"After Bryan . . . blew up the building, and the police started looking for him, Jennie called me. She was hysterical. Desperate. I felt so sorry for her. And she said she absolutely had to have some money . . ."
"And you gave it to her," Matt finished. "And as you were aware she was involved in blowing up the science building, that made you an accessory after the fact."
"I didn"t think about that," Susan said, and looked at him through tear-filled eyes. "My friend was all f.u.c.ked up, Matt. She had n.o.body else to turn to. I had to help."
"Where did you get the money?" he asked, ignoring her.
"It was mine," she said.
"Where did you get it? Specifically, did you take it out of the bank? Is there a record of you making a substantial"-Of course there isn"t. If there was, the FBI would have known about it, and told me-"withdrawal-"
"No," Susan said. "I had it. I had a quarterly dividend check from Chrysler that day, and I had just cashed it-I was going shopping-and I gave her the money."
"No, you didn"t," Matt said.
"What?"
"You will swear on a stack of Bibles that you didn"t give her any money. I don"t think the FBI knows about that, and we don"t want them to know. You cashed the check to go shopping, didn"t buy anything, and just kept the money around and p.i.s.sed it away on routine expenses. How much was it?"
"Three thousand and change," Susan said, very softly. "Matt, I"m not a very good liar."
"Well, you fooled me, honey. You told me you were just not interested, and I believed you."
"Oh, Matt!"
"I"m serious. You"re a good liar, which is a good thing."
"Matt, there is something about money. . . ."
"What?"
"I"m holding some money for Bryan."
"From the bank jobs?"
She nodded.
"Jesus Christ, why?"
"Because he asked me to. Or he got Jennie to ask me to. Same thing."
"Did he tell you why?"
"Against the possibility of his being arrested-"
"The inevitability," Matt interrupted.
"-to hire a good lawyer."
"s.h.i.t," Matt said. "He"s stupid. For one thing-let me explain how this will work-for one thing, the FBI knows all about the bank robberies. He did another one a couple of days ago, in Clinton, New Jersey. Dressed up like a woman, by the way."
"Jennie called me-my G.o.d, that"s only this morning-and asked me to come visit her and the baby."
"What baby?"
The FBI doesn"t know anything about a baby. An infant in arms considerably cuts into the number of wanted females meeting a physical description. I would have been told. It would even have been in their movie.
"They have a baby boy."
"Jesus H. Christ! Wouldn"t you consider that a little irresponsible, considering their circ.u.mstances?"
"Maybe it happened to them the way it could have happened to us just now," Susan said.
"Stop finding excuses for her, Susan," Matt said. "If you"re facing life in prison, you don"t get pregnant."
"Okay," she said. "I told you, she"s all f.u.c.ked up."
"Okay. Where were we? I was telling how this will go down. You"re on the FBI"s list. The moment they arrest Chenowith, they"ll have you picked up as an accessory after the fact. The same day, probably, if they don"t have one already, they"ll get a search warrant for your house, your office, the place in the Poconos. . . . Where is the money?"
"In my safe-deposit box," she said. "In the Harrisburg Bank and Trust Company."
"And for that," Matt said. "They will find the money, and since you have no other explanation for it, and there is evidence that you have been meeting with Chenowith, it will (a) be seized as recovered loot from bank robberies, and (b) used as evidence that you are an active accessory after the fact."
"Oh, G.o.d!"
"For both, probably," he went on as he thought about it. "I think they"ll probably try to make you an accessory to the bank robberies, too."
"Why bother, if they are going to send me to prison for life for helping Jennie?"
"You, and Poor Little Jennie, and Bryan Chenowith, and the guy with the acne-Edgar Leonard Cole-and the other female. What"s her name? Eloise Anne Fitzgerald," he said. "Where are they, by the way?"
"I don"t know, Matt."
"You don"t know, or you"re overwhelmed with compa.s.sion because they had unpleasant childhoods?"
"I don"t know, Matt," she said, half crying, looking at him. "I don"t know if I"d tell you if I did, but I don"t know."
Then she started to cry.
"Jesus, please don"t do that," Matt said.
Once she started, she couldn"t stop. It was soft, almost a moan, as she hugged her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and her chest heaved with sobs.
Matt moved to her, spilling the plate of roast beef, and put his arms around her.
"Come on, honey," he said. "That"s not going to do any good."
"I wish I was dead," she spluttered.
"What is that, a commentary on our lovemaking?"
"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"
"Two things have happened," he said.
"What two things?" she said, sobbing.
"I have asparagus in my pubic hair, au jus on my b.a.l.l.s, and holding you like this is making me h.o.r.n.y."
She pushed herself away from him and looked.
It was all true.
Half crying, half giggling, she shook her head.
"Go take a bath," she said.
"You got some of it, too," he said, pointing. "Come with me."
"Take a shower with you?"
"Why not? Or would you rather sit here in the roast beef and blubber?"
She put her hand out and touched his cheek.
"My G.o.d, I think I do love you," she said.
"You wash my back, and I"ll let you have the asparagus," Matt said, and took her hand and pulled her out of the bed.
"We have to get that money out of your safe-deposit box," Matt said as he was toweling himself in the bathroom and shamelessly watching Susan do the same.
"What did you say?" Susan asked, her voice m.u.f.fled by the towel she had over her head.
He didn"t repeat the statement; he had thought of something else.
"Just before we came in here, you said Poor Pathetic Jennie called you. What did she want?"
She took the towel off her head and looked at him. "Do you have to call her that?"
He shrugged but didn"t reply directly.
"What did she want?"
"She said she had another package she wanted me to keep for her-"
"From the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Clinton, New Jersey, no doubt," Matt interrupted. "And when did you tell her you were going to meet her?"
"I told her I wouldn"t," Susan said. "I told the both of them that. She put him on the phone."
"Why not?"
"I thought, so soon after I was in Philadelphia, that it would be suspicious. And I told them I had a cop on my back."
"Jesus! But you said you didn"t-"
"At the time, I believed you," Susan said. "At the time, I thought you were what your friends told me you were."
"Which friends? What did they tell you I was?"
"Your two old school pals at Daffy"s party. They told me you were a mixed-up screwball playing at being a cop. To prove your manhood. You"re not, are you? You"re really a cop, and what you"re playing at is being a screwball. It"s a good act. It had me fooled."
"And now that my facade has been torn away, what do you think?"
"I"m afraid about how much I like what I see," she said. "I"m afraid that it"s going to be taken away from me."
"You want to go back in the shower?" Matt asked.
"No. G.o.d, I can"t believe we did that. I didn"t think it was possible."
"Well, I wouldn"t want you to spread this around, but that was a first for me, too."
"Really?"
"Of course, I never had a woman look for asparagus bits in my-"
"Stop!"
"Yeah. We have to stop," he said seriously. "But let"s finish Poor . . . What happened when you were on the phone with Jennifer and Chenowith?"
"That"s it. He asked about you. He said you might really be an FBI agent, and I a.s.sured him you were just a cop."
"When are you going to meet with them?"
"I"m not," she said. "I told him I wasn"t going to do it, and when he started to argue, I hung up on him."
"But you told him about me?"
"I just told you I did," she said. "That was before you pointed out to me the many benefits of changing sides."
"Don"t start playing the b.i.t.c.h again. We don"t have time for that."
"I"m sorry," she said, sounding genuinely contrite. "Forgive me. Matt, so much has happened-"
"Whatever happened to "honey"?"