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He was still wearing the gray cotton uniform of the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel Maintenance Staff. By the time he had gone from the hotel to his apartment on Rittenhouse Square, which is five blocks west of the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel, to get the car, he had concluded (a) the smart thing for him to have done was to have prevailed yet again on Tiny Lewis’s good nature and asked him to take the damned tapes to Washington, and (b) that since he had failed to do so he was going to be so late that changing his clothing was out of the question. He had gone directly to the basement garage and taken his car.
“I’ll just be a minute,” he said to the doorman, who, accustomed to Payne’s frequent, brief, nocturnal visits, simply grunted and picked up his telephone to inform Ten Oh Six that a visitor was on his way up.
Mrs. Martha Washington, a very tall, lithe, sharply featured woman, who looked, Matt often thought, like one of the women portrayed on the Egyptian bas-reliefs in the museum, opened the door to him. She was wearing a loose, ankle-length silver lamé gown.
“He’s not here, Matt,” she said, giving him her cheek to kiss. “I just opened a nice bottle of California red, if you’d like to come in and wait. He was supposed to be here by now.”
“I’m already late for dinner, thank you,” he said. “Would you give him this, please?”
He handed her a large, sealed manila envelope.
“Dinner, dressed like that?” she said, indicating his maintenance department uniform. “It looks like you’ve been fixing stopped-up sinks. What in the world have you been up to?”
She saw the uncomfortable look on his face, and quickly added: “Sorry, forget I asked.”
“I’ll take a rain check on the California red,” Matt said. “I don’t know where we’re going for dinner, but I’ll be home early
if he wants me.”
“I’ll tell him.”
Ten minutes later, Matt pulled the Porsche to a stop at the black painted aluminum pole, hinged at one end, which barred access to a narrow cobblestone street in Society Hill, not far from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. A neatly lettered sign reading “Stockton Place—Private Property—No Thoroughfare” hung on short lengths of chain from the pole. A Wachenhut Private Security officer came out of a Colonial-style redbrick guard shack and walked to the Porsche.“May I help you, sir?”
“Matthew Payne, to see Mr. Nesbitt.”
“One moment, sir, I’ll check,” the Wachenhut Security officer said, and went back into his shack.
It was said that, before renovation, the area known as Society Hill, not far from the Delaware River, had been going downhill since Benjamin Franklin—whose grave was nearby in the Christ Church Cemetery at Fifth and Arch streets—had walked its narrow streets. Before renovation had begun, it was an unpleasant slum.
Now it was an upscale neighborhood, with again some of the highest real estate values in Philadelphia. The Revolutionary-era buildings had been completely renovated—often the renovations consisted of discarding just about everything but the building’s facades—and turned into luxury apartments and town houses.
One of the developers, while doing title research, had been pleasantly surprised to learn that a narrow alley between two blocks of buildings had never been deeded to the City. That provided the legal right for them to bar the public from it, something they correctly suspected would have an appeal to the sort of people they hoped to interest in their property.
They promptly dubbed the alley “Stockton Place,” closed one end of it, and put a Colonial-style guard shack at the other.
Having been informed that Mr. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV, who with his wife occupied Number Nine B Stockton Place—an apartment stretching across what had been the second floor of three Revolutionary-era buildings—did in fact expect a Mr. Payne to call, the Wachenhut Security officer pressed a switch on his control console which caused the barrier pole to rise.
Matt drove nearly to the end of Stockton Place, carefully eased the right wheels of the Porsche onto the sidewalk, walked quickly into the lobby of Number Nine, and then quickly up a wide carpeted stairway to the second floor.
The door to Nine B opened as he reached the landing. Standing in it, looking more than a little annoyed, was Miss Penelope Detweiler, who was twenty-four, blond, and just this side of beautiful. She was wearing a simple black dress, adorned with a string of pearls and a golden pin, a representation of a parrot.
“Where the hell have you been?” Miss Detweiler asked, and then, seeing how Detective Payne was attired, went on: “Matt, for Christ’s sake, we’re going to dinner!”
“Hi!” Detective Payne said.
“Don’t ‘Hi’ me, you bastard! We had reservations for nine-thirty, you’re not even here at nine-thirty, and when you finally show up, you’re dressed like that!”
He tried to kiss her cheek; she evaded him, then turned and walked ahead of him into the living room of the apartment. Wide glass windows offered a view of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, the Delaware River, and an enormous sign atop a huge brick warehouse on the far—New Jersey—side of the river showing a representation of a can of chicken soup and the words NESFOODS INTERNATIONAL.
“I would hazard to guess, old buddy, that you are on the lady’s shitlist,” said Mr. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV, who was sprawled on a green leather couch. Sitting somewhat awkwardly beside him was his wife, the former Daphne Elizabeth Browne, who was visibly in the terminal stages of pregnancy.
A thick plate-glass coffee table in front of the couch held a bottle of champagne in a glass cooler.
“What are we celebrating?” Matt asked.
“Look at how he’s dressed!” Penny Detweiler snapped.
“Never fear, Chadwick is here, the problem will be solved,” Chad Nesbitt said, waving his champagne glass as he rose from the couch. “Will you have a little of this, Matthew?”
