"I saw you coming up the drive," Martha Peebles said. "I wasn't sure that you would come."

"Good evening," David Pekach said, unable to choose between "Miss Peebles" and "Martha" and deciding quickly on neither one.

"Please come in," she said.

She was wearing a dressing robe.

Nothing sexy or suggestive or anything like that; it goes from her neck to her ankles. Just what a lady like herself would wear when she was about to go to bed.

"I said I would stop by and check on you," David Pekach said.

"I know," she said.

She started to walk to the stairway, stopped and looked over her shoulder to see if he was following her.

Where the hell is she going?

"And I've ordered cars to check on you regularly," he said.

"I've seen them," she said. "That's why I thought you might not be coming. That you had sent the other cars in your stead."

"If I say I'll do something, I do it," David Pekach said.

"I was almost sure of that, and now that you're here, I'm convinced that you are a man of your word," Martha Peebles said.

They were at the landing before the stained glass window of Saint Whatsisname the Dragon Slayer by then.

"I made a little midnight snack," Martha Peebles said.

"You didn't have to do that."

"I wanted to," she said, and took his arm.

"And there's a plainclothes officer in an unmarked car parked just up the block," David said.

Or I think there is. I didn't see anybody in the goddamned car, now that I think about it.

"I saw him, too," she said. "He's been up the drive four times, waving his flashlight around."

"We're doing our very best to take care of you."

"I wasn't sure if you-if you came, that is-if you could drink on duty, so I made coffee. But there's wine. Or whiskey, too, if you'd rather."

They were on the second floor now, moving down the corridor, away from the gun room.

"Oh, I don't think law and order would come crashing down if I had a glass of wine," David said.

"I'm glad. I put out a port, a rather robust port, that Father always enjoyed."

A door was open. Inside, David saw a small round table with a tablecloth that reached to the floor. There was a tray of sandwiches on it, with the crusts cut off, and a silver coffee set, and beside it was a wine cooler with the neck of a bottle of wine sticking out of it.

Jesus!

And when he stepped inside, he saw that there was an enormous, heavily carved headboard over a bed on which the sheets had been turned down.

Jesus!

"The maiden's bed," Martha Peebles said.

"Excuse me?" David said, not sure that he had heard her correctly.

"The maiden's bed," Martha said. "My bed. I suppose you think that's a bit absurd in this day and age, a maiden my age."

"Not at all." He seemed to have trouble finding his voice.

"I'm thirty-five," Martha said.

"I'm thirty-seven."

"Do you thinkI'm absurd?" Martha Peebles asked.

"No," he said firmly. "Why should I think that?"

"Enticing you, trying to entice you, up here like this?"

"Jesus!"

"Then you do," she said. "I didn't… it wasn't my intention to embarrass you, David."

"You're not embarrassing me."

"I'll tell you what is absurd," she said. "I never even thought of doing something like this until you came here this afternoon."

"I don't know what to say," David said. "Christ, I've been thinking about you all day… ever since I almost dropped the HamnerSchuetzen."

"When our hands touched?"

"Yeah, and when you looked at me that way," he said.

"I thought you were looking into my soul," Martha said.

"Jesus!"

"That made you uncomfortable, didn't it?" Martha asked. "For me to say that?"

"I felt the same damned thing!"

"Oh, David!"

He put his arms around her. At first it was awkward, but then they seemed to adjust their bodies to each other, and he kissed the top of her head, then her forehead, and finally her mouth.

"David," Martha said, finally. "Your… equipment… the belt and whatever, your badge, is hurting me. If we're going-shouldn't we take our things off?"

David backed away from her and looked down at his badge, then started to take off his Sam Browne belt.

When he glanced at Martha, he saw that she had removed her dressing gown. She hadn't been wearing anything under it.

"Are you disappointed?" she asked.

"You're beautiful]"

"Oh, I'm so glad you think so!"

At fifteen minutes to midnight, Officer Jesus Martinez drove down Glengarry Lane in Chestnut Hill, saw the unmarked car parked by the side of the Peebles house, recognized it as one he had ferried from the Academy, and wondered who the hell was in it. Obviously, one of the brass hats, stroking the lady. If there had been anything going on, it would have come over the radio.

He saw Matt Payne's unmarked car and drove past it, made a U-turn, and pulled in beside it. Payne wasn't in the car; maybe he was in the house with the supervisor.

He turned the engine off, and slumped back against the seat waiting for Payne to show up.

When ten minutes passed and he had not, Jesus Martinez got out of his car and walked up to Payne's. Payne knew he was coming. Maybe he had left a note for him on the dashboard or something, saying where he was.

When he saw Matt on the seat, the first thing that occurred to him was that violence had occurred, that maybe he'd run into Walton Williams or something. He was just about to jerk the door open when Matt snored.

The cocksucker's asleep! The cocksucker is really asleep!

This was followed by a wave of righteous indignation approaching blind fury.

The sonofabitch is sleeping when I've been out busting my ass all night looking for the asshole burglar! Before I have to baby-sit this fucking place!

Officer Matthew Payne was a hair's breadth away from being jerked out of the car by his feet when Martinez had one more reaction that infuriated him even more than finding Payne asleep.

The sonofabitch has been getting away with it! While I have been out busting my ass in every tinkerbell saloon in Philadelphia, he has been sleeping and nobody caught him! Highway cars have been going past here every half hour, and nobody caught him-or gave a damn if they did-and every fucking supervisor around, District, Highway, Northwest Detectives, maybe even Wohl and Sabara and that new Sergeant, have ridden by here and nobody noticed!

Officer Martinez stood by the side of Matt's car for a moment, his arms folded angrily across his chest, as he considered the various options open to him to fix the rich-boy rookie's ass once and for all for this. When the solution came to him, it was simplicity itself.

Now smiling, he took his penknife from his pocket, tested the sharpness of the blade with his thumb, and then knelt by the left front wheel. He sliced into the rubber tire valve where it passed through the tire. There was a piercing whistle of escaping air, which Martinez quickly muffled with his fist.

On the right front and rear wheels, he used his handkerchief to muffle the whistle of air escaping from sliced air valves.

Then he got back in his car and drove off, wearing a smile of satisfaction. The smile grew broader as he thought of the finishing touch. He reached for his microphone.

"W-William Two Eleven, W-William Two Twelve," he said.

"Go," Charley McFadden's voice came back immediately.

"I'm at Broad and Olney, working on something," Martinez said. "I ain't gonna be able to relieve our friend on time. What should I do?"

"I'll go relieve him," Charley replied immediately. "You want to come when you get loose, or do you want me to take the tour?"

"I'll relieve you at three, if that's all right," Martinez said.