ordered the bags had apparently overestimated the demand for them, and had had to put the excess up for sale, probably at a loss.
Overestimating demand, Marion thought, was a common fault with many small businesses. The petroleum business did not have, simplistically, that problem. They didn’t have to produce their raw material, pump oil from the ground, until they were almost certain of a market. And even if that market collapsed, it was rarely that oil had to be put up for immediate sale. It could be stored relatively inexpensively until a demand, inevitably, arose.
He insisted on getting a paper bag for the AWOL bag—he was not the sort of person who wished to be seen walking through Center City, Philadelphia, with a reddish-orange bag labeled Souvenir of Asbury Park, N.J.—and then continued walking east on Market Street.
A very short distance away, just where he had remembered seeing them, which pleased him, there was a tacky little store with a window full of “leather” attaché cases, on SPECIAL SALE.
Special Sale, my left foot, Marion thought. It was a special sale only because money would change hands. He went in the store, and spent fifteen minutes choosing an attaché case that (a) looked reasonably like genuine leather, (b) was deep and wide enough to hold the shortwave transmitter, (c) had its handles fastened to the case securely. The last thing he could afford was to have a handle pull loose, so that he would drop the shortwave transmitter onto the marble floors of 30th Street Station.
He did not insist on a paper bag for the attaché case. He thought he would submit that to a little test. He would stop in on the way home, in one of the cocktail lounges along Chestnut Street that catered to people in the financial industry. He would put the “leather” attaché case out where people who customarily carried genuine leather attaché cases could see it, and see if anyone looked at it strangely.
He had solved the problem of supper, had one AWOL bag and the attaché case, and there was time, so why not?
EIGHTEEN
North of Doylestown, on US Route 611, approaching Kintnersville, Matt became aware of a faint siren. When he glanced in the rearview mirror, he saw that it was mounted in a State Police car, and that the gumball machine on the roof was flashing brightly.
“Shit,” he said.
Penny turned in her seat and giggled.
There was no place to pull safely to the side of the road where they were, so Matt put a hand over his head in a gesture of surrender, slowed, and drove another mile or so until he found a place to stop.
“Mother will not be at all surprised that we wound up in jail,” Penny said cheerfully. “She expects it of you.”
Matt got out of the car, making an effort to keep both hands in view, and then went back to the State Police car. A very large State Policeman, about thirty-five, got out, and straightened his Smoky-the -Bear hat.
“Good evening, sir,” the State Policeman said, with the perfect courtesy that suggested he was not at all unhappy to be forced to cite a Mercedes driver for being twenty-five or thirty miles over the speed limit.
“Good evening,” Matt replied, and took his driver’s license from his wallet. “There’s my license.”
“I’ll need the registration too, please, sir.”
Matt took out the leather folder holding his badge and photo ID and handed that over.
“That’s what I do for a living. How fraternal are you feeling tonight? ”
The State Policeman examined the photo on the ID card carefully, then handed it back.
“Being a Philly detective must pay better than they do us. That’s quite a set of wheels.”
“The wheels belong to the lady.”
The State Policeman took a long look at Penny, who, resting her chin on her hands on the back of her seat, was looking back at them, smiling sweetly.
“I don’t think I’d have given her a ticket, either,” he said. “Very nice.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” the State Policeman said, and turned back to his car.
Matt got back in the Mercedes.
“We’re not going to jail?”
“I told the nice officer that I was rushing you to the hospital to deliver our firstborn,” Matt said.
“You would do something like that too, you bastard,” Penny said, laughing. “But that’s an interesting thought. I wonder what our firstborn would look like?”
The question made Matt uncomfortable.
“I didn’t have any lunch,” Penny went on. “You’re going to have to get me something to eat, or you’re going to