“The names of half a dozen guys Cheryl dated,” she said. “And of a couple of her girlfriends.”
“You’ll have to give them to Joe.”
“I already did.”
“Where exactly is this saloon?”
“It’s called Halligan’s Pub. At Bethlehem Pike and College Avenue in Flourtown. I’ve been there. Sort of a neighborhood bar for the young and unattached.”
“Spend a lot of time in places like that, do you?” Matt asked, innocently. “Looking for a little action?”
You sonofabitch!
She glared at him but said nothing.
If he thinks I’m looking for action, and so much as lays a hand on my hand, I’ll knock him into next week.
“Hey, I’m kidding!” Matt said.
“I haven’t been amused,” Olivia snapped.
“Look, this is my first time,” Matt said.
“First time for what? Working with a female detective, you mean?”
“Yeah. Or at least a good-looking one.”
“Can we keep this professional?”
“I worked a couple of jobs with an Intelligence detective, a female,” Matt said. “But she was old enough to be my mother. We got to be friends. So I asked her-we were having a couple of drinks-how I should behave with a younger female cop. And she said treat her like you would treat any other cop. That’s what I was doing. Making a little joke.”
Why do I believe him?
“What kind of a little joke were you making with Sergeant Pinski?”
“The uniform in the parking lot?”
“Yeah. What did you say to him?”
“I told him I was just picking up my date.”
“You thought that was funny?”
“He believed it. And my other choice was to tell him I was on the job and show him my badge. Thirty minutes later, every uniform in the Thirty-fifth, and all your pals in Northwest Detectives, would have heard about the Homicide sergeant driving a Porsche picking up Northwest’s good-looking Detective Lassiter.”
He’s right. That’s exactly what would have happened.
“Where did you get this car, anyway?”
“When I finished college. It was my graduation present.”
“It looks brand-new.”
“It?
?s five years old. I take pretty good care of it.”
“It’s beautiful,” she said in genuine appreciation.