"Okay," she said. "I told you, she's all fucked up."
"Okay. Where were we? I was telling how this will go down. You're on the FBI's list. The moment they arrest Chenowith, they'll have you picked up as an accessory after the fact. The same day, probably, if they don't have one already, they'll get a search warrant for your house, your office, the place in the Poconos… Where is the money?"
"In my safe-deposit box," she said. "In the Harrisburg Bank and Trust Company."
"And for that," Matt said. "They will find the money, and since you have no other explanation for it, and there is evidence that you have been meeting with Chenowith, it will (a) be seized as recovered loot from bank robberies, and (b) used as evidence that you are an active accessory after the fact."
"Oh, God!"
"For both, probably," he went on as he thought about it. "I think they'll probably try to make you an accessory to the bank robberies, too."
"Why bother, if they are going to send me to prison for life for helping Jennie?"
"You, and Poor Little Jennie, and Bryan Chenowith, and the guy with the acne-Edgar Leonard Cole-and the other female. What's her name? Eloise Anne Fitzgerald," he said. "Where are they, by the way?"
"I don't know, Matt."
"You don't know, or you're overwhelmed with compassion because they had unpleasant childhoods?"
"I don't know, Matt," she said, half crying, looking at him. "I don't know if I'd tell you if I did, but I don't know."
Then she started to cry.
"Jesus, please don't do that," Matt said.
Once she started, she couldn't stop. It was soft, almost a moan, as she hugged her breasts and her chest heaved with sobs.
Matt moved to her, spilling the plate of roast beef, and put his arms around her.
"Come on, honey," he said. "That's not going to do any good."
"I wish I was dead," she spluttered.
"What is that, a commentary on our lovemaking?"
"You bastard!"
"Two things have happened," he said.
"What two things?" she said, sobbing.
"I have asparagus in my pubic hair, au jus on my balls, and holding you like this is making me horny."
She pushed herself away from him and looked.
It was all true.
Half crying, half giggling, she shook her head.
"Go take a bath," she said.
"You got some of it, too," he said, pointing. "Come with me."
"Take a shower with you?"
"Why not? Or would you rather sit here in the roast beef and blubber?"
She put her hand out and touched his cheek.
"My God, I think I do love you," she said.
"You wash my back, and I'll let you have the asparagus, " Matt said, and took her hand and pulled her out of the bed.
"We have to get that money out of your safe-deposit box," Matt said as he was toweling himself in the bathroom and shamelessly watching Susan do the same.
"What did you say?" Susan asked, her voice muffled by the towel she had over her head.
He didn't repeat the statement; he had thought of something else.
"Just before we came in here, you said Poor Pathetic Jennie called you. What did she want?"
She took the towel off her head and looked at him.
"Do you have to call her that?"
He shrugged but didn't reply directly.
"What did she want?"
"She said she had another package she wanted me to keep for her-"
"From the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Clinton, New Jersey, no doubt," Matt interrupted. "And when did you tell her you were going to meet her?"
"I told her I wouldn't," Susan said. "I told the both of them that. She put him on the phone."
"Why not?"
"I thought, so soon after I was in Philadelphia, that it would be suspicious. And I told them I had a cop on my back."
"Jesus! But you said you didn't-"
"At the time, I believed you," Susan said. "At the time, I thought you were what your friends told me you were."
"Which friends? What did they tell you I was?"
"Your two old school pals at Daffy's party. They told me you were a mixed-up screwball playing at being a cop. To prove your manhood. You're not, are you? You're really a cop, and what you're playing at is being a screwball. It's a good act. It had me fooled."
"And now that my facade has been torn away, what do you think?"
"I'm afraid about how much I like what I see," she said. "I'm afraid that it's going to be taken away from me."
"You want to go back in the shower?" Matt asked.
"No. God, I can't believe we did that. I didn't think it was possible."
"Well, I wouldn't want you to spread this around, but that was a first for me, too."
"Really?"
"Of course, I never had a woman look for asparagus bits in my-"
"Stop!"
"Yeah. We have to stop," he said seriously. "But let's finish Poor
… What happened when you were on the phone with Jennifer and Chenowith?"
"That's it. He asked about you. He said you might really be an FBI agent, and I assured him you were just a cop."
"When are you going to meet with them?"
"I'm not," she said. "I told him I wasn't going to do it, and when he started to argue, I hung up on him."
"But you told him about me?"
"I just told you I did," she said. "That was before you pointed out to me the many benefits of changing sides."
"Don't start playing the bitch again. We don't have time for that."
"I'm sorry," she said, sounding genuinely contrite. "Forgive me. Matt, so much has happened-"
"Whatever happened to 'honey'?"
"I'm sorry, honey."
"You think he took 'no' for an answer? Or will he call again?"
"He'll probably call again."
"If he does, stall him again. I don't know how yet, I'll have to think about it, but maybe we can put his wanting to hide the bank money to our advantage."
"Matt, I don't want to betray them!"
"For the last fucking time, Susan, get it through your head that you don't have any options. They're going down, and all we can hope for is that I can figure out some way to keep you from going down with them!"
She met his eyes but didn't reply.
He angrily tossed his towel on the floor and walked out of the bathroom.
After a moment, she went after him.
He was on his hands and knees, reaching under the bed, and he pulled his and her clothing out from where he had kicked it. And something else. A snub-nosed revolver in a holster.
"Did you really think you would have to use that on me?" Susan asked.
"I'm a cop. Cops carry guns," he said somewhat abruptly. He tossed the clothing and then the pistol onto the bed, and reached for his shorts.
"Honey, I'm sorry," Susan said. "I really don't want you to be angry with me."
"I'm not angry."
"Yes, you are."
He looked at her.
"You're too goddamned smart to be stupid," he said. "And we can't afford it."
"I like the way you said 'we,' " she said softly.
That made him smile.
He made the sign of the cross. "I grant you absolution. Go, and be stupid no more."
"I'll try," she said.
She started to dress.
"Did you see what you did to my bra?" she asked a moment later, and showed it to him.
"I did that?"
"Yes, you did that."
"What's Mommy going to think when you come in the house flopping all over?"
"I'll keep my coat on."
"What are you going to do with it?"
"The bra? Throw it away. It's beyond repair."
"Can I have it?"
"What are you going to do with it?"
"Make a trophy out of it. A little foam rubber, so it looks lifelike, and a brass plate reading, 'Susan, 34B, Hotel Hershey,' and the date. Then I'll mount it on the wall, with all the others."