Fair Game (9 page)

“Fine.”

“No dizzy spells?”

“None at all, thank you. The omelet cure must have worked.”

She sipped her coffee as she watched him take a deep swallow of his and then put his cup down to light a cigarette. He noticed her scrutiny and said self-consciously, “I hope you don’t mind my smoking. I guess I should have asked already.”

“I don’t mind, Lieutenant. But I’d be careful around Jim. He has a thing about it. Thinks he can get lung cancer from secondhand smoke.”

“Yeah, well, maybe he’s right,” Martin said neutrally, unwilling to get into the subject of Dillon. “Too late for me, anyway. I’d rather smoke than eat.”

Ashley chuckled. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Why?”

Martin shrugged. “It’s soothing, I suppose. Easy, and steady, and quiet. It’s always the same, always rewarding. Few other things in life are that consistent.”

“I see.”

“It helps me think.”

“Do you do a lot of thinking, Lieutenant?” Ashley asked.

He looked at her sharply, to see if she were baiting him, but her gaze was level and serene.

“More of that than anything else,” he replied. “Police work is mostly trying to out-think the criminals, regardless of how many car chases you see on TV.”

“Then you must be very good at it. I understand you’re the youngest lieutenant on the force.”

There was no reply to that, and he made none.

“This must be a very boring duty for you,” she added.

“It’s different,” he answered.

Her smile became impish. “It will get more so. Tomorrow evening we’re going to the opera.”

He looked so distressed that she laughed.

“It didn’t say that on the itinerary I was given,” he objected. “I would have remembered.”

“Our plans have changed. We’re squeezing this into the schedule. Never been to the opera, Lieutenant?”

He shook his head.

“No worse than a trip to the dentist,” she said. “This one’s a benefit performance for the ACLU, a big booster of my father’s campaign. La Traviata.”

He lifted his shoulders.

“The story of Camille,” she explained.

“Camille?” It sounded vaguely familiar.

‘“La Dame aux Camellias.’ Violetta. She dies prettily of consumption in the last act.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember now. She coughs herself to death, right?” He lifted his cigarette. “Think she was a smoker?”

Ashley giggled. “In the original play, Dumas leads us to believe it was tuberculosis.” She sobered. “I’m afraid the occasion requires formal clothes.”

“For me?” he asked, aghast.

“For everyone attending. That includes you, Lieutenant. By the way, what is your first name? You weren’t baptized ‘Lieutenant,’ were you?”

“Timothy,” he replied. “Tim.”

“Well, Tim, we’ll have to order something for you. There’s a shop not far from here that my father has used. They can send something over tomorrow if you give me your sizes.” She went into her room and came back with her yellow legal pad. “Shirt?” she said, pencil poised.

“Fifteen and a half, thirty-five,” he replied, feeling silly, as he always did with salespeople in stores.

“Suit?”

“Forty-two long, I guess. I’m not sure.”

“That’s good enough for a start.” She ripped off the top sheet and folded it in half. “I’ll give this information to Meg. She can talk to the sergeant about his sizes in the morning. I assume that you do have black shoes?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. That ought to do it.”

“Where’s the performance?” Martin asked.

“At the Met in New York.”

“That’s a two-hour drive.”

Ashley looked embarrassed. “We’re taking my uncle’s plane. His real-estate business is all over the country. It saves time.”

Martin nodded, feeling naive. The company jet. Of course.

“It’s really kind of an unobtrusive, ordinary-looking plane,” she said gently, reading his mind.

“No Concorde?” Martin said with a sidelong glance.

“No.”

Not that you couldn’t afford a Concorde if you wanted one, Martin thought.

Ashley studied his pensive face and said, “I sense that all of this is making you a trifle uncomfortable, Lieu ...Tim.”

Martin didn’t reply.

“Yes?” she prodded.

“This is an assignment for me. I don’t make any judgments,” he answered.

“Yes, you do,” she said with a slight smile. “And I don’t know if I care for being thought of as an ‘assignment.’ We’re just people like everyone else.”

“Not like everyone else,” he said, since she was pressing him. “You have more money.”

“Money can be its own burden,” she said.

He snorted. “And why is it always people who have so much of it who say that?”

“Because we know.”

He looked extremely skeptical, so she added slowly, “For example, most people don’t have enough money to dispose of unwanted children in an acceptable way. The rich do. Boarding schools, summer camps, extensive and prolonged vacations. You never have to see your own child if you don’t want to, which is not usually an option available to those without considerable means.”

He stared at her, wondering what the hell she was talking about. At the same time he realized that she was deadly serious. The subject was important to her.

She looked up at him and gave a little shake, as if waking from a trance.

“I’m afraid I’m babbling,” she said quickly. “And I have too much to do to waste time.” She put down her empty cup. “Thanks for the talk, Tim. And the rescue yesterday. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Martin watched her go back into the bedroom, staring after her with a puzzled expression. Then he sat on the sofa, pouring the rest of the coffee into his cup and lighting a fresh cigarette.

She certainly was different from what he’d expected.

He had to admit, however reluctantly, that Capo was right: she treated him as if she saw a person when she looked at him and not just a blue suit. The rest of them, like Dillon, looked through Martin as if he weren’t there, except when they wanted something.

And what was that little recital about disposing of kids? Was she referring to herself, the stepmother packing her off to St. Whosis, that place in Switzerland he’d read about in the background information? And if so, why was she discussing it with him, of all people, the cop, the bodyguard, the nobody?

Forget it, he told himself. These people are all off the wall. They have more problems than investments, and they’ve got a lot of investments.

But he couldn’t quite dismiss it, and smoked another cigarette before he went to sleep.

* * * *

Meg Drummond was on the telephone, having a little trouble with Deacon’s Formal Wear.

“Why can’t you send the tuxedos over to the hotel by messenger?” she asked wearily.

She listened and then said, “All your delivery trucks are out? We need the clothes for tonight.”

She listened again and made a face. “I realize that this is a last-minute order, but the clothes are for people in Senator Fair’s party...” I should have lied and said they were for Joe, she thought in annoyance as the clerk answered with something else she didn’t want to hear.

“I’ll send someone over to pick them up, and you can bill us,” Meg finally said. Her expression changed as she listened once again, this time in true disbelief. She interrupted the flow of words from the other end to demand, “Since when do you require prepayment? We’ve dealt with you before and—”

She stopped, looking patiently at the ceiling as the clerk cut her off in reply.

“Well, I don’t much care for your new policy,” Meg announced irritably. “I’ll be over myself in a few minutes to pick up the order. Does your ‘new policy’ permit the use of credit cards?”

She got her answer and said, “How progressive of you, thank you so much,” replacing the phone receiver with a bang. I’m crossing them off my list, she thought, making a mental note. Meg couldn’t abide inefficiency in any form; she didn’t have time for it.

She walked through the connecting door to Ashley’s suite and found the Senator’s daughter in the bedroom, staring at three gowns displayed on the hotel bed.

“Which one for tonight?” she asked Meg as she spotted her.

“The pearl-gray strapless. You look smashing in it.”

Ashley made a face. “I wore that last month to Judith Clinton’s. Some of the same people will be there.”

“How about the blue?”

“That bib makes me look like Alice in Wonderland,” Ashley said in a tired voice.

“You look like Alice in Wonderland anyway, sweets,” Meg said, grinning.

“It’s not an image I’m trying to cultivate,” Ashley said flatly. “And that melon sherbet one makes me look like a tart.”

“The color is ‘blush,’ and it does not,” Meg said.

“Damn. I’m going to have to bring a batch of clothes from Georgetown, or else get more from Carlo,” Ashley muttered.

“Why don’t you just go out and buy some, like a normal person?” Meg inquired.

Ashley sighed. “Standing around all day getting pinned up like a seamstress’s dummy reminds me of Sylvia,” she said. “It’s so... self-indulgent.”

“Ashley, you need the clothes,” Meg said practically. “You’re getting photographed every time you walk out the door.”

“Oh, all right. Can we call that woman from Bonwit’s, and Jerry from Magnin’s? Tell them to send me some rack samples and I’ll order by phone, have them fitted here.”

“Will do,” Meg said, extracting a small spiral notebook from her pocket.

“And remember, full price.”

“Right,” Meg said. “And what about the designers? Should I call anybody besides Carlo?”

“No, no, they’re more trouble than they’re worth. Photo credits, guarantee of mention in the gossip columns, blah-blah-blah. At least Carlo doesn’t plague me.”

“He will,” Meg said airily.

“I’ll worry about that when the time comes,” Ashley said. “Well, what do you think?” she asked again, pointing to the bed.

“The melon one. You look very sexy in it. And it has that matching cape. Perfect.”

“It always makes me feel like Jack the Ripper’s prime target,” Ashley said doubtfully.

“You spent entirely too much time locked up with those nuns in St. Andrew’s,” Meg replied, grinning. “There’s nothing wrong with looking... sensuous.”

“For La Traviata?”

“For anything. Do you want me to get one of the stylists from the salon downstairs to come up and do your hair?”

“No, thanks. Sylvia is sending Claude over at five o’clock.”

“Uh-oh. Did she volunteer him?”

“Yes. I thought as long as she was trying to be nice I’d take her up on it.”

“I hope you don’t emerge from it looking like Martha Washington,” Meg said gloomily.

“I’m sure he could find the time to do you too, if you like,” Ashley said mischievously.

“No, thanks,” Meg replied, pretending to be horrified. “Who knows what’s in that shampoo? And that other stuff he puts on Sylvia’s hair twice a week makes her head look like a tequila sunrise. I have a theory that it’s affecting her brain. Something certainly is.” She glanced at her watch. “Speaking of brains, I’m losing mine. I have to get over to that formal-wear place and pick up the tuxedos for the cops.”

“Can’t they send the clothes?”

Meg sighed. “No, it’s a long story. I’ll be back in an hour or so. My car’s right downstairs.”

“Where are they?” Ashley asked.

“Who?”

“The cops.”

“Capo’s with your father, and Martin is right outside in the hall. Well, I’m off. See you later.”

Ashley waved as Meg left and then shut the bedroom door behind her. She stripped down to her underwear and unhooked her bra, dropping it on the carpet. She tried on the satin dress with its low-cut bodice and spaghetti straps, struggling with the back zipper and then standing to survey herself in the hotel’s pier glass. The hem of the dress dragged over her feet, and she hoisted the skirt to her calves as she went to the closet and got the matching shoes, stepping into them and whirling to see the effect.

There. That was better. It had been a long time since she’d put the gown on, primarily because Jim had disliked it the first time she wore it. She took the cape, of the same material as the dress and lined with ivory silk charmeuse, down from its hook. She settled it over her shoulders, sweeping her hair out of the way. The cloak swirled to her ankles as she fastened it at the throat with its large mother-of-pearl button.

She had to admit that the result was quite dramatic. Oh, why not? Maybe Meg was right. Who knew how long she’d be able to get away with outfits like this one? She’d be heading for shirtwaists and twin sets soon enough.

She went to the wall safe and got her mother’s diamond pendant earrings, ordered from Van Cleef and Arpels by grandmother Fair as a wedding present for her son’s wife. Ashley tried them on and examined her reflection critically. They were fabulous, of course, but too gaudy a combination with the elaborate dress; she looked like a Christmas tree. She put them back and tried on a set of Majorcan pearls, a single strand necklace with 8mm stud earrings. That was it. Understated, elegant. Perfect.