“How many do you see?”
“That’s why I’m asking,” she said, laughing. “I’m curious.”
Matt held up three fingers.
“Let’s start with the easy things. How many fingers?”
“Three, wise guy,” she said. “And I only see one of you. That’s why I’m asking how many others there are of you. Just out of idle curiosity.”
“As far as I know, I am the only one like me here tonight.”
“The only one in regular clothes, you mean.”
“What?”
“I mean not counting him,” she said, pointing to a Holmes Security man taking invitations by the door, “and the one I saw you talking to upstairs.”
“Oh. I’m not a rent-a-cop. I had no idea what you were talking about.”
“Then what are you doing walking around with a gun strapped to your leg? Your ankle?”
“I’m a cop.”
“Are you really?”
He nodded.
“A detective, you mean? There are police here, too, in addition to—what did you say, the rent-a-cops?”
“No. Not a detective. A cop. Off duty.”
“You’re pulling my leg. Aren’t you?”
“Boy Scout’s honor,” Matt said, holding up three fingers.
“And you’re active in, a sponsor, of the Cancer Society Ball?”
“Regretfully, no.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“You mean, here?” Matt said, and nodded his head to take in the lobby.
“Yes.”
“I got off the elevator and a lady told me she was so glad I could come, pinned this thing on me, and handed me a glass of champagne.”
She laughed and took his arm, which caused contact between his elbow and her bosom.
“All right, wise guy,” she said. “What were you doing getting off the elevator?”
“I live here,” Matt said.
“You live here?”
He nodded. “In what Charles Dickens would call the ‘garret.’”
She let go of his arm and stepped in front of him and looked at him intently.