“At the time, I believed you,” Susan said. “At the time, I thought you were what your friends told me you were.”
“Which friends? What did they tell you I was?”
“Your two old school pals at Daffy’s party. They told me you were a mixed-up screwball playing at being a cop. To prove your manhood. You’re not, are you? You’re really a cop, and what you’re playing at is being a screwball. It’s a good act. It had me fooled.”
“And now that my facade has been torn away, what do you think?”
“I’m afraid about how much I like what I see,” she said. “I’m afraid that it’s going to be taken away from me.”
“You want to go back in the shower?” Matt asked.
“No. God, I can’t believe we did that. I didn’t think it was possible.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want you to spread this around, but that was a first for me, too.”
“Really?”
“Of course, I never had a woman look for asparagus bits in my—”
“Stop!”
“Yeah. We have to stop,” he said seriously. “But let’s finish Poor . . . What happened when you were on the phone with Jennifer and Chenowith?”
“That’s it. He asked about you. He said you might really be an FBI agent, and I assured him you were just a cop.”
“When are you going to meet with them?”
“I’m not,” she said. “I told him I wasn’t going to do it, and when he started to argue, I hung up on him.”
“But you told him about me?”
“I just told you I did,” she said. “That was before you pointed out to me the many benefits of changing sides.”
“Don’t start playing the bitch again. We don’t have time for that.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding genuinely contrite. “Forgive me. Matt, so much has happened—”
“Whatever happened to ‘honey’?”
“I’m sorry, honey.”
“You think he took ‘no’ for an answer? Or will he call again?”
“He’ll probably call again.”
“If he does, stall him again. I don’t know how yet, I’ll have to think about it, but maybe we can put his wanting to hide the bank money to our advantage.”
“Matt, I don’t want to betray them!”
“For the last fucking time, Susan, get it through your head that you don’t have any options. They’re going down, and all we can hope for is that I can figure out some way to keep you from going down with them!”
She met his eyes but didn’t reply.
He angrily tossed his towel on the floor and walked out of the bathroom.
After a moment, she went after him.
He was on his hands and knees, reaching under the bed, and he pulled his and her clothing out from where he had kicked it. And something else. A snub-nosed revolver in a holster.
“Did you really think you would have to use that on me?” Susan asked.
“I’m a cop. Cops carry guns,” he said somewhat abruptly. He tossed the clothing and then the pistol onto the bed, and reached for his shorts.
“Honey, I’m sorry,” Susan said. “I really don’t want you to be angry with me.”
“I’m not angry.”
“Yes, you are.”
He looked at her.
“You’re too goddamned smart to be stupid,” he said. “And we can’t afford it.”
“I like the way you said ‘we,’ ” she said softly.
That made him smile.
He made the sign of the cross. “I grant you absolution. Go, and be stupid no more.”
“I’ll try,” she said.
She started to dress.
“Did you see what you did to my bra?” she asked a moment later, and showed it to him.
“I did that?”
“Yes, you did that.”
“What’s Mommy going to think when you come in the house flopping all over?”
“I’ll keep my coat on.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“The bra? Throw it away. It’s beyond repair.”
“Can I have it?”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Make a trophy out of it. A little foam rubber, so it looks lifelike, and a brass plate reading, ‘Susan, 34B, Hotel Hershey,’ and the date. Then I’ll mount it on the wall, with all the others.”
“Damn it, I’m serious.”
He met her eyes.
“I don’t know why I want it,” he said. “I just do.”
She held it out to him. When he put his hand out, she caught it and kissed it.
“For the record, it’s a 34C,” she said.
She let go of his hand, and he took the brassiere and stuffed it in his trousers pocket.
“Thank you, honey, for wanting it,” Susan said.
When Phil Chason came home from Captain Karl Beidermann’s retirement party, it was half past two in the morning and he was half in the bag, and he almost didn’t