The Victim boh-3 Page 5

  He nodded. "And the dinner. As a matter of fact, Amanda, whither thou goest, there also shall Payne go. That's from the Song of Solomon, in case you're a heathen and don't know your Bible."

  She chuckled and put her hand on his arm. "I'm glad," she said.

  "Pay close attention inside," Matt said. "You and I may well be going through some barbarian ritual like this ourselves in the very near future."

  She met his eyes for a moment, appraisingly.

  "Chad tells me that you've taken a job with the city," she said, smoothly changing the subject.

  "Is that what he told you?" Matt asked dryly.

  "Was he pulling my chain too?"

  "No."

  "What do you do?"

  "Street cleaning."

  "Street cleaning?"

  "Right now I'm in training," Matt said. "Studying the theory and history, you see. But one day soon I hope to have my own broom and garbage can on wheels."

  "City Sanitation, in other words? Aren't you ever serious? "

  "I was serious a moment ago, when I said you should pay close attention to the barbaric ritual."

  The only thing that hadn't been just fine with Amanda in the time since he'd met her in the vestibule at St. Mark's was that he hadn't been able to get her alone. There had always been other people around and no way to separate from the group.

  Hehad managed to kiss her, twice. The night before last he had tried to kiss her at the Merion Cricket Club, before Madame Browne had hauled her off in the station wagon. She had turned her face at the last second and all he got was a cheek. A very nice cheek, to be sure, but just a cheek. Last night she had not turned her face as she prepared to enter what he thought of as the Barque of the Vestal Virgins to be hauled off from the Rose Tree Hunt Club to the Browne place in Merion.

  It had not been a kiss that would go down in the history books to rank with the one Delilah gave Samson before she gave him the haircut, but it had been on the lips, and they were sweet lips indeed, and his heart had jumped startlingly.

  Tonight they would be alone. The Brownes were entertaining, especially their out-of-town guests, at cocktails and dinner at the Union League in downtown Philadelphia. It was tacitly admitted to be an old-folks' affair, and the young people could leave after dinner. Amanda liked jazz, another character trait he found appealing. So, they would go listen to jazz. With a little luck the lights would be dim. She probably would let him hold her hand, and possibly permit even other manifestations of affection.

  If the gods favored him, after they left the jazz joint she would accept his invitation to see his apartment. There, he wasn't sure what he would do. On one hand, he would cheerfully sacrifice one nut and both ears to get into Amanda's pants, but on the other, she was clearly not the sort of girl from whom one could expect a quick piece of tail. Amanda Spencer was the kind of girl one marched before an altar and promised to be faithful to until death did you part.

  Matt Payne was very much aware that he could fuck up the whole relationship by making a crude pass at her. He didn't want to do that.

  God only knows what that goddamn Daffy has told her about me. Going back to me talking her out of her pants when we were five.

  ****

  The residence of Mr. and Mrs. Soames T. Browne in Merion was an adaptation, circa 1890, of an English manor house, circa 1600. The essential differences were that the interior dimensions were larger and there was inside plumbing. But everything else was there: a forest of chimneys, a cobblestone courtyard, enormous stone building blocks, turret like protrusions, leaded windows, ancient oaks, formal gardens, and an entrance that always reminded Matt of a movie he'd seen starring Errol Flynn as Robin Hood. In the movie, when the heavy oak door had swung slowly open, Errol Flynn had run the door opener through with a sword.

  The heavy oak door swung open and an elderly black man in a gray cotton jacket stood there.

  "I'm very glad to see you, Matt," the Brownes' butler said.

  "Why do you say that, Mr. Ward?" Matt asked. He had known the Brownes' butler, and his wife, all of his life.

  "Because the consensus was that you wouldn't show and I'd wind up driving Daffy's friend into town," Ward said. "They're all gone."

  "This one's sort of special," Matt confessed.

  "It was her and me against everybody else," Ward said. "She insisted on waiting for you."

  "Really?" Matt replied, pleased.

  "I'll go tell her you're here," Ward said. "There's a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen, if that interests you."

  "No thank you. I'll just wait."

  He watched the elderly man slowly start to ascend the stairs. He had taken only four or five steps when Amanda appeared at the top and started down.

  "See?" she said to the butler. "We were right." She looked at Matt. "I saw you drive up. I love the car, but you don't strike me as the Porsche type."

  "I can get a gold chain and unbutton my shirt to the navel, if you like," Matt said.

  She had come up to him by then.

  "No thank you." She chuckled, then surprised him by kissing him on the lips.

  "Hot damn!" he said.

  "Draw no inferences," she said. "I'm just a naturally friendly person."

  When he got behind the wheel and looked at Amanda as she got in beside him, he remembered too late that he had forgotten to hold the door for her.

  "I should have held the door for you," he said. "Sorry. My mother says I have the manners of a Cossack."

  She laughed again, and all of a sudden it occurred to him that their faces were no more than six inches apart-and nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  "God, that was nice!" he said a moment later.

  "Drive," she said. "Has this thing got a vanity mirror?"

  "A what?"

  She pulled the visor down and found what she was looking for.

  "That's a vanity mirror," she said, and replenished her lipstick. "You've probably got some lipstick on you."

  "I will never wash again."

  She handed him a tissue.

  "Take it off," she ordered, and he complied.

  "These are really nice wheels," she said a short while later. "But I bet all the girls tell you that."

  "My graduation present," Matt said.

  "You already dinged it," Amanda said.

  "You mean the cracked turn-signal lens?" he asked, surprised that she had noticed it. "That's nothing. You should have seen what happened to myfirst Porsche. That was totaled."

  "Are you putting me on?"

  "Not at all. A guy in a van ran into the back and really clobbered it."

  "I think I would have killed him."

  "As a matter of fact, I did," Matt said. "Took out my trusty fiveshooter and blew his brains out."

  He heard her inhale. After a moment she said, "You mean sixshooter," and then added, "That wasn't funny. Sometimes, Matt, you don't know where to draw the line."

  "Sorry."

  "That was the pot calling the kettle black," she said. "I'm sorry, I had no right to say that to you."

  "You have blanket authority to say anything you want to me."

  He gave into the temptation and grabbed her hand. When she didn't object and withdraw it, he kissed it. Then she pulled it free.

  "Am I going to have trouble with you tonight?"

  "No," he said. "We do what you want to do, and nothing else."

  "Funny, I thought you were going to offer to show me your etchings."

  "I don't have any etchings," he said.

  "But you do have an apartment, right?"

  "You're supposed to wait until I ask you before you indignantly tell me you're not that kind of girl," Matt said.

  She laughed, the genuine laugh Matt had come to like.

  "Touche," she said.

  "After we escape from this dinner, would you like to see my apartment?"

  "I'm not that kind of girl."

  "I was afraid of that," he said. "No, that's not true. I knew that. You brought this wh
ole thing up. I'm getting a bum rap."

  "Daffy warned me about you," she said. "The best defense is a good offense. Haven't you ever heard that?"

  "How did the kiss fit into that strategy?"

  "How far is where we're going?" she said, cleverly changing the subject.

  "Not far enough. In no more than twenty minutes we'll be there."

  ****

  A Mercedes-Benz 380 SL convertible with its ragtop up drove onto the fourth floor of the Penn Services Parking Garage. The driver, a young woman, looked forward over the steering wheel, looking for a place to park.

  She did not look toward where Charles was standing, behind a round concrete pole at the north end of the building, in a position that both gave him a view of the street down which Anthony J. DeZego would probably come-unless, of course, he sent Jowls the Bellboy to fetch the car-and also shielded him from the view of anyone who came out of the stairwell to get his car.

  And she did not find a parking space, as Charles knew she would not; the fourth floor was full.

  The Mercedes continued around and went up the vehicular ramp to the roof.

  Charles looked out the window again and saw Anthony J. DeZego walking quickly down the street toward the Penn Services Parking Garage from the fourth-floor window. He was alone; there would have been a problem if he had had the blonde-without-a-bra with him.

  He looked down at the street and saw Victor, or at least Victor's shoulder, where he was sitting in the Pontiac. It would have been better if he could have caught Victor's attention and signaled him that DeZego was coming; but where Victor was parked, the garage attendant could see him and probably would have remembered having seen some guy across the street in a Pontiac who kept looking up at the garage.

  Victor was watching the exit; that was all that counted.

  Charles took his pigskin gloves from his pocket and pulled them on. Then he picked up the carry-on bag and walked down the center of the vehicular path toward the stairwell. If another car came or someone walked out of the stairwell, he would be just one more customer leaving the garage.

  No one came.

  The stairwell was sort of a square of concrete blocks set aside the south side of the building. The door from it was maybe six feet from the wall. Management had generously provided a rubber wedge to keep the door open when necessary. When Charles decided the dame in the Benz had had time to park her car and go down the stairs, he opened the door and propped it open with the wedge.

  He had considered doing the job in the stairwell itself but had decided that the stairwell probably would carry the sound of the Remington down to the attendant and make him curious. When he heard footsteps coming up the stairwell, he would kick the wedge loose and let the automatic door-closer do its thing.

  Then, when DeZego came onto the fourth floor, and he was sure it was him, he would do the job. With the door closed, the noise would not be funneled downstairs.

  He stepped into the shadow of the stairwell wall, unzipped the carry-on, removed the Remington, pushed the safety off, and checked to make sure the red on the little button was visible, that he hadn't by mistake put the safety on. Then he put the Remington under the Burberry trench coat. The pocket had a flap and a slit, so that you could get your hand inside the coat. He held the Remington by the pistol grip straight down against his leg.

  He heard footsteps on the stairs.

  He dislodged the rubber wedge with his toe, and the door started to close.

  He put his ear to the concrete, not really expecting to hear anything. But he was surprised. The stairs were metal, and they sort of rang like a bell. He could hear DeZego coming closer and closer. He waited for the door to open.

  It didn't.

  There was a moment's silence, and Charles decided that DeZego had reached the landing. The door would open any second.

  But then there came the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the metal stairs again.

  What the fuck?

  Lover Boy is going up to the roof. He's daydreaming, or stupid, or something, his Caddy is onthis floor, not the fucking roof! In a moment he'll come back down.

  But he did not.

  Charles considered the situation very quickly.

  No real problem. There or here. There's nobody on the roof, and if he sees me, he doesn't know me.

  He pulled the door open and, as quietly as he could, quickly ran up the stairs to the roof. He pulled the stairwell door open.

  Lover Boy was right there, leaning against the concrete blocks of the stairwell, like he was waiting for somebody.

  "Long walk up here," Charles said, smiling at him.

  "You said it," Anthony J. DeZego said.

  Charles walked ten feet past Anthony J. DeZego, turned around suddenly, raised the shotgun to his shoulder, and blew off the top of Anthony J. DeZego's head.

  DeZego fell backward against the concrete blocks of the stairwell and slumped to the ground.

  There was a sound like a run-over dog.

  Charles looked around the roof. In the middle of the vehicular passageway was a young woman, her eyes wide, both of her hands pressed against her mouth, making run-over-dog noises.

  Charles raised the Remington and fired. She went down like a rock.

  The goddamned broad in the goddamned Mercedes! She didn't go downstairs. She sat there and fixed her fucking hair or something!

  Charles went to Anthony J. DeZego's corpse and took the Caddy keys from his pocket.

  I better do her again, to make sure she's dead.

  There was the sound of tires squealing. Another car was coming up.

  And since there's no room on the fourth floor, he'II be coming up here! Damn!

  Charles went into the stairwell and down to the fourth floor. He opened the door a crack, saw nothing, and then pushed it open wide enough to get through.

  He went to DeZego's Cadillac, unlocked the door, put the Remington on the floor, and got behind the wheel. He started the engine and drove down the vehicular ramp. He stopped at the barrier, put the window down, handed the attendant a five-dollar bill and the claim check, waited for his change, and then for the barrier to be lifted.

  Then he drove out onto the street and turned left. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the Pontiac pull away from the curb and start to follow him.

  ****

  "Damn, here we are already," Matt Payne said as he turned the Porsche into the Penn Services Parking Garage behind the BellevueStratford Hotel in downtown Philadelphia.

  "How time flies," Amanda said, mocking him gently.

  He stopped to get a ticket from a dispensing machine and then drove inside. He drove slowly, hoping to find a space on a lower floor. There were none. He searched the second level, and then the third and fourth. They finally emerged on the roof.

  Matt stepped hard on the brakes. The Porsche shuddered and skidded to a stop, throwing Amanda against the dashboard.

  "My God!" she exclaimed.

  "Stay here," Matt Payne ordered firmly.

  "What is it?" Amanda asked.

  He didn't answer. He got out of the Porsche and ran across the rooftop parking lot. Amanda saw him drop to one knee, and then for the first time saw that a girl was lying facedown, on the roadway between lines of parked cars.

  She pushed open her door and got out and ran to him.

  "What happened?" Amanda asked.

  "I told you to stay in the fucking car!" he said furiously.

  She looked at him, shocked as much by the tone of his voice as by the language, and then at the girl on the floor. For the first time she saw there was a pool of blood.

  "What happened?" she asked, her voice weak.

  "Will you please go get in the goddamned car?" Matt asked.

  "Oh, myGod!" Amanda wailed. "That'sPenny!"

  "You know her?"

  "Penny Detweiler," Amanda said. "You must know her. She's one of the bridesmaids."

  Matt looked at the girl on the floor. Itwas Penelope Detweiler, Precious Penny
to Matt, to her intense annoyance, because that's what her father had once called her in Matt's hearing.

  Why didn't I recognize her? I've known her all of my life!

  "I'll be damned," he said softly.

  "Matt, whathappened to her?"

  "She's been shot," Matt Payne said, and looked at Amanda.

  You don't expect to find people you know, especially people like Precious Penny, lying in a pool of blood after somebody's shot them in a garage. Things like that aren't supposed to happen to people like Precious Penny.

  He found his voice: "Now, for chrissake, will you go get in the goddamned car!" he ordered furiously.

  Amanda looked at him with confusion and hurt in her eyes.

  "This just happened," he explained more kindly. "Whoever did it may still be up here."

  "Matt, let's get out of here. Let's go find a cop."

  "I am a cop, Amanda," Matt Payne said. "Now, for the last fucking time, will you go get in the car? Stay there until I come for you. Lock the doors."

  He stooped, bending one knee, and when he stood erect again, there was a snub-nosed revolver in his hand. Amanda ran back to the silver Porsche and locked the doors. When she looked for Matt, she couldn't see him at first, but then she did, and he was holding his gun at the ready, slowly making his way between the parked cars.

  I don't believe this is happening. I don't believe Penny Detweiler is lying out there bleeding to death, and I don't believe that Matt Payne is out there with a gun in his hand, a cop looking for whoever shot Penny.

  Oh, my God. What if he gets killed?

  FOUR

  With difficulty, for there is not much room in the passenger compartment of a Porsche 911 Carrera, Amanda Spencer crawled over from the passenger seat to the driver's and turned the ignition key.

  There was a scream of tortured starter gears, for the engine was still running. She threw the gearshift lever into reverse, spun the wheels, and turned around, then drove as fast as she dared down the ramps of the parking garage to street level.

  She slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car and ran to the attendant's window.