sister.
'Jesus Christ, Amy! Wait till I get my goddamned pants on.'
'I really hope I'm interrupting something,' Amy said as she entered the apartment. She smirked at the sight of her naked brother trotting into his bedroom and then looked around.
Amy Payne was twenty-seven, petite and intense, a wholesome but not quite pretty woman who looked a good deal like her father. She was in fact not related to Matt except in the law. Her mother had been killed in an automobile accident. Six months later, her father had married Matt's widowed mother, and Brewster Payne had subsequently adopted Matthew Mark Moffitt, her infant son. Patricia Moffitt Payne and Matt had been around as far back as Amy could remember.
In Amy's mind, Patricia Moffitt Payne was her mother, and Matt her little brother.
Matt returned to the living room bare-chested and zipping up a pair of khaki pants.
'How'd you get inside?' he asked.
'Dad gave me a key so that I could use the garage,' she said. 'It also opens the door downstairs, as I just found out.'
'Not to the apartment?' he challenged.
'No, not to the apartment,' Amy said.
'To what do I owe the honor of your presence?' Matt asked. 'You want a beer or a Coke or something?'
'I want to talk to you, Matt.'
'Why does that cause me to think I'm not going to like this? The tone of your voice, maybe?'
'I don't care if you like what I have to say or not,' she said. 'But you're going to listen to me.'
'What the hell is the matter with you?'
He looked at the desk, and then at the clock, and then decided he had typed the last form he was going to have to type tonight, and he could thus have a beer.
He walked to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Heineken. He held it up.
'You want one of these?'
'I don't suppose you would have any white wine in there?'
'Yeah, I do,' he said, and took a bottle from the refrigerator door.
'How long has that been in there, I wonder?' she asked.
'You want it or not?' he asked.
She nodded. 'Please.'
He took a stemmed glass from a cupboard over the sink, filled it nearly full with wine, and handed it to her.
'Make this quick, whatever it is,' he said. 'I have to work tonight, and between now and nine, I've got to grab a sandwich or something.'
She didn't respond to that. Instead she raised her glass toward the mantelpiece of the fireplace, which showed evidence of having recently been bricked in.
'What's this?' she asked. 'Your temple of the phallic symbol?'
'What?'
'Firearms are a substitute phallus,' she said.
He saw that she was referring to his pistols, both of which he had placed on the wooden mantelpiece.
'Only for people with performance problems,' Matt snorted. 'I don't have that kind of problem. Not only did I take Psychology 101, too, Amy, but I stayed awake through the parts you missed.'
'That's why you have two of them, right?' she replied. 'I hope they' re not loaded.'
'One of them is,' he said. 'Leave them alone.'
'Why two?'
'I bought the little one today; it's easier to conceal,' he said. 'Is that the purpose of your uninvited visit, to lay some of your psychiatric bullshit on me?'
She turned to face him.
'I had lunch with Mother today,' she said. 'She worries me.'
'What's the matter with Mother?' he asked, concern coming quickly into his voice.
'Why you are, of course,' she said. 'Don't tell me that hasn't run through your mind.'
'Oh, not that again!'
'Yes, that again,' she said. 'And she has every reason to feel that way. She's had a husband killed,and a brother-in-law, and she'd be a fool if she closed her mind to the possibility that could happen to a son, too.'
'Did she say anything?'
'Of course not,' Amy said. 'Mother's not the type to whine.'
'We have, I seem to recall,' Matt said, 'been over this before. My position, I seem to recall, was that I had- there was a much greater chance of my getting myself blown away if I had made it into the Marines. I didn't hear any complaints, I seem to recall, from you about my going in the Marines.'
'You had no choice about that,' she said. 'You do about being a policeman.'
'Oh, shit!' he said, disgustedly. 'When you get a real complaint about me from Mother, then come to see me, Amy. In the meantime, butt out.'
'You refuse to see, don't you, that this entire insane notion of yours to be a policeman is nothing more than an attempt to overcome the psychological castration you underwent when you failed the Marine physical.'
'I seem to recall your saying something like that, before, Dr. Strangelove.'
'Well, I don't have to be a psychiatrist to know that your being a policeman is tearing Mother up!'
'But your being a shrink makes it easier, right?'
The telephone rang. Matt picked it up.
'Dr. Payne's Looney-Bin, Matt the Castrated speaking.'
'Peter Wohl, Matt,' his caller identified himself.
Oh, shit! Those two bastards in the highway RPC sure didn't lose any time squealing on me!
And, oh, Jesus, what I just said!
'Yes, sir?'
Amy looked at him curiously. The phrase 'yes, sir' was not ordinarily in his vocabulary.
'That was an interesting way to answer your phone,' Peter Wohl said.
'Sir,' Matt said, lamely. 'My sister is here. We were having a little argument.'
'Actually, that's what I called you about. You did mean your sister the psychiatrist?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Jason Washington was just in to see me. He didn't turn up anything useful interviewing Miss Flannery. I'm sort of clutching at straws. In other words, I was hoping that your offer to talk to your sister was valid.'
'Yes, sir, of course. I'm sure she'd be happy to speak with you.'
'Who is that?' Amy asked in a loud whisper. Matt held up his hand to silence her, which had the exact opposite reaction.'Who is that?' Amy repeated, louder this time.
'I'm talking about now, Matt,' Wohl said.
'Yes, sir,' Matt said. 'Now would be fine.'
'I suppose you've eaten?'
'Sir?'
'I asked, have you had dinner?'
'No, sir.'
'Well, then, why don't I pick you up, and we'll get a little something to eat, and I can speak with her. Would that be too much of an imposition on such short notice?'
'Not at all, sir.'
'You live in the 3800 block of Walnut, right?'
'No, sir. I've moved. I'm now on Rittenhouse Square, South, in the Delaware Valley Cancer Society Building-'
'I know where it is.'
'In the attic, sir. Ring the button that says'Superintendent' in the lobby.'
'I'll be there in fifteen minutes,' Wohl said. 'Thank you.'
The phone went dead.
