"Well, one doesn't always get what one wishes, does one?"
"Come on, Chad. You get pissed and I'm the villain."
"Who's going to get pissed?"
Matt decided he was wasting his breath.
If he wants to drink, he will drink. He does not listen to me. If he gets pissed, Daffy will be pissed off with me, and that means that I will not be able to get her alone and ask her, between old pals, what she knows about Penny and Tony the Zee. Shit!
A gentle hand brushed his back.
"I thought maybe you'd be here," Amanda said.
She was so close that he could smell her perfume. She was wearing a skirt and a crisp white blouse.
Jesus, she's beautiful!
"Hi," he said.
"I understand that this disreputable character has been keeping you out all night," Chad said to Amanda.
Amanda walked away without replying, or even showing that she had heard him. Matt walked after her. She headed for the door; he caught up with her there.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"If you're having a good time," she said, "by all means stay."
He followed her into the corridor and to the elevator.
"I heard all that," she said. "You did everything you could be expected to do."
"Tell Daffy," he said.
"I intend to," Amanda said.
That pleased him very much.
"There's a couple of bars right here in the hotel," he said as they stepped onto the elevator.
"No bars, thank you," she said.
"Okay. Then how about Professor Payne's famous walking tour of downtown Philadelphia until it's time for the cocktail party?"
"No cocktail party for me, thank you just the same."
"Then where would you like to go? What would you like to do?"
She looked up at him with mischief, and something else, in her eyes.
"Really?" he asked after a moment.
"Really," she said.
Somehow their hands touched and then grasped, and holding hands, they walked out of the elevator and through the lobby and then to the apartment over the Delaware Valley Cancer Society on Rittenhouse Square.
****
At five minutes to five Lieutenant Tony Lucci knocked at Staff Inspector Peter Wohl's office door, waited to be told to come in, and then announced, "Everyone's here, Inspector."