by I.B. Holder
Chapter 41 Third Nights
The third night was also the third dinner Wagner cooked in Legacy’s kitchen. The regularity of having three at the table was beginning to show in their conversation.
Especially with Chess, who was beginning to look at the young agent as a trusted entity. Their candid conversations about middle school social politics for girls left Legacy in a fog.
The emotion that ran through every schoolyard discussion, such as the girls who were vulnerable to any mention of their shape, baffled him. It didn’t matter if they looked perfect if they wore the wrong color or wore the right color in diagonal instead of horizontal stripes. Or the rumors about who was going to give what signals before the ‘girls choice’ dance so that the girl could ask the boy she wanted without really taking a risk.
The topic of ‘girls choice’ dance launched Wagner into an anecdote about how she’d hooked a boy’s belt loop to the tetherball rope when he’d said no. She’d later found out that he had a crush on her, but his family was going out of town. The schoolyard humiliation put a damper on their love, Chad Harper, or dangling Chad as he was known until he moved, had never forgiven her.
Chess bubbled over with laughter on the third night. She wanted to know everything about Wagner, how she dressed, got her hair that way, she even brought up the topic of cooking.
Legacy couldn’t believe it. Chess was the girl who had once threatened to dye her hair pink in rebellion if Legacy brought home a cookware set. But there they were chatting about how Wagner had clarified the butter before letting the parsley soak into and add to the character of the fish.
Chess hated fish. And she asked for a second helping, then let fly with the most candid comment of the night. “Do you think I might look – beautiful? Someday?” Her face shone in youthful innocence, whatever Wagner said would be taken far too seriously.
Wagner responded, “You are beautiful right now.”
Chess continued analytically “But not like you, I’m two categories below at least, I’m friendly, shy pretty.” Chess said dangling her fork over the ridges of the herb-encrusted cod on her plate.
Legacy took a hold of one hand on each young woman, he said in his most deep, rich supportive tone “Do you know what makes a woman truly beautiful?” It was a melody, the resonant command tone made both Chess and Wagner catch their breath, in a trance, waiting for his answer. Legacy let his eyes wander back and forth, he was in complete control and it was time for the answer. “A cup of hot black coffee.”
The dishes were cleared and dinner concluded with Wagner promising to help Chess with her make-up next time she came over. This raised an eyebrow with Legacy.
“No make-up.” Legacy said.
Wagner crossed behind Legacy and her breath brushed his ear. A confidential message, “Her friends are getting tattoos and piercings. Do you want to wait until it gets to that?”
Chess stood at the table. “I know you guys are talking about me. I’m just going to my room to cry myself to sleep, can I get either of you anything first?” She knew exactly how much sass could be excused.
Legacy grumbled then relented, “No lipstick.”
The thumbs up from Wagner sent Chess skipping from the room. “Goodnight, Dad. Goodnight Angela.”
Legacy couldn’t remember having heard Chess say her name out loud before, it made him think about whether or not he liked the name for the person. Wagner caught him staring at her.
“I know I should never wear white.” She pointed to a stain on the white shoulder strap.
“I was looking at your body. To see if it fit.”
“Fit what?”
“Your name.”
Wagner must have had a couple of glasses of red wine with dinner because she did a playful twirl shifting weight between her legs to put motion into her skirt.
Legacy parried with “I like the name Angela better when it’s said than when it’s on paper.” He left the room before he could show any of the embarrassment he should have felt sooner.
Later that night, around three AM, Wagner stumbled to the living room door, her blouse untucked, names and numbers tumbling around her head so much that she was distracted to the point of finding Legacy’s voice unexpected.
“Goodnight.” He said, without purpose, or agenda. It was the closest he’d come to issuing courtesy to another person in years.
Wagner, her feet so heavy the carpet felt like quicksand, was in no condition to appreciate the gesture. She casually nodded her weary head and left the room.
Legacy was back onto the trail of the manifest of satellite parts delivery, it had seemed so promising, but it turned out that Blue was too smart to have the parts shipped to the same P.O. box twice. The pickup in Provo identified the model receiver that the Vinyl Men were using, and narrowed the corridor but it didn’t point to a door. They might be able to sit on the next order, if only they had a year to crack the case. Legacy missed his old job.
The paper he was holding had Tracy’s name at the top. It was an autopsy report.
Legacy drifted into an inner dialog between himself and the trial lawyer father of Tracy whose deposition after finding the body was one of the more poignant and eloquent retracing of steps that he’d ever read. Legacy was standing in the morgue watching the father standing over his daughter. The man hadn’t talked directly to his daughter in years and yet his memory of her recounted in testimony to the police made her into a perfect child. He embraced her dead body and her life long defiance of him and all he stood for - all slipped out of his hands and he was holding his child again.
“Beeeeeeeep!”
Legacy came back to the present found his arms cradling the paper from which he was reading. Notes in the margins, with answers to questions that he had for the father about what a person looking at his daughter on a TV screen would know immediately. In scraggy handwriting that didn’t look like the rest he had written, was one word: DEFIANCE.
Legacy found the phone on the eleventh ring. The voice on the other end didn’t have time for greetings and launched right into, “It leaked.” It was Tyke.
“What leaked?” Legacy asked.
“37 seconds ago on the internet – “ His voice was strained.
Legacy tried to put him at ease. “What took you so long to call?” Tyke had always been high strung. Whatever it was, it wasn’t as bad as Tyke thought.
“His system for picking the girls off satellite TV is in the fucking press.” Legacy retreated within himself with those burning words as his company. He let the receiver drop from his ear. He watched his one secret advantage slip back into Blue’s hands through the public domain. Legacy rediscovered an anger that he’d thought he’d tamed with all of his routines and regimens. Someone was going to pay for this mistake, and he knew that it would most likely be in blood.
But before that would happen, he was going to get to the bottom of this. Legacy made one call, and he spoke deliberately. He gave orders, and used every emotional leverage point to give those orders the full force and weight of country and God. And when he was done, the director of the FBI, one of the most powerful men on the planet, obeyed. He was to get underway in early hours of the morning and come to Legacy.
Legacy hadn’t reported the selection process to anyone up the chain of command. His knuckles crackled under a tight grip as he asked if Doorner knew. A pause, then it came back that he did. Legacy told the director how much had been compromised by this leak and that everyone up the chain of information had to be coaxed to the meeting. There was a traitor in the group.
Security around the building was stepped up with the surprise arrival of the highest dignitary short of the president. Legacy walked through the large glass front door to a bustle of activity that crisscrossed the lobby.
He still hadn’t explained to Wagner the details, all he’d told her was that he’d called an important meeting, and that if shit and quicksand could mix that was the cocktail he preferred to serve
in a huge trough beneath the entire gathering. He was going to be pulling someone down, in the way he used to in the field. Without regret, thought, or remorse he would destroy someone today.
