The Witness (Badge of Honor 4)

And if I have another of these, I am very likely to forget this calm, logical, most importantly sober analysis of the situation and wind up either in a relationship, or engaged in an altercation with a brother officer in the parking lot, or, more likely, right here on the dance floor, which altercation, no matter who the victor, would be difficult to explain when, inevitably, Staff Inspector P. Wohl heard about it.

He finished his drink, picked up his change, and walked across the room to the stairs leading up to the street.

Was that really invitation in that well-stacked redhead’s eyes or has my imagination been inflamed by this near-terminal case of lakanookie?

He got in the Porsche and drove home. There were, he noticed when he drove in the underground beneath the building that housed both the Delaware Valley Cancer Society and Chez Payne, far more cars in it than there normally were at this hour of the night. Ordinarily, it was just about deserted.

Parking spaces twenty-nine and thirty, which happened to be closest to the elevator, had been reserved by the mana

gement for the occupant of the top-floor apartment. The management had been instructed to do so by the owner, less as a courtesy to his son, who occupied the top-floor apartment, than, the son had come to understand, because a second parking spot was convenient when the owner’s wife or other members of the family had some need to park around Rittenhouse Square.

Tonight, a Cadillac Fleetwood sedan was parked in parking space twenty-nine, its right side overflowing into what looked like half of parking space thirty. The Payne family owned a Cadillac Fleetwood, but this wasn’t it.

Matt managed to squeeze the Porsche 911 into what was left of parking space thirty. But when he had done so, there was not room enough between him and the Cadillac to open the Porsche’s driver’s side door. It was necessary for him to exit by the passenger side door, which, in a Porsche 911, is a squirming feat worthy of Houdini.

He got on the elevator and rode it to the third floor and got off. The narrow corridor between the elevator and the stairs to his apartment was crowded with people.

A woman he could never remember having seen before in his life rushed over to him, stuck something to his lapel, cried, “Oh, I’m so glad you could come!” and handed him a glass of champagne.

“Thank you,” Matt said. The champagne glass, he noticed, was plastic.

“We’re circulating downward tonight,” the woman said.

“Are we?”

“Yes, isn’t that clever?”

“Mind-boggling,” Matt replied.

The woman walked away.

Nice ass for an old woman; I wonder if there’s anybody here under, say, thirty?

“Hello, Mr. Payne.”

It was one of the Holmes Security rent-a-cops. Matt knew he was a retired police sergeant, and it made him a little uncomfortable to be called “Mr.” by a sergeant.

“I bet you know what’s going on here,” Matt said, smiling at him.

The retired cop chuckled. “I saw the look on your face. This is a party for the people who worked on the Cancer Society Ball.”

“I have no idea what that means, but thanks anyway.”

“You know, the ones who sold tickets, did all the work. And, of course, gave money.”

“Oh,” Matt said.

He saw a very pretty face, surrounded by blond hair in a pageboy. She was looking at him with unabashed curiosity. All he could see was the head and shoulders. The lady was on her way down the narrow stairway to the second floor.

Oh, that’s what she meant by “circulating downward.”

“I just came from the FOP,” Matt said. “I wondered where everybody had come from.”

“This is better than the FOP,” the Holmes man said. “Here the booze is free. There’s a bar in the lobby.”

“But I don’t belong.”

“They don’t know that. That lady gave you a badge, and you got by me. I keep the riffraff out.”