in.
'Fuck you, Charley!' he said, flaring, and he stood up so quickly that he bumped against the table, knocking over the beer bottles. ' Jesus Christ, what a shitty thing to say!'
'If you didn't do it, then I'm sorry,' McFadden said after a moment.
'That's not good enough. Fuck you!'
'You cut off his tire valves!' McFadden said. 'Tell me that wasn't a shitty thing to do.'
'The son of a bitch was sound asleep on a stakeout,' Martinez said. 'He deserved that.'
'No he didn't. A pal would have woke him up.'
'Rich Boy is not my pal,' Martinez said. 'He doesn't take me riding around in his Porsche like some people I know. All he's doing isplaying cop.'
'He put down the Northwest rapist. That'splaying cop?'
'You know, and I know, that he just stumbled on that scumbag,' Martinez said.
'He put him down! Jesus Christ, Hay-zus!'
'Okay, so he put him down,' Martinez admitted grudgingly. 'But it wouldn't surprise me at all to find he's stuffing shit up his nose.'
'You've got no right to say something like that!'
'You had no right to say what you did about me fingering him to Dolan.'
'I said I was sorry.'
'Yeah, you said you were sorry,' Martinez said. 'I'm going home. I've had enough of your bullshit for one night.'
'Oh, sit down and drink your beer.'
'Fuck you.'
'Sit down, Hay-zus.'
'Or what?'
'Or I'll sit onyou.'
Martinez glowered at him angrily for a moment and then smiled.
'You would, too, you fucking, overgrown Mick.'
'You bet your ass I would,' McFadden said.
Matt woke up and opened his eyes and saw that Amanda was supporting her head on her hand and looking down at him.
'Hi,' she said, and bent her head and kissed him.
'Christ, and some people have alarm clocks!'
She laughed.
He looked up at the ceiling, where his bedside clock, a housewarming gift from his sister Amy, projected the time on the ceiling. It was a quarter past five.
'What were you thinking?' he asked.
'Wondering, actually.'
'Okay. What were you wondering?'
'Two things.'
'What two things?'
'Whether there is anything in your refrigerator besides a jar of olives.'
'No,' he said. 'I haven't been shopping in a week. And what else were you wondering?'
'Whether I'm pregnant,' Amanda said.
'Jesus! You're not on the pill?'
'I stopped taking the pill when I broke my engagement. And something like this wasn't supposed to be on the agenda.'
'I would be delighted to make an honest woman of you,' Matt said.
'Maybe I'll be lucky.'
'Not at all, my pleasure.'
'That's not what I meant.' She giggled and jerked one of the hairs curling around his nipple out.
'Ouch,' he said, and reached out for her and pulled her down to him so that she was lying with her face on his chest and her leg thrown over him.
'This is probably not a very smart thing for us to do,' she said.
'I disagree absolutely,' he said.
'What are the Brownes going to think?' she asked.
'We could tell them we had car trouble. Do you really care what the Brownes think?'
'No,' she said, after a moment. 'Okay. We'll tell them we had car trouble and not give a damn whether or not they believe us.'
He chuckled and tightened his arm around her.
'Are you going to feed me, or what?' she asked.
'I'd rather 'or what,' ' he said.
'You're boasting,' she said. 'Idle promises.'
'See for yourself,' Matt said.
She raised her head an inch off his chest.
'I'll be damned,' she said. 'Isn't that amazing?'
There were two Highway cops sitting at the counter of the small restaurant in the Marriott Motel on City Line Avenue when Matt and Amanda walked in.
He didn't recognize either of them and saw nothing like recognition in their eyes, either. Both looked carefully at Amanda and him, however, something Matt ascribed to Amanda's good looks, her lowcut evening dress, and the disparity between that and the tweed sport coat and slacks he had put on to go to work; or all of the above.
He was wrong. As soon as they had sat down in one of the booths, he saw alarm in Amanda's eyes and looked over his shoulder to see what had caused it. Both Highway cops were marching to the booth.
And they were, Matt thought, in their breeches and boots, their Sam Browne belts and leather jackets, intimidating.
'Seen the papers, Payne?' the larger of the two asked.
'No.'
'Thought maybe not,' the cop said.
How the hell am I going to introduce these guys to Amanda? That's obviously what they want, and I have absolutely no idea what either of their names are.
He was wrong about that too. The second Highway cop carefully laid slightly mussed copies of theBulletin, theLedger, and theDaily News on the table and then nodded to Amanda.
'Ma'am,' he said. By then the first cop was halfway to the door.
'Hey!' Matt called. Both cops looked at him, 'Thank you.'
Both waved and then left the diner.
'For a moment there I thought we were going to be arrested again,' Amanda said.
'We weren't.'
'Call it what you like,' she said. 'Are they all like that?'
'Like what?'
'So, what's a word? Those two looked like an American version of the Gestapo.'
'They're Highway,' Matt said. 'They're sort of special. Sort of the elite.'
'That's what they said about the Gestapo,' Amanda said.
'Hey, they're the good guys,' Matt said.
'How is it they knew you?'
