The Legacy

by Stephen W. Frey

  “Well, I’m glad you asked me.”

  “Welcome to my world.” She smiled as she walked quickly toward the elevators.

  Cole followed her, ignoring Anita, who was sticking her tongue out at him as he passed.

  Fifteen minutes later Cole and Tori slipped into a booth at the Broadway Diner. It was loud and, instead of five-star French food, served hamburgers, sandwiches and malts.

  “Interesting.” Cole glanced around. The restaurant was decorated with fifties memorabilia.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, grinning. “Not stylish enough for a Wall Street trader?”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “Most of us can’t afford La Reserve lunches, Cole. We don’t make what you do.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” he muttered under his breath.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.” He smiled at her. “I assume NBC is picking up the tab for this.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Of course it is. But our expense accounts are much smaller than Wall Street’s.”

  “What do you do at NBC?” Cole asked, ignoring her pointed remark.

  “I’m a producer.”

  “Do you have a card?”

  She rummaged through her purse for a moment, then shook her head. “Sorry, I left them at the office, but I’ll make certain you get one.”

  “Uh-huh.” Likely story, he thought to himself.

  A waiter with a bushy mustache sauntered toward the table. “Are you two ready to order?” he asked as he was still walking toward them.

  Cole reached for the menus propped between the paper napkin dispenser and the wall. “We haven’t—”

  “We’re ready,” Tori interrupted. “I’ll have a chicken salad on wheat with lettuce and tomato and a Diet Coke.” She pointed at Cole. “He’ll have a cheeseburger, medium rare, with an order of french fries and a Pepsi. Give him the high-octane stuff. No diet for him.”

  “Be just a few minutes,” the waiter said gruffly as he moved off.

  “You’re a woman who doesn’t wait around.” Cole replaced the menus behind the napkin dispenser.

  “We don’t have time to wait around in the news business.”

  “How did you know what to order me?”

  “What American male doesn’t like a cheeseburger? Oh, they might say they’d rather have a salad, that greens are healthier, but they don’t really mean it.”

  Cole laughed, watching her closely as she constantly surveyed the restaurant. She was like Bennett that way, always searching the perimeter with her cat eyes. “How did you find me, Tori? I didn’t mention myself in my father’s obituary.”

  “I have a friend at the Times,” she explained. “When I became aware of the obituary, I called her. She gave me your name as the person who placed it.”

  “I can’t imagine that’s standard practice at the Times—to give out names like that, I mean.”

  “My friends are very loyal to me, and I’m loyal to them. You’d never find out who my contact is,” she said confidently.

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t.” Tori Brown was tough and aggressive, and she didn’t mind letting you know it.

  “I’ll get to the point.” Without awaiting Cole’s answer, Tori reached into her purse again and pulled out an old newspaper clipping stored inside a clear plastic envelope. She handed it to Cole. “Treat it carefully.”

  “Of course.” He slid the yellowed paper from its sheath, carefully unfolded it and began to read.

  “Let me give you the Reader’s Digest version,” she offered impatiently.

  “Okay.” But he kept reading as she talked.

  “That is a back-page article from the November 26, 1963 edition of the Dallas Morning News. The story is about a young woman named Andrea Sage who claims she was in Dealey Plaza on November 22nd and filmed the assassination of President Kennedy with a Bell & Howell spring-wound movie camera she had purchased in Dallas the day before the shooting. Miss Sage was certain the film would be invaluable to the investigation. The trouble was, someone confiscated her camera and film just after the assassination occurred. The person she accused of taking her camera was—”

  “—was Jim Egan,” Cole interrupted. “My father.”

  “So I’m not telling you anything you don’t know?”

  “No.” Thanks to Bennett Smith, Cole thought to himself.

  “Good. Then you probably know why I’m here, too.”

  He shook his head. “Actually, I don’t.”

  She lowered her head so that her chin was almost touching the formica tabletop. “I want to buy the film, of course,” she said in a low voice. “And I have authorization to pay a great deal of money if we feel the footage is important.”

  “How much is a great deal?”

  “Eight figures.”

  “But I thought the networks didn’t pay for film footage.”

  Tori waved and shook her head. “That was in the old days. Now we have to compete with everyone else to survive. ABC paid a freelance photographer for footage of the Pol Pot trial last year. It happens all the time now.” She picked up her straw and removed the paper wrapper. “Besides, all bets are off when it comes to a new recording of President Kennedy’s assassination. The Kennedys are as big as the British royals in terms of public interest. It would be a windfall for NBC to have an exclusive on the recording, and my executives know that.”

  “What in the world makes you think I have it?” Cole asked.

  “I figured that your father didn’t want it to come to light while he was alive, for good reason. I assume he passed it on to you before he died.”

  Cole grimaced as he thought about the eight-figure authorization. And they would have gone higher if they’d seen it. “Well, he didn’t pass it on to me.” Cole nodded at the yellowed page. “It says right here my father denied taking the movie camera from Andrea Sage.” He pointed to the third paragraph of the article. “Andrea Sage was making the whole thing up. He couldn’t have passed it on to me because he never had it in the first place. The Sage woman was just trying to create her fifteen minutes of fame out of thin air,” he said, quoting Bennett. Cole didn’t want to give Tori the impression he had ever had it.

  “I don’t believe that for a second.” Her strategy was to press him hard and watch his reaction carefully for signals. “Do you?”

  “Yes, why wouldn’t I?”

  Tori shook her head. “You’re quite an actor.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There were over five hundred photographs taken of Dealey Plaza the day of the assassination. I know of at least two that appear to show a man taking a movie camera away from a young woman on the south side of Elm Street. The pictures are a little blurry, but it’s obvious to me what’s going on. You know he took that camera from Andrea Sage.”

  “I don’t know anything of the sort.” It was possible that such pictures existed, Cole realized. It was possible she was bluffing, too. “How did you just happen to see that obituary concerning my father?” he asked.

  “I didn’t just happen to see it. We run computer searches on old stories all the time at NBC. Thousands of them every day on all kinds of events. Unsolved murder cases, missing persons, historical events.” She ticked them off. “We input tickler words into our computers and the computers scan new editions of all publications every day searching for the ticklers, from the L.A. Times to the New York Times as well as every paper and magazine in between. If the computers locate the tickler, they automatically pull and print the story in which it’s contained. The JFK assassination is a perfect example. It’s the same at the other networks, too. Every major news organization in this country is still trying to pry the top off that conspiracy can. Don’t kid yourself. Your father is one of those tickler names in our computer. The network has been searching for him for years,
ever since that story in the Morning News.” Tori pointed at the article lying on the table in front of Cole. “But we never found him. No one has, as far as I know, and I’ve been working on the JFK thing off and on for almost ten years.” She spotted the waiter heading toward the table with their food and moved her silverware, making room for the plate. “After the assassination it’s as if your father disappeared off the face of the earth, except for one thing. He married a woman named Mary Thomas in a justice-of-the-peace ceremony a few weeks after JFK was killed.” Tori watched him carefully as she conveyed that fact.

  His eyes shot to hers, then quickly back to the table. Mary Thomas?

  “I found the marriage license for Jim Egan and Mary Thomas in Dallas about a year ago through a contact of mine down in Texas and traced Mary Thomas right here to New York City to her parents’ Upper East Side apartment. I actually went to the apartment.” Tori sighed in frustration. “It turned out to be a dead end, though. Mary ran away after graduating from college. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas claimed they hadn’t heard from her since the spring of 1963.” Tori paused as the waiter put the plates down and walked away without asking if they needed anything else. “But I’m sure you already knew all that. I assume Mary Thomas was your mother.” Tori was watching Cole intently. “Right?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he murmured.

  “It was strange, though.”

  “What was?” Cole asked quickly.

  “I told your grandparents I had information about their daughter when I went to see them, but they didn’t want to listen. I would think that if you hadn’t heard from your daughter in thirty-five years, you’d jump at the chance to get information.” Tori shrugged. “But they didn’t, so I left. I felt like I was so close to something big, then the rug was yanked out from under me. And to think you were sitting just a few blocks away the whole time.” She took a sip of Diet Coke, then picked up her sandwich. “It’s odd how your mother and father disappeared after they were married. I talked to quite a few officers who were on the Dallas police force at the same time as your father. No one knew where he went. They didn’t even know your father had gotten married, even men who said they thought they knew him pretty well. And Mary never called her parents to let them know about the wedding, or so your grandparents claim. It’s all very strange.” Tori took a small bite from her sandwich and continued talking. “The Andrea Sage woman falls off the map after Dallas, too. I can’t find anything about her anywhere. Of course that happened to a lot of people involved with the Kennedy assassination. They just seemed to evaporate. It’s mysterious, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” Cole answered automatically without really hearing her question. So Mary Thomas was his mother’s real name, and she had been running away from her parents. No wonder she was less than forthright with the Dallas police about a permanent address and identification.

  Cole shoved his plate away and stood. “I’ve got to make a phone call, Tori.”

  “Sure.”

  He was back in five minutes. As he slid into the seat across from her, Tori asked cheerfully, “Did my secretary give me a favorable report?”

  Cole had indeed called NBC to confirm that Tori Brown was a producer with the news division. “Yes, she said you were a wonderful boss.” Tori was sharp. He wouldn’t underestimate her again.

  “Good.”

  “She was expecting my call. Apparently you told her to stay nailed to her seat until she heard from me. She sounded pretty hungry. I told her she could go to lunch now.”

  Tori laughed. “I figured you might want to check up on me.”

  Cole picked up the cheeseburger, then put it back down. “Tori, can you give me the address for the Thomases here in Manhattan?”

  Tori glanced up from her plate. “What?”

  Cole knew damn well she had heard the question. He had hoped she would make it easy for him and give up the address easily, but it was naive to think that, he now realized. “I want the address of those people you found in Manhattan. The Thomases. My grandparents.”

  Tori shook her head in disbelief. “You mean you didn’t know about them?”

  “No,” he said quietly.

  She shook her head again. “So they were telling me the truth. They really hadn’t heard from Mary in all those years. I thought maybe they were just throwing me a curve to get rid of me.”

  She reached across the table and touched his hand gently. “I can’t believe your mother and father didn’t tell you who your grandparents were.”

  “Well, believe it.” Cole glanced away. Growing up, he had always been jealous of those children who had a mother, a father and two sets of grandparents, especially at holiday times.

  “I’m sorry.” Tori squeezed his hand. “I shouldn’t have spoken that way. It’s just that—”

  “It’s okay,” Cole interrupted. “But you could really help me if you’d give me their address.”

  Tori released his hand and straightened in the seat. “What about your mother? Where is she? Can I talk to her?” The questions came rapid-fire.

  “I’d like to talk to my mother, too,” Cole retorted, “but she’s dead.”

  “Oh.” Tori hesitated only a moment.

  “When did she die?”

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  “I guess not,” she said. “What about the film, Cole?” She was pressing him, anxious to wrap him up before someone else got to him. “The one your father took from Andrea Sage.”

  “I told you, I don’t know anything about a film! Now are you going to give me the Thomases’ address?”

  “No.”

  “You—” He stopped himself abruptly. “Fine, I’ll call information and get their number myself.”

  “That won’t help,” she said quickly. “Their number is unlisted.” Tori put a finger to her forehead. “But here’s an idea. You could get the home address Mary Thomas gave the clerk in Dallas on the day of the marriage.” She grimaced, as if her pain were real. “On second thought, that’ll be hard to do. My friend in Dallas pulled those public records and destroyed them—for a small fee, of course.” Tori smiled at Cole. “You look so angry, and I don’t like that.”

  “I can’t believe you won’t give me the address.” Cole slammed his fist down on the table. “They’re my grandparents, for Christ’s sake! I want to meet them before they die.” Or I do, he thought to himself.

  Tori’s smile disappeared as she leaned over the table. “And I’d like to break a big story before I die,” she hissed. “In case you haven’t heard, that’s how people get ahead in the news business. I’ve been struggling for years to get the suits at NBC to recognize me. ‘Oh yeah, we like her work.’ That’s what they say. That’s tantamount to ‘She’s a second-stringer.’ Well, I want more than that. I want to break a big story. I want some respect and, dammit, yes I’ll admit it, some glory. This could be one of the biggest stories of the decade, maybe ever.” She paused. “I don’t think you’re telling me everything, Cole. You come clean with me, and I’ll give you the Thomases’ address. Short of that, I’ll give you a hint. They live on the East Side between Fortieth and Ninetieth. That’s about a million people to cull your way through. That’s assuming I gave you the right name. Good luck.”

  Cole rose slowly from the table, pulled out his wallet, took a twenty from inside and dropped the bill on the table. “Thanks for lunch,” he said evenly, then walked to the door and out onto Broadway.

  12

  Powerful gusts picked up loose paper and discarded wrappers from the sidewalk and whipped them into small cyclones—trash devils, as they were called in Manhattan. Cole muttered to himself as he pulled his overcoat up around his face, leaned forward against the autumn wind and hurried down Broadway. Tori Brown. How selfish could you be? Withholding information about someone’s family in the name of breaking a news story. He turned onto Forty-Seventh
Street.

  “Hello, Cole.” A large man in a dark suit and sunglasses stepped away from a parked limousine and moved directly into Cole’s path.

  Cole stopped, recognizing the man from the Blue Moon, then turned around to sprint back to Broadway. But he ran directly into a second man who grabbed him by the arm tightly.

  “We’re going to take a little ride,” the second man said in a thick Brooklyn accent, smiling as if this interruption were nothing Cole needed to worry about.

  Cole forced a smile in return. “A little friendly outing, right? Maybe we’ll take in a show and a nice dinner later, just the three of us.”

  “Maybe.” The second man hustled Cole over the sidewalk to the limousine. The first man had already opened a back door, and Cole ducked as the second man pushed him in. The two men followed Cole inside and slammed the door shut, and the black Cadillac squealed away from the curb.

  “Where have you been lately, Cole?” The first man sat on the seat opposite Cole. He removed his leather gloves and tossed them down. “We’ve been looking for you.”

  Cole spotted a pistol in the shoulder holster beneath the man’s unbuttoned jacket. “I took a friend home to Minnesota. Her colleague was killed in an explosion at my apartment.”

  “We heard about that,” the second man, who sat next to Cole, remarked indifferently. “We were glad it wasn’t you. Then we couldn’t have gotten our money back. And contrary to what you might think, we really do want it back. All of it.” He grinned. “We’re going to have some fun this afternoon making that point very clear.”

  “I know you want it back.” Unless he came up with ninety-nine thousand dollars plus interest before the limousine reached its destination, it looked like he was in for a rough afternoon.

  As they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, the first man spoke up again. “You know, Frankie,” he said to his companion as he gazed out the window at New York Harbor, “I read somewhere recently that this bridge first opened all the way back in 1883. And I think it was the first suspension bridge in the United States.”