Millennium - 66. Chapter 66

March 9, 2000

 

“We snaked another deal away from them,” Rashid said. He’d been planted in DC, our political liaison, and was really doing well. “That’s two for two on your list.”

“That’s great!” I said enthusiastically. “Ask Cal to mock up some numbers on the impact this will have on Omega’s finances.”

“I will do that,” he said cheerfully. “They are going to try and get that third deal pulled from Omega, but Senator Danfield is concerned that they may not be able to. He thinks that the Pentagon will be concerned for Omega’s financial survival, and he suspects they want to keep multiple vendors afloat.”

“Make sure and remind them PTL Systems is still out there.” They weren’t really much competition, but perhaps if the Pentagon thought they were a player, they’d let Omega crash and burn.

“Do you want me to stay here, or return to Los Altos next week?” he asked.

“Where do you think you should be?” I’d learned to delegate a long time ago.

“I think I should be here,” he replied.

“Then stay there. I’ll make sure we keep you up-to-date from the war room,” I teased. Next week was March 15, the Ides of March, the day we’d set to launch our all-out assault on Omega and Alexandra Carmichael. I’d blocked it out to be in Los Altos, with my team.

I hung up my phone and looked at the other end of the bench where Robbie sat, chatting away with someone in LA. All around me was the beauty of the UC San Diego Campus. We’d come here on a campus visit with Darius. At this point, he was planning to major in political science, and there was a Poly Sci class that was on the visitation list. I was kind of surprised that Darius wanted to sit in on it. The academic side of school had never been something he was keen on.

I walked around a bit, no more than 100 feet from Robbie. I almost laughed at that, how even here on a campus visit there seemed to be a prescribed maximum distance of separation. I returned to his side, good partner that I am, just as Darius came ambling across the courtyard. With his jeans and his hoodie on, he looked like all the other college students here. He seemed pained to actually come over to us, as if that might blow his cover and he’d be outed as a high school senior.

“How was your class?” I asked.

“Fine,” he said, refusing to elaborate in that way teenagers do.

“Do you think you’ll enjoy Political Science?” I asked, in the way that parents probe for info from teenagers who are unwilling to elaborate.

“Probably,” he said.

We were distracted from our conversation by Robbie, who was still on the phone. “Calm down Clara. Calm down. Tell me what’s happening.” There was a pause as he listened, while Darius and I just looked at each other curiously. “They can’t take her away, and they can’t force her to see him. Look, you just relax, and I’ll have about fifteen attorneys on this as soon as I get off the phone.” Now Darius and I were completely interested. “I’ll call you back as soon as I can.” And he hung up.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Fred Hayes is demanding that he be allowed to spend time with his daughter,” Robbie said.

“They can’t let him do that!” Darius said emphatically. “You have to stop them!”

We both stared at him, not a little amazed at his emotional outburst. That was unheard of for him. “Why?” I asked.

“Because, well, because you can’t,” he said.

“Not good enough Darius,” Robbie said firmly. “Why?”

“Because he touches her,” Darius said. It irked me that Robbie could get things out of him when he’d stonewall me, but I put that aside.

“You mean he molests her?” I asked.

“She told me that he had, but she hasn’t been around him for a really long time. She must be totally freaking out. You have to help her,” he said to Robbie.

“You seem to have gotten to know her pretty well,” I observed.

“Damn it, Dad,” he said to me, almost irate. “We can talk about whether she and I got together or not later on. Right now you have to help her.”

His proclamation was irrelevant, because Robbie had already started punching the keys on his phone before Darius even made it. I decided to go ahead and call JP. I figured that the more people we had involved, the better it would be. In the end, JP wanted to talk to Robbie, so I ended up handing Robbie my phone. He was there, sitting on a bench, having two conversations at once. It was obvious that neither Darius nor I were going to be of any use. Robbie finished talking to JP and gave me back my phone. “I need to call some other people,” he said urgently, as he began dialing again.

“Look, we’re here in San Diego, we came here to see the campus,” I said. I turned to Darius. “Why don’t you and I go explore a little bit, and then when Pop gets done with his calls, he can phone us and we’ll come meet him.”

He didn’t like that one bit. He wanted to stay here, to be in the thick of things. But after a few more minutes of listening to Robbie’s conversations, where we could only hear him talking, he saw the benefits of my plan. We grabbed our campus map and started walking, looking at the buildings, and identifying which department or college was where. Or at least that’s what I did. Darius spent most of his time looking at the students, especially the female ones.

“So what do you think?” I asked him as we toured around.

“I like it. I’m not sure if it’s better than UCLA or UCSB, but I like it.”

“You still want to go up and visit Chico State?”

“I need to have a backup plan in case things don’t work out,” he said nervously. “Do you think Grand will have any luck on that Annapolis admission?”

“Each Senator is allowed to nominate a candidate,” I reminded him. “We’ll see if we have tight enough connections to nab one of those slots for you.”

“It would be cool to go into the Navy, like my grandfather,” he observed. It dawned on me that he was looking at taking timeless Schluter career paths. For the past several generations, that meant being a lawyer and/or a judge, or going into the service.

“Just don’t get your hopes up too much,” I cautioned. “Those slots are prized, and this is a big state.”

“I won’t. Pop’s really freaking out about this. He’s all into his cousins,” Darius observed.

“When we first met them, it was pretty shocking for him. He had pretty much disowned them, and he hasn’t been a part of their lives. I’m so glad I didn’t make the same mistake.”

“What do you mean?” I’d piqued his curiosity.

“You know that I never really had a good relationship with your mother. The only time we got along was when you were around.” He grinned at that. “It would have been pretty easy for me to do what Robbie did, to wash my hands of my sister and all of her offspring.”

“That would have sucked,” he said. I put my arm around him to thank him for that loving statement.

“I think so too. I’ll never forget the first time I met you. Robbie and I had just graduated, and we were driving back to California. We stopped in Claremont and were staying with Maman.” Maman had been Darius’ own nickname for my grandmother Crampton. “She was having a dinner party for us, and your mother walked in, looking like the strung out crack whore that she was. Then this three-year-old whirlwind came flying into the room, charming everyone.”

“Some things never change,” he said, being cocky. I ignored him.

“You ran up and gave Grandmaman a big hug, then you turned to the table, looked at all those adults, and said ‘hello’ in such a bright and cheerful way.” He rolled his eyes to hide that he enjoyed hearing about himself when he was little. “I introduced myself to you and you came right over and hopped in my lap.”

“No wonder Pop thought I might be gay,” he joked, cracking me up.

“I tried to feed you peas, but you weren’t having it,” I said as I remembered our first meeting. “Instead, we fed you some Jell-0.”

“See how smart I was, even then?”

“You were. I was so impressed at how well you spoke for your age, and how cheerful and outgoing you were. I’m so glad you still are.”

We walked along in silence for a bit. “So if you would have done what Robbie did, we probably wouldn’t have grown up with you.”

“It’s possible,” I concurred. “I remember sitting up there on that stage when Gathan started talking, when I understood what had happened, and I thought about that, what my life would have been like without you guys. I almost had to go puke, it upset me so much.”

“Growing up was pretty weird. I had this nice place with Maman, and then when my mother would breeze in, things would suck. I’d have to go visit her at the shithole she lived in, or even if I didn’t, just having her around was a downer.” He kicked a rock. “It wasn’t until we got to California that things seemed normal.”

“I had a similar experience, I had all of these memories buried, memories of my bio-dad, and of my mother, your grandmother. She hated me, and made my life a living hell. It wasn’t until she finally brought me out to Escorial that my life got better. I grew up with Ace, Claire, and Billy, instead of Nick and your mom.”

“You got a much better deal out here. Nick is boring, and his kids are dorks.”

“His sons are nice kids,” I said.

“Dad, Barry is a nerd, and Harry spends all of his time trying to get in Gathan’s pants. They’re dorks.”

“Does Harry succeed?” I asked.

He grinned at me, knowing how curious I was about that. “How would I know?” He was such a little shit. “Dad, if a dude was gonna do another dude, he sure as hell isn’t going to talk about it.”

“Makes sense,” I said.

“It’s kind of weird how we all seemed to pick a parent to claim,” he said. “I picked Pop, because he seemed to be the straightest of all of you.” He started laughing hysterically when he saw my reaction to that. “JJ picked Mom, because he’s into girlie shit like skating. And Will picked you, because all you guys want to do with your spare time is surf.” He paused for effect. “It worked out pretty well.”

“He is not straighter than me,” I objected, using the same tone Robbie used when he said ‘I am not fat,’ and Darius just laughed harder still.

We were almost back to where Robbie was, and we could see him still talking on his cell phone. “I like hanging out with Pop, but I feel close to you too Dad.” And for him, that was like anyone else shouting “I love you” at the top of their lungs.

“I love you too, Darius. I always have, and I always will. That’s what being a parent is all about.” And that was it, that unconditional love, the root of a father-son bond.

We walked up to Robbie to find him still pretty panicked. “We need to fly out to Claremont.”

“The attorneys can’t handle it?” I asked.

“This is a big deal,” he snapped at me. “This is important. I have to go.”

I just eyed him coolly. “If you want to go to Claremont, go to Claremont. I was just trying to save you the trip.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked me.

“I’m going to go with you,” I told him, as if it had always been a given.

“Oh,” he said, and looked a little guilty for being bitchy.

“I want to go too,” Darius announced.

“What about the parties this weekend you were talking about?” I asked.

“I said I want to go,” Darius stated firmly.

“You seem to be pretty into your younger cousin,” I observed, digging. “I didn’t realize you spent that much time together.”

“Can I go or not?” he asked petulantly.

“I guess I should have kept a closer eye on you two,” I continued, driving him crazy. “You know you can’t treat her like you usually treat girls.”

“She’s not like the other girls, and I treat her just fine.”

“Oh yeah? How fine?”

“Brad, leave him alone,” Robbie intervened. Darius gave me a dirty look and I just stuck my tongue out at him, acting juvenile on purpose. I saw him try not to smile. “We can all go.”

Now it was my turn to get on the phone, so Robbie drove. We’d taken Jeanine’s Lexus, since it had room for all three of us, so I called her to let her know what we were doing, and that I was leaving her car at the airport. I think she was enjoying Robbie’s Ferrari, so she wasn’t terribly upset. Then I had to call the airport in San Diego and arrange a jet to take us to Claremont. The whole time I was doing that, Darius and I were giving Robbie dirty looks.

“What?” he asked.

“You drive like an old lady,” Darius said.

“That’s how they drive in Claremont,” I teased, piling on.

“Oh yeah wise guys? How many tickets do you have?”

“Two,” Darius said, a little deflated.

“I don’t have any. I just blow the cop,” I said, joking, and then I blushed three shades of red when I remembered Darius was in the car. He laughed at my discomfort. Robbie’s phone started ringing, so I made him pull over and let me drive. We got to the airport much faster that way.

They were waiting for us at the airport, just as they were supposed to be. This time I chartered a Bombardier Global Express, just to see if it was better than the G-V. After we took off, Darius made to sneak off to the back of the plane and play video games, but I stopped him. “Sit,” I ordered. He did. Commands like that worked for dogs and teenagers.

“What?”

“What’s the deal with you and Ella?” I asked.

“What makes you think you can pry into my personal life?” He demanded. “I’m 18 now.”

“That’s true, you are. But she’s 16, and part of our extended family, so that’s what gives me the right to pry.” He looked at Robbie, non-verbally asking him to shut me up, but Robbie backed me up and said nothing.

“We just made out, that’s all,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said, letting him off the hook.

“This one seems different,” Robbie said to him. It was funny to see Darius get irritated at him for a change.

“This one?” he demanded.

“As opposed to most of the 17 to 19-year-old girls in Malibu,” I said, stroking his male ego.

“She is different. She’s pretty, she’s smart, and she’s not like all the girls around here,” he said, referring to those local Malibu girls. Robbie and I looked at each other; both of us recognized the signs of a young man with a very big crush.

“I think she’s pretty special too,” I told him. “All I really wanted to do was make sure you knew that ‘this one’,” I said, teasing Robbie, “is different. You can’t leave her by the wayside like the others.”

He chuckled at that. “I haven’t heard any complaints.”

“You may from Wally and Clara,” I reminded him. “Their ideas and values may be a lot different from those of a Malibu or Santa Monica high school girl.”

“I got it. Is the lecture over now?”

“For the time being,” I said, giving him dispensation to leave. When he was out of earshot, I turned to Robbie. “So what’s the plan?”

“We’ve got attorneys filing a restraining order,” Robbie said. “Apparently Ella’s mother had the sense to sign guardianship powers over to Wally and Clara, but she did it on a handwritten note. Fred never signed anything.”

“There’s an easy solution to this,” I told him.

“It’s not our place to tell her,” he asserted.

“Wouldn’t you want to know if the biggest asshole in town wasn’t really your father?”

He gave me his logical look. “Not when her real father is the second biggest asshole in town.” That made me laugh, until I looked up and saw Darius eying us. His eyes narrowed as he stared at us, but he said nothing. He just went up to the fridge, grabbed a soda, got a bag of chips, and sat down across from me.

“What do you mean, ‘her real father’?” I saw Robbie get ready to feed him a bunch of crap, but the way he asked the question, the way he obviously cared about her, I knew that wasn’t going to fly.

“We shouldn’t have been talking about this,” Robbie said, giving me a really dirty look.

“That’s the problem with all of these secrets. All it does is piss people off,” I said to him, rebutting his nasty looks.

And then Darius seemed to mature at least ten years. “This isn’t the time for playing around. This is serious. Who is her father?”

“We have reason to believe Ella’s father isn’t Fred Hayes,” I said slowly, frustrating him. But I wasn’t taunting Darius; my eyes were on Robbie, making sure that he was on board with me telling Darius. I could see in his expression that he was still grappling with the inevitable. “If I tell you, it stays between the three of us for now.”

“Ella needs to know,” he said adamantly.

“She probably does, but if we take you into our confidence, you can’t tell her until we all decide that it’s time,” I said.

He gave me his steely look. “You’re not holding all the cards. If that asshole isn’t her father, she needs to know, and I’m going to tell her. Then she can come ask you who her real father is. Let’s see if you beat around the bush then.”

Now I looked back at him, really pissed off. I was really annoyed at having this 18-year-old kid, a kid that I’d raised, try to play hard ball with me over something this important. We just glared at each other, and it dawned on me that this must have been what JP felt like when I was being such a difficult and defiant teenager. I remembered the meeting I had with JP, Claire, Jack, and my mother back in high school, when Claire got pregnant. I’d challenged him much as Darius was challenging me now. The thought of that struck me as being funny, really funny, so funny that I had to laugh. Robbie and Darius both stared at me, obviously wondering if I was losing my mind.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to get my hysterical laughter under control. “It’s just that for the first time, I truly understand how JP felt when I was such a pain in the ass as a teenager.” Robbie chuckled with me, now that he got it, but Darius just looked at me, confused and very irritated. “I was pretty outspoken with Grand, just as you were to me, and he wasn’t real happy about that. I got to be on the receiving end of it this time.”

“That doesn’t answer any of my questions,” Darius said, unwilling to be deterred.

“I don’t think it’s fair to tell you before Ella knows. If you want to tell her that Fred probably isn’t her father, that’s your decision. If she wants to know who he is, she can come see us.” He didn’t like that, but he could see my logic. “Darius, she may not want you to know.”

“She’ll want me to know,” he said assuredly.

We landed well after dark and headed straight to Wally and Clara’s house. Our arrival in the limousine just seemed to add to the confusion. Apparently Fred Hayes had decided to force the issue, and had come over to their house. I wondered why there weren’t any police there, but evidently no one had thought to call them. Spring was approaching, and the weather in Claremont was about 45 degrees and cloudy, something I could live with. Fred and Wally were about two feet apart, standing on the front lawn yelling at each other. Wally had Gathan behind him, but it was less to have Gathan there as support than to keep him from attacking Fred.

“She’s my daughter, goddammit,” Fred yelled. “I’m gonna see her if I have to go through both of you.” He apparently hadn’t seen us arrive. As we got closer I figured out why: I could smell the alcohol emanating from him even though I was 15 feet away.

“You’ll have to go through five of us asshole,” Robbie said, getting in his face.

“Get away from me,” he said to Robbie contemptuously. “I know what you want, you fucking faggot. More of this.” He grabbed his crotch. Then the whole confrontation turned into one of those Kung Fu movies, where everyone moves in slow motion, only they don’t. Robbie turned into a blur as he hit Fred full force with a right hook. Evidently all those years of hating Fred, all those years where he’d just simmered and burned, finally broke through and Robbie lost it. Fred staggered back, shocked by the first punch, and that let Robbie get in another good one. But now Fred was ready, now he was one of those drunks who weren’t aware of anything else except how to fuck and how to fight.

Fred backed away from Robbie, acting like he was going to give up and go away, although none of us thought he would. I wanted so bad to jump in and help Robbie beat the living shit out of Fred Hayes, and so did the others, but I held back and they followed my lead. This was something Robbie needed to do on his own; this was a monster he needed to conquer. Fred lunged at Robbie, and Robbie deflected his charge, tripping him in the process. Robbie fell on top of Fred, pummeling him, just beating the crap out of him. We let him go on for a long time, since I think we were all enjoying watching Fred Hayes cower behind his arms as he tried to block Robbie’s punches. For me, it was so much more than that. With every punch, with every blow he landed, Robbie at least partially paid Fred back for all the pain he’d inflicted on Robbie back in high school. It was actually funny that there really was no one there to stop him. If anything, Gathan was waiting there, hoping for his own turn.

I finally stepped forward and grabbed Robbie. “Enough!” I yelled. He struggled with me, his rage was so great, but I held him tight.

Darius rushed forward and helped me. “Knock it off, Pop.” That seemed to get through. We dragged him off of Fred, and watched as Fred rolled on the lawn in pain. Robbie stood there, his hands still balled up in fists, panting from the exertion of pounding Fred Hayes, his nose flared out as he caught his breath.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Robbie said. “You show your face around here, or around her, and you’ll end up back in jail.”

Fred didn’t seem to hear him. He rolled over onto all fours and slowly struggled to his feet. He stood there, upright, swaying back and forth as he stared at us. He took a step toward Robbie then froze, and strangely enough he got a big smile on his face. I was trying to figure out why until I saw him reach in his pocket and pull something out. He clicked it, and a big blade flew out. Fred Hayes was now armed and dangerous.

He closed on Robbie, brandishing the knife, while Robbie backed away. “Let’s see if I can’t redecorate that pretty face of yours,” he said with a sneer.

“That’s assault with a deadly weapon, Fred,” I said.

“Nope, I’m thinking I’ll make it murder one,” he said.

Darius darted out and stood to the side of Robbie, about six feet away. “Think you can do two at once, asshole?” he taunted. I had to admire his strategy and his courage. Gathan, Wally, and I completed the circle, surrounding Fred, and now, even though he had a knife, he was the one who was being hunted. He rotated, thrusting at us individually, trying to keep us away from him. I focused on him so much I heard nothing else around me. I was determined that if he was going to stab someone, it was going to be me. In a flash of clarity, I realized that this was part of fatherhood, where you’d gladly sacrifice your life to save the life of your child.

I was so absorbed I hadn’t heard the footsteps behind me. A cop shined his flashlight on Fred Hayes, augmenting the dim streetlights. “Hayes, you gonna put down the knife peacefully, or do I get to shoot you this time?” the cop asked.

“Now Officer,” Fred said in what he thought was a likable tone, “I’m just trying to show these boys how not to get stabbed in a knife fight.” He dropped the knife on the ground and put his hands up.

“He was trying to stab us with his knife,” I stated, just so there was no confusion.

“You want to press charges, or you want this whole thing forgotten. It’s up to you,” the cop said. I knew he was taking a huge leap, stretching rules. He pulled me aside a bit. “Look, I know what you’re trying to do for this town. Fred Hayes will be back in jail again in no time. If you’re the one who sends him there, it will probably put you and your partner on the front page of at least the local paper. Your call, but I’d let this one go.”

I smiled, trying to turn on my charm. “You sure you’re not just trying to dodge writing a long report?”

He laughed with me. “Nah, that’s actually better. I get to go sit down and have coffee and donuts. That’s what we cops do, you know.”

“Claremont’s comedian cop. What’s your name?”

“Tom Collins,” he said.

“Like the drink,” I said, like no one had ever mentioned that before. “Well Officer Collins, I appreciate you stopping by. I don’t think anything else needs to be done.” I assumed his partner would go along with Collins’ decision, and he did.

“Come on Hayes,” Collins said. “We’ll drop you downtown.” He grunted and followed them.

“Aren’t they going to arrest him?” Robbie demanded, outraged.

“I told them not to,” I said. Suddenly I was faced with a crowd of angry people.

“That guy’s a menace,” Gathan said. “You let him go?”

“If we have Fred arrested, and they find out it was over a big fight with Robbie and me in it, it will be all over the papers.” They all acted like they didn’t give a shit about that, which pissed me off. “That’s bad for Robbie, and it’s bad for the City. We don’t need this effort, this project, derailed because of some bad press.” The rest of them mellowed in the face of my logic, all of them except Robbie. I remembered Tonto’s favorite strategy, so like her, I hit him with a good offense. “And it’s quite possible that they would have asked Fred how it started, and then you’d end up charged with assault and battery. You kicked his ass. Isn’t that enough?” Only when I finished with my brief tirade did I realize it had come off as a little too mean.

“I guess,” he said, relenting.

I decided to try and make up for my nasty tone. “I thought it was very masculine, the way you jumped on him,” I said, teasing and flirting at the same time.

“See,” Darius said. “I told you he was straighter than you.”

“Thanks for having my back,” Robbie said to Darius affectionately. “That was brave. I’m proud of you.”

Darius was about to respond, but he was distracted when the door to the house opened and Ella came out, still distraught by the whole thing. He ran over to her and pulled her into a big hug. “You came,” she said. Gathan looked mildly annoyed, like big brothers are supposed to look when their sister is hanging on another guy, while the rest of us just looked worried.

“Of course,” he said, flirting. He gave her a small kiss, and then realized where he was and got all nervous.

“Well let’s go inside,” Clara said, eying Ella and Darius nervously. “I can’t thank you enough for coming out here.”

“We’ll do what we have to do to make sure Ella’s safe,” Robbie said.

“Does that include telling her who her real father is?” Darius asked.

As if nothing could be more surprising than that statement, another limo pulled up. I wondered what the residents of the street must be thinking, with two limousines and a police car at the Hayes’ house. I watched as JP got out, looking around furtively as he evaluated the situation. He was followed by Stefan, who was smiling as if he was getting out of the car at the Academy Awards and photographers were there. And then, a third person got out, really stunning me. Claire emerged, looking refined and elegant in her Chanel suit and four-inch heels, and seeming completely out of place in this blue-collar neighborhood.