"Past noon. Twelve-oh-six. How about some lunch?"

"They're a little slow. Either that or Tim was a little late."

"How's that?"

"Friend of mine is calling Building Security at noon to say there are two armed women outside the building waiting to kill you."

"Sweet Jesus, girl." Charley grabbed the phone. "Security, this is Charley Becker-"

"They're both sort of dark, so my friend is saying they're Libyan. I thought that would cut the reaction time, but"-she looked at her watch-"I'm not too impressed, frankly."

"-you took a call a few minutes ago, it's false alarm-"

"Aren't the Libyans pissed off at you for not selling them something? High explosives, chemical weapons-"

The door banged open. Three of Felix's people pushed through, pistols drawn, followed by Miss Farrell.

"You all right, sir?"

"Fine."

"We found two women outside the building, they're armed. They claim-"

"It's all right, just, it's fine, let them go."

They left. Charley said, "That was a damn fool thing. Someone could have got hurt."

"That's right," she said, a study in imperturbability. "Maybe now it won't happen again." She slung her bag over her shoulder and stubbed out the cigarette.

"Leaving?"

"Gotta get back."

"Stay over, honey. We'll chopper out to the farm and have dinner. I'll fly you back to New York on the G-4. If Robertson isn't using it."

She kissed him on the top of his head. "Got a rehearsal."

"You got a show?" He brightened. "Why didn't you say? That's just fine!"

"Yeah." She grinned.

"Well, that's just, that's great. What is it?"

"Oh no."

"I'm not going to do anything, I promise."

"I'll save you and Felix tickets for the opening."

"Oh, come on, Tasha, tell me. All right, just tell me what it's about."

She said, "It's a very contemporary piece."

"Contemporary," he said suspiciously. "Contemporary about what?"

She considered. "It's about redemption."

"Redemption. It's religious?"

"No." She laughed. "Not exactly."

"This isn't one of those deals where you don't wear clothes. Now Tasha-"

"No. It's an adaptation of Jimmy Podesta's book."

"Who?"

"Gotta run. No more bullshit, okay?" She kissed him again, threw in a hug.

"The way you talk. Your grandmother would die."

"'I should sin to think but nobly of my grandmother.'"

"How's that?"

"The Tempest. Shakespeare."

"The outdoors one." Miranda's speech ends: "Good wombs have borne bad sons." The night he came to see it, she left the line out, earning herself a note from the director.

"I'll see you, okay?"

The moment she was gone Charley was on the phone. "Felix? Those women you got, they're no good… Well, I don't care who recommended them. We need to try something different. Meantime get someone over to the twelve-thirty shuttle."

2

It was one of those spaces on the lower Lower West Side, maybe a hundred seats and cold enough so that most people kept their coats on. Charley and Felix sat in their front-row seats, Charley staring glumly at the Xeroxed sheet of paper that served as the program, Felix adjusting the squelch on his radio.

"'Wired,'" said Charley. "What's that mean?"

"Drugs," said Felix.

"She said it was about redemption. She didn't mention drugs."

"Maybe it's about giving up drugs." Charley grunted. Felix massaged his disability, the torn cruciate ligaments in his right knee. One month away from his gold shield and he steps into a pothole chasing a perp down a dark street. He did a casual scan of the audience behind them.

There was a paragraph of bio on Tasha on the sheet. Nothing about the Lycee or the Virginia prep school with a name like expensive dessert wine. He'd been going to her plays since she was, what, five? He wasn't sure about the arc from the Virgin Mary in the school Christmas pageant to Alison in The Young and the Wired, but he'd given her standing ovations at all of them, except the outdoors Shakespeare one where she played the daughter of the sorcerer: eighteen, blossomed, floating out onto the grass, barefoot, her long hair laced with jasmine and baby's breath, in a body stocking glimmery with what looked like ground diamond dust in the spotlights. He had to close his eyes, finally, it was too much, he started to feel like the hunchback, Caliban. She noticed that he didn't stand at the end. It was days before he could look her straight in the eye, and when he did… The lights were coming up. There she was, saying,

"I don't believe this shit!" He felt Charley tensing next to him.

She and another actor were down on all fours on a shag carpet, desperate over having just dropped an "eighth" into it.

"Eighth of what?" Charley hissed at Felix.

"Cocaine," Felix whispered. Charley sat in his seat for the next two hours with his cigar clamped between his teeth like the pin of a hand grenade.

Backstage after it was over, he refused to shake Jimmy Podesta's hand. It might have developed into a scene but for the arrival of a photographer from The TriBeCa Times. They went back to the apartment, Charley, Tasha and the director, a young hotshot out of Carnegie-Mellon named Tim Tamarino.

Charley studied the young man. He was presentable, intelligent and articulate, though Charley wondered about the eyes; they were a tad soulful for his taste.

"Maybe your difficulty with the piece," Tim was explaining, "is that you're taking it too literally. For instance, when Alison goes into rehab, it's not just a drying-out place for cocaine addicts. There's a recontexturalizing going on. By rehab we mean that Alison is reinhabiting herself."

"You want some more meat?"

"Charley," Tasha sighed.

They had coffee afterward in the indoor patio with the columns from the Alhambra and the large mosaic pool. Charley tossed croutons to Confucius, the old carp, a gift of the Chinese government. He said, "I'm like the Arabs. I love water because I grew up in dry country." Confucius shoved croutons about noncommittally in the water. Tasha sat on the edge and dangled her fingers in the water. "I'm from Texas."

"So Tasha said."

"I was raised by nuns. Mexicans. They came over the Rio Grande when-"

"Pops," said Tasha, "Not with the How-I-started-from-scratch. It's kind of late."

"Well, I-"

"I'd be fascinated," said Tim.

"Some other time maybe," said Charley, reinserting his cigar.

Tasha came over and put her arms around him from behind.

"This is a very beautiful home, Mr. Becker," said Tim.

"Oh, this isn't home. Virginia is home. I can only spend so many days a year in New York or the IRS-"

Tasha kissed him on the top of his head. "Maybe you could tell Tim your life story and your IRS war stories next time."

Tim looked at his watch and said, "I better be off."

"Drop me?" she said.

"Sure."

"Don't you want to spend the night here?" said Charley. "We got your bed made up."

Charley had antennae like the National Security Agency and they picked up the microburst transmission that passed between Tasha and Tim.

"I want to go over some notes with Tim while they're fresh."

"Notes?"

"On the performance." She kissed him. "Thanks for coming, Pops."

"Pleasure," said Charley.

"How you lie." She smiled. Tim shook his hand, a good firm shake, the kind Charley liked.

"You'll let me know if you decide to sublet," he smiled.

"All right." Charley laughed. "I will."

On the way to the door he said, "I told her she could live here, it's hers anyway, but she likes it down there in Bey-root."

"Why don't you feed yourself to Confucius," she said.

"He'd choke, most likely."

"I don't doubt he would," she said, sounding so like her grandmother.