POCKET CHANGE 3: HIDE SEEK
by Sharon R.
Chapter Three
The walk from the EL to Luka's apartment was only two blocks, but the sudden downpour melting away the mysteriously accumulated April snow had made the trek most unpleasant for Sam both as it pattered down on her old broken umbrella and created a muck of slush to maneuver around.. Her car was in the shop - again, at least for the morning. Taking the EL wasn't so bad. She got an early start hoping to catch Luka for a few minutes before he crawled into bed after the night shift. From under the umbrella she spied him driving up the street looking for a parking spot and waved at him with her empty Starbucks cup.
"I have to turn around and park on the other side of the street," he called out to her from the open passenger side window while he double parked. Reaching in his glove box, he took out a key and passed it to her. "Let yourself in. Carter's sleeping on the sofa, so don't be surprised."
The door to the loft apartment was huge - an old warehouse entry. Sam had to put everything down on the floor just to free up both hands to open it, but once unlocked it glided quietly on its runners. She left the door wide open for Luka and quickly took off her wet shoes so as not to slip on the poured cement floors. Next off was her coat which she laid over one of the kitchen bar stools. It was then that she saw Carter on the leather sofa, asleep with his back to her. He mumbled and moved a little - just enough to make her think he was waking up. A perfect opportunity to get him back for last night's shift, she thought with a mischievous grin.
Sam tip-toed into the living room and carefully leaned over the sleeping doctor. As her wavy long hair spilled onto his face, she giggled, then whispered in his ear hoping to startle him as he had done to her in the lounge.
"Penny for your thoughts."
Without much warning, Carter flipped onto his back and, roughly grabbing her by the back of the neck, pulled her into his face, planting his lips on hers. Caught completely off guard, Sam fell to her knees and was unable to get any leverage to pull herself free from Carter's grinding lips. Her eyes bugged out, moans escaped between breaths she was barely able to suck in and she was scared. This was a man who was a friend of Luka's. Someone she had welcomed into her life away from the hospital as one would a brother-in-law.
Suddenly from nowhere, Luka's arm reached out and pulled Sam free, throwing Carter to the floor in the process. No sooner was Sam back on her feet than Carter had grabbed Luka and forcefully pinned him on his back - one hand on his throat.
"Carter…"
His eyes were open, but glazed. And although he seemed to be seething with anger, part of him was devoid of emotion.
"I think you…" Luka sputtered between gasps.
"I think you… need to… wake… up."
Carter's grip eased as his lids fluttered, eyes glanced around at the surroundings and then back down at Luka's reddened face. He gasped and seemed to lose a breath or two before chaotically moving off of Luka and sitting on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chest.
"I…what…," he was truly without words as he tried to piece together what had gotten him to that point. "Luka, I'm sorry. I don't know why…"
Luka looked up at Sam who had moved back as far as she could against the kitchen counter. Carter had apologized to Luka, but seemed unaware of what had ultimately led to their wrestling match on the floor. Sam was hurt. Tears stung her eyes as she fought to not let them fall down her cheeks.
"Are you okay?" Carter asked as he noticed the welts forming on Luka's neck.
"Yeah. I'm fine." He was hoping Carter would remember Sam's involvement and he wouldn't have to tell him. He was hoping for Carter's benefit as well as Sam's. But the blank look on Carter's face said it all.
Carter only noticed Sam when Luka stood up and walked towards the kitchen. She was rushing to put her coat on while Luka reached out to her and spoke quietly so that Carter couldn't hear them. As Sam turned to walk to the door, Carter heard just one thing:
"He needs help, Luka."
"No, Sam," Carter pleaded as he got to his feet, "really, I'm fine. It was just a dream and Luka happened to interrupt it at the wrong time. It was just a dream…"
"Was it?" The fright had now converted to anger as she threw a look at Luka and walked out.
"Sam?" Luka rushed after her, motioning with his hand to Carter to stay put. He had to move quickly to keep up with her all the way down to the sidewalk. "Sam - please."
Luka reached out and grabbed a corner of her coat left unbuttoned and flying in the gust of wind. She'd left her umbrella outside Luka's door and didn't really care if she got wet or not. Wet she was, as the warming air finally brought springtime back to Chicago, and the Midwest rains down on the two of them.
"Are you alright?" he asked, knowing she wasn't. It was a stupid thing to ask, but it's all he could think of at the moment.
"What do you think?" She pushed her wet locks from her face and stared at Luka, wondering… just wondering.
"I'm sorry. I don't think John knows what happened. I really don't." Sam stood and waited, just waited for an explanation that would satisfy her. Luka pulled her coat closed to keep her warm and drew her closer to him by the lapels before wrapping his arms around her. "He's been working double shifts, he's overtired, and… and yesterday things from his past kind of fell on him all at once."
"What kind of dream makes someone do that, Luka?" Looking up at his face, she couldn't miss, just in her peripheral vision, Carter's face as he watched the two of them from the window. "And he looked like he wanted to kill you."
"Not me," Luka answered as he turned his head to see what Sam was looking at. "He thought I was someone else." As the rains charged down harder, Luka moved them under the awning of the vacant business next door.
"The same person he thought he was kissing?"
Luka laughed a little at the thought. "No, I think the dream was about two different people, both who caused him a lot of pain."
"Yeah, well…" Sam closed her eyes as she felt the warmth of Luka's lips as he planted a gentle kiss on her forehead. "I have to get to work."
"I'll talk to him."
Sam had taken a step or two away, then paused. "I don't know what the two of you are hiding, but it's obviously not working." She watched as Luka sighed almost a confession. "I know Carter is somewhat alone. He's not seeing anyone and his family is a lost cause. But you have someone you can talk to. I just wish you could trust me." And then quieter, "I'm not sure if I know you anymore."
"It's not that we're hiding anything that has anything to do with you. I do trust you, Sam. I'm just not ready to talk about it."
"But you do talk to Carter about it."
"No… actually, I don't." His hand lingered in hers as she pulled away. "We'll talk tonight, okay? Call me, please."
"Clear it with Carter first. Get your stories straight." Sam roughly pulled her hand away from Luka's and buttoned her coat as she stepped back away from him. "By all means, Luka, make sure Carter hasn't been traumatized by his dream. I've had enough."
Carter moved to the window and saw Luka and Sam standing in the rain below. Certainly looked like a heated conversation. He watched them talk, Luka move closer to her, then Sam's eyes as they reached up to the window. Taking a step back, he failed to move quick enough to avoid Luka seeing him. Was Luka telling Sam about Jules? About that night outside the house? The same night the world knows that he was mysteriously killed?
Combing his hair back with his fingers, Carter set out to get his ass out of there as fast as he could. He scrambled to get his shoes on but could only find one - the other one lost in the melee next to the sofa. He found his coat and managed to get that on before going back to the sofa to resume the shoe search.
"What are you trying to run away from?" Luka asked as he stood in the doorway.
"Nothing. I should leave."
"It's okay. She's gone."
Carter was exasperated and flopped himself back onto the sofa, minus one shoe. "If you want me to talk to her…"
"No, you've already put enough ideas in her head."
"About Colleen? What was I supposed to do? She asked me. I never even connected the two of you."
Luka finally shut the large door and quietly made his way to the kitchen where he took a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator and drank from it, finishing its contents and roughly tossing the empty box in the trash can next to the counter.
"How is it you always manage to find your way to my women…"
"That's ridiculous, Luka. That's not -"
" - No?" Luka shouted slamming the palms of his hands on the counter. "Then what was it you were doing with Sam? Hmm- "
" - I didn't do anything with Sam."
The two were talking on top of each other without the benefit of listening, draining what patience they had left in their sleep deprived sates. The pendulum on the clock hanging above the unused fireplace tocked rhythmically in a syncopation that mirrored their pounding and angered heart beats as they stared through each others eyes. Finally, Carter turned away from Luka's incriminating glare long enough to spy his missing shoe under the side table.
"Thanks for the sofa," he chided almost to himself as he grabbed his jacket and briskly walked out.
He'd slept on and off all day, completely missing the rest of daylight. The rain slipped from the rooftop of the Carter mansion as he lay in his bed - alone - as usual. His head throbbed from the erratic work schedule he had been keeping. Night shift, day shift, half shift, double shift - his body no longer knew what to expect and was beginning to rebel as a result of it.
So much had been moved out of the mansion since the eldest Carters' deaths that even bare feet walking over the marble or hardwood floors echoed like the tiled chambers of a subway system. John Truman Carter the Third padded down the staircase clad in his scrub pants to the only room yet untouched: his grandfather's study. Although the rest of the house had an innate chill to it, this room held its warmth from memories of past.
Flipping on the light, Carter was enveloped in the smell of the leather bound books, of the aged parquet hardwood floor worn and water stained in spots, and antiquated hunter green silk and cotton crimson damask drapes that reached from the top of the ten foot high windows down below the large sills to where they puddled on the rustic floors. This was the room his grandfather would proudly, yet secretly, tell him was reserved for the gentlemen-folk of the house. His desk was staged properly at the opposite end of the room facing the large doorway so that the elder Carter could properly greet guests. To the right was the small mahogany bar with aged scotch and brandy still decantered. Etched Harvard Business School glasses twinkled in the glow of the recessed lighting overhead as though awaiting company. From the day he turned eighteen, his grandfather always offered him a drink when Carter came in the room. Even after his fight with his drug addiction. They never did get that part of the program. It was the thought that count.
The raised lettering and oft ragged edges of the old books felt the same as they did fifteen years ago as Carter walked down the length of the library, his hand dragging along the book ends like a child with a stick against a picket fence. Occasionally, old unbound pages peaked out of the neatly stacked manuscripts and poked the ridges of his fingers as though scolding him for soiling treasured books with his hands. In the moment it took for him to blink - just that split second - he could smell his grandfather's pipe tobacco and hear the sound that he made as he puffed in the pungent essence of smoked cherry wood. Perhaps, he thought as he stopped abruptly at the end of the bookcase, perhaps if he turned around very slowly he would even see his grandfather at the desk, pipe propped in his mouth, proudly wearing his brown smoking jacket with gold lapels, his reading glasses pushed to the end of his nose as he entranced himself in one of his treasured books. Perhaps. But he knew.
The room had barely been touched since the old man suffered a heart attack while on the riding lawn mower. Carter chuckled as he pictured his grandfather making off with the John Deere as the Spanish speaking gardener scolded him in the chase, all to his grandmother's apparent chagrin, although she secretly delighted in her husband's occasional antics with the mower. That is, until that last day.
"At least you died having fun," Carter remarked to the portrait of the elder hanging over the grand fireplace.
One book sitting on the corner of the desk, properly dusted weekly since that day, caught Carter's eye. A book of quotations - a favorite. Their little game he had grown up with, one reciting quotations while trying to stump the other as he guessed the attribution, was not just a way to pass the time. The book was worn, pages turned down at the corner of much loved or maybe mysterious quotes. Time was taken to carefully study the words of those who had made history. And a few chapters broken at the binding with overuse and appreciation.
Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, British Statesman, Prime Minister
The book fell open to Churchill's small section - his grandfather's favorite. One entry in particular was underlined and starred at each end:
I am ready to meet my maker, but whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
That was one quote that never made it into the game, but it gave Carter a smile nonetheless. Inserted into pages of the book a piece of folded paper fell out onto the desk. Before putting it back, Carter read the top of the paper, and in his grandfather's elegant penmanship was:
Quotes, Pres. Jimmy Carter
Same name
Democrat, but still worthy
Then:
America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America -Pres. Carter
The man was livid when his grandson registered in the Democratic party. He even halted the game for a year while he adjusted to the new quirk of the family, but it eventually resumed. For old time sake, Carter closed the book, then opened to a random page and pointed. Opening his eyes he read the quote aloud, as he would have done had his grandfather been sitting across from him.
Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death. -Jean Jacques Rousseau 1712-1778, Swiss Political Philosopher, Educationist, Essayist
He needed to talk to someone, anyone.
The house phone rang - he let it go. He'd heard it ring all day and ignored it even though he knew the staff was off. His cell phone was his lifeline to the world, and even that he ignored most of the time. It was rare to hear the Carter Mansion's phone ring, and although it wasn't out of the question for the few remaining staff to receive calls, it was rare for them to be called at the main house.
"Dr. John," Emily, the cook, spoke as she walked into the unusually occupied library wrapped in her bathrobe, "the telephone is for you."
"Who is it?"
"I don't know. Wouldn't give a name. Want me to take a message?"
"No, I'll take it in here." He waited for her to leave before he reached behind where he was sitting on top of the desk and picked up the old fashioned, corded phone. "Hello, this is John Carter." He suspected it to be one of the annoying attorneys from the Foundation. Either that or that bean counter, Norman Tyson.
"Hey, it's me."
Startled, Carter dropped the book back on to the desk and stood up. This was the last person he thought would call him.
Three glasses. All three lined up in front of him. All filled about a quarter of the way with deep, rich, choking Loza - his favorite Croatian grappa. Luka leaned on his kitchen island countertop and looked at the trio very closely before downing each successively - one, two, three - slapping each glass back onto the granite counter before picking up the next. She hadn't called. He checked and re-checked his voice mail. Even left his door wide open just in case. How was it that he fell for such strong women?
Three more. Pour one, pour two, pour three. Line them up. Nice and straight. Now, these three, he thought, need to be dedicated to women.
"Are you just beginning?" Carter was leaning against the door frame watching Luka methodically pour his booze into the tumblers one at a time. "Or has this been going on for a while?"
He leaned over the glasses again, this time raising only his eyes darkly towards Carter. "I'm drinking to the women in my life who have left me. Perhaps you should join me," he slurred. "Danijella. My first love. Mother of my children. Stolen by the bombs of war." Luka closed his eyes in reverence before lifting his glass and downing it with ease.
Carter stepped inside the apartment and removed his jacket knowing he'd be staying a while. Luka took his now empty glass and filled it again, pushing it across the counter towards Carter who ignored the offer.
"Second - Abby. She thought of you while I made love to her. But you knew that." Spilling a drop down his chin, Luka, again, comfortably poured the second shot down his throat.
"Nicole - Let's not forget her. Did she have a miscarriage? An abortion? I'll never know. Obviously I was the last to know - or not." He didn't even taste the potent plum brandy anymore.
Carter could do nothing but be a reluctant spectator and take Luka's wounding words with the provoking and substantive effect that they were given.
"Ah - now we get to Colleen. My guess is that you were dreaming about her this morning, yes? Dreaming about how you had her at the camp while I was away after I was nearly killed. Huh?" Luka looked around and saw that his glasses were empty and reached for the half empty bottle instead, leaving Carter's untouched glass where it stood. "Well, for this we deserve a grand toast. One deserving of someone who screwed both of us. Right?"
Luka raised the bottle high above his head in jest, then took a healthy, yet sloppy gulp, as he laughed and continued on his tirade. "One who deceived better than Abby or Nicole." He walked over to where Carter had parked himself on the other side of the island, his fiery breath punctuating his words as he maliciously inched closer and closer to Carter's ear. "One who used me, but really wanted you -"
"She used both of us. Everyone." Carter's demeanor was quiet as he tried to bring rational thinking into the one sided conversation.
Luka - not hearing anything outside of his own voice - moved behind Carter, purposely hiding his face to make his words stand out with the hate that he intended in his stupor. "-who I gave my love to -" Another drink from the bottle, then in a whisper directly into Carter's ear from behind, "- who I had to kill, hmm? … to save - your - ass."
"That's enough," Carter finally announced as he reached for the bottle but was outwitted by Luka's longer and quicker arms.
"No, no. There's one left." It was almost a game-like atmosphere as he waited for Carter to guess the next toast-ee. "You know, Carter. Come on. Who was the last woman you interfered with? Time's ticking, my friend." Luka's eyes were glazed as he walked awkward circles around Carter.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Please, just sit down, Luka, I'll make some of my famously sturdy coffee."
"You really don't know?" Luka laughed and stumbled to a bar stool, sitting down next to Carter. "Tell me, what do you remember of your dream?"
"It was a memory, really. Jules - on the ground on that last day - taunting me. And then I saw that I was here, on top of you." He was uncomfortable with bringing any of that up, especially out loud. "It really doesn't matter."
"Oh, it does," Luka corrected with a bit of righteousness. "Before that. What happened before that, in your dream."
Carter shook his head, unable to - or maybe unwilling to - remember that part of his dream.
"Let me help you. Long curly hair, soft skin, succulent lips."
Carter stared ahead through the dark granite surface. "Colleen was there, yes."
"I was describing Sam."
"She… What are you getting at?"
"And in your dream… what was Colleen's role?"
"You don't want to hear this, Luka." Carter shook his head and let out a sigh as he became flustered at the thought of what Luka wanted to talk about.
"What were you and Colleen doing in your dream?"
Carter stood and adjusted his sweatshirt just to give his hands something to do. That damn glass of booze was just so close and inviting. "She was… uh, we were… I can't do this." He laughed it off nervously.
Luka simply looked up at him from his seated position on the stool and begged him with his inebriated eyes.
"That night after the ambush when Todd…," Carter paused not wanting to say the "D" word, "… and Sera was injured, when you went to Gulu with Maggie and Bob…" he had to clear his throat, then stuff those nervous hands in his pockets to keep from grabbing the glass. "I went in my room to be alone. I couldn't take it any more. The ambush, seeing that rebel again, falling from the tree, the meds, then the set-up suspicion. Luka, everyone thought I was using. Even you."
"I know," he confessed with heaviness. "Colleen was there? In your room?"
"She said she wanted to make sure I was okay. She talked… we talked… she put her arms around me when I needed it most. It had been so long since… and it just went from there."
"Went?"
"It never got as far as you think it did. Almost… but that's when I found the vial of Demerol in her pants pocket. She tried to talk her way around it and at first I believed her. She teased me, kept pulling me into her, then pushing away, but I… I couldn't."
"This morning, I think Sam must have tried to wake you, or something," Luka added, his cockiness dissipated. "When I got here you had her by the back of her neck, kissing her, not letting her go. She was scared."
Carter's eyes were wide open, his breathing more labored as he heard this for the first time. "I didn't mean to… Oh God, I thought that Jules… I mean in my dream Jules was watching us, and…"
"It's okay, John."
"No," Carter yelled, disgusted with himself, "it's not okay." Almost without thinking, Carter reached for the glass and guided it to his face. It was reflex - a weak moment. If he could just dull it…
"Stop," Luka shouted as he grabbed the glass of grappa away from Carter, not wanting to be the cause of a relapse. But his lack of coordination at that point did little to control the glass of liquor which spilled in its entirety down the front of Luka's shirt. The bottle, however, remained upright in his other hand and Luka took the opportunity to quench his own despair.
"Alright, that's enough," Carter announced as he grabbed the bottle and then the empty glass from Luka's other hand. "This is crazy. We are sitting on this huge secret that possibly had global implications. Promised a high ranking CIA official that we would never tell anyone. It's a secret that you'd think would be easy to keep. I mean, who wants to talk about that? But it's killing us, Luka. Because the more we keep it inside, the more those things that came before it haunts us. Shit. Luka, are you even coherent?"
"Yes, yes," he moaned annoyed at Carter's mothering. "I've been fine with what happened. I mean, it stays put -"
"Really? Good for you -"
" - I just don't want to lose Sam."
"Look, someone called me tonight. Someone I hadn't talked to in a long time, and it made me realize how fragile the tie is between two people." He paused to see if Luka was paying attention and to also monitor the man's fists, should this just not be the time for lectures. "It only takes one thing to break that tie and then you get into that 'regret' thing that Joseph kindly reminded us lasts forever." He was speaking as a friend now, while regretting his own past actions, or inactions. "Don't do something or say something because of me to Sam that you'll regret." Carter leaned across the kitchen island and put the grappa and empty glass in the small prep sink out of Luka's reach. "Stay there. I'll go get you a clean shirt." Dodging the furniture in the living area, Carter disappeared into Luka's bedroom.
His feet propped up on the top rung of the bar stool, Luka leaned forward and rested his head in his hands. Now it was taking hold of him. He could drink half a bottle of grappa and feel as fresh as a daisy before it hit him all at once, or so he thought. He didn't dare sit up straight for fear he'd topple off the stool. So he remained stationary, looking rather pathetic, he assumed.
"Is this a private party?"
She stood in the doorway, her strawberry blond locks framing her pretty face. Pretty - that's the best word Luka could think of to describe Sam. Pretty. Day or night, before or after a shift, but especially as she slept.
"Hi." That's all he could muster.
Sam walked over to Luka and took advantage of the height balance the stool gave her. She was face to face with him, taking in his tired, haggard look… not to mention potent aroma. "Hope you don't plan on lighting any matches in here. God," she looked in the sink and took out the bottle, sniffing just once at the contents and wrinkling her brow, "it's like kerosene."
"It's grappa. Just a little Croatian cocktail."
"Moonshine, maybe." She cupped his face with her hands and looked into his dark, haunting eyes before drawing him lovingly into her neck. "I am so sorry, Luka. I know things have been difficult for you. I should have been here. But I didn't think you'd resort to drinking alone." Sam put her hand on his soaked shirt. "Let's get you cleaned up."
"There are a lot of things I'll do for you, Luka, but your smelly laundry is not one of them."
Sam's ears perked up as she heard the faceless man's voice emanating from Luka's bedroom.
"I think this Bulls shirt is clean. Look, please promise me that you won't assume that I made a habit of doing things with Colleen behind your back. Just ask me… before…" Carter had finally made it into the large living area, t-shirt in hand, to see Sam pulling away from Luka.
"Ask you what?" Sam walked backwards a comfortable two steps as she took in the scene. "I can't do this anymore, Luka."
Carter stood back, still holding the shirt, well away from the action, not sure what he should do.
"Do what?" Luka mumbled in between sighs. He knew.
"I can't have a meaningful relationship with you that comes second to your little secrets with Carter."
"You - don't - know," Luka erupted, slamming his hand on the counter and unsteadily getting to his feet.
"What's going on in here?" A smaller voice came from the doorway, one that had been hiding by virtue of vertical deficiency.