"Chief, for one thing, Matt knows an order when he hears one."
"Ha!" Coughlin snorted.
"And he's both smart and getting to be a pretty good cop. He won't do anything stupid."
"He's too smart for his own good, he thinks he's a much better cop than he really is, and what would you call crawling around on that ledge on the Bellvue-Stratford twelve stories above South Broad Street? That wasn't stupid? "
"That was stupid," Wohl admitted.
"And how would you categorize his using a boosted passkey to go into the Reynolds girl's room in the hotel? The behavior of a seasoned, responsible police officer?"
Wohl didn't reply.
"Not to mention taking the FBI on a wild-goose chase in North Philly?"
"Well, under the circumstances, I might have done that myself," Wohl said. "But I see your point."
"There's a lot of his father in Matty," Coughlin said. It took Wohl a moment to understand Coughlin was not talking about Brewster Cortland Payne. "Jack Moffitt would still be walking around if he had called for the backup he knew he was supposed to have before he answered that silent alarm and got himself shot. And Dutch Moffitt would still be alive, too, if he hadn't tried to live up to his reputation as supercop."
"Chief," Wohl said, "I'm sure Matt has thought about what happened to his uncle Dutch and his father. And learned from it."
"You don't believe that for a second, Peter," Coughlin said. "When did he think about it? Before or after he climbed out on that twelfth-floor ledge? And if Chenowith or any of the other lunatics show up in Harrisburg, you think he's going to think about what happened to Dutch and his father? Or try to put the arm on him-or all of them?"
Wohl shrugged and didn't reply for a moment.
"Well, what do you think we should do?" he asked finally.
"How's he going to check in?"
"Twice a day. With either Mike Weisbach or Jason Washington, or Weisbach's sergeant, Sandow. Or whenever-if-he finds something."
"Take the call yourself. Have a word with him. He just might listen to you. He thinks you walk on water."
"I'd already planned to do that," Peter said.
Coughlin met Wohl's eyes. He looked for a moment as if he was going to say something else, but changed his mind. He picked up his glass and drained it.
"I'll let you go to bed," he said. "Thanks for the drink."
"Anytime, Chief. You know that," Wohl said.
"If I interrupted anything," Coughlin said, nodding toward the closed door of Peter's bedroom, "I'm sorry."
Jesus Christ, is he psychic? Or did Amy cough or something and I didn't hear her and he did? Or did he take one look at my face and read on it the symptoms of the just-well-laid man?
"You didn't interrupt anything, Chief," Wohl replied.
"Good," Coughlin said.
He reached for the telephone and dialed a number.
"Chief Coughlin en route from Inspector Wohl's house to my place," he said, and hung up.
Then he walked to the door. He put out his hand to Wohl.
"A strong word when you talk to our Matty, Peter."
"As strong as I can make it," Wohl said.
Coughlin nodded, then opened the door. Peter watched to make sure he made it safely down the stairway, then went inside the apartment, locked the door, and went into his bedroom.
"I gather he's gone?" Amy said. "He didn't accept your gracious invitation to spend the night?"
"Sorry about that," Peter said. "He's gone. How much did you hear?"
"Everything," she said.
"He's very fond of Matt," Wohl said. "And he had a couple of drinks."
"I hardly know where to ask you to start," Amy said. "Why don't we start with the twelfth-floor ledge of the Bellvue-Stratford? That sounds very interesting."
"It wasn't as bad as it sounds, Amy. That ledge was two feet wide. And I really read the riot act to him when I heard about it."
"Two feet wide and twelve stories off the ground, right? Let's have it, Peter."
"You read in the papers where a Vice Squad lieutenant was taking money from a call girl madam?"
Amy nodded.
"A lot of it took place in the Bellvue. Matt was on the surveillance detail. They put a microphone on a hotel-room window with a suction cup. The cup fell off. Matt went out on the ledge and put it back in place."
"He risked his life so you could arrest a call girl madam?"
"We were really after the police officers involved. And don't get mad at me, Amy. I didn't tell him to do it. And I ate his ass out when I found out about it."
Amy snorted.
Peter started to take his bathrobe off.
"Just hold it right there," Amy said. "This isn't pick-it — up-where-we-left-it-when-we-were-so-rudely-interrupted time. Who are these people Denny Coughlin is afraid Matt will try to arrest by himself?"
"I can't get into that," Wohl said. "I'm sorry."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Amy flared, parroting, " 'I can't get into that'?"
"It's a highly confidential underway investigation."
"And you never talk about highly confidential underway investigations to the bimbo you're banging, right?"
"Is that what you think you are to me? Some bimbo I'm banging?"
"Don't try to change the subject, Peter," Amy said.
"And what am I to you, Amy?" Wohl heard himself asking, wondering where the sudden rage had come from. "A convenient stud? Once or twice a month, when the hormones get active, call the stud and ask if you can come over?"
"How did we get on this subject?" she asked uncomfortably. "Is that what you really think?"
"I don't know what to think," he said.
Amy exhaled audibly.
She met his eyes.
"What do you want me to say? That I think I'm in love with you?"
"If that were the truth, that would be a nice start."
"My patients, I am forced to conclude, are not the only ones who try to avoid facing the truth."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"In this case, the truth I seem to have been avoiding facing is that I am in love with you."
Peter didn't reply.
"No response to that?" Amy asked after a long moment.
"You're so matter-of-fact about it," he said.
"There's something wrong with that?" Amy asked.
Peter shook his head, "no."
"I'll tell you what happens now," Amy said. "If it's the truth, it would be a nice start if you said, 'I love you, too, Amy.' "
"I love you, too, Amy."
"Okay, step two. Now you can take off your robe and come to bed, and after we do what people in love do, step three, you tell me all about this highly confidential underway investigation you've got my little brother involved in."
"Can I suggest step one-A?"
"Suggest."
"I have a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator I've been saving for a suitable occasion."
"Very good. Go get it. Perhaps this love affair of ours isn't going to be as hopeless as logic tells me it's going to be."
"You think it's hopeless?"
"We'll have to wait and find out, won't we, Peter?"
He left the bedroom to fetch the champagne. As he was standing by the sink, unwrapping the wire around the cork, Amy came out of the bedroom and went to him and wrapped her arms around him from the back.
"It's true," she said, almost whispering. "When I saw you walking out of the bedroom, I suddenly realized, My God, I really do love that man."
It took Matt Payne ten minutes to get through the system set in place to protect Harrisburg's chief of police from unnecessary intrusions on his time by the public and to his second-floor office in the police headquarters building, but once he got that far, he found that his passage had been greased.
"The chief's on the phone, Detective Payne," his pleasant secretary greeted him with a smile, "but he's been expecting you. Can I get you a Coke or a cup of coffee?"