"You don't worry about that, Vito. You carry out your end of the deal, Mr. Rosselli will carry out his."

"Yeah."

Ricco walked to the telephone and dialed Gian-Carlo Rosselli's number.

"Yeah?"

"Ricco. I'm with our friend."

"How's things going?"

"He wants to know what he should do with the basket of fruit."

"Shit, I didn't think about that," Rosselli said. There was a long pause. "Ask him if he could take it home, and we'll arrange to pick it up there."

Ricco covered the microphone with his hand.

"Mr. Rosselli says you should take it home, and he'll arrange to have it picked up. You got any problem with that?"

"No," Vito said, after thinking it over for a moment. "That'd be all right."

"He says that's fine," Ricco said.

"Okay. And everything else is fine too, right?"

"Everything else is fine too."

Mr. Rosselli hung up on Mr. Baltazari.

"Okay," Ricco said. "Everything's fine. I'll get out of your hair."

Vito Lanza nodded.

Ricco turned and walked to the door and opened it. Then he turned.

"I got to make the point," he said. "You know what happens to people who do foolish things, right?"

"Yeah, I know," Vito said. "And I already told you I'm not foolish."

"Good," Ricco said and went through the door.

When, a few minutes before one A.M., Matt Payne drove into the underground garage at his apartment at the wheel of the unmarked Special Operations Division car he had been given for the business tomorrow morning, he was surprised to find that the space where he normally parked the Bug was empty.

As if I need another reminder that my ass is dragging, I have no idea where the Bug is. It's almost certainly at the Schoolhouse-where else would it be?-but I'll be damned if I remember leaving it there.

He parked the Ford, and rode the elevator to the third floor, and then walked up the stairs to his apartment.

The red light on the answering machine, which he had come to hate with an amazing passion toward an inanimate object, was blinking.

I don't want to hear what messages are waiting for me. They will be, for one thing, probably not messages at all, but the buzz, hummm, click indication that my callers had not elected to leave a message, in other words, that Evelyn was back dialing my number. Or it might actually be a message from Evelyn, which would be even worse.

On the other hand, it might be a bulletin from the Schoolhouse; Wohl might have thought of some other way in which I can be useful before I meet O'Dowd at half past six, which is 5.5 hours from now.

He was still debating whether to push the PLAY button when the phone rang.

It has to be either Wohl or O'Dowd. And if it's not, if it's Evelyn, I'll just hang up.

"Payne."

"Christ, where the hell have you been?" Charley McFadden's voice demanded.

"What the hell do you want?"

"Have you been at the sauce?"

"No, as a matter of fact, I haven't. But it seems like a splendid idea. You running a survey, or what?"

"Matt, you better get your ass out here, right now," Charley said.

"Out where, and why?"

"I'm on the job. Northwest Detectives. Just get your ass out here, right now," McFadden said, and hung up.

What the hell is that all about?

But Charley's not pulling my chain. I can tell from his voice when he's doing that. Whatever this is, it is not a manifestation of Irish and/or police humor.

He had, in what he thought of as a Pavlovian reflex, laid his revolver on the mantelpiece. He reclaimed it and went down the stairs and took the elevator to the basement.

The Porsche was where he remembered parking it, and he took the keys to it from his pocket and was about to put them in the door when he reconsidered.

Whatever Charley McFadden wants, it's personal, and I don't want to be about personal business when I run into one of Wohl's station wagons full of nuns. But on the other hand, it was made goddamned clear to me that Wohl wants to know where I am, second by second, and there's no radio in the Porsche. The minute I drive the Porsche out of here, Wohl will call, and when he gets the answering machine, will get on the radio. And I won't answer.

He got in the unmarked car and drove out of the garage. There wasn't much traffic, and he was lucky with the lights. The only one he caught was at North Broad Street and Ridge Avenue, which gave him a chance to look at the Divine Lorraine Hotel, and wonder what the hell went on in there.

Wouldn't the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Philadelphia have a heart attack if there was suddenly a booming voice from heaven saying, "You're wrong, Bishop; my boy Father Divine has it right"?

He remembered he hadn't reported in. He switched to the J frequency and told Police Radio that William Fourteen was en route to Northwest Detectives.

He then wondered, as he continued up North Broad Street, whether what Charley was so upset about was the missing Bug.

I know goddamned well I left it at the apartment. Stolen? Out of the basement, past the rent-a-cop, who knows who it belongs to? And who the hell would steal the Bug when the Porsche was sitting right next to it? Who would steal the Bug if nothing was sitting right next to it?

That impeccable logical analysis of the situation collapsed immediately upon Detective Payne's entering the parking lot of Northwest Detectives, which shares quarters with the 35^th District at Broad and Champlost Streets.

There was the Bug.

Jesus, what the hell is this all about?

He went in the building and took the stairs to the second floor two at a time.

"I'm Detective Payne of Special Operations," Matt said, smiling at the desk man just inside the squad room. "Charley…"

"I know who you are," the desk man said with something less than overwhelming charm. He raised his voice: "McFadden!"

Charley appeared around the corner of a wall inside.

"What's with my car?" Matt asked.

McFadden, who looked very uncomfortable, didn't reply. He came to Matt, and motioned for him to follow him down the stairs.

They went into the district holding cells.

"You got him?" Matt asked. "Brilliant work, Detective McFadden!"

"You better take a look at this," Charley said, pointing at one of the cells.

A very faint bulb illuminated the cell interior just enough for Matt to be able to make out a figure lying on the sheet steel bunk.

As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Matt saw that the figure was in a skirt, and thus a female, and there was just enough time for the thought,Christ, a womanstole my Bug? when he recognized the woman.

"Jesus Christ!" he said.

Charley McFadden tugged on his sleeve and pulled him out of the detention cell area.

"Okay, what happened?" Matt asked, hoping that he was managing to sound matter-of-fact and professional.

"I was out, serving a warrant, and when I brought the critter in here, two Narcotics undercover guys, I know both of them, brought her in."

"On what charges?"

McFadden did not reply directly.

"They were watching a house on Bouvier, near Susquehanna," he said, avoiding Matt's eyes. "Thinking maybe they'd get lucky and be able to grab the delivery boy."

"What delivery boy? What are you talking about?"

"You know where I mean? Bouvier, near Susquehanna?"

Matt searched his memory and came up with nothing specific, just a vague picture of Susquehanna Avenue as it moved through the slums of North Philadelphia near Temple University.

"No," Matt confessed. "Not exactly."

"You don't go in there alone, you understand?" Charley said.

Matt understood. He was not talking about it being the sort of place it was unwise for Miss Penelope Detweiler of Chestnut Hill to visit alone, he was talking about a place where an armed police officer did not go alone, for fear of his life.