"'Fighting crime'? Is that what you call it? Daffy said you were shacked up with What's-her-name Stevens."
"Her name is Amanda and we weren't shacked up."
"Methinks thou dost protest too much," Chad said. "Madame Browne is, of course, morally outraged at you."
"So what else is new?"
"I think I'll have another of these to give me courage to face the traffic, and then you can take us over there, and then to the hotel."
"I thought you weren't supposed to see the bride before the wedding."
"All I'm going to do is drop my bags off. Then we go to the hotel and get a little something to quiet my nerves."
"You're already-or maybe still-bombed," Matt said. "I don't want to have to carry you into the church."
"You have always been something of a prig, Payne. Have I ever told you that?"
"Often," Matt said, putting the Bloody Mary down and picking up the suitcases. "Jesus, what the hell have you got in here?"
"Just the chains and whips and handcuffs and other stuff one takes on one's bridal trip," Chad said. "Plus, of course, what every Marine second lieutenant takes with him when going off to battle the forces of Communism in far-off Okinawa."
"The sword and dress blues too?"
"I'll change into the blues at the hotel, and then out of them at Daffy's after the wedding. We don't use swords no more, you know, to battle the forces of Communism."
Matt set the suitcases on the cobblestone driveway and opened the hatch.
"Get in," he said, then, "What are your travel plans, by the way?"
"We're going into New York tonight and flying to the West Coast tomorrow."
"You're not coming back here?"
"I hope to come back, of course, but if you were asking 'after the wedding and before going overseas,' no."
He swung his leg off the stone lion, picked up Matt's Bloody Mary glass, and walked to the car.
"If you were to open the door for me, I think I could get in without spilling any of this on your pristine upholstery," he said.
Matt closed the hatch and opened the door for him. He took his Bloody Mary from him, drained it, and set the glass on the step.
When he straightened, Mrs. Chadwick T. Nesbitt III was standing there.
"I'm not at all sure that's a very good idea, Matt," she said, and then walked around him to the car.
"He insisted, Mother," Chad said. "He said he didn't think he could get through the ceremony without the assistance of a little belt."
"Well, don't let him give you any more," she said. "Have you got everything?"
"Yes, Mother."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, Mother."
"Well, then, I guess we'll see you at St. Mark's."
"God willing, and if the creek don't rise," Chad said, and slammed his door shut.
Matt walked around to the driver's side of the Porsche.
"Matt…" Chad's mother said.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Just… behave, the two of you."
"We will," Matt said.
He got behind the wheel, made a U-turn, and started down the drive to the gate.
Mrs. Nesbitt waved. Chad waved back.
"Mother, I think, is aware that she may be watching her firstborn leave the family manse for the last time," Chad said. "That somewhat discomfiting thought has occurred to me."
Matt didn't know what to say.
"If I asked you politely, would you give me a straight answer to a straight question?" Chad asked.
Matt sensed that Chad was serious. "Sure," he said.
"What does it feel like to kill somebody?"
"Jesus!"
"At the moment your experience in that area exceeds mine," Chad said, "although, to be sure, I am sure the Marine Corps plans to correct that situation as quickly as possible."
"I haven't had nightmares or done a lot of soul-searching about it," Matt said. "Nothing like that. The man I shot was a certified scumbag-"
"Interesting word," Chad said, interrupting. "Meaning, I take it, someone who has as much value as a used rubber?"
"I really don't know what it means. It's… cop talk. A very unpleasant individual. The same day I shot him, earlier that day I saw what he did to a woman he abducted. He raped her, tortured her, mutilated her, and then killed her. I suppose that's part of the equation. I knew that he was no fucking good."
"In other words, you were pleased that you had killed him?"
"When I saw him, he tried to run me over. He totaled my car. The only emotion I had was fear and anger. He was trying to kill me. I had a gun, so I killed him."
"Courage is defined as presence of mind under stress," Chad said.
"Then,ergo sum, courage was not involved in what I did," Matt said. "He had a woman in the van, another one he had abducted. It was just blind fucking luck that I didn't hit her when I was shooting at him. If I had had'presence of mind,' I wouldn't have shot at him at all."
"The newspapers made quite a hero of you," Chad said thoughtfully. "The Old Man sent them all to me."
"That was all bullshit," Matt said.
"Fuck you.I'm impressed."
"You never were very smart."
"So tell me, Sherlock, who popped Penny Detweiler?"
"We're still looking," Matt said.
"Let me give you a clue," Chad said. "Daffy said Penny knew that Eye-talian."
"Daffy told you that?"
"Surprised?"
"No," Matt said. "She tell you anything else?"
"No. Just that she knew Penny had been seeing him."
" 'Seeing,' as opposed to 'buying cocaine from'?"
"Penny's into cocaine?"
"A small voice just told me I shouldn't be talking to you about this."
"Just between thee, me, and this empty Bloody Mary glass?"
"To go absolutely no further than that, Chad, yeah. Penny has a problem with cocaine. But she doesn't know that we know, and I want to keep it that way."
"What she said was 'seeing,' " Chad said, "as in getting fucked by. She didn't say anything about dope. Are you sure about that?Penny Detweiler?"
"Yeah, we're sure, Chad."
" 'We're sure, 'huh? I think I liked things better when 'we' meant you and me and Daffy and Penny, and the cops were… well, the goddamn cops."
"I'm sorry we got into this," Matt said. "Do you suppose you could forget we did?"
"Consider it forgotten," Chad said. "But one more question?"
"You canask it."
"You ever take any of that shit?"
"No."
"You never even smoked grass?"
"No."
"Me, either. But I'm beginning to suspect that it's us two Boy Scouts alone in the world."
Soames T. Browne, whom they found wandering around among the catering staff on his lawn, insisted they have a little nip with him, which turned into three before they could get away.
"You know, I really think he likes me," Chad said when they were finally back in the Porsche.
"You're taking Daffy off his hands," Matt said. "He should be overwhelmed with gratitude."
"Fuck you, Matt."
"He will be considerably less fond of you, of course, if you show up at the church shit-faced."
"Don't worry about me, buddy," Chad said confidently.
Matt dropped Chad and his sword and dress blues and uniform cap box off at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel on South Broad Street, then drove to his apartment on Rittenhouse Square, several blocks away. The idea was that he would pick up his tails and carry them to the hotel and change there in the suite of rooms the Nesbitts had taken for Chad's out-of-town ushers.
But he decided that he would rather not do that, as it would really be easier to change in his apartment. He called Special Operations on the rent-a-cop's telephone. Jason Washington was not there, so he left word for him that he had confirmation that Penelope Detweiler knew Anthony J. DeZego and that he would be, for the next couple of hours, at the Bellevue-Stratford.