"Evening, Ed," Grace knocked on the ajar door of Rooney's motel room, "Hope you're feeling better."
A loud, furious growl was Rooney's response from inside. "I bought you some donuts," Grace pushed the door open, "I know that after being beaten to a pulp by that gorilla, you might not be hungry, but I thought that...Ed?" her brow furled with concern. Rooney was sitting with his back to her on the bed, downing a bottle of beer in one shot. Moreover, Grace could see numerous additional bottles littering the floor. "Ed, I didn't know you were a drinker..." she said softly, aghast.
"Wouldn't you be too if Ferris Bueller did to you what he's done to me!? Get out," Rooney snarled, not turning towards her.
"OK, I understand, Ed. I'll just leave the donuts right here on the table," Grace laid the box there, "When you're hungry for them..."
"I DON'T WANT YOUR DONUTS, YOU STUPID DEAF MORON!" Rooney bellowed, jumping to his feet to face her. His tie was uncharacteristically undone, his shirt partially unbuttoned, and his eyes bloodshot, "I don't want anything from you, or anyone else connected with Shermer High!" he shouted angrily, "Because you've been working hand in hand with Ferris to humiliate me all this time, haven't you!? Just admit it, you have!"
"I can tell this isn't a good time, Ed. Maybe in the morning, after you've slept it off..." Grace reached for the donuts. In a flash, Rooney grabbed them himself and hurled the box into the wall. "I said I don't want anything from you, you idiotic little harpy!" he screamed hatefully at her, "For the record, I could never stand you! You're a stupid, brainless excuse of a woman, and you held me back! You and Ferris and everyone in that damn school conspired to ruin my life!"
"Ed, please, you're starting to scare me...!" Grace begged him, looking unnerved.
"Good! That means you'll take me seriously!" Rooney snapped, grabbing another bottle of liquor from the bed and downing it in a single gulp, "So run off to Ferris, and tell him this is it! I can take having my car towed, I can take being kicked repeatedly in the face, I can even take falling off the top of this motel into a dumpster, but setting me up to be assaulted by a gorilla was the absolute last straw! Only one of us is going back to Chicago, and you better believe it's going to be me! So go on, you filthy saboteur, go tell Ferris this is the beginning of the end! And then don't ever show your face in my office again!"
"Ed, please, after all we've been through together...!" Grace looked crushed.
"GET OUT!" Rooney screamed, grabbing the nearest lamp and hurling it at her. With a scream, Grace turned and ran out of the room. Rooney slammed the door shut behind her and locked it. "Yeah, Ferris, this is the end," he snarled, looking through his shirt at the medical tape on his chest thanks to the gorilla, "You've just dug your grave as far as Edward R. Rooney is concerned. Now, you're going to wish you were never born when I get through with you...!"
He dug out his cell phone and started dialing, then growled after he got the wrong number at first and re-dialed it correctly. "Hello!?" came Bob Tannen's nervous voice on the other end of the phone.
"Bob, it's Ed Rooney, we need to talk," the principal told him gruffly.
"Now's not a good time, Ed; all hell's broken lose here!" the senator lamented fearfully, "My brother and Ron Prince called me in a rage; the cops got them to try and finger each other over some stuff going on in Chicago. Lord knows what they sent out...!"
"You idiot, you've been tricked by Ferris Bueller!" Rooney bellowed at him, "He's trying to bring you down over what that damn kid's said!"
"Well Ed, confidentially, all of it's true," Tannen admitted, "I'm going to try and cover up the loose ends as best I can; I called Will Karkovice myself on a public phone and asked him..."
"Would you just shut up and listen to me!?" Rooney shouted, downing another bottle of beer. He smashed it in disgust against the wall before continuing, "You won't go down, Bob, if you just listen to every word I say here. I want that job as your chief of staff, and I know how to make sure this whole possible scandal disappears by the time you step before the podium tomorrow afternoon. Now listen very closely, here's the plan..."
"This is definitely a new low," Cameron lamented glumly, slouched halfway over a couch in the White House's West Sitting Hall.
"A whole week's work, right out the window just like that, literally," Sloane agreed, slumped in a chair, "Jerry's family's sunk if he's locked up for a long time; I don't think they can support themselves otherwise. Anything at all, Ferris!?" she begged her boyfriend, slumped in a chair himself.
"Wish I could, Sloane, but this time, I don't know what we can do," Ferris sighed, deflated, "I don't see how we can get anything on Tannen now that he's aware there's a problem. And now Jerry's..."
He put his hands over his face. "I know sometimes I stretch the truth, sometimes I trick people outright, and yeah, a lot of times I've taken at least some pleasure in it, but I never want to see any innocent people hurt in any way," he mumbled, "No matter how I twist it, I was the one who wanted Jerry to have the honor of grabbing the phone off Tannen, so the fact he's in jail is my fault to some degree. And I feel terrible because of it," he slowly rose to his feet and trudged towards the couch. "I'd take the fall for him if I could, just like I was ready to take the blame for your dad's Ferrari," he told Cameron, "And seeing how he took it, I've spent the last few months wishing I'd talked you out of talking me out of it..."
"No, I did what I had to do. It's Dad's fault he took it wrong," Cameron declared, shifting upright, "And I don't want to hear Ferris Bueller saying there's no hope going forward. Because I'm not giving up."
"You're not?" Ferris frowned.
"No. The old Cameron Frye may have been a quitter, but this one isn't," Cameron rose forcefully to his feet with a determined look, "We've gone this far, we might as well finish what we started. Otherwise Tannen'll keep hurting people. Including of course Natalie's dad with his fake corruption claims, and I'm not going to sit around and let him hurt the Simmons family like that," he turned towards the president's daughter in the chair against the far wall, "I promise that. So come up with something, Ferris, because we're going to keep at this."
"That's the spirit, Cameron," Ferris broke into a smile, "That's how I've wanted you to see things all these years. I'm proud of you, I really am," he shook his friend's hand, "As I guess Natalie is too?" he turned to her.
"I couldn't be more prouder of Cameron than I am right now," smiling herself, Natalie hugged him, "I appreciate that you're willing to defend me like that, Cameron."
"Well, you're more than worth it, Natalie," Cameron returned the smile, "Besides, all the people in that ballroom hurt you cheering your dad's fall. If Tannen wins, they'll get away with that, and that can't be allowed."
"You're right. I was so steamed at those hypocrites; when Dad was running, they cheered him on like he was an Olympic champion, and now that he's run into a rough stretch, they want to dump him in a heartbeat for the next popular guy up," Natalie growled in disgust, "I have problems with Dad, but he's still my father, and, well, part of me does still care for him even if he forgets me sometimes, and I hate to see him treated like that."
"Yeah, we've got to stop this, and we will. Like Cameron says, it's always darkest right before the dawn-which, of course, is easy to say at three in the morning," Ferris remarked, gesturing at the clock on the nearest table, "OK, if nothing else, we have to spring Jerry out of prison; I owe him that much at least. Then we've got to find a way to go around Tannen to..."
"Pardon me, Miss Natalie, a phone call for you," one of the butlers stuck his head around the corner with a cell phone in hand.
"For me? At three in the morning?" Natalie frowned at the clock, then shrugged and picked took the phone from the butler. "Hello?" she inquired. Her expression grew concerned. "Who is this? Guys...!" she waved the Shermer High students close to her. "OK, I'm putting you on speaker here with a couple people who might be interested; tell them who you are," she declared, hitting the speaker button.
"As I said, my name's Kathleen Hale, and I'm Bob Tannen's secretary," came the nervous woman's voice on the other end of the line, "Since you were at the fundraiser when everything happened, I figured you'd be someone I can talk to, Miss Simmons. I...I'd like to set up a meeting to reveal everything I know about the crimes Bob's committed."
"Oh really?" Natalie's face lit up, as did everyone else's, "Is this honest, no tricks...?"
"No tricks, I swear. I've grown increasingly disgusted by Bob over the last few months, seeing him reap an under the table fortune from criminal acts back in Chicago," Hale confessed, "Watching that boy get wrongfully arrested tonight was the last straw; I feel I have to do something. But I can't go to the police or FBI; Bob's been looking over my shoulder for months, making it clear he doesn't trust me. So I reasoned someone like you who'd have Secret Service protection could safely get what I have to say to the proper people."
"OK, OK, we're open to discussion," Natalie nodded softly, "Where and when would you like to meet?"
"Bob and I have been spending nights at a cabin he rents in the woods near Rockville for the last few months. He asked me to stay there anyway while he goes to make his presidential announcement with his family tomorrow. That's another reason I'm disgusted enough to do this: he claims he can't stand his wife, but shoves me away to be at her side when it can advance his career, even after he claimed I was the most important thing in his life...!" Hale growled bitterly, "But anyway, he'll be gone from there at ten; come by about ten thirty, and I can probably provide you with hard documents and voicemails that can bring him down."
"OK, I think we can manage ten thirty," Natalie turned to the others, who nodded, "And you'd be ready to testify to everything in court?"
"Yes. I've felt horrible that I've been enabling Bob in his adultery; this is my redemption," Hale said firmly.
"All right. As long as everything seems to check out, we'll see you tomorrow morning. Can we contact you some way beforehand in case...?"
"Better not to call me; Bob'll get suspicious if...I've got to go, I think he's waking up for a midnight snack...!" Hale hissed, at which point the line disconnected. "We're back in business!" Sloane declared happily with a loud shriek of delight.
"I don't know, guys; this has the makings of a possible trap," Cameron was concerned.
"I know, Cameron, but we'll just take extra Secret Service people with us to counterbalance anything in case this is a trap. In the meantime, like Sloane said, our hope's restored, WOOOOO!" Ferris yelped, spinning in a circle.
"Hey, what's going on out here!?" a bleary-eyed Corey Jacobson stuck his head out of the nearest bedroom.
"Oh, just some good news, Corey. Hey, listen," Ferris approached him, "We'll be heading out in a little while; we've got some things to take care of. While we're gone, Senator Tannen's going to be setting up for a big press conference outside tomorrow at noon. If we're not back by the time he starts, you and the rest of the senior class try to stall him until we get there; it's vitally important to the nation that he not be allowed to finish his speech."
"Ferris, what's going on here!?" Corey frowned sleepily at him.
"You'll find out soon enough, Corey; right now it's need to know, and only we need to know everything. Have a good night's sleep," Ferris bade him a good night. Corey shook his head softly and disappeared back into his room. "Come on, let's wake Jim up," Ferris waved the others down the hall, "He can probably come in handy to spring Jerry out of jail. Then we'll see if we've in fact hit the jackpot with Ms. Hale. Either way, it's smoother sailing from here."
"Again, thanks for calling, Grace," Mr. Jacobson told her grimly, helping her out of the cab they'd taken back to the motel, "I was afraid something like this might happen."
"It's just not like Ed, to be drunk and angry like this," Grace lamented sadly, "All these years, I thought he really cared for me..."
"I'm sorry you had to be put through that, Grace. But there's better men out there than Ed, I can promise you that. Sir," Mr. Jacobson hailed down the motel's manager, who was in fact working on the lock to Rooney's room, "I need to talk to you about..."
"Your boss, right?" the manager looked up at him with a disgusted look, "I got three noise complaints about him throwing things around in here over the last half hour, and when I came out to confront him on it, he stole my car and drove off," he gestured with contempt to an empty parking space in front of his office across the complex.
"Did he strike you or harm you in any way before he stole it?" Mr. Jacobson inquired with a deep frown.
"No, he wasn't in the room then. He must have been hiding around back, waiting for me to leave the office so he could grab my car keys off the hooks. And what the hell did he do to the lock here!?" the manager jiggled the knob hard, to no effect, "This is definitely coming out of his pocket...!"
"Wait, is that blood!?" aghast, Grace pointed at the shattered room window, which was indeed dripping with red liquid. "Yeah, I see it," the manager nodded, "The idiot must have cut himself climbing through it after he wrecked the lock. Plus, I think he broke into the maintenance shed before that and stole some paint too," he gestured at the small building behind the motel, the door of which had been torn off its hinges, and out of which overturned and leaking paint cans had spilled, "If I'd known that..here we go," he declared as the doorknob finally turned, "This is the last time I take in...sweet mother of God...!"
He stared numbly around what was left of Rooney's room, which the principal had completely trashed. The beds and tables were overturned, the TV had been smashed, wallpaper had been ripped off the walls, and the sink was overflowing in the bathroom. But most ominously, a single phrase had been painted over all the walls in red paint: FERRIS MUST DIE. "What's that supposed to mean!? the manager asked out loud with a frown.
"Oh my God...!" horror swept Mr. Jacobson's face, "He's finally lost it...call the police immediately!" he ordered the manager, "Tell them to put out a red alert APB for him at once! Grace, call Ed's cell phone, try and talk any sense you can into him before he actually kills Ferris or anyone else!"
"I don't know if he'll listen to me anymore, Tom..." Grace shook her head.
"Just do it! This is a life or death situation now, and we've got to stop him before he goes completely over the edge!" Mr. Jacobson shouted at her. He ran out of the room and dialed his own cell phone frantically. "Corey, this is Dad; are you still at the White House right now!?" he asked his son breathlessly. "Good. Listen, stay there until I tell you otherwise, and tell all the Secret Service men you see not to let Mr. Rooney onto the property if he shows up...he's gone insane, he wants to kill Ferris Bueller! Is Ferris there now...well where did he go!? Oh God...tell the Secret Service to send out an APB for them immediately, they're in grave danger...!"