“Washington didn’t say anything to me,” Wohl said, just a shade defensively.
“Boss . . .”
“Okay. Sorry I jumped on you.”
“Your father called out here,” Matt said.
“My father called out there? What did he want?”
“I don’t know. He called Chief Mueller—”
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in!” Matt called.
There was a rattling of the doorknob, but the door remained closed.
“Hold it a minute,” Matt said. “There’s somebody at the door.”
“Room service, no doubt,” Wohl said. “Go ahead.”
Matt put the phone down and walked to the door, standing behind it when he opened it, so that only his face would show to whoever was in the corridor.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Matt said in genuine surprise when he had opened the door. “Sorry, I gave at the office.”
The wit sailed two feet over the head of Miss Susan Reynolds.
“May I come in?” she asked icily.
“There are several problems with that, as delighted as I am to see you,” Matt said. “One of them being I’m wearing only a towel.”
“Put your pants on,” Susan said. “I’ll wait.”
“Don’t go away,” Matt said, and rushed into the bedroom, pulled on a pair of slacks, and trotted quickly back to the half-open door.
“Come in, please,” he said, opening it wide.
Susan stepped inside the room, and closed the door.
“Problem two is that I’m on the phone,” he said.
“Go ahead,” Susan said, and went to the couch and sat down.
Matt picked up the telephone.
“I don’t suppose I could call you back?” he said.
“What’s going on?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“It will have to wait,” Wohl said. “This won’t take long.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What Denny Coughlin wanted me to say to you—and incidentally, I agree with all of this—is that he thinks what he ordered you—the operative word here is ‘ordered’—to do about Chenowith went in one ear and out the other. Do you remember that order?”
“Yes, sir.”