed in me myself, now that the mystery of my temporary assignment, report to Sergeant McElroy, has been cleared up.
"What did Detweiler do, call you?"
"He called the mayor," Coughlin said. "And the mayor called Chief Lowenstein and me."
"I don't think it entered Dick Detweiler's mind, it certainly never entered mine, that you would have any reservations at all about helping Penny in any way you could," Brewster Payne said. Matt looked across the table at him. "But if you feel this strongly about it, I'll call Amy and…"
Matt held up both hands. "I surrender."
"I'm not sure that's the attitude we're all looking for."
Matt met his father's eyes.
"I'll do whatever I can to help Penny," he said.
There was another Significant Silence, and then Brewster C. Payne reached in his breast pocket and took out an envelope.
"These are the tickets. You're on American Airlines Flight 485 tomorrow morning at eight-fifteen. A car will meet you at the airport in Las Vegas. You will spend the night there…"