"No. Moot point. No Assistant DA in his right mind is going to try to indict Penelope Detweiler for simple possession."
"Her mother said she probably didn't have fifty dollars in cash; she really had seven hundred and change."
"Her mother told us the truth, as far as she knew it. I don't think she knows that her daughter is doing cocaine. But that does suggest, since Penelope uses coke and didn't have any but had a lot of money, that she was shopping for some, doesn't it?"
"From DeZego?"
"We don't know that, but-"
"Somebody was trying to rip DeZego off, and/or his customer? "
"But why the shotgun? Why kill him?" Washington replied. "Any of that stuff ring a bell?"
"Gin-mill matchbooks," Matt said. "From saloons where Penny and her kind drink."
"They all familiar?"
"This one's new to me," Matt said, holding up a large matchbook with a flocked purple cover and the legend INDULGENCES stamped in silver.
Washington glanced at it.
"New to me too," he said. "Is there an address?"
"Not outside," Matt said. He opened it. "There's a phone number, printed inside."
"I'll check that out," Washington said. "Anything else?"
Matt examined the other matchbooks.
"Phone number in this one, handwritten."
Matt unfolded the crumpled pieces of paper.
"This one has a printed number: four eight two. Looks like something from the factory. There's another phone number in one of the others, and the last one is the same as the first."
"Call in to Special Operations every hour or so. When I get addresses, I'll pass them on to you. If you come up with something, pass it on. Leave a phone number, so if something interesting turns up I think you should know, I can call you." He paused and smiled. "I'll say I'm the Porsche service department."
"Clever," Matt said, chuckling.
"Yes, I sometimes think so," Washington said. "The evidence is overwhelming."
A Highway Patrol car was waiting at City Line and Monument when Jason Washington and Matt Payne got there. Washington stopped on the pedestrian crosswalk and Matt got out. Matt walked to the Highway car, opened the back door, and got in.
"Hi," he said. "I need a ride to Bustleton and Bowler."
"What the hell are we supposed to be, a fucking taxi?" asked the driver, a burly cop with an acne-scarred face.
"I thought you weresupposed to be the Gestapo," Matt said.
Oh, shit, there goes the automatic, out-of-control mouth again.
The Highway cop in the passenger seat, a lean, sharp-featured man with cold blue eyes, turned and put his arm on the back of the seat and looked at Matt. Then he smiled. It did not make him look much warmer.
"He can't be in the Gestapo, Payne," he said. "You have to be able to read and write to be in the Gestapo."
"Fuck you too," the driver said.
"You in a hurry or what?" the other one asked. "We was about to get coffee when we got the call."