Accelerating Returns

by Peter Anthony

  Chapter 19. Reunion

   

  The scandal rocked the business and science world.  Ploof's death became the subject of national scorn, and his celebrated name became reviled. The media declared Marshall Ploof to be a Blocker.  The term KillJoy became known to all who watched the nightly news.  Testifying at a Senate hearing, Pazzo produced evidence that Ploof had downloaded KillJoy's Manifesto years before.  The political parties pounced on the statement, questioning why Ploof wasn't reigned in earlier, and both left and right wingnuts deemed Blockers to be public enemy number one, replacing Muslims as the primary threat to baseball, apple pie, and Wall Street. 

  Aware of the far-reaching effect of the scandal, Agent Pazzo saved the economy from further fallout by not disclosing the true identity of Lucas Perth, which he had learned from an anonymous tip.  He considered it his patriotic duty to maintain the balance of the country by keeping this a secret.  Even while the investigation team tried to figure out why every piece of paper on the GRAIN ship was marked with the Talbot logo, only Agent Pazzo knew the actual connection between Perth and Jovan.  For the sake of his country, its economy, its decency, Pazzo expunged the background of Lucas Perth so that no junior investigator would stumble across the link to Talbot. 

  For twelve days, Pelius Research was looted by employees. Stockholders dumped their shares on the exchanges.  During the scandal, Agent Pazzo and his crew guarded two hospital rooms where Lucas Perth and Arrica Pelius stayed.  The media hovered around the hospital, hoping to get a picture and a comment from the bedridden villain who shot Arrica Pelius "when she reproached him upon finding out about the kidnappings and Ploof's Block," as the official story told it.  Still, even with the spin favoring Arrica, her fortune would be wasted on legal battles. Pazzo and his agency only pressed charges against Lucas Perth, who was supine in intensive care. Having a mute, brain-damaged villain made it simple to tailor the tale to the media.

  At times, holding the media mob back required Pazzo to bare his teeth at them.  Not only the media wanted in the room, but also angry employees of Pelius, who suspected Lucas for the kidnapped scientists and, worse yet, the falling stock price.  

   

  After three days in the hospital, Arrica was released. She returned home under bandages and heavy security.  Lucas stayed in the hospital under constant guard. 

   

  As the media frenzy started to settle, Lucas recovered in the brain trauma rehabilitation center.  One night while Pazzo guarded the door, the two people who knew the real name of Lucas Perth showed up without an appointment.

  Marcus Jovan arrived first. 

  Down the hall, the old man shuffled toward Pazzo with his head down.  He wore a quiet suit jacket and a black fedora that covered his face.  He walked up to Agent Pazzo and tipped his hat back. 

  "I thought you might show up."  Pazzo stood in front of the door.  "But no visitors are allowed."

  Jovan said, "Please, just ten minutes."

  "I'm sorry, sir," Pazzo said, "but he's not healthy."

  "How can he be, after all that's happened?"  Jovan's wrinkled forehead quivered.  "Nor am I healthy.  How much would it take for you to let me in?  Is it money you want?"  Jovan reached into his inner suit pocket.

  Pazzo replied, "Don't even show me a dollar bill so I don't have to deny it, sir.  Please don't provoke me."

  Jovan pleaded.  "Think of your own father, Mr. Pazzo.  Think of how many times you get to see him.  Do his eyes light up when you come home?  Does he look forward to your visits?  Does he tell you that he's proud of you?  Please, Mr. Pazzo.  Ten minutes."

  "I understand, Mr. Jovan.  But it's policy.  My father would understand, even though he is poor man, not at all like yourself."

  "Richer than me, your father is."  Jovan's eyes begged between a parenthetic visage.  "At least your father had the wisdom to keep what was most valuable.  I've been waiting for years to say I'm sorry.  Twenty-five years."  His voice rasped.  "The one chance that my wealth could never purchase, that time could not relieve - my chance is in that room.  And now that I know where he is, and I am here, how can you bar me, how can you send me away to live longer with this knot?"  Jovan pressed his fist against his stomach.

  The old man's lower lip bounced.  Although Pazzo didn't usually care to hear the problems of others, he could see Marcus Jovan rattling to pieces.  The short breaths of anxiety, the quivering lips and eyes, the bouncing Adam's Apple, and the shaking hands, all of it made Pazzo pity him. 

  "Please.  Ten minutes." 

  Looking down the corridor, Pazzo saw that it was empty.  He put his hand on his forehead and rubbed his temples, trying to massage into his head the idea of disobeying a policy.  While he continued to rub, he put his other hand in his pocket and brought out a single key on a string.

  "Ok, old man.  But I'm leaving the door cracked so I can see what's going on in there."

  "Thank you, sir.  Thank you."

  "I have to warn you, though.  He's in rough shape."

  "Yes, I thought so."

  The key went into the lock and Pazzo opened the door.  Lucas was sitting on the bed, facing away from the door.  As Jovan entered the room, he squeezed Pazzo's hand and took his hat off. 

  Watching Marcus Jovan nearly brought emotions to the surface of Pazzo's barren face, but he stifled the lump in his throat.  Marcus sat on the same side of the bed as his son, but on the opposite end. 

  At his post, Pazzo kept one eye on the corridor and one on the reunion.  He could hear the rasping, wavering voice ruining the beginning of a rehearsed apology. 

  "I'm sorry, Jude."  He broke down and cried after looking at his son's face.  Pazzo couldn't help but watch.  He forgot about guarding the corridor. 

  Even with the warning about Lucas being in "rough shape," nothing could have prepared Jovan for seeing his child so wildly altered.  Lucas's face had electrical burns and scars from shattered glass.  A stream of drool ran down his chin and dangled to his hospital gown.  The expression of blank emotion hung off of his mouth.

  "I'm sorry, that I lost you, Jude," Jovan said.  "When you left, I lost myself.  I forgot what it meant to trust.  Your mom and I once knew what it was, believe it or not.  When love was new to us, we understood, even if only for a year or two.  But then we let it rust and started blaming each other.  In the middle years of my life, I thought enough wrong turns could get back to right, but I was driven by some ambition.  I thought I was held together by virtues, could do no wrong, but I saw how weak I was once you had gone away.  Your mother and I, we both wanted everything for ourselves.  That's what we liked about each other at first.  Now we both have lost pride along with everything else.  We lost focus.  We used you to find out for ourselves, used you up.  I haven't had a good night of sleep in twenty-five years, son, because I couldn't tell you that I'm sorry."

  Pazzo listened so closely that he failed to notice a second person coming down the corridor until she touched him on the arm.  He jumped and looked down at a short, elderly woman. 

  "Hello, sir.  Do you mind if I go in and say hello to my son and my husband?  It's been a long time."

  Pazzo nodded.  

  He watched the old woman enter the room and put her hand on her son's shoulder.  The woman grabbed the hands of Jude into her own and then sat next to him, nudged him over into the middle of the bed so she could sit, and then wrapped her arms around him and squeezed.  Marcus moved closer to the middle, put his arm around his son.

  Pazzo closed the door of the room and took up his watch of the hallway once again. A man dressed in scrubs appeared at the end of the hallway and approached the room. The two men made eye contact and Pazzo moved to stop the man.

  "Not now."

  "I have my orders," said the man.

  "Come back in fifteen minutes."

  The man shook his head. "Are you cancelling the job?"

  "No," said
Pazzo. "Just give it fifteen minutes."

  "I need a place to hide then. I'm supposed to be in and out in five minutes."

  Pazzo moved across the hall, to an empty room, and motioned to the man. "Over here. Go in the bathroom. I'll notify you when it's time."

  "I don't like this change of plans. It's not how I work."

  "I don't like it either," said Pazzo. "Fifteen minutes."

  "Fifteen, no more."

  The man entered the empty hospital room and sat in a chair in the dark, waiting for the moment. And Pazzo stood guard again, knowing that both Jude Jovan and Lucas Perth would be dead in the morning, forever silenced about his role in the infamous fall of Pelius.