Chapter 6: Jason Takes Manhattan

The door chimed. Effulgia Hai, reclining on a bed of pillows, resplendent in her flowing silken robes, stopped in the middle of placing a peeled grape between her perfect teeth and sighed.

“Yes?” she called out impatiently. “Enter!”

The door swung inward under the power of a thin boy wearing the red and gold livery of the House of Hai, revealing Captain Abbazia standing outside. He stepped in, and the door closed behind him.

“Oh! Hello, captain,” Effulgia cooed. “To what do I owe what I hope will be a great amount of pleasure from your visit?”

Abbazia cleared his throat. “Your Ladyship,” he reported, “we have captured two prisoners in the vicinity of the energy source. They are being transported to the cruiser at this time.”

“Two, you say? How terribly interesting. Are they men?”

Abbazia replied, “One of them is, your imperial highness. And one woman,” he added, for benefit of those unfamiliar with basic math. “We believe there were more with them, but we lost them in the catacombs.”

Effulgia sat up attentively. “Ooh, one of each,” she purred. “Decisions, decisions. Are they beautiful?”

“I couldn’t say,” Abbazia stammered. She had asked him this question before, on other occasions, but he had given up attempting to judge what she would find appealing after she had had that Adonisian executed in favor of that purple thing with the tentacles.

“Hmph,” she pouted. “You’re no fun. Very well, have them cleaned and prepared. Put them in interrogation room B. I’ll be along once they’re ready.”

“Of course, your highness,” Abbazia said solicitously. “Would it be all right if we questioned them first? There is the matter of the mysterious energy reading.”

Effulgia smirked. “Oh, yes. I do get excited when I meet new people, don’t I? It slipped my mind completely. Permission granted, of course, my dear Captain.”

“Thank you, your highness.”

“Will the interrogator be done quickly, do you think? I simply must make some plans for this evening.”

“I cannot say, your highness.”

Effulgia threw a pillow at Abbazia, giggling at her own cleverness. He let it hit him, and then caught it as it fell and deposited it back on the pile with the others. She pointed and laughed at him as he did so. “Very well,” she told him. “I suppose I will have to find someone else to do until morning.”

“Yes, highness. If there is nothing else?”

“There is, captain, since you mentioned it. How goes the search otherwise? Have your little soldiers found anything of this energy? My father would be most interested to hear about it if you have.”

Effulgia grew warm imagining the panic she had just instilled in Abbazia. “The emperor, your highness? Isn’t that a bit premature? If this expedition fails to turn up anything, he would be very disappointed. Would it not be better to delay mentioning it until we have something definite to tell him?”

“Of course not, my beautiful captain. Emperor Lao maintains a keen interest in everything that happens in his realm. I would never dare suggest anything be kept from him.”

“No, absolutely not. I agree completely,” Abbazia said quickly. “I didn’t mean… I had no intention….” Abbazia paused, took a deep breath, and tried again. “I was merely saying that if we waited until we had more information, the report would be more complete. Not fail to tell him, no. That would be treason, obviously. It’s just, if this does turn out to be nothing, I would hate to have gotten his hopes up.”

“Oh, stop your worrying, captain.” Effulgia smiled at him. “I have every confidence that you will discover something amazing.”

Military discipline was the only thing keeping Abbazia’s shoulders from slumping. “Yes, your highness.”

“You may go, captain,” Effulgia said smugly. Abbazia started backing toward the door. It opened at his approach.

“Oh, captain? Tell the interrogator: no bruises.”

Chapter 7: 1954

Archie sat on the bench in the locker room, staring at the floor. He still wore his pads and jersey, even though the game had ended well over an hour earlier.

The coach walked in, noticed Archie, and went over to him. “Tough game,” he said.

“Yeah,” Archie replied noncommittally.

“Listen, sometimes it just happens this way. It’s no one’s fault we lost.”

Archie turned his head to look up at his coach, his eyebrows raised. “Every game? It’s no one’s fault we lost every game of the season?”

“Well, all right, then,” the coach corrected. “It’s everyone’s fault. Mine, yours, the other players, the other teams, the people in the stands, the guy selling hot dogs. My point is, it wasn’t just you.”

“But I’m the quarterback!” Archie reminded him. “Everything depends on me out there. You told me that, Coach. How can it not be my fault?”

The coach sat down beside Archie. “Listen to me. I’ve been doing this for twenty years. I’ve seen good players and bad players. I’ve seen guys I wouldn’t want anywhere near the field. You’re one of the best I’ve ever seen out there. A natural born leader. You make the right calls. The other guys look to you for guidance and inspiration. That’s not something I taught you. You walked in here able to do that.”

“Then why did we lose?”

The coach put his hand on Archie’s shoulder. “Because, sometimes, leadership isn’t enough. Football is a team sport. Everyone out there has to give their all to bring in a win. You couldn’t do it alone. No one man could.

“We just didn’t come together this year like we should have. I blame myself for that. Maybe we could have drilled more. Maybe I could have shuffled people around more, tried them in new positions. And over the next few months, I’m going to be studying this season to find out exactly what did go wrong, so I can learn from it and not do it again next year. Because that’s what people need to do. Don’t dwell on your failures. Learn from them and move on.”

“Okay, Coach,” Archie said, with a smile birthing on his lips.

The coach continued, “My biggest regret in all of this isn’t that we lost so much, even though I admit that stings a little. No, the worst of it for me is that I let you down, Archie. Scouts should have seen your talent from miles away. You should have college recruiters beating down your door by now. Instead, you’re just another losing quarterback on a losing team. It isn’t fair, I tell you.”

“Gee, thanks, Coach,” Archie said sarcastically.

“Oh,” replied the coach, realizing what he had just said. “Ah, you know what I meant.”

“Yeah, Coach.”

“So,” the coach said, changing the subject, “Are you thinking about college yet? With your grades, you should get a scholarship easily enough, even if you aren’t on the football team.”

“Actually, I’m thinking about the military. Maybe the Navy. I want to be a pilot.”

“Pilot? I thought the Navy was boats.”

“Nah, Coach. They have planes too now.”

“Oh. Well, good for them. And good for you, too, son. Serving your country is one of the highest callings a man can have. I did a tour in the army myself, back in the day.”

“Did you see any action?”

“Not really. It was the Depression. Not a lot of wars back then.”

“Oh, right. Thanks for the pep talk, Coach. I’d better get going. I’m supposed to be meeting Shirley over at the hamburger stand.”

“Good man. Go hit the showers.”

Chapter 8: 2005

The phone was ringing when Peggy Grant entered her house. She flipped on the foyer light, closed and locked the door behind her, placed her briefcase under the side table, upon which she dropped her mail, and hurried to key in the deactivation code on her home security system before it went off. Then, unbuttoning her suit coat as she went, she clip-clopped to the phone in her high heels, picked up the cordless receiver, pushed the “Talk” button, lifted it to her ear as she shook her coat off the opposite shoulder, and said, “Hello?”

“Mrs. Margaret Grant?” said the voice on the phone.

“It’s ‘Miss’ Grant. Who is this?”

“My apologies, Miss Grant. This is Shady Estates Retirement Community. Your father, Archibald Ulysses Grant, is one of our guests.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Peggy confirmed as she sat down on her couch and started removing her shoes. “What’s this about?”

“Ma’am, every night we send around someone to make sure all our guests are present and in good health, as part of our comprehensive service. Tonight, your father was unaccounted for.”

“What do you mean, unaccounted for? You can’t find him?”

“That is correct, ma’am. And while our guests are not restricted from leaving the grounds when they wish to do so, policy dictates that they check out at either the front desk or the gate before they leave, and check back in when they return. This does not appear to have been the case in this instance.”

Picking up the mail from the side table and sorting through it as she walked back into the living room, she said, “So, he’s missing. You lost my father.” She turned on one of the living room lamps.

“Not necessarily, Miss Grant. It may just be that he left without signing out and hasn’t returned yet. In fact, that is the reason for this call. Is Mr. Grant with you, or have you seen or heard from him today?”

“Of course not! If I had, would I sound so surprised right now?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. I don’t know you that well.”

Peggy started pacing back and forth across the living room, from mantle to doorway. “Well, I haven’t. What do I pay you people for anyway? He’s just one old man. How hard is it to keep track of one old man?”

“Ma’am, we have 75 residents here at Shady Estates.”

“So, you’re telling me you can’t handle that many old people? Well, don’t worry. By the time I’m done with you, you won’t have that problem anymore.” Approaching the mantelpiece, Peggy noticed a picture of herself and her daughter, taken years earlier when she could get Haley to sit still for her for five minutes. That reminded her. “What’s the date?”

“Ma’am? It’s the first of September.”

“In that case,” Peggy said, forgetting her outburst instantly, “I think I know what happened. My daughter Haley goes to visit him on the first of every month, although I don’t know why. They probably went out to do something and forgot to sign out. That sounds like her.”

“One moment, ma’am.” While Peggy waited for the woman on the phone to come back, she retrieved her briefcase from the foyer and pulled out some documents she wanted to review before morning. Before she got very far into the first one, the voice returned. “Miss Grant?”

“Yes?”

“We do have a record of a ‘Haley Grant’ signing in this afternoon at 1:13. However, she did not sign out. If you could give us a number where we could attempt to reach her, we’ll see if we can’t get this straightened out.”

Peggy dug her cell phone out of the front pocket of her soft leather briefcase. “Hold on one minute. I’ll call her myself, and get to the bottom of this. She might not answer if she doesn’t recognize the number.” It never crossed Peggy’s mind that she might not answer if she did. “I’m using my cell. Hold on.” Peggy opened her cell phone, brought up the address list, located Haley’s number, and pressed “Dial.”

Five seconds later, a man’s voice from the cell phone said, “We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again.”

Peggy picked up her house phone and said, “Hold on one more second.” Without waiting for a reply, she put it back down and retuned her attention to the cell phone. She relocated Haley’s number, and then dialed the area code followed by that number.

She started to panic when she heard, “We’re sorry….”

Peggy put her house phone to her ear again. “Hello? Are you there?”

“Yes ma’am. Any luck reaching your—“

“Listen!” Peggy interrupted. “Haley rides a motorcycle. I don’t know what kind, but I don’t imagine there are too many in your parking lot. Could you send someone out to see if it’s there?”

“One moment, ma’am.” A pause, then, “Do you know the license number on your daughter’s motorcycle, ma’am?”

“No! How would I know that?”

“Thank you, ma’am. We’re sending someone out there now. Please hold.” Muzak poured out of the phone.

Pacing to and fro, Peggy listened to the synthetic music substitute and fumed. “How dare they lose my father and my daughter I’ll sue the lot of them they won’t be able to operate a dog kennel when I’m through with them of all the useless worthless stupid incompetent mismanaged inept clumsy bungling blundering blithering neglectful Hello?”

“Yes, ma’am, Miss Grant. There is a motorcycle in guest parking. We’re sending people around to the other current visitors to find out if it belongs to them. It will take a few minutes.”

“You do that. Then call the police and report a possible kidnapping. I’m on my way.” Peggy hung up the phone and ran upstairs to shower and change, pausing only to retrieve her shoes and blazer, and put the phone back in its charger.

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