"Sir, if you are not going to wager, would you mind stepping aside and making room for someone who would like to play?"

"Sorry," Matt said, and pulled his wad of hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and laid one somewhere, anywhere, on the felt of the craps table. The gambler threw the dice. The hooker on his left said " ooooh" and the one on his right kissed him and gave him a little hug.

The croupier picked up Matt's one-hundred-dollar bill…

I lost. Why did I bet a hundred?

…and held a handful of chips over it.

"Quarters all right, sir?"

I won. I'll be goddamned. What did I bet on?

"Quarters are fine, thank you."

He picked up the stack of quarters, there were twelve of them, and walked away from the table.

If you have no idea what you're betting on, you have no business betting.

"Stick around," the gambler said. "I'm on a roll."

The temptation was nearly irresistible. The hooker on the left was smiling at him with invitation in her eyes. He had never been with a hooker.

Was this the time and place?

Get thee behind me, Satan! Back to the roulette table.

The Lindens was a forty-five-minute drive from the Flamingo. Matt was sorry that he had let himself be ushered into the back seat of the limousine. He certainly could have seen more of Las Vegas and the desert upfront than he could see from the back seat, through the deeply tinted windows.

But he had been more than a little groggy when he left the Flamingo. He had lost the seven hundred dollars he had walked away from the craps table with, gone to bed, woken up, and-absolute insanity-decided he could take a chance with another five hundred, and then had compounded that insanity by taking a thousand dollars, not five hundred, from the soap dish and going back to the casino with it.

When he'd finally left the table, at quarter past six, Las Vegas time, he had worked the thousand up to thirty-seven hundred. Since that obviously wouldn't fit into the soap dish, and he didn't want to have that much money in his pockets, or put it in the suitcase, he told the man in the cashier's cage to give him a check for his winnings.

By the time they had made out the check, and he'd taken another quick shower, they had called from the desk and told him his limousine was waiting for him.

There was nothing he could see for miles around The Lindens, which turned out to be a rambling, vaguely Spanish-looking collection of connected buildings built on a barren mountainside. There was a private road, a mile and a half long, from a secondary highway.

There was no fence around the place. Probably, he decided, because you would have to be out of your mind to try to walk away from The Lindens. There was nothing but desert.

In front of the main building, in an improbably lush patch of grass, were six trees. Lindens, he decided, as in Unter den Linden.

A hefty, middle-aged man in a blazer with retired cop written all over him saw him get out of the limousine and unlocked a double door as Matt walked up to it.

"Mr. Payne?"

"Right?"

"Dr. Newberry is expecting you, sir. Will you follow me, please?"

He locked the door again before he headed inside the building.

Dr. Newberry was a woman in a white coat who looked very much like the cashier in the Flamingo.

"You look very much like your sister," Dr. Newberry greeted him cordially. Matt did not think he should inform her that that must be a genetic anomaly, because he and Amy shared no genes. He nodded politely.

"It was very good of you to come out to be with Penelope on her trip home."

"Not at all."

"We believe, as I'm sure Dr. Payne has told you, that we've done all we can for Penelope here. We've talked her through her problems, and of course, we believe that her physical addiction is under control."

"Yes, ma'am."

"We've tried to convince her that the best thing she can do is put what happened behind her, that she's not the only young woman who has had difficulty like this in her life, and that she will not be the only one to overcome it."

"Yes, ma'am."

"What I'm trying to get across is that I hope you can behave in a natural manner toward Penelope. While neither you nor she can deny that she has had problems, or has spent this time with us, the less you dwell upon it, the better. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am. I think so."

Dr. Newberry got up and smiled.

"Well, let's go get her. She's been waiting for you."

She led him through a series of wide corridors furnished with simple, heavy furniture and finally to a wide door. She pushed it open.

Penny was sitting on a chair. Her shoulder-length blond hair was parted in the middle. She was wearing a skirt and two sweaters. A single strand of pearls hung around her neck. There was a suitcase beside the chair.

It was a fairly large room with a wall of narrow, ceiling-high windows providing a view of the desert and mountains. Matt saw the windows were not wide enough for anyone to climb out.

"Your friend is here, dear," Dr. Newberry said.

Penny got to her feet.

"Hello, Matt," she said, and walked to him.

Christ, she expects me to kiss her.

He put his hands on her arms and kissed her cheek. He could smell her perfume. Or maybe it was soap. A female smell, anyway.

"How goes it, Penny?"

"I'm sorry you had to come out here," she said.

"Ah, hell, don't be silly."

"Shall I have someone come for your bag?"

"I can handle the bag," Matt said.

"Well, then, Penelope, you're all ready to go. I'll say good-bye to you now, dear."

"Thank you, Dr. Newberry, for everything."

"It's been my pleasure," Dr. Newberry said, smiled at Matt, and walked out of the room.

Penny looked at Matt.

"God, I hate that woman!" she said.

He could think of no reply to make.

"Have you got any money?" she asked.

"Why?"

"Some people have been nice to me. I'd like to give them something."

What did they do, smuggle you junk?

"I don't think you're supposed to tip nurses and people like that."

"For god's sake, Matt, let me have some money. You know you'll get it back."

"When you get home, you can write them a check," Matt said.

"What are you thinking, that I'm going to take the money and run?"

As a matter of fact, perhaps subconsciously, that is just what I was thinking.

"I don't know what to think, Penny. But I'm not going to give you any money."

"Fuck you, Matt!"

He wondered if she had used language like that before she had met Tony the Zee DeZego, or whether she had learned it from him.

She picked up her bag and marched out of her room. He followed her. The rent-a-cop in the blue blazer, who, Matt thought, probably had a title like director of Internal Security Services, was at the front door. He unlocked it.

"Good-bye, Miss Detweiler," he said. "Good luck."

Penny didn't reply.

Matt got in the back seat of the limousine with her.

"Well, so how was the food?"

"Fuck you, Matt," Penny said again.