Playing for Time

by Bretton, Barbara

Ryder thought about Joanna Stratton; in just a few hours she'd made him feel more alive, more eager than he had in years. He wanted the chance to explore that better part of himself that she seemed to reach so effortlessly.

  "I'm willing to risk it." He put his hand on the older man's shoulder. "You had your chance," he said, referring to Alistair's late wife, Sarah. "Now I'd like to have mine."

  #

  Alistair Chambers loved Ryder as he would have loved the son he'd never had. It was the one weak spot in an otherwise perfectly seamless image. Nurturing Ryder's genius, introducing him to the world, seeing him develop into one of the most important components – albeit incognito – on the scene filled him with tremendous pleasure.

  Ryder was the one bright spot in a life that had been emotionally arid since his Sarah died nine years ago. All of the deeper feelings his vocation frowned upon normally had found their expression in his mentor/protégé relationship with this brilliant young man.

  The thought of losing him to a laboratory pained him but he fought it down. It would be years before even a genius like O'Neal could bring that dream to life. Maybe by then Alistair would be retired to his London home, living the life of a cultured gentleman of leisure with a beautiful, witty woman like Holland Masters by his side who –

  But that was neither here nor there. The laboratory was a metaphor for something much larger, something much more important. Ryder was beginning to chafe against the anonymous nature of his life. Continuity and permanence – things he had so blithely disregarded years ago – suddenly beckoned.

  It came with age. It came with ennui. It came, sometimes, in the form of a woman. He remembered Valerie Parker and Ryder's cavalier attitude toward love.

  The Ryder O'Neal who thought he needed nothing but his genius was not the same Ryder O'Neal who stood before him today. Sooner or later, it all came down to the basics.

  Men and women needed each other. They always had. They always would.

  And there was nothing in Alistair's considerable bag of tricks that could begin to change that simple fact.

  "Agreed," he said, finishing his drink and putting the glass back down on the table next to his chair. "If you can pull this off, we'll think about setting you up with the internal organization as a consultant."

  "I'll pull it off," Ryder said. "Mark my words. You won't regret this decision."

  Strange, Alistair thought. He'd regretted so many of the others. Why should this one be any different?

  #

  Now Joanna didn't for a moment believe that Ryder O'Neal and the elegant Alistair Chambers were in anything remotely resembling love, but it tickled her to let Holland ruminate on that possibility.

  After the impromptu breakfast club meeting, Rosie had left to prepare for her Friday departure to visit Bert Higgins in Florida. Holland was going back downtown to prepare for her audition, and Joanna, who needed supplies from Ranaghan's House of Makeup and Magic, shared a cab with her.

  "I should have known better," Holland said as the cab lurched through traffic around Penn Station. "When will I ever learn? The best ones are always taken." She looked over at Joanna and rolled her eyes. "One way or another."

  While Holland rambled on about the inequities of life, Joanna tried to piece together the clues. She'd worked with enough actors whose macho public personas shielded very private desires, to know the real thing when she met him. Ryder O'Neal was a functioning heterosexual male; of that, she had no doubt.

  What confused her was his relationship to the urbane and elegant Alistair Chambers, whose Rolls-Royce, according to Rosie Callahan, was a daily fixture in front of the Carillon.

  "Maybe he's his financial advisor," Joanna said as they inched their way through the Lower East Side.

  Holland stopped in midsentence. "What?"

  "Maybe Alistair is Ryder's financial advisor."

  "A financial advisor who drives a Rolls?"

  Joanna shrugged. "A very successful advisor."

  "No," Holland said, "the Rolls has to belong to your friend with the cast. I see Alistair as the family attorney."

  "He's not the legal type," Joanna said. "Did you see that red pocket square? Too whimsical."

  Holland's shoulders drooped. "That leaves only one more alternative, Joanna. They're –"

  "Business partners!" Joanna sat straight up in her seat. "They're working on an important deal that requires daily consultation. And since Ryder doesn't have an office, they meet at his apartment."

  Holland brightened. "Ryder's broken leg makes it impossible for him to get to Alistair's office." They both blithely overlooked the fact that Ryder and his crutches managed to navigate the city quite nicely. "The deal is hot and Alistair, wonderful man that he is, makes the supreme sacrifice and goes to Ryder."

  "And Ryder, ever the humanitarian, sends the Rolls for him."

  "There's still one problem."

  "I know." Joanna braced herself as the cab screeched to a halt at a red light. "What business could they possibly have accomplished at three in the morning?"

  "Everything I can think of is illegal."

  "I'm sure there's a logical explanation," Joanna said, pushing thoughts of megadollar drug deals and international scam operations from her mind. "Maybe they were heading for one of those after-hours clubs near SoHo."

  "I'd rather find out they were smuggling counterfeit Calvin Klein jeans to the disadvantaged in the Soviet Union." Holland groaned as the cab made a sharp left and she was thrown against the door handle. "What does your pal O'Neal say he does for a living?"

  "He said he was rich. What did Chambers say?"

  "He said he was an associate of O'Neal's."

  "Wait a minute," Joanna said, as a thought came to her. "When I was in my Kathryn costume, he mentioned that he and Chambers were in business together."

  Holland leaned forward eagerly. "In business doing what?"

  As if on cue, a New York City fire truck roared past them and Joanna gestured in its direction. "Fighting fires."

  "They work for the fire department?" Holland waved her hands in disgust. "Really, Joanna."

  "I'm giving you an exact quote. He said, 'fighting fires.'"

  "What the hell does that mean?" Holland's sophisticated demeanor fell apart before her frustration.

  "I have no idea."

  "You didn't ask?"

  "I didn't have time. The next second I saw you standing there with Alistair and I was too preoccupied with keeping you from blowing my cover."

  "Blowing your cover?" Holland laughed. "When did you join the CIA?"

  "Just a figure of speech."

  "So, why didn't you follow up on it later?"

  "I was too busy defending my honor."

  Holland looked horrified. "He made a pass at you while you were in old-age makeup?"

  Joanna sighed. The thought of explaining the whole foolish story about the blind date mix-up and her own wounded ego was exhausting. "It's a long story," she said as the cab lurched to a stop in front of Ranaghan's. She pulled a ten-dollar bill out of her pocket and handed it to Holland for her part of the fare. "Believe me, it's not as awful as it sounds."

  "Everything's as awful as it sounds," Holland said. "Why couldn't they be stockbrokers? At least you know where stockbrokers are at three in the morning."

  "My sentiments exactly," Joanna said as she got out of the cab. "I'll call you later."

  #

  The taxi rocketed off into traffic and Holland leaned back against the seat and massaged her aching temples.

  She felt as if she'd been through three open auditions, five callbacks and a phone call with her invisible agent, and it wasn't even noon yet.

  Joanna in old-age makeup. Decadently expensive Rolls-Royces. Missing girdles. Gorgeous men who not only didn't kiss and tell, they didn't kiss at all. Fighting fires at three in the morning.

  It was too much.

  She'd rather be trapped in an Ibsen play than go through another twenty-four hours like this. Her evening wit
h Alistair Chambers had been something out of a movie: exciting, glamorous and tinged with enough mystery that she could barely speak on the way back to her apartment.

  When he left her chastely at the doorstep she'd wanted to throw a shoe at his departing head. Short of doing the Dance of the Seven Veils for him in the hallway, she couldn't have made her intentions more obvious.

  However, as the saying went, you could lead a man to water, but –

  "To hell with you, Alistair Chambers," she said, ignoring the cabby's curious glance in the rearview mirror. "To bloody hell with you."

  If he got his jollies fighting fires with men who wore psychedelic casts, that was his problem. Holland would do just fine without him.

  The cab slammed its way through a pothole the size of an open manhole cover and she lurched forward, hitting her knees against the back of the seat in front of her.

  Rubbing her left knee, she laughed out loud. Some people liked leather. Some people liked lace. Maybe Alistair Chambers had a thing for plaster of Paris.

  This was New York. Anything was possible.

  And in New York, the competition was fierce. If there was one thing she'd learned during her checkered acting career, it was the importance of dressing the part.

  Men like Alistair Chambers came along once in a lifetime, if you were lucky.

  Holland thought of Joanna and her Kathryn Hayes getup and wondered how she herself would look with a nice little removable cast on her right wrist.

  Then she wondered if maybe it was time to start thinking about a nice, long vacation.

  #

  Ranaghan's House of Makeup and Magic had everything Joanna needed and more. By the time she staggered out to the street to hail a cab home to the Carillon, her bags were heavy and her pocketbook light.

  Her mood, however, hovered somewhere in between.

  All the way back uptown, she replayed the scene in her apartment the night before, trying to make sense out of what exactly had happened between her and Ryder O'Neal.

  It was like trying to make sense out of a soap bubble.

  The attraction between them had been as sudden and intense as a lightning storm. The words they spoke to each other were words of fantasy and desire. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for the suddenness and force of her unbridled emotions.

  Only the imaginary grandmother in the back room had kept Joanna from moving into his arms as naturally as day moves into night.

  His leaving town with Alistair Chambers was the best thing that could have happened to her.

  Now, the trick was in convincing herself to believe it.

  She paid the cabdriver, then lugged her packages through the lobby of the Carillon. The red-haired workmen were doing something with the lighting in the mail room and, not anxious to be scrutinized like meat in the butcher chase, Joanna put off getting her mail until later.

  She was juggling her packages and trying to press the elevator button when someone stepped up behind her and took one of the bags from her hand.

  "You look like you're havin' trouble, Ms. Stratton." Stanley stood smiling at her side. "Let me help."

  "No need," she said, despite the fact her need was obvious. "I can manage."

  He didn't relinquish her bags. "It isn't often I get to help a lovely lady such as yourself," he said in a clumsy attempt at gallantry that was marred by the look in his eyes. "Let me."

  She was aware of his two workmen listening avidly a few feet away. A patent dismissal of Stanley's help might be unwise. The elevator door slid open.

  "Thank you."

  They stepped inside and Stanley pushed the button marked nine.

  "How is Mrs. del Portago enjoyin' her trip?" he asked as another tenant got in at the second floor.

  She thought about yesterday's letter, which detailed Stavros's biceps in excruciating detail. "She's having the time of her life."

  "Nice woman, your mother," Stanley continued, watching Joanna who was watching him right back. "Never any hassles with her. Always got time to talk."

  Joanna nodded. Cynthia had her problems but getting along with men wasn't among them. Her particular brand of charm was especially effective with working-class types like Stanley Holt.

  The other tenant got off at the fifth floor.

  Stanley waited for the doors to close before he continued. "Now, that Rosie Callahan is something else."

  Instantly Joanna went on alert. "Rosie is quite an extraordinary woman."

  "Oh, yeah, Mrs. Callahan's a live one. Don't get me wrong, I like her a whole lot. But, livin' along like she does – well, she's not gettin' any younger, Ms. Stratton. I think she's –" He hesitated.

  "You think she's what?"

  "Forgetful. I mean, in the past few weeks I spent more time chasin' down her lost stuff than doin' what I have to do around the building. The boss don't like it when those stairs aren't spit-shined." Stanley grinned and she shuddered inside.

  The elevator stopped at the ninth floor and Joanna exited first.

  "What exactly are you saying, Stanley?" she asked as she fished in her pocket for her house keys.

  He put down her packages in front of her door and faced her. "I'm sayin' she should be careful." His voice was even and he was smiling, but his words carried a subliminal threat. "Those fliers of hers could get a lady into big trouble. Life is tough for people like Rosie. I don't want to see it get any tougher." She opened the door and he moved aside. "You know what I mean, Ms. Stratton?"

  "No," she said, meeting his eyes. "I can't say that I do."

  "Rosie will. You just pass on the message." He touched the bill of his baseball cap with two fingers. "Have a nice day."

  With that, he disappeared down the fire stairs.

  "Jackass," Joanna mumbled as she dragged her packages into her apartment. "Total, complete jackass."

  She was still mumbling when she sat down in front of her lighted mirror to perfect her old-age makeup for the assignment next week.

  How wonderful it would be to walk up to Stanley in her full Kathryn Hayes regalia and punch him right in the mouth.

  Now that was something she would remember to tell Rosie.

  Chapter Ten

  "How do people on Long Island stand this?" Ryder asked as the Rolls-Royce snaked its way through the clot of traffic on the Expressway. "If I had to commute through this twice a day, I'd go nuts."

  Alistair lit one of his foreign cigarettes and glanced at two truck drivers arguing over a fender bender at the side of the road. "Real life," he said, smoke encircling his head. "This is what you've been pining for, my boy."

  Ryder, displaying unusual restraint, let the remark slide. Their jet had whisked them back from St. George in less time than it was taking them to make their way from MacArthur Airport to Manhattan. The wonders of the age of technology . . .

  "You're certain I can't convince you to join me for a late lunch at the club?" Alistair asked. "After your exploits this morning, you've earned it."

  "Not today." Ryder gestured toward his newly mobile right leg. "I'm out of shape. I think I'll spend the afternoon walking."

  Alistair seemed thoughtful. "Anywhere in particular?"

  Ryder arched an eyebrow in his direction. "I plan on doing ten laps around Columbus Avenue." He watched his colleague take a long, deliberate drag on his cigarette. "Am I under surveillance?"

  Alistair chuckled but a pensive look remained in his blue eyes. "Nothing so sinister."

  "Then why the interest in how I'll be spending my afternoon?"

  "Would you believe me if I said normal curiosity?"

  "I've known you too long," Ryder said. "Try something else."

  Alistair stubbed out his cigarette in the built-in ashtray next to him. "Then I shall get right to the point: How well do you know Mrs. Kathryn Hayes?"

  The question as so far out of left field that for a second Ryder didn't say anything. "Kathryn?"

  Alistair nodded. "Your friend with the shopping cart."

  "I don't
know much of anything about her," he said, thinking back to their conversations. "She's seventy-seven years old and she's staying in her daughter's apartment."

  "That's everything?"

  "She likes having her way with elderly gentlemen." Alistair didn't laugh. Damn it, Ryder thought. He was getting too close. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about Joanna.

  There was no way Ryder could feign casual interest in front of the man who knew him so well.

  "Does she have any other relatives?"

  Bull's-eye. As soon as he got back to his apartment, Ryder was going to rip everything apart until he found the bugging equipment. In fact, knowing PAX, the whole damned building was probably wired.

  "You tell me," he said.

  "No," Alistair countered. "I posed the question. Now you provide the answer."

  "She has a granddaughter." He hesitated, not wanting to reveal the strange new emotions she'd brought out in him. "Her name is Joanna Stratton."

  "Do you know what she does for a living?"

  "She's a makeup artist." He regretted saying even that much when Alistair pulled out a slim leather notebook and made an entry. "What the hell's going on here anyway? Why the third degree?"

  If Chambers told him Kathryn Hayes was an insurgent and Joanna, her accomplice he wouldn't be held accountable for his actions.

  Alistair put the notebook back in the breast pocket of his navy jacket. "I ran a check on Kathryn Hayes last night and a few items failed to add up. I'd like to run a new one."

  "You ran a check?" Ryder slammed his hand against the plush door of the Rolls. "What the hell were you doing running a check? Were you afraid she had a pipe bomb in her shopping cart or a detonator in her support hose?"

  "Are you forgetting the baby carriage with the plastic explosive in the Beirut airport?" Alistair's voice was quiet and matter-of-fact. "You're a valuable commodity to the other side, Ryder. Especially dead."

  This was the first time in years that Ryder had actually spent any length of time with "civilians"; it was only natural for Alistair to be cautious. This, however, went beyond caution, and unfortunately, he knew that Alistair wouldn't have reacted that way without reason.