"If you'd like, we could have another," Penny said as he mocked shaking the last couple of drops into his glass. "And have cheese afterward, and listen to the music. I don't think the gambling gets going until later."

The cheese was good, something the waiter recommended, something he'd never had before, sort of a combination of Camembert and Roquefort. They ate one serving, spreading it on crackers and then taking a swallow of the wine before chewing, and then had another.

Penny said she would like a liqueur to finish the meal, and he passed, saying he'd already had too much drink, and instead drank a cup of very black, very strong coffee.

When he'd finished that, Penny inclined her head toward the rear of the room.

"It's over there, if you want to give it a try," she said.

Matt looked and saw a closed double door, draped with red curtain and guarded by a large man in a dinner jacket.

As they walked to it, Penny leaned up and whispered in his ear: " You did remember to bring money?"

"Absolutely," he said, although he wasn't really sure.

The man in the dinner jacket blocked their way.

"May I help you?" he asked.

"We want to go in there," Penny said.

"That's a private party, I'm afraid, madam."

"Oh, come on. I've been in there before."

"Are you a club member?"

"I'm not, but if there's a club, my father probably is."

"And your name, madam?"

"My maiden name was Detweiler," Penny said.

That rang a bell, Matt thought, if widening eyes and raised eyebrows are any criteria.

"First name?"

"Richard. H. Richard."

"Just a moment, please, madam," the man in the dinner jacket said. He pulled open a cabinet door in the wall Matt hadn't noticed-it was covered with wallpaper-and spoke softly into a telephone. After a moment, he hung up and pushed the door closed.

"Sorry for the delay, Miss Detweiler," he said as he pulled the door open. "Good luck!"

"Mrs. Payne,"Penny corrected him, smiling sweetly at Matt.

There were very few people in the room, although croupiers stood waiting for customers behind every table.

Do you call the guys who run the craps games and the blackjack " croupiers" too? Matt wondered. Or does that term apply only to roulette? If not, what do you call the guy who runs the craps table? The crapier?

"Roulette all right with you, Penny?"

"It's fine with me," she replied. "But I'm surprised, I thought you would be a craps shooter."

Matt took out his wallet. He had one hundred-dollar bill and four fifties and some smaller bills.

The hundred must be left over from the Flamingo in Las Vegas. I never take hundreds from the bank. You can never get anyone to change one.

He put the hundred-dollar bill on the green baize beside the roulette wheel.

"Nickels," he said.

The croupier slid a small stack of chips to him.

He placed two of them on the board, both on One to Twelve. The croupier spun the wheel, twenty-three came up, and he picked up Matt's chips.

Matt made the same bet again.

"There's a marvelous story," Penny said. "A fellow brought a girl here, or to a place like this, and gave her chips, and she said, 'I don't know what to bet,' so he said, 'Bet your age,' so she put fifty dollars on twenty-three. Twenty-nine came up. The girl said, 'Oh,shit!

"

The croupier laughed softly. Matt didn't understand. Penny saw this: "The moral of the story, Matthew darling, is 'Truth pays off.'"

He laughed.

Thirty-three came up, and the croupier picked up Matt's chips again.

"You're not too good at this, are you, darling?"

"Just getting warmed up," Matt said. He put five chips on 00.

Sixteen came up.

"Have you ever considered getting an honest job?" Penny asked.

Not only isn't this much fun, but I've seen about all of this place that there is to see. It's about as wicked as a bingo game in the basement of McFadden's parish church.

Hay-zus is off base on this one. There's nobody in this room who looks like a mobster; my fellow gamblers look like they all belong to the Kiwanis. And/or the Bible Study Group.

I will buy Penny a drink, and try to show her the wisdom of driving back to Philadelphia now, rather than in the morning. We can get back by one, maybe a little sooner.

When the croupier had removed his five chips from 00, Matt pushed what was left of his stack onto 00.

"I don't think this is my night," Matt said to the croupier.

"You never can tell," the croupier said.

00 came up.

"And we have a winner," the croupier said.

"There must be some sort of mistake," Penny said. "Clearly, God doesn't want him to win."

"God must have changed His mind," the croupier said. "Would you like some quarters, sir? That's going to be a lot of nickels."

"I think I'd rather cash out. I'm too shocked to play anymore."

A pit boss appeared, saw what happened, and nodded his approval. The croupier wrote something on a slip of paper, handed it to the pit boss, who signed it and handed it back. The croupier handed Matt the slip of paper. On it was written $2035.

"Thank you," Matt said. "Where's the cashier?"

The croupier inclined his head, and Matt followed his eyes and saw a barred window near the entrance door. At the last moment, he remembered that winning gentlemen gamblers tip the croupier. He took a fifty-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to the croupier.

"Is this what's known as quitting when you're ahead?" Penny asked.

"You got it."

He took the chit to the cashier, exchanged it for a nice thick wad of hundred-dollar bills, put them in his inside jacket pocket, and then led Penny out of the casino and toward the bar.

"Are we going to the bar?" Penny asked.

"I thought we'd have a drink to celebrate."

"We have a bottle of champagne in the room," Penny said.

We have to go to the room anyway to get her bag. And there will be no one in the room, as there would be at the bar, to eavesdrop on our conversation, and wonder why a healthy-appearing young man was trying to talk a good-looking healthy blonde out of spending the night in a hotel.

"I forgot," Matt said as he nudged her toward the elevator.

While they had been downstairs, the bed had been turned down.

There was a piece of chocolate precisely in the center of each of the pillows.

"Open the champagne," Penny said as she went into the bathroom. " See if it's still cold."

It was still cold. Whoever had turned down the bed had also refilled the cooler with ice. As he wrestled with the cork, he could hear the toilet flush and then water running.

The cork popped and he poured champagne into the glasses. He sipped his.

Nice.He looked at the label. California champagne, a brand he'd never heard of.

Methode Champagnois, whatever the hell that means. What did you expect, Moet et Chandon?

He heard, or at least sensed, the bathroom door opening, and turned with Penny's glass extended.

She had-Jesus, how did she do that so quickly?-taken off her clothes and changed into a negligee-or peignoir, whatever a pale blue, lacy, nearly transparent garment of seduction was called- and brushed her hair so that it hung straight down to her shoulders.

The light in the bathroom was still on, which served to illuminate the thin material of her negligee from the rear. She was, for all visual purposes, quite naked.

"Jesus, Penny!"

"I figured, what the hell? Matt knows all my secrets. What have I got to lose?"

She came into the bedroom, took the champagne glass from him, and walked to the draped window.

"I guess it didn't work, huh?" she said after a moment.

What the fuck am I supposed to do now?

I can't see through her nightgown anymore. Jesus, that made my heart jump!

He saw her raise and drain her champagne glass, and then she turned.