And that concluded my meeting with Congresswoman Mears. I left there uncertain as to my future with the T3 Group. I tired of the smoke and mirrors bullshit. The congresswoman said we had to work within the system in order to change it? But isn’t it the same system that had Dedra and Father Barnes killed? I didn’t want to change it – I wanted to blow it the hell up. Start over. Be done with it. Put it out of its miserable existence like I did Magnus Tork.
Got to take a leak.
My prostate was crying out for help again. Like I always seem to be saying these days, this getting old shit was getting old. I made my way to the restroom and stood for nearly a minute waiting for my pisser to engage. When it finally did, it was a halting, start and stop flow that I knew was sending my blood pressure to the boiling point.
What kind of life is this when a man can’t even enjoy the simple pleasures of an uninterrupted piss?
I inhaled the familiar scent of a very particular brand of cigarette smoke. The smell soon vanished though, leading me to believe it might have simply been my subconscious recalling a recent memory.
I gave up the fight against my prostate, zipped up and washed my hands. At least I had a long night of drinking ahead of me, and the temporary dulling of painful loss and uncertainty the copious amounts of alcohol would bring.
As I made my way back to my table, the smell of burnt tobacco once again permeated the air around me, and sitting on the table was an already open bottle of red wine, and two wine glasses.
“Hello again, Frank Bennington.”
Gabriel moved silently from somewhere behind me, dressed in the same dark overcoat as when I had last seen him, and took a seat at my table, where he then proceeded to pour from the wine bottle. I looked to see the name of the wine and rolled my eyes. It was labeled, Avenging Angel.
“I was planning on drinking alone, Gabriel. No offense.”
Gabriel flashed his crooked, nicotine stained smile.
“I too appreciate the moments when one’s own thoughts are the only voices inside your head. My time here will be brief, Frank Bennington, and then you are welcome to return to yourself.”
Return to myself? That’s an interesting way of putting it.
“So why are you here? Father Barnes is dead. So is Dedra. The assignment is done.”
Gabriel swirled the wine in the half full glass before placing it to his lips and taking a very small sip.
“This is made from the grapes of my childhood, all those years ago in France. Each drink is like a memory, a reminder of the past, and a promise of the future. It is of the future I come here now to discuss Frank Bennington - your future.”
I emptied half the contents from my own glass. The wine had a smooth, almost velvety texture, as multiple flavors of sweet, sour, and spice seemed to be fighting for dominance over my tongue. The alcohol content was pronounced, yet somehow still subtle.
It was the most amazing drink I’d ever tasted.
“This shit is good!”
Gabriel’s odd, high pitched laughter caused a man and woman seated at a table about ten feet from us to turn and stare before returning to their own drinks.
“Yes indeed, Frank Bennington this shit, as you call it, is good.”
I emptied my glass and nodded to Gabriel to fill it up again.
“So cut to the chase, Gabriel. What do you want?”
Gabriel poured more wine, and then stared at me, his dark eyes shining with an unnatural light that contrasted with the pale white of his skin.
The guy looks like central casting for one of those ridiculous Twilight movies.
“It’s not what I want that brought me here, but rather what you want.”
I took another long swig, and then shook my head, sensing my patience had already run out.
“Cut the riddle me this bullshit, Gabriel. I don’t know if your nuts, or playing crazy, or maybe your daddy didn’t love you enough, or your momma was a whore, fact is, I don’t care. So tell me what this is about, or stand up and get the hell out. I’m in no mood for games.”
Gabriel continued to sip from his own glass as his eyes glanced around at the somewhat Victorian era ambience of the Off the Record.
“I see why you like this place. It would have been nice to have Victor here with us tonight. He would have enjoyed drinking here as well. You know, your outburst there was very reminiscent of Victor. He didn’t suffer fools easily either, though it was a mistake for him to consider me as such. I’m hoping you don’t do the same.”
The mention of Father Barnes made me angry, but that anger quickly dissipated as I realized Gabriel was genuinely saddened by the priest’s death. That, and the pleasant buzz generated by the wine was pushing me gently toward a more understanding and patient demeanor, at least temporarily.
“Yeah, I wish he was here too. He was worried about you, Gabriel. Did you know that? He thought you were crazy. Told me that you believed you were an angel. Like a real life angel of God or something.”
Gabriel’s eyes stared down into his glass before looking slowly back up at me.
“A priest with no faith in the possibility that angels walk among us? Such was Victor’s crisis of faith, Frank Bennington. It consumed him.”
I finished my second glass of Gabriel’s wine and motioned for a third as I leaned across the table to whisper at the alleged angel.
“Father Barnes told me what you did at the Morehouse property Gabriel. He said you gave him a choice, to save himself, or save Dedra. But Dedra is dead, so explain that one to me? What kind of deal was that, you so called angel of God?”
Gabriel’s face flushed momentarily in anger. It was actually comforting to see a little color added to his face, however fleeting that color proved to be.
“I offered Victor salvation, not saving. As for your friend Dedra, she was already dead. There was nothing to be done for her. Victor’s salvation came from his belief in the possibility Dedra could be saved, and so, it was Victor who saved himself.”
I reached for the bottle of wine to pour another glass, but before my hand could grab the wine, Gabriel’s long fingered right hand clamped around my forearm with incredible force, enough that I struggled not to cry out in pain.
“I sense your own inner conflict, Frank Bennington, your own crisis of faith. You no longer believe in the potential of humanity, and thus, the potential in yourself. This will only lead to your own damnation, and I don’t wish to see that happen so easily, or so soon. You have consumed my wine, now I ask that you listen very carefully to my counsel. Continue your work with the T3 Group, for there is a noble, if sometimes misguided, purpose in what they are attempting to do. You can play a far greater and more important role in that than you now realize, one that will honor the memories and sacrifices of both Victor and Dedra. So please, when your phone rings again in an hour and ten minutes, take the call, and agree to the assignment.”
I looked over at the digital, red numbered clock that I knew had sat behind the bar for at least the last decade. It read just past 7:00 p.m.
“So you’re saying my T3 phone is gonna ring in an hour and ten minutes from now, and they will be offering me another assignment? Sorry to disappoint you Gabriel, but the congresswoman told me to take some time off. She won’t be calling me tonight.”
Gabriel continued to hold my arm tightly as he gazed at me like a child would hold a mysterious new toy, while trying to figure out how it worked.
“That’s right, it won’t be the congresswoman who calls you. It will be her superior.”
Gabriel released his grip on my arm and rose from the chair, his face nearly unreadable except for a slight hint of humor in his eyes as he looked down at me.
“I strongly recommend you take the call. If you do, I look forward to seeing you again. Good luck Frank Bennington, regardless of the choice you make.”
I watched as Gabriel moved silently across the bar’s interior and disappeared up the stairs to the hotel lobby above, and from there, out into whatever worl
d his mind had created for himself.
Ladies and gentlemen, the crazy bastard has left the building!
I wasn’t quite yet drunk, but was by then, certainly well on my way. I poured the last of Gabriel’s wine into my glass and found myself staring at its ornate, Avenging Angel label again. The bottle had a designation of #810 on the very bottom of the label.
I tilted my head back and emptied half my glass, and then froze.
You got to be kidding me.
The number 810 was the same time Gabriel had indicated I would be receiving a call from Congresswoman Mears’s T3 Group superior.
So there I sat, as the bar filled up with more and more people around me. I placed my T3 phone near my left hand, and the now empty bottle of wine near my right hand, staring at the label’s depiction of an angel grappling with what appeared to be some kind of demon as a set of large, solid black eyes watched them both from above.
While the wine tasted great, the artwork on the bottle’s label left me with a sense of foreboding, as if it was hinting at something already happening all around us, without our knowing.
I stared at that image for some time, looking up at the clock behind the bar to confirm the time. 7:15 came and went, and then 7:30, and 7:55, and finally, 8:10 arrived.
My body tensed as I stared down at the T3 phone, my internal clock marking the seconds as they passed. The phone sat silent, as the increasingly boisterous sounds of happy bar patrons nearly drowned out my own thoughts. I was conflicted, not wanting to believe Gabriel was right, while another part of me hoped he was. Kind of like the angel and the demon wrestling one another on the wine bottle.
Those sixty seconds felt like a taste of eternity as I stared at the bar’s digital clock waiting for the time to turn to 8:11. It had to be close now, I was sure I had silently counted to sixty already. To my left I overheard a young, well dressed man, likely some congressional staffer, begin to count down from ten. Soon, the other three members of his table were joining in, their laughter and the shouted numbers intertwining, like some poorly timed New Year’s Eve celebration.
“…Seven, six, five, four, three, two, ONE!”
The T3 phone rang, causing me to flinch.
Don’t answer it! To hell with them, and to hell with Gabriel. Nothing changes. No matter how I try to live better, to help others, nothing changes. In the end, it doesn’t mean shit. In the end, we just end up dead like Dedra. Like the priest. Like everyone else already gone.
The phone rang again.
My head snapped up upon hearing the sound of Celtic New Year coming from the bar’s sound system. It was the same song requested by the priest as he died inside of Bruce Morehouse’s mansion, and the same song I heard playing in my head as I watched a bullet tear through the skull of Magnus Tork.
The T3 phone rang for a third time.
Bennington, you pansy ass little bitch! Take the damn call!
The voice of Father Barnes thundered in my head.
The phone rang for a fourth and then a fifth time.
Six rings Mr. Bennington?
It was Dedra’s voice the morning she woke me to a horrific hangover from far too much drink the night before. It was that morning call that led to my trying to help her to move the fast track cancer research legislation forward in Congress. She was already dying, but hiding it well. I didn’t notice the severity of her pain then, like I hadn’t noticed so many other things around me during my sixty-four years of life. And how many years, did I have left? How much time do any of us have? Dedra spent her final weeks not fighting for her own life, but the lives of others. In a way, I’m pretty sure she was fighting for my life too.
Maybe it was time I was finally willing to do the same.
Six rings.
I took the call…
END.
BENNINGTON P.I.
ILLUMINATI
Bennington #4
(Sequel to: "Take Two And Call Me In The Morgue")
D.W. ULSTERMAN
2014
“This is the age of nightmare, Mr. Bennington. The machine grows increasingly impatient, and ever hungry. You come here at the turning of the tide, a too brief respite between light and dark. If you accept this charge, all that you were will be no more. From that moment of choice, you are but shadow. There are only them and us, truth and deception, freedom and tyranny. The fate of the world is at the razor’s edge. It intends to cut deeply, and blood will flow.”
-Alexander David Meyer
Prologue:
(Conclusion of Bennington P.I. Take Two And Call Me In The Morgue.)
“That’s right, Frank Bennington it won’t be the congresswoman who calls you. It will be her superior.”
Gabriel released his grip on my arm and rose from the chair, his face nearly unreadable except for a slight hint of humor in his eyes as he looked down at me.
“I strongly recommend you take the call. If you do, I look forward to seeing you again. Good luck, regardless of the choice you make.”
I watched as Gabriel moved silently across the bar’s interior and disappeared up the stairs to the hotel lobby above, and from there, out into whatever world his mind had created for himself.
Ladies and gentlemen, the crazy bastard has left the building!
I wasn’t quite yet drunk, but was by then, certainly well on my way. I poured the last of Gabriel’s wine into my glass and found myself staring at its ornate, Avenging Angel label again. The bottle had a designation of #810 on the very bottom of the label.
I tilted my head back and emptied half my glass, and then froze.
You got to be kidding me.
The number 810 was the same time Gabriel had indicated I would be receiving a call from Congresswoman Mears’s T3 Group superior.
So there I sat, as the bar filled up with more and more people around me. I placed my T3 phone near my left hand, and the now empty bottle of wine near my right hand, staring at the label’s depiction of an angel grappling with what appeared to be some kind of demon as a set of large, solid black eyes watched them both from above.
While the wine tasted great, the artwork on the bottle’s label left me with a sense of foreboding, as if it was hinting at something already happening all around us, without our knowing.
I stared at that image for some time, looking up at the clock behind the bar to confirm the time. 7:15 came and went, and then 7:30, and 7:55, and finally, 8:10 arrived.
My body tensed as I stared down at the T3 phone, my internal clock marking the seconds as they passed. The phone sat silent, as the increasingly boisterous sounds of happy bar patrons nearly drowned out my own thoughts. I was conflicted, not wanting to believe Gabriel was right, while another part of me hoped he was. Kind of like the angel and the demon wrestling one another on the wine bottle.
Those sixty seconds felt like a taste of eternity as I stared at the bar’s digital clock waiting for the time to turn to 8:11. It had to be close now, I was sure I had silently counted to sixty already. To my left I overheard a young, well dressed man, likely some congressional staffer, begin to count down from ten. Soon, the other three members of his table were joining in, their laughter and the shouted numbers intertwining, like some out of place New Year’s Eve celebration.
Private Detective: BENNINGTON P.I.: A thrilling four-novel political murder mystery private detective series... Page 54