A/N: I thought I'd update since this is such a short chapter and I wrote about seven more chapters this past week.
Washington, D.C.
The Past, Seven Weeks Ago
The administrative assistant set the phone receiver back into its cradle and looked up at him. "Senator DesJarlais will see you now," she said and stood, smoothing her hands down her slim pencil skirt.
Carl Denti thought the woman quite pretty, something he'd been given time to consider since he'd been sitting in the office lobby for the last twenty minutes. She was also very young, perhaps fresh out of college. Denti stood slowly, rising to his full height which was nearly a foot over the young woman. He held a folder of documents in one large hand; a RAP sheet and petition to expunge the record for one, Remy LeBeau. Denti followed the admin to the dark mahogany door of the Senator's office. She turned the handle and pushed the door inward. She smiled tightly at him as he passed before her and into the office beyond.
"Mr. DeJarlais," the admin said, "Mr. Denti, to see you."
"Thank you, Tracy," the man said warmly as he walked from behind his desk to greet Denti.
"May I get you anything?" Tracy asked politely.
"Mr. Denti, something to drink? Water? Coffee?" DesJarlais asked as he took Denti's hand in his own.
For a moment, Denti didn't speak. He paused to look at the man standing before him in a well-tailored suit. The Senator looked uncannily familiar; though his hair was silver, his warm-complexed face lined at the eyes and mouth, and his eyes a dark brown, he looked remarkably like the thief Denti had come to this office to represent.
"Mr. Denti?" DesJarlais prompted, his pale brows rising.
"Uhm, no. Thank you," Denti finally said, resolving in his mind that the French of Louisiana must all look alike. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Senator."
"Please, call me Ray," the man smiled. He gestured to the chair in front of his desk. "Have a seat."
Denti folded himself into the soft leather chair. The surrounding office had plush navy blue carpeting, a polished cherry wood desk, and shelves of books lining the walls. It was afternoon, and the late day sun filtered through the tall windows to make the white wood-paneled walls glow orange.
"Thank you for taking the time to see me," Denti told the Senator.
The man waved away his thanks. "It's no trouble at all. And it's past time we met formally, now that you've been given a position on the Subcommittee staff."
Denti gave a single nod. "Yes, sir."
The Senator relaxed back into his office chair. "I've taken a gander at your credentials," he said. "You're certainly a welcome addition. Frankly, I'm surprised my colleagues from across the aisle were able to make such a wise decision as to hire you."
Denti processed the insult to his new bosses, delivered so genteelly in that long-voweled southern accent. He might have frowned incrementally.
"I speak in jest, Mr. Denti," DesJarlais said and smiled. "To have someone with your background...your study in law, your experience as an FBI agent – interacting directly with terrorists – your interrogation skills...All invaluable assets to bring to the table. In fact, you may be overqualified."
"Thank you, sir," Denti said and shifted the folder from one hand to the other.
"Ray," DesJarlais insisted. "So, other than introductions, is there something you wanted to speak to me about?"
"Yes, sir," Denti said. "I have something of a favor to ask –."
"A little early in your political career to be asking for personal favors, isn't it?"
Denti wasn't sure how to reply.
"Carl, you don't seem to appreciate my levity."
"Ah. Yes. I'm sorry. Sir," Denti said.
DesJarlais looked at him with some concern. "No, my apologies. Perhaps I should be more sensitive. You haven't had much to be cheerful about in your career. Your partner was killed, wasn't he? In the line of duty?"
Denti felt a stillness settle upon him as he often did when thinking about Fred Duncan and the circumstances of his death, and how that death had shaped so much of what Denti had become. But he'd been given time to reflect and certain insight to the people he'd once targeted as the X-Cutioner. He slowly realized that he'd be better served emulating Duncan's life rather than seeking revenge for his death, as Duncan had once been a member of Xavier's underground network. Sitting in DesJarlais' office now was one small way to try to repair the damage he'd done. If he had to admit the truth to himself, he'd confess having sympathy for the (former?) X-Man Gambit, because Denti himself did the wrong things for the right reasons. He was also motivated by a sense of honor...or was that guilt?
"Yes," Denti said finally. "That was some time ago."
"It must open old wounds, this affair with the Phoenix Force wreaking havoc on the planet. Mutants killing indiscriminately with little to no repercussion," DesJarlais continued. "I understand this Cyclops fellow has been sent to a federal prison. Seems an act of global terrorism should come with a stiffer penalty than living off the American taxpayer in a jail cell."
"That is something I'm sure we can discuss in committee," Denti said slowly. "At the scheduled hearing. Though I'd be happy to share a draft of my preliminary findings with you."
DesJarlais shifted his tone. "Of course. But you were saying something about a favor?"
Denti placed the folder onto DesJarlais' desktop. "I have a...resource...who requested that his juvenile record be expunged. I'm asking this as a favor to him. He's a Louisianan, and I thought it might help his request along if he had your signature on his petition."
"You've got yourself a felon on the payroll?" DesJarlais asked and picked up the file. He raised an eyebrow, but his expression was pleasantly mild.
"It was a – youthful indiscretion," Denti said, using Gambit's own words to describe the incident. "A prank, I think. Stealing a mail truck."
DesJarlais had opened the file and was reading the RAP sheet with a vague smile. "Nothin' I wouldn't understand. I myself made a mistake as a young man." He looked over the top of the folder at Denti. "One rare occasion it had snowed in Lafayette. I made a snowball. And then tossed it at the side of a passing school bus. Unfortunately, the driver's side window was open and my aim was a little too good. Four years on the pitcher's mound..."
"I hope no one was hurt," Denti said.
DesJarlais shook his head. "No, thank the good Lord. Well, except for me and my backside after my daddy got ahold of me." DesJarlais continued to smile as he glanced over the document, flipping one sheet of paper over to reveal the next. Young Remy LeBeau's arrest record had been quite extensive. DesJarlais placed the folder onto his desk and turned to the final page. His expression seemed to freeze on his face and his eyes flicked up to look at Denti.
"Just what are you asking for, Mr. Denti?" the Senator asked, his voice steely.
Caught for a moment off guard, Denti loosely gestured to the documents. "The...petition, sir. Ray. Your signature –."
DesJarlais sat stiffly, his hands lightly gripping the arms of his office chair. "I think you've proved what a clever investigator you are, Carl. Now, what is it you want?" DesJarlais closed the folder, but not before tearing the final page from the sheaf of documents and folding it over his forefinger.
Denti considered the Senator for a moment. "This man is an asset in the field. I only hoped to clear him from an incidental mistake he'd made as a child."
"Do you think to embarrass me?" the Senator asked. "What do you hope to gain from this?"
"If you're reluctant to sign the petition because the man in question is a mutant, I assure you this is not an attack on your – position on the mutant issue," Denti informed him while carefully studying DesJarlais' reaction. "None of this will ever be public knowledge."
DesJarlais' gaze narrowed. When he spoke, his voice was no longer warm and welcoming, but hard and dark. "So I see what game you're playing at, Carl. That's a shame. I'd hoped we could work together. See eye-to-eye. But you're more ambitious than I thought."
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Denti replied.
DesJarlais' smile was brittle. "No? Maybe not yet. Until you find a way to use your leverage...whenever that may be. But you've made your point very clear. Have a pleasant evening, Carl."
Apparently, Denti was being dismissed. He stood and picked up the folder from the Senator's desk. "Sorry to have interrupted your day," he told the Senator stoically and turned to leave.
Denti stepped out of the office and paced down the white wood-paneled hall. From behind him, he could hear the admin pick up the receiver and speak into it. She stood and entered the office. In the parking lot, Denti climbed into his rental car and checked the time. He would be even earlier for his flight back to New York than he thought. Denti reached back into the backseat of the vehicle to retrieve his briefcase. He opened it and was about to place Remy LeBeau's file into the case when he he opened the folder instead. DesJarlais had taken the mug shot of the teenage Remy LeBeau. Denti closed the folder and placed it under another file folder. This one was quite a bit larger, as it represented a forty-some year career in politics. Denti had done some background research on the Senator before he arrived at the office.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed. The phone rang twice before going to voice mail. "LeBeau," Denti said curtly. "I need to schedule another sit-down with you. I'm on my way to New York. In the meantime, maybe you should do your civic duty and take a closer look at your state representative. Honoré DesJarlais."
Denti had time to comb through the Senator's file on his flight back to New York. It was a simple enough matter to look back on the Senator and his Congressional record through the THOMAS database, the bills he sponsored and voted for. He also found the Senator's list of staff, past and present. Denti should have known that anything involving Gambit would likely lead to trouble of some kind. Denti needed to know why the Senator believed he was being blackmailed and what it had to do with the thief. It seemed such a strange...coincidence.
Denti began to get a picture of what the Senator might be concerned about when he found the rider appended to a bill DesJarlais sponsored nearly thirty years ago. The earmarked funds in the bill would have expanded an ongoing project named Black Womb. At this, Denti paused. He knew that name from the records he'd acquired after Fred Duncan's death. It was an enormous catalog of mutants, many of them now dead. Denti kept a spreadsheet generated form the database on his laptop. He opened the file containing the list of names and began to scroll through the records. He found nothing on the list of mutants still living and was about to move on the the records of the deceased when he reopened the list of the Senator's staff. It was a simple enough matter to paste the entries into a new column and cross reference the list against the mutant entries. One name appeared in both columns: Moreau. Denti stared at the name for several moments waiting for his mind to come to some conclusion. But before he could make a connection, the fasten-seatbelt had turned on and he was forced to stow his laptop away.
When the jet landed in LaGuardia and began to taxi to the gate, Denti turned his phone back on, hoping for a message from LeBeau. He had a text waiting for him from the thief. Denti read it and frowned.
The text message read: problem bank. MX City about 2 mak BIG withdrawl. lil help, svp?
~ oOo ~
svp – s'il vous plaît – please
Next time: Poppet postal service.