Rumor had it that the latter group screwed like minks. The trouble there was the groupies, so to speak, had their groupies, cops who liked to hang around with girls who screwed like minks.
The demand for their services, Matt decided, overwhelmed the supply. If I try to move in on what looks to be someone else's sure thing for the night, I'm liable to get knocked on my ass.
And the others, the secretaries and the clerks, the nice girls, some of whom seemed to have been looking at me with what could be interest, were, like the vast majority of their sisters, not looking to get laid, but rather for a relationship.
Back to square one.
And if I have another of these, I am very likely to forget this calm, logical, most importantly sober analysis of the situation and wind up either in a relationship, or engaged in an altercation with a brother officer in the parking lot, or, more likely, right here on the dance floor, which altercation, no matter who the victor, would be difficult to explain when, inevitably, Staff Inspector P. Wohl heard about it.
He finished his drink, picked up his change, and walked across the room to the stairs leading up to the street.
Was that really invitation in that well-stacked redhead's eyes or has my imagination been inflamed by this near-terminal case of lakanookie ?
He got in the Porsche and drove home. There were, he noticed when he drove in the underground beneath the building that housed both the Delaware Valley Cancer Society and Chez Payne, far more cars in it than there normally were at this hour of the night. Ordinarily, it was just about deserted.
Parking spaces twenty-nine and thirty, which happened to be closest to the elevator, had been reserved by the management for the occupant of the top-floor apartment. The management had been instructed to do so by the owner, less as a courtesy to his son, who occupied the topfloor apartment, than, the son had come to understand, because a second parking spot was convenient when the owner's wife or other members of the family had some need to park around Rittenhouse Square.
Tonight, a Cadillac Fleetwood sedan was parked in parking space twenty-nine, its right side overflowing into what looked like half of parking space thirty. The Payne family owned a Cadillac Fleetwood, but this wasn't it.
Matt managed to squeeze the Porsche 911 into what was left of parking space thirty. But when he had done so, there was not room enough between him and the Cadillac to open the Porsche's driver's side door. It was necessary for him to exit by the passenger side door, which, in a Porsche 911, is a squirming feat worthy of Houdini.
He got on the elevator and rode it to the third floor and got off. The narrow corridor between the elevator and the stairs to his apartment was crowded with people.
A woman he could never remember having seen before in his life rushed over to him, stuck something to his lapel, cried, "Oh, I'm so glad you could come!" and handed him a glass of champagne.
"Thank you," Matt said. The champagne glass, he noticed, was plastic.
"We're circulatingdownward tonight," the woman said.
"Are we?"
"Yes, isn't that clever?"
"Mind-boggling," Matt replied.
The woman walked away.
Nice ass for an old woman; I wonder if there's anybody here under, say, thirty?
"Hello, Mr. Payne."
It was one of the Holmes Security rent-a-cops. Matt knew he was a retired police sergeant, and it made him a little uncomfortable to be called "Mr." by a sergeant.
"I bet you know what's going on here," Matt said, smiling at him.
The retired cop chuckled. "I saw the look on your face. This is a party for the people who worked on the Cancer Society Ball."
"I have no idea what that means, but thanks anyway."
"You know, the ones who sold tickets, did all the work. And, of course, gave money."
"Oh," Matt said.
He saw a very pretty face, surrounded by blond hair in a pageboy. She was looking at him with unabashed curiosity. All he could see was the head and shoulders. The lady was on her way down the narrow stairway to the second floor.
Oh, that's what she meant by "circulating downward. "
"I just came from the FOP," Matt said. "I wondered where everybody had come from."
"This is better than the FOP," the Holmes man said. "Here the booze is free. There's a bar in the lobby."
"But I don't belong."
"They don't know that. That lady gave you a badge, and you got by me. I keep the riffraff out."
The pretty face in the blond pageboy was no longer in sight.
"Well, maybe Ishould do my part for the noble cause," Matt said.
You're wasting your time. But on the other hand, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
The blonde was not on the second floor. He went down to the lobby and saw the bar.
What I will do is get a drink, and then go upstairs.
There was a small wait in line, and then he found himself facing the bartender.
"Scotch, please. Water."
"Any preference?"
Matt looked and saw that whatever else it did, the Opera Ball Club or whatever the hell it was really served fine booze.
"Famous Grouse, please. Easy on the water."
He became aware, in less time than it takes to tell, first of an exotic perfume, then of an expanse of white flesh that swelled with exquisite grace before disappearing beneath a delicate brassiere, and then of warm breath on his ear.
"I hope you won't be offended by my saying so, but your gun is showing," the voice behind the warm breath on his ear said in almost a whisper.
It was the blonde in the pageboy.
For the first time he noticed that she was wearing a hat.
If half an ounce of black silk and silk netting can be called a hat, he thought.
What the hell did she say about a gun? God, I bet she has nice teats!
"I beg your pardon?"
She smiled, and laughed softly, and tugged on his arm, pulling his head down.
"Your gun," she said. "It's showing."
This time when he smelled her breath, he picked up the smell of alcohol. Gin, he thought. He looked down at his leg and saw that his trouser leg was hiked up, caught by the butt of the pistol in his ankle holster.
Shit!
When I had to climb out of the goddamn car because of that asshole in the Cadillac in both my parking places, that's when it happened.
He squatted and rearranged his trouser leg.
"Thank you."
"I don't think anybody else noticed," she said. "It was only because I was going downstairs that I saw it. You know what I mean?"
"Thank you for telling me."
"Could I ask you a question? Out of pure idle-there being not much else to think about around here-curiosity?"
"Sure?"
"How many of you are there here tonight?"
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
"How many do you see?"
"That's why I'm asking," she said, laughing. "I'm curious."
Matt held up three fingers.
"Let's start with the easy things. How many fingers?"
"Three, wise guy," she said. "And I only see one of you. That's why I'm asking how many others there are of you. Just out of idle curiosity."
"As far as I know, I am the only one like me here tonight."
"The only one in regular clothes, you mean."
"What?"
"I mean not counting him," she said, pointing to a Holmes Security man taking invitations by the door, "and the one I saw you talking to upstairs."
"Oh. I'm not a rent-a-cop. I had no idea what you were talking about."
"Then what are you doing walking around with a gun strapped to your leg? Yourankle? "
"I'm a cop!"
"Are you really?"
He nodded.
"A detective, you mean? There are police here, too, in addition towhat did you say, the rent-a-cops?"