She kissed Denny, noticing both that he was picking up some girth, and that he still apparently bought his cologne depending on what was cheapest when he walked into Walgreen's Drugstore.
"By God, you're a good-looking woman," Denny said. "Patty, you remember Sergeant Tom Lenihan?"
"Yes, of course," Pat said. "How are you, Sergeant?"
"Tom, you think you remember how to direct traffic?" Coughlin said, pointing at the backed-up cars.
"Yes, sir," Lenihan said.
"We won't be long in here," Coughlin said, and took Pat's arm in his large hand and walked her up the steep, wide stone stairs to the fraternity house.
"Can I help you?" a young man asked, when they had pushed open the heavy oak door with frosted glass inserts and were in the foyer of the building.
"I'm Mrs. Payne," Pat said. "I'm looking for my son."
The young man went to the foot of the curving staircase.
"Mr. Payne, sir," he called. "You have visitors, sir. It's yourmommy!
"
Denny Coughlin gave him a frosty glance.
Matthew Mark Payne appeared a moment later at the head of the stairs. He was a tall, lithe young man, with dark, thick hair. He was twentyone, and he would graduate next month, and follow his father into the marines. He had taken the Platoon Leader's Course, and was going to be a distinguished graduate, which meant that he could have a regular marine commission, if he wanted it, and another of Patricia Payne's worries was that he would take it.
His eyes were dark and intelligent, and they flashed between his mother and Coughlin. Then he started down the stairs, not smiling. He was wearing gray flannel slacks, a button-down collared blue shirt, open, and a light gray sweater.
Coughlin turned his back to him, and said, softly. "He's a ringer for Johnny, isn't he?"
"And as hardheaded," Pat Payne said.
Matt Payne kissed his mother without embarrassment, and offered his hand to Coughlin.
"Uncle Denny," he said. "What's all this? Has something happened? Is it Dad?"
"It's your uncle Dick," Patricia Payne told her son, watching his face carefully. "Dutch is dead, Matt."
"What happened?" he asked, tightly.
"He walked up on a holdup," Denny Coughlin said. "He was shot."
"Oh,shit! " Matt Payne said. His lips worked, and then he put his arms around his mother.
I don't know, she thought, whether he's seeking comfort or trying to give it.
"Goddamn it," Matt said, letting his mother go.
"I'm sorry, son," Denny Coughlin said.
"Did they get who did it?" Matt asked. Now, Coughlin saw, he was angry.
"Dutch put the one who shot him down," Coughlin said. "The other one got away. They'll find him, Matt."
"Did he kill the one who shot him?" Matt asked.
"Yes," Coughlin said. "It was a woman, Matt, a girl."
"Jesus!"
"We're going to see your aunt Jean," Patricia Payne said. "I thought you might want to come along."
"Let me get a coat and tie," he said, and then, "Jesus! The kids!"
"It's a bitch, all right," Coughlin said.
Matt turned and went up the stairway, taking the steps two at a time.
"He's a nice boy," Denny Coughlin said.
"He's about to go off to that damned war," Patricia Payne said.
"What would you rather, Patty? That he go to Canada and dodge the draft?"
"But as amarine. "
"I wouldn't worry about him; that boy can take care of himself," Coughlin said.
"Like Dutch, right? Like his father?"
"Come on, Patty," Coughlin said, and put his arm around her shoulder and hugged her.
"Oh,hell, Denny," Patricia Payne said.
When Matt Payne came down the stairs, he was wearing a gray flannel suit.
Denny's right, Patricia Payne thought, he looks just like Johnny.
They went down the stairs. Matt got behind the wheel of the Mercury station wagon.
"It must be nice to be a cop," Matt said. "Park where you damned well please. A guy in the house stopped here last week, left the motor running, ran in to get some books. By the time he came out, the tow truck was hauling his car off. Cost him forty bucks for the tow truck, after he'd paid a twenty-five-dollar fine for double parking."
She looked at him, but didn't reply.
The Oldsmobile moved off.
"Here we go," Matt said, as he stepped on the accelerator. "Want to bet whether or not we break the speed limit?"
"I'm not in the mood for your wit, Matt," Patricia said.
"Just trying to brighten up an otherwise lousy afternoon," Matt said.
Sergeant Lenihan turned right onto North Thirty-third Street, cut over to North Thirty-fourth at Mantua, and led the Mercury past the Philadelphia Zoological Gardens; turned left again onto Girard for a block, and finally right onto the Schuylkill Expressway, which parallels the West Bank of the river. He drove fast, well over the posted speed limit, but not recklessly. Matt had no trouble keeping up with him. He glanced at the speedometer from time to time, but did not mention the speed to his mother.
When they crossed the Schuylkill on the Twin Bridges their pace slowed, but not much. Going past Fern Hill Park, Matt saw a police car parked off the road, watching traffic. And he saw the eyes of the policeman driving follow him as they zipped past. But the car didn't move.
Lenihan slowed the Oldsmobile then, to a precise forty-five miles an hour. They had to stop for the red light at Ninth Street, but for no others. The lights were supposed to be set, Matt recalled, for fortyfive. That they didn't have to stop seemed to prove it.
"There it is," his mother said.
"There what is?"
"The Waikiki Diner," she replied. "That's where Denny said it happened."
He turned to look, but couldn't see what she was talking about.
Lenihan turned to the right at Pennypack Circle, onto Holme Avenue, and into the Torresdale section of Philadelphia.
There was a traffic jam, complete to a cop directing traffic, at the intersection of Academy Road and Outlook Avenue. The cop waved the Oldsmobile through, but then gestured vigorously for the Mercury to keep going down Academy.
Matt stopped and shook his head, and pointed down Outlook. The whitecapped traffic cop walked up to the car. Matt lowered the window.
"Captain Moffitt was my uncle," Matt said.
"Sorry," the cop said, and waved him through.
There were more cars than Matt could easily count before the house overlooking the fenced-in fairway of the Torresdale Golf Course. Among them was His Honor the Mayor Jerry Carlucci's Cadillac limousine.
Matt saw that there was at least one TV camera crew set up on the golf course, on the other side of the fence that separated it from Outlook Avenue. And there were people with still cameras.
"Park the car, Tom, please," Chief Inspector Coughlin said to his aide, "and then come back and take care of their car, too."
He got out of the Oldsmobile and stood in the street, waiting for Matt and Patty to drive up.
Staff Inspector Peter Wohl walked up to him.
"Can't we run those fucking ghouls off, Peter?" Coughlin said, nodding toward the press behind the golf course fence.
"I wish we could, sir," Wohl said. "If you've got a minute, Chief?"
Matt stopped the Mercury at Coughlin's signal. Patty lowered the window, and Coughlin leaned down to it.
"Just leave the keys, Matt," he said. "Lenihan will park it, and then catch up with us." He opened Patty's door, and she got out. "I'll be with you in just a minute, dear. I gotta talk to a guy."
He walked Wohl twenty feet down the sidewalk.
"Shoot," he said. "I gotta get inside. That's Dutch's sister-in-law. Ex -sister-in-law. And his nephew."
"The commissioner said if I saw you before he did, I should tell you what's going on."