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“You gave her the story you’re looking for hidden money? And she bought it?”
“I think so.”
“Now what happens?”
“I made a deal with her,” Matt said. “I go along with the she-was-with-me story for her parents, and she goes to dinner with me, keeps me company while I’m all alone in Harrisburg, so to speak.”
“You blackmailed her, in other words?”
“Yeah. Sort of.”
“You don’t think pushing yourself on her will make her suspicious?”
“Only that I’m trying to get into her pants.”
“Are you?”
“I am prepared to make any sacrifice in the line of duty,” Matt said.
“That would really be stupid, Matt,” Wohl said.
“Hey, that was a joke. You really think I’m that stupid?”
“I hope not.”
“I’m not,” Matt said firmly.
“Okay. Matt, if it should ever come up, I just now gave you a long, firm lecture on the price you would have to pay for disobeying Denny Coughlin’s clear order to you that you’re not to do anything but locate Chenowith and friends for the FBI.”
“Okay.” Matt said. “Lecture received and duly noted.”
“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m just trying to save time. You disobey that order and I’ll have your ass, Matt. Coughlin’s serious about this, and so am I.”
“Yes, sir,” Matt said.
&
nbsp; “I’ll bring you up on charges, Matt. Understand that.”
The trouble with that dramatic threat is that Matt knows that it’s empty. If he gets lucky and grabs these people, or any one of them, it’ll be in all the papers, and we’re not going to discipline a policeman for doing something the public expects policemen to do; that gets in the papers, too.
“Yes, sir,” Matt said.
“Keep in touch,” Wohl said. “Have a nice dinner.”
He hung up.
Matt found the Reynolds house, following Mrs. Reynolds’s instructions, with little trouble. She had neglected to tell him it wasn’t visible from the street, and it took him two trips down Schuler Avenue before his headlights picked up a sign by a driveway reading “Reynolds.”
The house, when he’d driven several hundred yards up a macadam drive through a wooded area to it, was a large brick colonial with a house-wide verandah. It looked, however, Matt thought, more like the house of an assistant vice president of Nesfoods International than a house one would expect the chairman of the board, president, and chief executive officer of a Fortune 500 company to own.
As he stopped the Plymouth, two large brass fixtures on either side of the double front door went on, and just as he got close to the door, it was opened.
“Good evening, sir,” the butler—a middle-aged man wearing a gray cotton jacket—greeted him.
“Good evening,” Matt replied. “My name is Payne.”
“Yes, sir, you’re expected,” the butler said. “This way, please, sir.”
