"How about stopping at a Colonel Sanders and getting my supper? You better get something for Lewis too."
"Sergeant, you don't make enough money to feed Tiny," Matt said.
He drove to the Roundhouse and for once found a parking spot without trouble. And there was no trouble getting the film souped and printed right away, either.
"Inspector Wohl called," the civilian in charge behind the counter said. "It'll take me forty-five minutes, if you have something else to do."
There was no fried chicken place anywhere near the Roundhouse that Matt could think of. And Jerry O'Dowd had specified fried chicken. But on the other hand, Jerry was a gentleman of taste, and as such would certainly prefer Chinese to fried chicken, no matter how many spices and flavors it was coated with.
He walked to Chinatown, bought a Family Dinner For Four, and went back to the photo laboratory.
The prints were already coming off the large, polished stainlesssteel drier. Matt looked at all of them. He recognized no one but Corporal Vito Lanza, and decided that he would not have recognized Lanza in uniform if he didn't know who he was looking at. Corporal Lanza did not look like the guy on the airplane home from Vegas or in the back rooms of the Oaks and Pines Lodge.
He called Peter Wohl from the photo lab, first at the School-house and then at his apartment.
Wohl only grunted when he told him he recognized no one but Lanza, but then said, "Remind Sergeant O'Dowd of what I said about making sure Lanza, or anyone else, doesn't see him taking pictures."
"Yes, sir."
"I'll wait here for you, Matt," Wohl said, and hung up.
Matt delivered three sets of photographs to Captain Olsen in Internal Affairs, and then drove back to the airport. Tiny Lewis had joined O'Dowd while he had been gone, and had had the foresight to bring supper-barbecued ribs-for the both of them with him.
Tiny was not at all reluctant to add a little Chinese to his supper menu, however, and accepted half of the food Matt had brought with him.
It will not be wasted, Matt decided, as he headed for Peter Wohl's apartment in Chestnut Hill. Wohl likes Chinese. What I should have done was get some of Tiny's ribs.
Peter Wohl, a crisp white shirt and shaving cream behind his ears indicating he was dressed to go out, was not only not at all interested in the Chinese, but didn't even invite Matt in, much less in for a beer. He just took the envelope of photographs from Matt, muttered "thank you," and started to close the door.
"Is there anything else you need me for, sir?"
Wohl looked at him.
"I think you have made quite enough of a contribution to the Department in the last twenty-four hours for one detective, Payne. Why don't you go home? And stay there?"
He closed the door.
Matt, as well as he knew Wohl, was not sure whether Wohl was pulling his chain, or whether Wohl was still sore about his having gone to the Oaks and Pines Lodge.
Matt got back in the Porsche and drove back to Center City. He was almost at Rittenhouse Square before he thought of Evelyn.
She probably ran the answering machine out of tape, he thought as he drove into the underground garage. What the hell am I going to do about her?
The red light on the answering machine was blinking, and when he played the tape, there had been thirteen callers who had elected not to leave their names, plus two calls from, of all people, Amelia Payne, M.D., who sounded, he thought, as if she had just sat on a nail, and demanded that he call her the moment he got in.
"Screw you, Sister Mine," Matt said aloud. "I am not in the mood for you."
He carefully arranged the Chinese goldfish buckets on his coffee table, got a cold beer from the refrigerator, and sat down to his supper.
The Chinese was cold.
He carried everything to the kitchen and warmed it in the microwave, carried it back to the coffee table, and sat down again.
The doorbell sounded.
Evelyn, Jesus Christ! Well, if she's at the door, she knows I'm here. I might as well face the music.
He went to the head of the stairs and pushed the button that activated the solenoid.
His visitor came through the door.
She looked up at him and called: "You miserable sonofabitch, how could you?"
It was not Evelyn, it was Amelia Payne, M.D.
"That would depend on which of my many mortal sins you have in mind. Come on in, Amy. Soup's on, and it's always a joy to see you."
"I have been angry with you before," Amy said as she reached the top stair. "And disgusted, but this really is despicable."
He was concerned.
Amy is really angry, and that means she thinks I have done something really despicable. But I haven't.
"Are you going to tell me what you're talking about?"
The telephone rang. Without thinking, he picked it up.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Matt," Evelyn said.
"I can't talk to you right now. Let me call you back."
"But you won't, will you?" Evelyn said, her voice loaded with hurt, and then she hung up.
"Jesus!" Matt said. He looked at Amy. "How about an egg roll?"
"What I'm talking about, Matt," Amy said, back in control of her temper, "is you going to bed with Penny."
Jesus Christ! How did she hear about that? The answer to that, obviously, is that Penny told her. Patients tell their psychiatrists everything.
"What in the world were you thinking?" Amy demanded.
She has shifted into her Counselor of Mankind tone of voice.
"I don't know," he said, his mouth running away with him. "What do you think about when you hop in bed with some guy?"
Amy slapped him. His vision blurred, his ears rang, and his eyes watered.
He looked at her for a moment as his eyes came back into focus.
"I should not have done that," Amy announced. But it was as if she was talking to herself.
"You're goddamned right you shouldn't have," he replied angrily. " You slap a cop, you're likely to get slapped right back."
"Is that what it was, Matt?" Amy asked. "Just Detective Payne hopping into bed with the nearest available female?"
"It happened, Amy," Matt said.
"Like hell 'it happened.' You didn't take her to dinner in the Poconos to look at the trees. Matt, she's a sick girl. And you know she is."
"You can believe this or not, but taking: but taking Penny to bed was the last thing I had in mind when we went up there."
"Why did you go up there, then?"
He met her eyes.
"I was working. I needed a girl to look legitimate."
She is not going to believe that, and that's all I'm going to tell her.
"Oddly enough, I believe you," Amy said, after a moment. "That doesn't make things any better, but I have the odd notion you're telling the truth."
"I am."
"She's in love with you," Amy said. "Or thinks she is, which is the same thing. The one thing she doesn't need right now is that kind of stress."
"She was behaving perfectly normal up there. I did not seduce the village idiot girl. Amy, shewanted to."
"And your monumental ego got in the way, right? It never occurred to you that she wanted the approval of the Rock of Gibraltar, complete to badge and gun, wanted it so desperately that she was willing to pay for it by going to bed with you?"
He did not reply.
"So what are you going to do about it?" Amy asked.
"How does suicide strike you? I could jump out the window."
"Goddamn you! Don't be flip!"
"What am I going to do about what?"
"You haven't been listening to me. How are you going to deal with this notion of hers that she's in love with you?"
"I don't know," Matt said.
"Obviously, you're not in love with her."
Now that you bring it up, 1 really don't know how I feel about that.