Failings of the Fathers: 73

"You might want my son, but you won't get him.  You'd better bet on that," Todd's eyes took on the fury Blair remembered well from his younger days but his tone remained calm and steely.  

Steel.  They'd discussed that very thing the first night they were together.   It was so long ago.  Peter had just died . . .He's alive, Blair.  He's definitely alive.

"Threatening me.  Hmf.  I've certainly got the upper hand.  I've got the gun, and your boy.  I take care of you, and put your wife in those cuffs.  You know the ones.  The ones I put there for your mother, that tramp.  How's that image?"

Todd felt bile rising in his throat, and he swallowed it down as hard as he could.  "You're sick and so sure of yourself and your power.  But, you always were.  As much as you hated him, if Coach didn't come in that night, you'd be a pile of rotting bones by now."  He reached behind himself to get the gun from his waistband.

Peter said, "Put the gun you've got down on the ground.  I want to laugh at the fact that you haven't used it yet.  Pansy, and you never change.  By now, you should have shot me dead."

"While you hold my baby?  That's what you would do, Peter, not me."

"Peter?  You don't have the respect to call me 'Dad?'"

Todd felt heat under his eyelids, and could barely control his urge to grab the man by the throat and squeeze until there was no life left.  But his son.  Their little boy.  He couldn't let him grow up like he did with violence and hate around him, or see his father, and then his mother, gunned down.  No.  He reached for the gun.

Peter was pointing his pistol at the baby now, at his chest.  His little tear-stained face was almost blank, but he was sucking on a lollipop that Peter handed him.  Todd brought the gun forward and put it on the ground in front of him.  Peter said, "Kick it.  Toward me."

He did as asked.  Blair was back behind him, one hand on his lower back.  He pushed her completely behind him with his arm and said, "Blair's leaving now.  Let her go and take Ray with her.  Come on.  You don't want them."  His son had become very still.  Shock, maybe.  God.

"On the contrary, I want everything that you hold dear.  Now, get on your knees."

Todd studied his father's face as he slowly cooperated.  He could see that time had made tracks on the man's forehead and around his eyes, and he saw everything he had forgotten as a child and a young man: a sick, cruel sadistic person who had no compassion or capacity for love.  A sociopath.  A sadist and a sociopath.  He raised me to be a monster, and now, he's going to kill me in front of my son, to make him have demons . . .and then . . . hurt Blair however his sick needs tell him to.  Gotta do something, now. . .  

Once on his knees, he made eye contact with his son, and said, "Ray, close your eyes, Buddy."  

Of course, his son didn't listen.  Instead, he dropped the lollipop to the floor, and said, "You're bad!" into Peter's ear.

Blair screamed, "No!  Todd, no!"

Todd took advantage of his wife's inadvertent diversion and shouted, "Raymond Thomas Manning, no kicking!"

The toddler suddenly kicked frantically at Peter and squirmed enough to wriggle loose.  Todd, on his knees, reached out shoved the little boy past him toward his mother.  Peter, who had been taken by surprise, lifted the gun and aimed it at Todd's head.

***


Miguel was brought into the office by his doctor, and there seemed to be an air of caution in the room.  He said, "Why am I here?"

"We have to let you know something.  This is Detective Schuler, he has some news.  You . . . were listed as next of kin."

"To who?  Aiden?  That can't be, his father, brother and wife . . ."

"No, not to Aiden," the doctor said, bowing his head a bit.  "We're going to wait for your therapist, if that's acceptable."

Miguel was not understanding.  If there were clues to what was going on, he wasn't picking them up well.    His face demonstrated puzzlement.  It was quiet as they waited for Dr. Amaker to come in.  As he entered, Miguel looked up, and said, "Doctor, what is this all about?"

"Detective Schuler has brought something," the therapist said, "he needs you to look at."

The policeman handed him a small scrap of leather.  Miguel said, with his expression fading, "That's Malcolm's.  It was a piece of a leather bag that his wife had woven for him.  To keep his tools."  He handed it back.  "Why do you have that?"

The detective looked toward the doctor and therapist.  Dr. Amaker said, "It was found . . . on a man who was killed in the airport."

Miguel felt hollow.  "Killed?"

"Yes.  He was found dead in a janitorial closet."

"I . . . don't understand.  Why would someone kill Malcolm?  He was . . . I don't understand this," and his voice had changed with every sentence from confused and meek, to determined and angry.

"We're trying to surmise that," the detective answered.  He handed Miguel something else.  "Do you recognize this?"

"Yes.  It's Malcolm and his wife.  One of the few pictures he had left."

"He was . . . holding it, in his hand."

Miguel swallowed, but he knew that the man they found had to be his friend.  "It's him, then.  For certain."

"I believe it is, yes.  His identification was all taken.  These were the only two things we could find.  We could not identify him via the body."

Miguel knew that meant that however Malcolm had died was something torturous that left him unrecognizable.  He said, "This can't be right."

"It is.  I'm sorry," the detective said.  "You're on his medical records as next of kin.  Seems he had no one else."

"No, he . . . he didn't."

Dr. Amaker added, "This is going to be hard for you, Miguel, but we'll get through it.  Do you have any idea who would have done this?"

His eyes brightened.  "You know, right when he disappeared, and wouldn't return my calls, so did Calvin.  You know, the crochety guy, with the heart surgery?"

The detective was taking notes, "Doctors, can you get me a description and a full name?"

One nodded, and left.  Dr. Amaker said, "Miguel, let's have our session early today, say, right after this conversation?"

"Not sure I'm up to it," he said.

"That's exactly why I want to do this.  I'll be in my office," and he departed.

***

Blair took her son in her arms, and through gasps and sobs, she kissed his face.  "Mommy!" he cried, and his little hands were gripping her blouse.  Relieved and overcome with joy at both seeing him and holding him again, she hugged him to her.  

Todd yelled to her, "Get him out of here!"  

Looking up from their reunion, she raised her head just in time to see Peter, with the gun lowered toward Todd's head, sneer like she'd never forget.  "You just went too far," Peter said.  The anger was palpable; Todd was still on his knees in front of Peter, staring up at him.  For a moment, from behind, she flashed on one of Bitsy's drawings.

Blair realized she was shaking as the older man said, "You never were going to amount to much.  And look at you, on your knees, in front of me, again.  Some things never change." 

Todd said, "No, some things never do.  Blair, now.  Get out!"

Frantic to get her son to safety but afraid to leave her husband, Blair backed up toward the cellar stairs that lead outside when Todd jumped to his feet and attacked Peter, his hands going for his throat.  She turned her back to make sure her son was completely shielded by her back, and in doing so, she heard the scuffle and the jarring sound of the gun going off.  She jumped, and the baby screamed, "Daddy!" as Blair covered his head with her hand and pushed his head into her chest, tighter, to shield him.  

It was all dreamlike, but exceedingly fast.  She felt as if she couldn't move, as she tried to calm her son and turned to watch her husband fall to the ground.  "No!"  she called out, and then struggled to keep Ray, who was squirming and crying, from turning and seeing Todd, the blood that had spattered to the floor, and Peter still holding the gun.  Her hand was on the back of Ray's head as she sucked in air in shock.  

She was back in the penthouse, years back, pregnant with Starr.  She could still hear, as if it were today, Dorian on the phone.  

No, he's not dead.  No.  He can't be . . .

All this.  All this for nothing?  He came back to us.  He came back from Leona, from Carlo, from Mitch.  No.  No.

Peter smiled, half of his mouth curling upward, his eyes crazed with triumph.  She opened her mouth to scream again, when Peter's head suddenly jerked back.  Unexpectedly, his forehead spurted blood through a small hole between his eyes.  She gasped in shock, and turned to look behind her, still keeping Ray's face buried in the safety of her chest, to see where the shot had come from.

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