"Is this what's known as quitting when you're ahead?" Penny asked.
"You got it."
He took the chit to the cashier, exchanged it for a nice thick wad of hundred-dollar bills, put them in his inside jacket pocket, and then led Penny out of the casino and toward the bar.
"Are we going to the bar?" Penny asked.
"I thought we'd have a drink to celebrate."
"We have a bottle of champagne in the room," Penny said.
We have to go to the room anyway to get her bag. And there will be no one in the room, as there would be at the bar, to eavesdrop on our conversation, and wonder why a healthy-appearing young man was trying to talk a good-looking healthy blonde out of spending the night in a hotel.
"I forgot," Matt said as he nudged her toward the elevator.
While they had been downstairs, the bed had been turned down.
There was a piece of chocolate precisely in the center of each of the pillows.
"Open the champagne," Penny said as she went into the bathroom. " See if it's still cold."
It was still cold. Whoever had turned down the bed had also refilled the cooler with ice. As he wrestled with the cork, he could hear the toilet flush and then water running.
The cork popped and he poured champagne into the glasses. He sipped his.
Nice.He looked at the label. California champagne, a brand he'd never heard of.
Methode Champagnois, whatever the hell that means. What did you expect, Moet et Chandon?
He heard, or at least sensed, the bathroom door opening, and turned with Penny's glass extended.
She had-Jesus, how did she do that so quickly?-taken off her clothes and changed into a negligee-or peignoir, whatever a pale blue, lacy, nearly transparent garment of seduction was called- and brushed her hair so that it hung straight down to her shoulders.
The light in the bathroom was still on, which served to illuminate the thin material of her negligee from the rear. She was, for all visual purposes, quite naked.
"Jesus, Penny!"
"I figured, what the hell? Matt knows all my secrets. What have I got to lose?"
She came into the bedroom, took the champagne glass from him, and walked to the draped window.
"I guess it didn't work, huh?" she said after a moment.
What the fuck am I supposed to do now?
I can't see through her nightgown anymore. Jesus, that made my heart jump!
He saw her raise and drain her champagne glass, and then she turned.
"Go and wait in the other room," she said, her voice flat and bitter. "I'll get dressed, and we can go."
She walked toward him.
"Go on, Matt. Get out of here."
Tears were running down her cheeks.
He put his hand to her face.
"Don't," she said. "Don't pity me, you sonofabitch!"
"It would be stupid, Penny."
"Lifeis stupid, you jackass. It's a bitch, and then you die."
He chuckled.
She raised her eyes to his.
And then her hand came up and touched his cheek.
"What are you thinking, Matt?"
"You don't want to know what I'm thinking."
I am thinking that I could cheerfully spend the rest of my life like this, with my arm around you, my fingers on your backbone, your face on my chest, your absolutely magnificent breasts pressing on me, the smell of your hair in my nostrils. Feeling the way I do. Jesus, what made it so good? The champagne?
"Yes, I do."
"Great set of boobs on this broad."
"Fuck you!"
"We've already done that."
"And no, comment about that? You usually have an opinion about everything."
Matt kissed the top of her head.
She raised her head.
"Is that in lieu of a comment?"
He kissed her. It was exquisitely tender. She shifted her body against his, so that her mouth was in his neck.
"The reason I'm curious," Penny said softly, carefully, "is because I really don't know what it's supposed to be like."
"I don't understand."
"There was Kellogg Winters," Penny said softly. "And then Anthony. And now you."
"Kellogg Winters? He's an ass."
Is she telling me I'm the third?
"Yes, he is. But I was seventeen, and I wanted to, so I let him. In the back seat of a car at Rose Tree Hunt Club. It was his birthday."
"KelloggWinters!" he chuckled.
"And I thought, if this is what everybody's so excited about, that's really much ado about nothing."
Without thinking, horrified as he heard his own words, he asked, " And Tony the Zee? What was that like?"
He felt her body tense, and then relax.
"Different. Better."
"And Matthew Payne?"
"It was not like anything else. Is it always like that for you?"
Oh, shit!
Tell her the truth. If you make a four-star ass of yourself, so what?
"It has never been, before, like it was with you."
For a moment she didn't reply or move. Then she raised her head and looked down into his eyes.
"Really? God, please don't try to be charming, Matt!"
"I'm not being charming, I'm trying to figure it out."
She looked into his eyes for a long moment, and then lowered her head into his neck again.
"I'm going to take an enormous chance and believe you," she said. Her arm slowly tightened around him. He held her as tightly as he could.
A long moment later, Matt asked throatily, "How would you feel about seeing if we can do the same thing again?"
"Really?" She giggled in his ear. "Could you?" Her hand slid down over his chest and stomach. "Oh, how nice!"
She rolled over on her back, and pulled him onto her.
"Look in my eyes!" she ordered. He did. He felt her guiding him into her body.
"Oh, God, Matt!" she called softly.
NINETEEN
Penny started to go through the door of the Birch Suite into the corridor, but then stopped and looked around.
"If I had my druthers," she said, "we would just stay here for a while longer. Like forever."
"We've already had that discussion. What we're going to do is take one more look around Las Vegas East, and then we go back to Philadelphia."
"You still haven't told me what we're-whatyou're -looking for."
"I really don't know. I think this is a bum lead, but I want to be sure before I go back and say so."
"That doesn't make much sense," she said as she walked past him and out into the corridor.
Matt went to the desk, settled the bill, and then handed a bellman Penny's bag and five dollars and told him to bring the Mercedes to the door.
"I'll be out in a few minutes," he said. "I'm going to give you a chance to get a little of your money back."
From the uncomfortable smile on the desk clerk's face, Matt understood that making reference to the casino was not considered good form.
He glanced at his watch as they approached the casino door. It was quarter to two.
If it was nearly deserted at half past nine, I'll give you five to one that it will be me and the croupier again.
He was wrong. The room was not crowded, but there were gamblers at all but one of the tables.
He reached into his jacket and took out some of the hundred-dollar bills. He looked and counted. There were six.
"Here," he said, handing them to Penny.
She took the money, looked at it, and then at him, then shrugged.
"Is that the going rate?" she asked, "Or is that five hundred, plus a hundred tip?"
"Oh, Jesus Christ!"
"Sorry," she said, again sounding as if she meant it. She touched his arm, just above the elbow, and gently squeezed it. "Our new relationship is going to take some getting used to."