“If you had a decent paying job, you wouldn’t have to put in so much overtime,” Special Agent Matthews, a tall, muscular, fair-skinned man in his late twenties, said to Detective Payne when Matt slid onto a stool beside him in the bar.
“Why do I suspect there is something significant in that remark?” Matt said. “What are you drinking?”
“Johnny Walker Black,” Matthews said. “Would you like one?”
“You’re paying?”
“The Bureau is paying.”
“In that case, yes, thank you, I will,” Matt said. He caught the bartender’s eye and signaled for the same thing. “I will ask why the Bureau is paying later. I would have thought they would be just a little annoyed with me.”
“Whatever for? The purpose of this little rendezvous is to point out to you all the nice things that would happen if you joined us.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not at all. Davis called me into his office and ordered me to wine and dine you with that noble purpose in mind.”
Matt chuckled.
“You can tell Mr. Davis what I told the two assholes. One of my best friends is an FBI agent, but I wouldn’t want my sister to marry one of them.”
“Which two assholes would that be?”
“The two I led on a wild-goose chase up and down the alleys of North Philadelphia.”
“FBI agents?” Matthews asked. Matt nodded. “Did they have names?”
Matt called the names from his memory.
“Jernigan and Leibowitz,” he said. “Leibowitz seemed to be the brighter of the two.”
“Never heard of them,” Jack Matthews said. “Why did you lead them on a wild-goose chase?”
“They annoyed me,” Matt said.
“Why did they annoy you?”
“They thought I had kidnapped an innocent maiden.”
“You don’t know any innocent maidens. There may not be an innocent maiden over the age of eleven in Philadelphia. Kidnapped? What the hell are you talking about, Matt? Try starting at the beginning.”
“This is really the first time you’re hearing this?” Matt asked.
Matthews held up his hands in a gesture of innocence.
“Somewhat reluctantly, I will take you at your word,” Matt said, and told him of his encounter with Special Agents Leibowitz and Jernigan.
“We don’t have any agents by those names in our office, Matt,” Matthews said when Matt had finished. “Are you sure they were FBI agents? Not Treasury, or Secret Ser—”
“They had FBI credentials,” Matt shut him off. “Which they shoved close enough under my nose for me to take a good look.”
“I don’t understand this at all,” Matthews said. “And your lady friend was not kidnapped at all?”
“How do you get ‘kidnapped at all’? Wouldn’t that be like being a little pregnant?”
Matthews chuckled.
“Have you told anyone else about this?” he asked. “Wohl, for example?”
“Not a soul. And especially not Wohl. That would have triggered his ‘we must be kind to the FBI’ speech.”
“I have no idea—”
“Let’s get a table and eat,” Matt said. “I’m starved. And when I’m finished, I have another couple of hours’ work at the Roundhouse, which means I better not have another drink, even if the FBI is paying for it.”
“What are you doing?”
“Is that you or the FBI asking?”
“Me.”
“Checking some personnel records. It doesn’t make me feel like Sherlock Holmes, but it’s a dirty job that someone has to do.”
Matthews chuckled.
“May I tell Mr. Davis that you have taken his kind offer of employment under consideration?”
“I don’t give a damn what you tell him,” Matt said. “Let’s eat.”
Cynthia Longwood took a long time to wake up, and when she did, she had no idea at all where she was. The room was dark.
She became aware first that she was wearing one of those awful hospital gowns that tie down the back and let your fanny hang out. And then, quickly, she realized that she was in a narrow hospital bed with chrome rails to keep you from falling out; and put that together to understand that she was in a hospital room.
She sat up—her muscles seemed stiff and she didn’t seem to have much strength—and saw the glow of a cigarette. Someone was in the room with her.
Who? A nurse?
Cynthia let herself fall back on the bed.
The last thing she remembered clearly was being in her own room in Bala Cynwyd. Dr. Seaburg had been there.
Mother called him when I couldn’t stop crying.
And he gave me something, a pill. A pill. A pill and then a shot. And told me it would let me sleep.
And then I was in a car, and going downtown. . . .