“And that’s what we’re doing here. Trying to run this guy down. We understand Cheryl used to come in here.”
“Who told you that?” Charley asked.
“Her mother,” Olivia said. “And she gave me a list of people Cheryl hung out with.” She handed him the list. “Do you know any of these people?”
“Most of them,” Charley reported after a minute.
“Any of them in here right now?”
Charley looked down the bar, then looked through the doors of two adjacent rooms and came back to report that none of them were.
“Well, we’ll run them down,” Matt said.
“It would help if you could tell us anything about Cheryl,” Olivia said. “What kind of a girl was she?”
“Let me say something unpleasant,” Matt said. “It’s okay to say unkind things about the dead if the purpose is to find out who killed them.”
Charley considered that a moment.
“I take the point,” he said. “Okay, so far as I know, she was really a nice girl. If she were a bimbo, I’d say so, okay? You want my gut feeling?”
“Please,” Olivia said.
“I think she came in here hoping that Mr. Right, the guy on the white horse, you know what I mean, would walk in and make eyes at her. And I don’t think he ever did. She was good-looking. Guys hit on her. But she wasn’t looking for a one-night stand, and I never saw her leave here with a guy. Sometimes, when she was in here with her girlfriends, a couple of them would leave together with a couple of guys. Never alone. You know what I mean?”
“I get the picture,” Matt said.
Matt’s cell phone went off.
“Payne.”
“D’Amata, Matt. Where are you?”
“Halligan’s Pub.”
“Yeah. Lassiter said you’d be going there. She with you?”
“Yeah.”
“You eat yet?”
“Just finished.”
“I’m in Liberties,” D’Amata said. “I figured you might want to compare notes.”
He’s taking care of me. That’s nice.
“Okay.”
“The Black Buddha’s going to want to know what’s going on, and he’ll be finished with that artsy thing pretty soon. If you don’t want to come to Center City, I could meet you someplace. ”
“I’ll come there. I’ve got to pick up my car at the Roundhouse anyway. Thirty minutes?”
“Thirty minutes,” D’Amata said, and hung up.
Matt looked at Olivia.
“We have to meet D’Amata, Mother,” he said.
She nodded.
“Can I ask you a favor?” Matt asked the bartender.
“Name it.”
“I’m going to give you a card-a bunch of cards-with my number on it. If any of the people on the list Mother gave you come in, would you hand them one and ask them to call?”
“Sure.”
'Give one to anybody who might have an idea,” Matt said. 'Okay?”
“You got it.”
Matt took a small, stuffed-to-capacity card case from his pocket.
“These are old,” Matt said. “They say Special Operations. But the number I write on them will be Homicide. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Tell them to ask for me or Detective Lassiter, but if neither of us is there, to talk to any Homicide detective, and leave a phone number and an address.”
“Got it.”
It took Matt and Olivia about five minutes to write her name and the Homicide number on all of the cards.
Then Matt asked for the check.
“On me,” Charley the bartender said.
“No,” Matt said, firmly, handing over his American Express card. “The one drink-between friends-we’ll take with thanks. The rest we pay for.”
Charley shrugged, but took the card.
Matt signed the receipt, looked at it, and said, “Mother, your half comes to fifteen-fifty, with tip.”
She dug in her purse and came up with a five and a ten and handed it to him.
“I owe you fifty cents.”
“I’ll remember,” he said.
He put out his hand to Charley.
“Thanks a lot,” he said. “You’ve been more helpful than I think you understand. I’ll probably come by again tomorrow, or Mother will. Okay?”
“Any time,” Charley said.
“What we’ll do, Mother, is go by the Roundhouse. I’ve got to get a property receipt for the sales slip I got in New York, and I want to pick up my car,” Matt said when they were in the Porsche. “You can take it home after we meet with Joe D’Amata.”
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” Olivia said.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not sure I should be driving. I’m not used to three drinks of scotch in forty-five minutes, and that third drink was really a double.”
He looked at her and smiled.
“Mother, are you plastered?” he asked, amused.
“Tiddly, not plastered,” Olivia said. “And I’m not your mother.”
His eyebrows rose.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she said, and he saw that she was blushing.
“In vino veritas,” Matt said, softly.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Matt said, and moved his head the six or eight inches necessary to kiss her.
She didn’t pull away.
“I really didn’t want that to happen,” she said, softly a moment later.
“Are you sorry?”
“Just drive the goddamn car, will you, please?”
He put the Porsche in gear and started off.
ELEVEN
As Matt approached Liberties Bar on North Second Street, he saw Martha Washington’s Mercedes parked in front, beside Peter Wohl’s Jaguar and a half-dozen unmarked cars.
Well, so much for Joe D’Amata’s noble attempt to bring me up to speed before Washington asks what I’ve