daughter. There was a nasty law suit but he was up against Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo & Lester, and he lost. Then the sister set up a trust fund for him. With us. Specifically with me. We couldn’t have Alexander Peebles, Jr., sleeping in the subway.”
“And he invited you?”
“I don’t know. I guess he’s been told to show up and behave at the wedding. Brewster Payne’s going to give her away, and I suspect he was responsible for the invitation.”
"Who is she marrying?"
"The story gets curiouser and curiouser," Hammersmith said. "A cop."
"A cop?"
"Well, a captain. A fellow named Pekach. He’s the head of Highway Patrol."
"Where did she meet him?"
"The story as I understand it is that her place in Chestnut Hill kept getting burglarized. She complained to the mayor, or Payne complained to the mayor for her, and the mayor sent the Highway Patrol...."
"Carlucci’s Commandos," Wheatley interrupted. "That’s what the Ledger calls the Highway Patrol."
"Right. So, as the story goes, His Honor the Mayor sent the head commando, this Captain Pekach, to calm the lady down, and it was love at first sight."
"What does this lady look like?"
"Actually she’s rather attractive."
"Then why didn’t you arrange for me to meet her?"
"You don’t have a motorcycle and a large pistol. The lady probably wouldn’t have been interested in you."
"I could have gone out and bought them," Marion Claude Wheatley said. "In a good cause."
He smiled at Hammersmith and Hammersmith smiled back. He was pleased that he had decided to take Wheatley to lunch. There was no longer a gnawing suspicion that Wheatley was queer. It could have been awkward at First Pennsylvania if that had come out. Everyone knew that he relied heavily on Wheatley’s advice, and there would have been talk if something embarrassing had developed.
EIGHT
Detective Matthew M. Payne was the guest of Brewster C. Payne for lunch at the Union League. On the way into Philadelphia from Upper Darby, while pumping gas into the Porsche, he had seen a pay telephone and remembered that his father had left a message on the answering machine to which he had not responded. He’d called him, and been invited to lunch.
He had hung up the phone thinking that virtue was its own reward. He had nobly been the dutiful son, and only in the middle of the conversation realized that his father would have the solution to what he should do with his Las Vegas winnings.
Brewster Payne arrived first and was asked by the headwaiter how many would be in his party.
“Just my son, Charley.”
“Then you wouldn’t mind sitting at a small table?”
“Not at all.”
One of the prerogatives of being a member of the Board of Governors was being able to walk into the dining room anytime before twelve-thirty without a reservation and finding a good four-place table with a RESERVED sign on it was available to you.
Brewster Payne had just been served, without having to ask for it, a Famous Grouse with an equal amount of water and just a little ice, when he saw his son stop at the entrance and look around for him.
He thought, as he very often did, it is incredible that that well-dressed, very nice young man is a policeman with a gun concealed somewhere on his person. A gun, even more incredibly, with which he has killed two people.
Matt spotted him and smiled and walked across the room. Brewster Payne got to his feet and extended his hand. At the last moment, he moved his hand to his son’s shoulders and gave him a brief hug.
“I didn’t know how long I would have to wait, so I ordered a drink.”
“I am ninety seconds late, just for the record.”
A waiter appeared.
“I’ll have a Tuborg, please,” Matt ordered.
“Your sister is annoyed with you.”
“Anything else new?”
“Have you called her?”
“No.”
“I think you should have. She wanted to know how things went in Las Vegas.”
“Vis-à-vis Precious Penny, more smoothly than I would have thought,” Matt said. “She only said ‘Fuck you, Matt’ twice.”
“What was that about?”
“Idle conversation,” Matt said. “She left a message on the machine, very sweetly thanking me for going out there and fetching her home. I don’t really have anything to tell Amy; that’s why I didn’t call her.”
“That you had nothing to report would have been useful in itself. ”
“Okay, I’ll call her.”
“You don’t have to now. She went out to Chestnut Hill this morning and saw her.”
“Great,” Matt said. “Then that’s over. Ask me what else happened in Las Vegas.”