Fair Game (16 page)

“I’ll probably get canned for bringing you here,” Martin muttered to Ashley as they entered and he got an even more detailed look at their surroundings.

“It’s the middle of the night. No one will ever have to know,” Ashley replied.

“I think they’ll find out if you become the next local crime statistic,” he muttered.

“You would never let that happen, Lieutenant,” Ashley observed confidently. She looked around expectantly. “I wonder where the hostess is.”

“Don’t strain your eyes,” Martin said to her. “In places like this, you’re lucky there’s a roof, much less a hostess.”

“Do you spend a lot of time in places like this?” Ashley asked.

“Too much,” he responded.

A harried waitress in a faded pink uniform emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray and said to them, “Just sit anywhere you like, folks.” She barged past them and deposited two cheeseburgers in front of a huge man in a red flannel shirt. He was reading the racing form.

“I can smell the pastrami,” Ashley whispered.

“I think that’s my career reducing itself to ashes,” Martin countered darkly.

“Let’s sit here,” Ashley said, ignoring him. She selected a booth and slid onto one of the seats. Its vinyl cover was ripped and marked with ink, the table next to it cracked and stained with wear.

Martin slid in across from her and said, “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

“Something tells me that doesn’t happen to you very often,” Ashley replied archly.

“It’s been happening to me a lot more lately,” he said dryly, and she laughed.

The menus were covered with plastic and propped in a stainless-steel stand on the table. Martin removed them and handed one to Ashley. He studied the bill of fare, which was about what he’d expected.

The same waitress approached them and said to Ashley, “What’ll it be, hon?”

“I’ll have a pastrami sandwich, please,” Ashley said, in the tone she must have used to order dinner at the Senator’s country club.

The waitress looked at Martin expectantly.

‘The same,” he said, replacing the menus. “And a cup of coffee.”

“I’ll have coffee too,” Ashley added.

The waitress scribbled and said, “Be right up.” She padded off down the aisle, rubber-soled shoes squeaking.

“Well, if the meat is poisoned, at least we’ll die together,” Martin said philosophically.

“Did you notice the group over there in the corner?” Ashley asked, sotto voce.

Martin glanced in the direction she was indicating and saw three young girls in their late teens, dressed in leather jackets. They were heavily made up and had elaborate, post-punk hairdos. They giggled loudly when they saw that he was looking at them.

“Fugitives from the first act of Macbeth,” he said. “Isn’t it a little early for Halloween?”

“They’re watching us,” Ashley told him, amused. “Or rather, they’re watching you.”

“Why aren’t they home in bed?” he said sourly.

“Why aren’t we?” Ashley countered. Then she realized fully what she had said and blushed furiously, her pale skin coloring to the roots of her hair.

The waitress returned with the coffee, and Martin got busy drinking it, pretending he didn’t realize that Ashley was embarrassed. When she had recovered sufficiently, she took a sip of her drink and said, “I hope my father wasn’t too much trouble for you tonight. Sometimes he loses sight of why you’re with us.”

“Thanks for helping me with him,” Martin replied. “He always feels that Capo and I are overdoing the precautions.”

“I worry about him.” Ashley sighed. “He thinks that nothing can touch him.”

“That’s why he thinks he can be President,” Martin observed. “It’s part of the package.”

“That’s true,” Ashley said. “But I still wish he would be more careful.”

“You love him very much, don’t you?” Martin said quietly.

“Yes, I do. In spite of the fact that until the last few years I hardly saw him.”

Martin listened, surprised by her candor.

“My mother died when I was very little, and when my father remarried and had his new family, I was kind of the odd man out, if you know what I mean.”

“I know your stepmother sent you away to school,” Martin said.

Ashley shrugged. “I resented it at the time, but I realize now it was better for all of us. It wouldn’t have been fun for me to stay around and spoil things for everybody, including myself.”

“But I notice you keep your distance from your stepmother.”

“Oh, she’s all right. Now that I’m an adult myself, I can appreciate how threatened she was by the constant reminder of the first marriage, especially since I look just like my mother. My father was just talking to me about that recently, and I realized what an impossible position he was in with both Sylvia and me when I was younger.”

“So you’ve resolved your feelings for him?”

Ashley set her cup down decisively. “I think so. My father is a good man, some would say a great man, but he has his faults, like everyone else. In personal matters he finds it difficult to confront things, but he has been making the effort, despite how tough it is for him. But he loves me, he loves my stepmother, and he desperately wants the relationship he has with each of us.”

“Sylvia’s not exactly a help with the campaign, is she?” Martin asked carefully.

“You noticed that,” Ashley said flatly.

“Yes.”

“Every candidate has some liability. I guess she’s ours.”

The waitress brought their sandwiches. Ashley bit into hers and said, “I am vindicated.”

“Really?” Martin took a bite of his, swallowed, and said, “Son of a gun, you’re right. It’s terrific.”

“Don’t ever challenge my restaurant recommendations again,” she said smugly.

“Never. But I must say your taste for deli food surprises me.”

“Why? I’m not quite as highbrow as you seem to think. In fact, we share a common heritage. ‘Fair’ is a translation of the Gaelic ‘Finn,’ you know.”

“I wouldn’t call that ‘common.’ You’re lace curtain, and I’m afraid I’m shanty all the way.”

“The lace goes back only a couple of generations,” Ashley said, putting down her sandwich and wiping her lips with a paper napkin. “When my great-grandfather Finn first came to this country, he was a land speculator. He was locked up several times for cheating people on phony deals and narrowly avoided being prosecuted for bigamy.”

“Bigamy?” Martin said, looking at her. “Seems he had one wife in the old country and one here. He neglected to sever his connection from the first one over the water before he took the second one in Philadelphia.”

“Funny how that stuff never made it into your father’s official campaign biography,” Martin said dryly.

“We’ve polished up the image since then. Great grandaddy Finn flourished almost a hundred years ago, and the less savory details of his career were conveniently forgotten while the money he pirated remained. The family, rechristened ‘Fair’ to remove the taint of the old sod, married well, into the right families, invested in legitimate businesses, cleaned up the act. And look how far we’ve come today,” she concluded, saluting him with her cup.

“But you remember your origins. And you’re telling me. Why?”

“It’s a matter of public record,” Ashley replied, shrugging. “The history is there for anyone who cares to look. We downplay it, but we can’t obliterate it. We even have a branch of the original Finns, descended from the first wife, floating around the eastern seaboard someplace. They emigrated after the old man and got into the printing business.”

“Did your father buy them off?” Martin asked, fascinated.

“No, he gave them a job,” Ashley replied, laughing. “They do all the campaign fliers and leaflets.”

“That was smart,” Martin said admiringly.

“Joe Fair didn’t get where he is by letting the undesirables rear their ugly heads and make trouble,” Ashley said dryly.

“Politics,” Martin said, shaking his head.

“Some people would be just as mystified by police work,” she replied. “Is it the only thing you thought you’d be good at?”

“Well, I used to know all the Temptations’ routines, but there’s not much call for that nowadays.”

She laughed. She played with her empty cup for a moment before saying, “Anthony told me that you’re divorced.”

“Anthony?”

“Sergeant Capo.”

“How did that subject come up?” he asked, thinking that “Anthony” had a big mouth.

“I asked him,” she said ingenuously. “How long were you married?”

“Two years,” he said shortly.

“What happened? If you don’t mind telling me,” she added hastily, youthful training overcoming her curiosity.

“I don’t mind. She left me.”

Ashley was silent, finding that hard to believe.

“She left me for a music teacher,” he added.

Ashley managed not to laugh, but her smile was impish. “That must have been quite a change from you,” she said in a restrained voice.

“That’s what she wanted. A change from me.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t pay enough attention to her, I guess. She was very pretty, very popular in school, used to getting what she wanted.”

“You make her sound spoiled,” Ashley interjected.

“I don’t know if she was spoiled, exactly; she told me she was lonely. I couldn’t get home much, what with working and going to school, and this teacher had regular hours. You know teachers: evenings, weekends, and summers off, lots of free time. Maryann wasn’t good at being alone; she liked company.”

“A difficult schedule would never make a decision like that for me,” Ashley said softly.

“You know how she met him?” Martin said.

Ashley shook her head.

“She had studied the piano in school, and I suggested she take it up again to fill her evenings when I was at college. Guess who was giving the lessons?” He laughed mirthlessly.

“That must have been awful for you,” Ashley said sympathetically.

He sat back and took out his cigarettes, shaking the last one loose from the pack. “It was fourteen years ago. She has three kids now. I understand she’s very happy. I was just her first real romance, a mistake.” He put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it, talking around it. “She used to tell me I loved the police department more than her.”

“Did you?” Ashley murmured.

He inhaled deeply and then exhaled through his nose. “I didn’t love anything or anybody more than her.”

Ashley looked away, her heart pounding. She wondered with sudden, stabbing insight what it would be like for him to say that about herself.

“More coffee?” The waitress had reappeared, brandishing the glass coffeepot and yawning.

Martin glanced at Ashley, who shook her head.

“No, thanks, just the check,” Martin said.

“Right.” The woman yanked the checkpad out of her pocket, scribbled on it quickly, and ripped off the top sheet cleanly, palming it neatly onto the table.

Martin picked it up and rose to his feet in the same motion.

“I’m going to get cigarettes,” he said to Ashley.

The waitress waited until he had left for the machine by the entrance and then said to Ashley, “I was you, honey, I wouldn’t let that one get away.”

“I beg your pardon?” Ashley said, astonished.

The waitress shrugged. “I figure by the way you were talking that you’re just starting out. But let me tell ya, guys like him aren’t exactly thick on the ground these days.”

“Guys like him?” Ashley repeated numbly, wondering why the waitress felt she needed such advice.

“The ones who treat a woman like china, open doors, show some manners. They’re hard to come by. Even those twinkies know it.” She jammed her thumb in the direction of the three bikettes, who were still staring in their direction.

Ashley looked around helplessly, praying that Martin wouldn’t come back in time to overhear this surreal conversation.

“Don’t worry, hon, he really seems to like you,” the waitress concluded. “Good luck. G’night, now.” She walked away, leaving Ashley benumbed in her wake.

Martin returned to put a tip on the table. He glanced at Ashley’s face and said, “Are you okay?”

“Sure. Fine.”

“We’d better get going.”

She stood briskly, disguising a strong desire to extend their outing as long as she could.

They headed for the door, where Martin paid the bill. As he turned away from the register, one of the three teenagers waved at him.

Ashley was amazed to see him blow the table a kiss.

The girls shrieked with delight, collapsing in fits of hysterical laughter.

“Do you acquire a following wherever you go?” she asked him as they left.

“The ones I want to follow me never do,” he replied briefly.

Outside, the rain had stopped. They stood on the sidewalk and contemplated the gleaming pavements of the deserted streets.