"Go and wait in the other room," she said, her voice flat and bitter. "I'll get dressed, and we can go."

She walked toward him.

"Go on, Matt. Get out of here."

Tears were running down her cheeks.

He put his hand to her face.

"Don't," she said. "Don't pity me, you sonofabitch!"

"It would be stupid, Penny."

"Lifeis stupid, you jackass. It's a bitch, and then you die."

He chuckled.

She raised her eyes to his.

And then her hand came up and touched his cheek.

"What are you thinking, Matt?"

"You don't want to know what I'm thinking."

I am thinking that I could cheerfully spend the rest of my life like this, with my arm around you, my fingers on your backbone, your face on my chest, your absolutely magnificent breasts pressing on me, the smell of your hair in my nostrils. Feeling the way I do. Jesus, what made it so good? The champagne?

"Yes, I do."

"Great set of boobs on this broad."

"Fuck you!"

"We've already done that."

"And no, comment about that? You usually have an opinion about everything."

Matt kissed the top of her head.

She raised her head.

"Is that in lieu of a comment?"

He kissed her. It was exquisitely tender. She shifted her body against his, so that her mouth was in his neck.

"The reason I'm curious," Penny said softly, carefully, "is because I really don't know what it's supposed to be like."

"I don't understand."

"There was Kellogg Winters," Penny said softly. "And then Anthony. And now you."

"Kellogg Winters? He's an ass."

Is she telling me I'm the third?

"Yes, he is. But I was seventeen, and I wanted to, so I let him. In the back seat of a car at Rose Tree Hunt Club. It was his birthday."

"KelloggWinters!" he chuckled.

"And I thought, if this is what everybody's so excited about, that's really much ado about nothing."

Without thinking, horrified as he heard his own words, he asked, " And Tony the Zee? What was that like?"

He felt her body tense, and then relax.

"Different. Better."

"And Matthew Payne?"

"It was not like anything else. Is it always like that for you?"

Oh, shit!

Tell her the truth. If you make a four-star ass of yourself, so what?

"It has never been, before, like it was with you."

For a moment she didn't reply or move. Then she raised her head and looked down into his eyes.

"Really? God, please don't try to be charming, Matt!"

"I'm not being charming, I'm trying to figure it out."

She looked into his eyes for a long moment, and then lowered her head into his neck again.

"I'm going to take an enormous chance and believe you," she said. Her arm slowly tightened around him. He held her as tightly as he could.

A long moment later, Matt asked throatily, "How would you feel about seeing if we can do the same thing again?"

"Really?" She giggled in his ear. "Could you?" Her hand slid down over his chest and stomach. "Oh, how nice!"

She rolled over on her back, and pulled him onto her.

"Look in my eyes!" she ordered. He did. He felt her guiding him into her body.

"Oh, God, Matt!" she called softly.

NINETEEN

Penny started to go through the door of the Birch Suite into the corridor, but then stopped and looked around.

"If I had my druthers," she said, "we would just stay here for a while longer. Like forever."

"We've already had that discussion. What we're going to do is take one more look around Las Vegas East, and then we go back to Philadelphia."

"You still haven't told me what we're-whatyou're -looking for."

"I really don't know. I think this is a bum lead, but I want to be sure before I go back and say so."

"That doesn't make much sense," she said as she walked past him and out into the corridor.

Matt went to the desk, settled the bill, and then handed a bellman Penny's bag and five dollars and told him to bring the Mercedes to the door.

"I'll be out in a few minutes," he said. "I'm going to give you a chance to get a little of your money back."

From the uncomfortable smile on the desk clerk's face, Matt understood that making reference to the casino was not considered good form.

He glanced at his watch as they approached the casino door. It was quarter to two.

If it was nearly deserted at half past nine, I'll give you five to one that it will be me and the croupier again.

He was wrong. The room was not crowded, but there were gamblers at all but one of the tables.

He reached into his jacket and took out some of the hundred-dollar bills. He looked and counted. There were six.

"Here," he said, handing them to Penny.

She took the money, looked at it, and then at him, then shrugged.

"Is that the going rate?" she asked, "Or is that five hundred, plus a hundred tip?"

"Oh, Jesus Christ!"

"Sorry," she said, again sounding as if she meant it. She touched his arm, just above the elbow, and gently squeezed it. "Our new relationship is going to take some getting used to."

That, madam, qualifies as the understatement of the millennium.

She turned from him and walked directly to the blackjack table. He followed her and got there in time to watch her hand the money to the dealer.

"Quarters," she said.

This is not the first time she's done this.

He looked around the room, and then at the others at the blackjack table.

There are some people in here now who look like gamblers, as opposed to the Bible Study Group who was in here earlier. But where is it written that a gambler has to wear a two-tone coat and a pastel shirt open to his navel, like that clown at the end of the table? Or, for that matter, where is it written that a Mafioso cannot buy his clothes at Brooks Brothers and look like he went to Princeton?

He watched Penny gamble. She grew intense, to the point of pursing her lips. He had watched her apply lipstick in the room, after she had put on her underwear, before she had put her dress back on. It had been a curious mixture of innocence and eroticism. She had seen him watching her in the mirror and pursed her lips in a kiss.

She quickly lost most of her chips, and then as quickly began to increase the size of the two stacks before her, subconsciously making the stacks even as the game progressed.

She's good at this. Better than I am. I always lose my shirt playing blackjack.

She bumped her rear end against him, and when he looked down, she nodded her head toward her chips.

"Not only economical," she said. "But maybe even profitable."

"The evening is young," he said.

He saw that the clown in the pastel shirt at the end of the table was looking at him curiously.

You could be a mobster, my friend. The question is, have you made me as a cop?

"Nature calls, Penny," he said. "I'll be right back."

She nodded absently.

He glanced around the room, found the rest rooms sign, and walked to it. The men's room was empty. He relieved himself, and then looked at himself in the mirror.

You don't look like a cop. Hay-zus was right about that. On the other hand, you have achieved a certain fame, or infamy, for taking down Mr. Warren K. Fletcher, aka the Northwest serial rapist, and also by getting yourself shot, getting your picture in the newspapers and everything. Is that why El Mafioso has made you?

You don't know he's made you. He may just be wondering where a nice, clean-cut young man like you gets the money to play games in here. Or he may be wondering how he can get a good-looking blonde like the one you're playing with.