International, Philadelphia’s largest employer, H. Richard Detweiler, president and chief executive officer.
After a somewhat pained silence, Brewster Payne said, “I was under the impression that you were fond of Penny.”
“I am,” Matt said quickly.
I’m not at all sure that’s true. I am not, now that I think about it, at all fond of Penny. She’s just been around forever, like the walls. I’ve never even thought of her as a girl, really.
He corrected himself: There was that incident when we were four or five when I talked her into showing me hers and her mother caught us at it, and had hysterically shrieked at me that I was a filthy little boy, an opinion of me I strongly suspect she still holds.
But fond? No. The cold truth is that I now regard Precious Penny (to use her father’s somewhat nauseating appellation) very much as I would regard a run-over dog. I am dismayed and repelled by what she did.
“You certainly managed to conceal your joy at the news they feel she can leave The Lindens.”
The Lindens, Matt recalled, is the name of the new funny farm. And it’s in Nevada, not Arizona. She’s been there what? Five months? Six?
There was another of what Matt thought of as “Dad’s Significant Silences.” He dreaded them. His father did not correct or chastise him. He just looked at the worm before him until the worm, squirming, figured out himself the error, or the bad manners, he had just manifested to God and Brewster Cortland Payne II.
Finally, Brewster Payne went on: “According to Amy, and according to the people at The Lindens, the problem of her physical addiction to narcotics is pretty much under control.”
Matt kept his mouth shut, but in looking away from his father, to keep him from seeing Matt’s reaction to that on his face, Matt found himself looking at Dennis V. Coughlin, who just perceptibly shook his head. The meaning was clear: You and I don’t believe that, we know that no more than one junkie in fifty ever gets the problem under control, but this is not the time or place to say so.
“I’m really glad to hear that,” Matt said.
“Which is not to say that her problems are over,” Brewster Payne went on. “There is specifically the problem of the notoriety that went with this whole unfortunate business.”
The newspapers in Philadelphia, in the correct belief that their readers would be interested, indeed, fascinated, had reported in great detail that the good-looking blonde who had been wounded when her boyfriend—a gentleman named Anthony J. “Tony the Zee” DeZego, whom it was alleged had connections to organized crime—had been assassinated in a downtown parking garage was none other than Miss Penelope Detweiler, only child of the Chestnut Hill/Nesfoods International Detweilers.
“That’s yesterday’s news,” Matt said. “That was seven months ago.”
“Dick Detweiler doesn’t think so,” Brewster Payne said. “That’s where this whole thing started.”
“Excuse me?”
“Dick Detweiler didn’t want Penny to get off the airliner and find herself facing a mob of reporters shoving cameras in her face.”
“Why doesn’t he send the company airplane after her?” Matt wondered aloud. “Have it land at Northeast Philadelphia?”
“That was the original idea, but Amy said that she considered it important that Penny not think that her return home was nothing more than a continuation of her hospitalization.”
“I’m lost, Dad.”
“I don’t completely understand Amy’s reasoning either, frankly, but I think the general idea is that Penny should feel, when she leaves The Lindens, that she is closing the door on her hospitalization and returning to a normal life. Hence, no company plane. Equally important, no nurse, not even Amy, to accompany her, which would carry with it the suggestion that she’s still under care.”
“Amy just wants to turn her loose in Nevada?” Matt asked incredulously. “How far is the funny farm from Las Vegas?”
Brewster Payne’s face tightened.
“I don’t at all like your choice of words, Matt. That was not only uncalled for, it was despicable!” he said icily.
“Christ, Matty!” Dennis V. Coughlin said, seemingly torn between disgust and anger.
“I’m sorry,” Matt said, genuinely contrite. “That just . . . came out. But just turning her loose, alone, that’s insane.”
“It would, everyone agrees, be ill-advised,” Brewster Payne said. “That’s where you come in, Matt.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Amy’s reasoning here, and in this I am in complete agreement, is that you are the ideal person to go out there and bring her home ..."
“No. Absolutely not!”
“ . . . for these reasons,” Brewster Payne went on, ignoring him. “For