The prerecorded message played, and there came the beep.
'Matt, damn you, I know she's there, and I absolutely have to talk to her this instant! Pick up the telephone!'
The voice was that of Mrs. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV.
Without taking his eyes from the bug he had under relentless aerial attack, Matt raised his left hand, center finger extended, the others bent, over his head and in the general direction of the loudspeaker on the telephone answering device.
Dear Daffy, Matt reasoned, is almost certainly referring to good ol' blue-eyed, blond-haired, splendidly knockered, Whatsername-Susan Reynolds-with whom I struck out last night.
Daffy thinks she came here with me.
Can it be that the Sweet Susan-Daffy knows her well-has been known to do with others what she would not do last night with me?
Damn!
He flushed the toilet by depressing the lever with his foot, pulled his T-shirt over his head, and stepped into his tiny shower stall. He had just finished what he thought of as Phase One (rinse) of his shower and reached for the soap to commence Phase Two (soap) when the telephone rang again.
He slid the shower door open to listen.
This time it was Mr. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV himself.
'Matt, if you're there, for Christ's sake, answer the phone! Daffy's climbing the walls!'
Matt walked naked and dripping to the telephone and picked it up.
'She's not here, whoever she is,' he said.
'Then where the hell is she?' Chad Nesbitt challenged.
'Since I'm not even sure who you're talking about, pal-'
'Susan Reynolds, of course,' Chad said shortly.
'Not here. The last time I saw the lady, she was in your dining room.'
'She's not with you?' Chad asked, obviously surprised, and went on before Matt could reply. 'But she was, right?'
'Listen carefully. She is not here. She has never been here. Let your imagination soar,' Matt said. 'Consider the possibility that she left your place with someone else.'
'You were putting the make on her, Matt,' Chad challenged.
'Indeed I was. But the lady proved to be monumentally uninterested.'
'She didn't call home,' Chad said.
'Thank you for sharing that with me.'
'She always calls her mother before she goes to sleep,' Chad said.
'How touching!'
Daffy Browne Nesbitt came on the line. 'Don't be such a sarcastic son of a bitch, Matt. Honestly, you're a real shit!'
'I would appreciate it if you would attempt to control your foul tongue when under the same roof as my goddaughter, ' Matt said solemnly.
'She didn't call her mother last night,' Chad said. 'So her mother called her. At the Bellvue. And then she called here.'
'Why did she call there?'
'I just told you,' Chad said, somewhat impatiently. 'There was no answer at the Bellvue. Then she called here, at half past two. Daffy told her that she had gone with you to listen to jazz.'
'Daffy told her what? Why?'
'I certainly didn't want to tell her mother that she was in your apartment,' Daffy said.
'Have you been eavesdropping all along, Daffy, or did you just come on the line? The reason I ask is because I have already told Chad that your pal is not now, and never has been, in my apartment.'
'Then where is she?' Daffy challenged indignantly.
'This is where I came in. I haven't the foggiest idea where she might be, Daffy, and'-he shifted into a Clark Gable accent-'frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.'
Chad chuckled.
'The both of you are shits,' Daffy said, and hung up.
'You might try washing her mouth out with soap,' Matt said.
'She's upset. She lied to Susan's mother, and now she's been caught at it.'
'I'm the one who should be pissed about that, old buddy. She told Mommy that the family virgin was out with me.'
'You're close,' Chad said. 'Be a good chap, won't you, and go by the Bellvue?'
'You're as close as I am, Chad,' Matt protested.
The Bellvue-Stratford Hotel, on South Broad Street, was nowhere near equidistant between Matt Payne's apartment-which consisted of a bedroom, a bath not large enough for a bathtub, a kitchen separated from the dining area by a no longer functioning sliding partition, and a living room from which one could, if one stood on one's toes, catch a glimpse of a small area of Rittenhouse Square, four floors below, through one of two eighteen-inch wide dormer windows-and the Nesbitt triplex on Stockton Place.
'No, it's not,' Chad replied. 'And you know it. Besides, I can't leave Daffy and the baby alone!'
'Perish the thought! That nanny you just imported is to impress the neighbors, right? You certainly couldn't trust her to watch the kid, could you?'
'Daffy's right. Sometimes you are a sarcastic ass,' Chad said.
'What am I supposed to do at the Bellvue?'
'See what you can find out. See if her car's there, for example. And call me.'
'What kind of a car?'
'Daffy, what kind of a car does Susan drive?' Matt heard Chad call, and then he came back on the line. 'Oddly enough, one like yours. Only red.'
'A 911? A red 911?'
'That's what Daffy says.'
'That's why I asked.'
'Thanks, pal,' Chad said, and the line went dead.
Matt put the phone back in its cradle, but didn't take his hand from it.
'Matthew, my boy,' he said aloud. 'You have just been had. Again.'
Then he dialed a number from memory.
On the second ring, the phone was picked up.
'Hello,' his mother said.
'This is the son who never seems to find time to even drop by for a cup of coffee,' Matt said.
'Is it really?'
'Do you think you could throw in a doughnut?'
'If I thought the offer was genuine, I would be willing to go so far as a couple of scrambled eggs and a slice of Taylor ham. Whatever it takes. Sometime this year, I would dare to hope?'
'How about in an hour?'
'I will believe my extraordinary good fortune only when you physically appear. But I will light a candle and leave it in the window.'
'Good-bye, Mother.'
Matt returned and finished his shower and toilette, shaving while under the shower.
He dressed quickly, in a single-breasted tweed jacket; gray flannel trousers; a white, button-down-collar shirt and slipped his feet into tasseled loafers. Just before he left his bedroom, he took his Smith amp; Wesson Undercover Model. 38 Special-caliber revolver from the bedside table, pulled up his left trouser leg, and strapped it on his ankle.
He started down the steep, narrow flight of stairs that led to the third-floor landing, then stopped and went back into his living room. He pulled open a drawer in a cabinet, took from it a key, and slipped it into his pocket.
