And if all this is true, and logic tells me that it is, why don't I believe it? Why do I think that when, after carefully casing the First Harrisburg Bank amp; Trust Building to make sure the FBI doesn't have somebody watching the safe-deposit-box vault, and I call her office, she will be there, waiting for my call to come get the bank loot she's holding for Chenowith?
Because I am the fucking fool of fame and legend, thinking with my dick?
Or because I think that she loves me, and I love her, and she's the best thing that's ever happened to me?
Well, Matthew Payne, if you're going to go down in flames, you're really going to go down in flames. You're going to play this little scenario out to the end, believing what you saw in Susie's eyes-not only that she didn't know Chenowith was going to blow up the science building but, more important, that she loves you back-until Special Agent Leibowitz puts the cuffs on your wrists and starts reading you your Miranda rights.
He put Susan's brassiere back on the bedside table and picked up the telephone. He ordered orange juice, milk, coffee, a breakfast steak, two eggs sunny-side up, hash brown potatoes, and an English muffin.
"Since I know you are going to rush this right up, which means I will be in the shower, I will leave the door ajar," he said, and hung up. And then he added, aloud, "After all, the condemned man is entitled to the quick delivery of his last meal."
While he was shaving, he heard the sound of the cart being rolled into the room. He stuck his head out the bathroom door and called to the waiter, "Forge my name and add fifteen percent for the tip."
When he had finished shaving and combing his hair, he left the bathroom naked, and en route to the chest of drawers for his underwear lifted the cover over the steak and eggs.
"To hell with it," he announced to himself. "I'm hungry. "
And then he pulled a chair to the cart and sat down naked.
He had just dipped the first piece of steak into one of the egg yolks when there was a knock at the door.
"Shit," he muttered, got up, stood behind the door and opened it.
Maybe it's the newspaper.
It was Miss Susan Reynolds. She smiled at him somewhat shyly, met his eyes momentarily, and then looked away.
I love her. It's as simple as that. Otherwise, I couldn't possibly be this happy-maybe "thrilled" is a better word-to see her.
"Come in my parlor, my beauty, as the spider said to the fly."
"I wasn't sure if you'd be up," she said as she walked into the room. The first thing she saw was his reflection in a mirror, and then the room-service cart.
"My God!" she said.
"A little birdie told me you were coming, and I wanted to be ready."
"I was talking about the food," Susan said. "But now that you mention it, put your pants on."
"Do I have to?"
"Do you always eat that much for breakfast?"
"My mother taught me that the most important meal of the day is breakfast," Matt said solemnly.
"I'm surprised you're not as fat as a house."
"May I offer you a little something while I put my pants on?"
"All I had at the house was a glass of orange juice," she said.
"Help yourself," he said, and started for the chest of drawers.
He saw, reflected in the mirror, that she was watching him. He put an innocent look on his face and covered his crotch with both hands. Susan shook her head and smiled.
The telephone rang.
He sat on the bed and picked it up.
"Hello?"
"I hope you were sound asleep," Jack Matthews voice said.
"Why, Special Agent Matthews of the FBI!" Matt said. "What a joy it is to hear your melodious voice!"
Susan looked frightened, decided Matt was pulling her leg again, shook her head in resignation, and then, when he nodded, signaling that he was indeed talking to an FBI agent, looked frightened again.
Matt signaled for her to come to the bed.
"Are you alone? Can you talk?"
"I am alone and I can talk," Matt said.
He swung his feet into the bed to give Susan room to sit down. She took one of the pillows and laid it over his midsection. Then she sat on the bed. Matt held the handset away from his ear so that Susan could hear Matthews.
"Were you out with the Reynolds woman last night?"
"Indeed I was."
"What times?"
"Jack, you're not my mother."
"Just answer the question, for Christ's sake, Matt."
"She picked me up at the hotel about half past six and dropped me back off here just before midnight. We drove out to Hershey, to the hotel. We had clam chowder, roast beef, and asparagus. Did you know, Jack, that asparagus is an aphrodisiac?"
"Don't tell me it worked. You're not doing anything really stupid with that woman, are you, Matt?"
"No," Matt said, and looked into Susan's eyes. "I'm not doing anything stupid with that woman, Jack. Did you call up for a report on my sex life, or did you have something on your mind?"
"You didn't call."
"I had nothing to report. I have nothing to report now, so, if you will excuse me, Jack, I will return to my breakfast. The eggs are getting cold."
"The Ollwood woman called the Reynolds woman twice last night. Called herself 'Mary-Ellen Porter.' Called at six fifty-five and again at eleven thirty-two."
"If she called herself 'Mary-Ellen Porter,' how do you know it was the Ollwood woman?"
"We ran a voiceprint, of course," Matthews said, just a trifle condescendingly.
"Excuse me," Matt said. "I should have known. A voiceprint."
"And she called the Reynolds woman at her office yesterday morning. At 9:44."
"You've got a tap on the Reynolds woman's office phone?"
"Well, sort of."
"What exactly does 'sort of' mean?"
"We have an agent in her office. Not on this, something else. But she's an agent-"
"She's an agent?" Matt interrupted.
"I'm not supposed to bring you in on any of this, Matt."
"What the hell, I'm only a lousy local cop, right? Tell me as little as possible?"
"There's a lot of fraud in the welfare system. Including some people in the Department of Social Services on the take. The programs are federally assisted, so that makes it fraud against the government. So we have somebody in there. What's she's done is rig a simple tap, a small recorder. "
"Has the amateur wiretapper got a name?"
"That, I'm not going to tell you. Sorry, Matt, that's none of your business."
"Good-bye, Jack."
"Shit!" Matthews said. "Don't hang up!"
"What's her name, Jack?"
"Veronica Haynes," Matthews said.
Susan exhaled audibly. Matt put his hand on her shoulder, and somehow Susan wound up lying beside him, with her face in his neck.
"Well, maybe this is your business after all," Matthews said. "What happens is the Ollwood woman calls the Reynolds woman, who gives her a number. Almost certainly of a phone booth. Always a different one-you'd be surprised how many phone booths there are within a five-minute walk of the Department of Social Services Building. She uses some kind of code for the number, so we never can find it until too late. Anyway, once she gives her the number, the Reynolds woman goes to the phone booth, and the Ollwood woman calls her there."
"So you can't get a tap on the phone booth?"
"No. I told you. We never can locate it until too late."
"So you don't have a tape recording of what they talk about?"
"Obviously not."
"They could be talking about anything? Something innocent? Like babies, for example?"
"Where are you going? We know goddamn well what they're talking about. Setting up a meeting."
"What I'm driving at is that you have nothing incriminating in these telephone calls, right?"