A/N: My best to everyone!
We take a breath before we head into the thick of the final arc.
(She Was A) Hotel Detective
Chapter Twenty-Six: Poisoners and Palisades
Tuesday, November 9, 1965
Chicago
Drab Olive Drab Surplus, upstairs
8:45 pm
Sarah froze.
Everyone in the room seemed lit up by Jack Burton's chiseler smile, and all turned toward Sarah at the same time. Marlena smirked around the amber stem of her pipe, Ellie rotated in place, her mouth forming the word 'Dad?', Devon blinked at her, Chuck smiled.
"Daddy?"
Sarah had seen her father only twice since she joined the CIA.
Her father had left town a few weeks before Sarah's high school graduation — on the run from a man he had conned. Sarah had not been involved, so Jack left Sarah enough money to rent a hotel room to finish the term and to attend her graduation.
Silas Joad had found her there, in the parking lot of the hotel, trying to hotwire a car, a few hours after graduation. He had made her the CIA offer and the next day she was on a plane, the next at the Farm.
During her first year as an agent, when it all began to become too much, she had asked one of the Company analysts, the same one she called on Monday, and the analyst had found Sarah's dad.
Sarah took two personal days and traveled to see him. Boston. The nausea was upon her, low-grade but inescapable. She was not sure what her father could do about it; maybe she knew he could do nothing about it.
But he was all she had, and she needed someone. No other agent she knew could help, would help. She needed someone who cared about her: her, not the Company, the job, the mission. Her. That someone was not Jack. He was happy to see her, as he might have been an old buddy, but not interested in what she was doing — absolutely not interested in what she was feeling. As always, he pretended that she had no heart. She fell in with the pretense. It was their old habit.
He never asked about graduation or the time since he had seen her. He assumed that she was on the grift: it never occurred to him that it could be any different. It never occurred to him that she might need him as a father, not as a flimflammer.
She left feeling worse than when she arrived.
He found her the next time, in DC, a few years later, by accident. She was between missions, trying to occupy her mind, and had gone to the Library of Congress to find a quiet spot to read. She had been talking to a librarian. Jack Burton was there, developing a mark. Sarah saw him; he saw Sarah. He went on with the mark.
Jack came back an hour later and took her for coffee. He thought it was a funny family coincidence, them both developing marks at the Library of Congress at the same time. She told him that she was not on the grift; she had a legitimate job. He rolled his eyes. She got up to go to the bathroom and he was gone when she came back, her purse open, all her cash gone, her CIA passbook in a different pocket.
That was the last time she saw Jack Burton, her father.
And now he was standing across the room from her. Smiling that smile she grew up to hate. The smile that meant he was happy to swindle her too.
"Darlin'!"
Jack crossed the room to look at her more closely. Sarah became all-too-aware of her face, the split lip, the swelling, and all-too-aware of Chuck observing her and Jack. Sarah thought Jack might hug her, unexpected as that would have been, but instead, he put his hand out to touch her chin, to tilt her head so he could see her face better.
"I thought I taught you better...Sarah." His eyes sought hers. He was using the name he must have seen in her CIA passbook. Either that or Marlena had told him her name, the name she had been using all these years, the one Joad gave her.
Jack had never called her that and it threw Sarah off-balance.
"Daddy?"
For a second, Sarah thought she saw real concern in her father's eyes, but then the smile was back. "Marlena tells me you just had a run-in with Big Tony, Tony Accardo?"
"What are you doing here, Dad?" Sarah finally found herself, her voice.
"Marlena found me…" — he turned to Marlena — "...When was it? Sunday night? I was in Detroit. I finished up and came on to the Windy City. Couldn't get here 'til tonight."
Sarah was confused. "Why? — I mean why did you come?"
"Marlena thought you were in trouble. I guess she was right." Jack turned back to Sarah, glancing at Chuck as he did. "So, are you going to introduce me to your...friends?"
Marlena had been watching the reunion closely. "Sarah, Jack got here just a moment before Devon. We haven't done formal introductions…"
Sarah took a breath. "Oh, right. Okay. Everyone, this is my dad, Jack Burton. Dad, this is Ellie Mills, her brother, Chuck Bartowski, and my colleague, Devon Woodcomb."
Jack kept his smile in place and nodded at each person in turn. As he did, Sarah crossed to the small table to stand behind Chuck, her hand on his shoulder. Jack watched, his smile finally dimming. "So, this is the bunch that went into Accardo's to get you?"
Sarah nodded. "They saved me."
Jack pulled a small, ornate chair from its place along one wall and stationed it near the table. "Marlena did not have time to tell me much. Can you explain?"
"I will, Dad. But we have other things we have to talk about first." Sarah looked at Ellie, still standing. "Ellie, what about the visit to the toxicologist?"
Ellie glanced at Devon, then Chuck, then back to Sarah. "So, Devon and I found the doctor you suggested at Mercy, Dr. Hamawaki. He was in the lab and we met him there. We told him Devon was a med student and I was an aspiring novelist, and that we had gotten into an argument about how a mystery novel should go. There was to be a...death by poisoning," Ellie glanced again at Chuck, and Sarah squeezed his shoulder, "and we wanted it to be realistic. But the victim had to...die slowly. Well, you know, Sarah. We told him we couldn't decide if there was a real poison that would do what the plot demanded..."
Devon gazed at Ellie. "She was amazing."
Ellie blushed. "So, Hamawaki listened to us — I made up some more stuff about the novel and the plot — and then he told us we were thinking about it all backward. We were imagining a fast-acting poison that was altered or augmented to slow its effects when what we should have been imagining was a slow-acting poison that had been sped up…"
Jack shook his head. "Poison, plots? I don't..."
Sarah held up her hand, leaving the other on Chuck. "Not now, Dad."
Marlena had walked closer to the table and was smoking intently as she listened, the fragrant smell of her tobacco filling the room.
"I told him I had no idea. Devon said the same. Hamawki grinned at us. Then he said: 'Dimethylmercury.' — It's a slow-acting but lethal poison. I won't go into the technical details, but he suggested that it might be possible to combine it with other...substances to hasten the onset of its effects. Oh, and it would not require an injection or ingestion. It could simply be wiped onto the skin; it would only take a small amount." Ellie paused.
Devon picked up the story. "So we asked about antidotes, cures, and he told us that the only real treatment — at least that he could imagine on the spot — would likely be Dimercaptosuccinic acid, um...Succimer. It binds with the poison and carries it out in the urine."
"So how do we get this...Succimer?" Sarah demanded.
Ellie smiled. "We don't. Because Hamawaki gave us some. And I made Chuck take some in the car on the way to Accardo's."
"It's why I needed a peppermint," Chuck added, ducking his head. "That Succimer sucks."
"So, Chuck's okay?" Sarah felt giddy.
"No, or, well, we don't know. Remember, this is all guess-work. We aren't sure Chuck was poisoned and we don't know it was Dimethylmercury. And even if it was, we don't know what else the witches' brew might have contained. But at least it's something. Something to do. Some hope, independent of Algernon. Hamawaki — I don't know what he made of us or our story, but it was kind of him to give us the Succimer."
"He's the world's best on poisons. He lectured on the topic at the Farm, years ago. He might be wrong, but no one else is more likely to be right. So, we just keep dosing Chuck?"
"Yes, and he needs to keep peeing…"
"Speaking of," Chuck said standing, brandishing his empty teacup before returning it to the table, "I need to...go…" Sarah stepped back. Chuck turned his head toward her and smiled. She gave him a quick but deep kiss. Chuck brushed her swollen cheek softly with the backs of his fingers, then walked into the bathroom, shutting the door.
Jack watched the whole scene and stared at Sarah. She did not notice the stare until Chuck shut the door. Sarah sat down in Chuck's chair.
Jack shook his head. "So, the tall guy, Chuck, the monkey, he's been poisoned? That doesn't sound like Accardo. A gun. A ball bat. Not poison. A woman's weapon."
Jack fixed Sarah with the stare again. "And what's with the fade-out, the pucker?"
Sarah did not answer the final question. "Accardo did not poison Chuck, Dad, the KGB did."
Sarah had rarely seen her father flabbergasted. But that did it. "The K...G...B…?" His mouth was open for a moment; he closed it mechanically. "The mob and the KGB?"
Ellie smirked at Jack. "Yeah, and the FBI and the police. When...the monkey...gets into trouble, he goes big."
"The FBI? Darlin', this ain't big, it's insane." He made a sweeping gesture, then rubbed his temples with his fingers.
Marlena was now standing behind Jack, her hand on his shoulder in a carbon-copy of Sarah's earlier standing-behind Chuck. "Look, I know Chuck told Marlena some of this. Let me tell you what's been going on. I met Chuck — my boyfriend — at a diner…"
Chuck had rejoined the group before Sarah finished. He stood beside Ellie as Sarah told the last part, the rescue at Accardo's.
Jack's face was a study in shock and confusion. Sarah stopped talking and the room was silent. Finally, Jack stood up. "So, my little girl quit the CIA, became a hotel detective, and now she's caught up in some kind of mixed-up mess with mobsters and spooks and federal agents. Accardo's not going to be happy when he finally wakes up. This...Algernon...sounds like a serious killer...And Agent Rizzo, if she's anything like her dad…This is one serious helter-skelter."
Ellie glanced at Sarah. "You know Agent Rizzo's dad?"
Sarah nodded. "Yes, but she doesn't know I do. Did. I haven't seen him in years. He works for the Company — but our paths never crossed after I joined. Not that unusual for agents, especially when both are deep-cover. We all mostly know of one another by rumor unless we end up on missions together. I never heard much about him."
"So, where are the records, Sarah? Do you have any idea? Why does everyone and his brother want the damn things?" Jack was pacing the floor. Chuck had stepped out of his path.
"I don't know, and I don't know what's in them. All I know is that Maria Tomek told The Clown they were at home."
Chuck stopped watching Jack pace and looked at Sarah. "You never told me that."
"No, I didn't want Algernon to hear it."
Chuck nodded. "Right. That's the clue you mentioned?"
Sarah nodded.
Chuck got a faraway look in his eyes. After a moment, he turned to Marlena. "Do you have a phone book?"
Marlena got it, heavy and thick, and handed it to Chuck. Devon got up to stand next to Ellie, and Chuck put the book down and took Devon's chair. He started thumbing through it.
Devon whispered something to Ellie and she whispered back. Sarah missed the content but the emotion was plain. Ellie's smile, so real where Sarah's dad's was so false, was plain.
Marlena had stepped back into the kitchen. She returned with the teapot and filled Chuck's cup again. She patted him on the back. "Drink up." He smiled at her and went back to work. Sarah's heart swelled as the room organized itself around him.
I am in love with you, Chuck Bartowski. Absolutely.
Jack caught Sarah's eye. "Hey, while he does his bookwork, step outside with me? I want a cigarette."
Sarah nodded. Jack opened the door and Sarah followed, out onto a landing with stairs running down to the alley. The snow had stopped but it was thick on the ground. The wind was cold but not constant. The lights of Chicago burned in the dark.
Sarah hugged herself as her father reached into his shirt pocket for the familiar short pack of Lucky Strikes. As she had seen him do countless times, he licked his lips, wet one end of the unfiltered cigarette with his lips, then, hands cupped, he lit the other end with a match from a hotel matchbook.
He inhaled, held it, exhaled the smoke through his nose.
"So, Jenny, what's the angle? What's the play? This has to be the most convoluted long con in the history of long cons. The payoff must be special if you're willing to risk so much. The Mills girl, she's loaded, right? She looks like money, underplayed but in plenty."
It took Sarah a moment. "You...you think this is all a con? That I am doing all this for Ellie's money?"
Jack nodded as if nothing could be more obvious.
"You are a piece of work, Jack," Sarah kept her voice low but she spoke with anger, "only you could have just heard what you heard, saw what you saw, and believed...that. You know, you are the dupe, Dad. Human life, real human life, is happening all around you and you either miss it or misunderstand it…"
He stiffened. "Oh, C'mon, Jenny, that...that guy? Hell, he's a shiny penny, bright but practically worthless. He reeks of niceness. But he's strictly a First of May, a sweet pea. There's no way you'd choose a guy like that." He puffed on his cigarette, grinning around it. "Come clean, Darlin'. I see through you."
"No, Dad, you just don't see me. But he does. I love him, that sweet pea, that First of May. He's my lucky penny. And, don't forget, he and his sister and Devon saved me from Tony Accardo a little while ago. Don't underestimate Chuck, Dad, any of them."
Jack did not respond. He took another hit from his cigarette. "Love? Jenny…"
"Stop calling me that. I'm Sarah now."
"Sarah...Love? You know better. Build the palisades and keep 'em built. – Hell, Sarah, I raised you better…"
"No, Jack, you raised me worse. But I've managed, somehow, to climb out, mostly anyway, to climb out of the hole you and the damn Company buried me in. That monkey in there makes me feel alive in a way that I only barely remember, the way I think I felt when I was a very little girl, before Mom...And if you do anything to mess this up for me, I will…"
Jack tossed his cigarette off the landing, down into the snow. "Okay, okay. Just think about it. Don't be a sucker. That guy's a long-term guy. Do you think you can settle down? He's a dime novel; read him and toss him. What could he offer you, after all the adventures we had, all that you must've had in the CIA?"
Sarah felt a sudden pity for him. "You know, Dad, trying to live like a real person...and among other real persons...That's an adventure — every day. An adventure you're missing."
Sarah turned and went back inside, leaving her dad on the landing, lighting another Lucky Strike.
Inside, Chuck was now pacing.
He had the phone book in his hands, carrying it as he paced. When Sarah came in, he smiled at her, eager.
"So, Sarah, I was thinking, Aidan was an orphan. Maria would have been too. She came to Chicago. So, Chicago orphanages. Homes. But there are so many…"
Sarah's mind clicked over. "Is there one with Vincent in the name?"
Chuck looked down, flipped a page. "Yes, St. Vincent's."
Sarah smiled at him. "I think we have a next step…"
Marlena cleared her throat, taking her delicate pipe from her mouth. "It's too late to go now, and you wouldn't know where to look. We all need...rest.
"We need to think about sleeping arrangements. Jack can...stay in my room. This is a surplus shop, so I have cots. I can set Devon and Ellie up here. Sarah, you and Chuck I can put downstairs."
Everyone except Marlena seemed self-conscious about the arrangements, blushes ruled the room, but no one objected.
A few minutes later, Sarah was downstairs beside Chuck, their cots pushed close together. Marlena had turned off the lights.
Chuck's hand found Sarah's. She squeezed him after he squeezed her.
"How are you doing, Chuck?"
"Okay, given...everything. Your dad, he's a...character."
Sarah chuckled, a tincture of bitterness. "Yes, he is. — Chuck, I don't know if the Succimer will work, is working, but I promise you. Nothing is going to happen to you. Nothing. I refuse to lose you. And this," she squeezed his hand, "this, us, is...open-ended. I don't want it to end."
"Neither do I, Sarah. You make me...better, a better version of me."
Sarah rolled over. She took his hand and pressed it against her chest. "Chuck, I love you."
She knew he could feel her heart thumping. Thump-thump-thumping. He caressed her softly, his thumb tracing a path across her breast that made her gasp softly.
"I love you too, Sarah. From the first."
"Do you think one of these cots will hold us both?"
Chuck wiggled on his. "Seems sturdy."
Sarah climbed over, on top of him, settled against him. She was exhausted, sore, achy, but her desire would not be denied. She needed him. So much.
"One of these days, we'll do this when we don't have to be quiet."
"Promise?" She heard Chuck smile in the dark, somehow.
"I promise, Chuck." Sarah put her lips to his.
A/N: And now we head into the action of the final arc.
I hope those of you reading this are well and safe. Stay well and well away from others!
Thoughts?
