"Shit!" he said, and slowed abruptly, and made the next left.

There's Holland's body shop. That means I'm behind Holland PontiacGMC, just a block off North Broad. That's not so bad. I could have wound up in Paoli or somewhere not thinking like that.

And then something wrong caught his eye. There was a guy sitting in a beat-up old Mustang in an alley.

If I hadn't been looking to see where the fuck I was, I would never have seen him.

What's wrong about it? Well, maybe nothing. Or maybe he's drunk. Or dead. Or maybe not. Now that I think of it, he was smoking a cigarette. People don't sit in alleys smoking cigarettes at midnight. Not around here.

He made the next right, and the next, and pulled to the curb.

Fuck it, McFadden. It ain't any of your business, and you ain't Sherlock Holmes.

Fuck fuck it!

Charley turned off the headlights and got out of the car. He took his wallet ID folder from his pocket and folded it back on itself, so the badge was visible, and then he took the snub nose from its holster, and held it at arm's length down along his leg so that it would be kind of hard to see,

Then he went in the alley, and sort of keeping in the shadows walked down close to the Mustang.

Piece of shit, that car.

Moving very quickly now, he walked up to the driver's window. He tapped on the window with his badge.

He scared shit out of the guy inside, who jumped.

The window rolled down.

"Excuse me, sir. I'm a police officer. Is everything all right?"

"I'm a Three-Six-Nine," the man said. "Everything's okay. On the job."

Oh, shit. He's probably a Central Detective on stakeout. Why didn't you mind your own fucking business?

Fuck fuck fuck it. Maybe he ain't.

"Let me see your folder, please," Charley said, and pulled the door open so the light would come on. It didn't.

Lieutenant Jack Malone thinking,This big fucker, whoever he is, smells something wrong, and he's got his gun out, very slowly and nonthreateningly found his badge and photo ID and handed it to Officer Charles McFadden.

"Lieutenant, I'm sorry as hell about this."

"Don't be silly. You were just doing your job. I suppose I did look a little suspicious."

"I didn't know what the fuck to think, so I thought I'd better check. Sorry to bother you, sir."

"No problem, I told you that," Malone said. "But I don't want this on the record. You call it in?"

"No, sir. I'm in my own car. No radio."

"Just keep this between ourselves. What did you say your name was?"

"McFadden, sir."

"You work this district?"

"No, sir. I'm Highway."

"Well, I'll certainly tell Captain Pekach how alert you were. But I don't want anyone else to know you saw me here. Okay?"

"Yes, sir. I understand. Good night, sir."

Charley stuffed his pistol back in its holster and walked back up the alley.

Nice guy. I really could have got my ass in a crack doing that. But he understood why I did it. Malone was his name. I wonder where he works. He said he knows Captain Pekach.

And then he got back in the Volkswagen, and there was still a faint smell of Margaret's soap, and he started to think about her, and her in the shower, and what she had said about her having those kinds of thoughts too, and Lieutenant Malone and the rusty piece of shit he was driving were relegated to a far corner of his mind.

TEN

The time projected on the ceiling by the clever little machine that had been Amelia Payne, M.D.'s birthday present to her little brother showed that it was quarter past eleven.

It should be later than that, Matt thought, considering all that's happened.

He bent one of the pillows on the bed in half and propped it under his head. Then he reached down and pulled up the blanket. The sheet that covered him wasn't enough; he felt chilled.

He could hear the shower running in the bath, and in his mind's eye saw Helene at her ablutions, and for a moment considered leaping out of the bed and getting in the shower with her.

He sensed that it would be a bad idea, and discarded the notion.

Three times is a sufficiency. At the moment, almost certainly, the lady is not burning with lust.

Well, two and a half, considering the first time was more on the order of premature ejaculation than a proper screw.

With an effort, she had been very kind about that. He was not to worry. It happened sometimes. But she had been visibly pleased at his resurgent desire, or more precisely when El Wango had risen phoenix like from the ashes of too-quickly burned passion.

And clearly done his duty: There is absolutely no way that she could have faked that orgasm.

Orgasms?

Passion followed by sleep, followed by slowly becoming delightedly aware that what one is fondling in one's sleep is not the goddamn pillow again, but a magnificent real live boob, attached to a real live woman.

One who whispered huskily in the dark "Don't stop!" when, ever the gentleman, I decided that copping a feel was perhaps not the thing to do under the circumstances.

And El Wango, God bless him, had risen to the occasion, giving his all for God, Mother, and Country, as if determined to prove that what good had happened previously was the norm, and that "oh, shit" spasm earlier on a once-in-a-century aberration.

She had said, "I'll be sore for a week," which I understand could be a complaint, but which, I believe, I will accept as a compliment.

The drumming of the shower died, and he could hear the last gurgle as the water went down the drain, and he could hear other faint sounds, including what he thought was the sound of his hairbrush clattering into the washbasin.

And then she came out. In her underwear, but still modestly covering herself with a towel.

"You're not leaving?" Matt said. "The evening is young."

"The question is what about the Opera Ball people?"

She sat on the edge of the bed, keeping the towel in place.

I was right. Thrice, or even twice and a half, is a more than a sufficiency, it is a surfeit.

"I haven't heard the elevator in a while. I guess they're all gone. Would you like me to take you home?"

"I have a car."

"Where?"

"In the garage in the basement."

"Parked right next to the elevator?"

"How did you know that?"

"You're the Cadillac in my parking spot. Spots. The gods-the GrecoRoman ones, who understand this sort of thing- obviously wanted us to get together."

"I don't know about that, but I do know what got us together. It's spelled G I N. As in, I should know better than to drink martinis."

"Are you sorry?"

"Yes, of course, I'm sorry," Helene said. "I expect you hear this from all your married ladies, but in my case it's true. I normally don't do things like this."

"Well, I'm glad you made an exception for me," Matt said. "And just for the record, you're my first married lady. I would like to thank you for being gentle with me, it being my first time."

She laughed, and then grew serious.

"I would like to say the same thing," she said. "But you're the third. And I decided just ninety seconds ago, the last."

"I didn't measure up?"

"That's the trouble. You-left nothing to be desired. Except more of you, and that's obviously out of the question."

"Why is it obviously out of the question?"

She got up suddenly from the bed, dropped the towel, and walked out of the bedroom, snapping, "I'm married," angrily over her shoulder.

She'll be back, Matt thought confidently. She will at least say goodbye.

But she did not come back, so he picked up the towel she had dropped and put it around his waist and went looking for her.

She was gone.

I don't even know what her last name is.