Someone to Watch Over Me

Chapter 15

Author's Note: This is the final chapter of my last 77 Sunset Strip story. If you are interested in my original content writings please send me a private message.

Stu was in the new office three months before he hired a secretary. It had become a matter of necessity; he needed someone to keep up with the paperwork that he was rapidly falling behind on. Myrna Stone had everything a man could want in a secretary – she took dictation, typed 60 words a minute, and was a beautiful woman. She was bright and funny, and relatively cheap.

The business continued to grow, and Stu had so much work that he began thinking about what it would be like to have a partner. It certainly would be nice to keep up the steady flow of money, and there were only so many hours in the day. Stuart found himself trying to do three or four things at once, and he knew he was going to need help soon.

Then there was his personal life. He dated regularly but resisted getting heavily involved with any one woman. His experience with Connie in New York and the discouraging view he'd developed about marriage were the biggest factors. And then there was his mother and father – the marriage that existed between them practically sealed the deal. He wasn't ever going to get into a relationship that he couldn't quickly get out of.

He visited with his mother on a regular basis but rarely saw his father. They were cordial to each other, at best, but there was no love, no warmth between the father and son. Then one day he received a phone call he wasn't expecting. Myrna came hurrying into his office with a stricken look on her face. "Mr. Bailey, there's a call for you."

"Why didn't you just buzz it through?" Stu asked.

"Because he's never called before, and I didn't know if you would want to speak to him."

"Gracious, Myrna, don't be so mysterious. Who is it?" Stuart was intrigued, just who could this caller be that had so rattled his secretary?

"It's Mr. Bailey, sir. I mean, he identified himself as your father," Myrna told him.

Stu's face remained impassive. "Yes, put him through, please." What had happened? Was there something wrong with his mother? Or Elizabeth? Stu picked up the call. "Stuart Bailey."

"Uh, Stuart, it's George. I mean, your father."

"Yes, father, what can I do for you?" Stu did his best to keep his voice steady. Now was no time to give in to the nerves he felt every time he talked to . . . George.

"I'd like . . . I'd like to come talk to you. And see your office. Helen tells me it's quite something."

"You want to see . . . my office?" Stu asked guardedly.

"Yes, I'd like to do that. And to see you, of course."

"To see . . . me?"

"Yes, Stuart. To see you. You are my son, after all."

"Um, that's alright, I suppose. But if you're coming here to denigrate my office or my business, I won't have it. Is that clear?" If this visit was going to happen, it was going to happen on Stu's terms. He'd spent his adult life being cowed by his father's criticism, but he had decided 'no more.'

"Perfectly clear. That's not the reason I'm coming." Pause. "Perhaps we can go to lunch?"

"I'll see if we can work it out. When did you want to come?"

"Tomorrow."

"Just a minute. I'll check to see if I have an appointment." He put the line on hold. "Myrna," he called, "do I have any appointments tomorrow?"

She brought in the appointment book. "No, sir, tomorrow is free and clear. But you're tied up the rest of the week."

"Alright, I'm available tomorrow. What time?" Stu questioned. He couldn't believe he was going to do this. Have lunch with his father.

"Can I come by about eleven? You can show me the office, then we can go to lunch."

"That's fine, dad. I'll see you tomorrow."

"I look forward to it, Stuart." The line went dead in his hand, and his first impulse was to call his mother. He started to dial the number, but stopped and set the phone back down in its cradle. He decided that whatever this was, it was between him and his father. And maybe it should stay that way.

XXXXXXXX

Stuart tried all morning to work on a case but had trouble making himself concentrate. At five minutes of eleven he heard the office door open, quickly followed by an exchange between Myrna and George Bailey. In just minute she came into his office. "Stuart, your father is here."

"Show him in, Myrna." Stu waited for his father to be led onto his office, staying seated at his desk. His father extended his hand to shake, and Stuart took it, somewhat reluctantly. The grip was as strong as ever, but there was something in his eyes that Stu wasn't familiar with. Disdain, envy, pride, perhaps? Most certainly not. George looked around the office and smiled.

"Most impressive, Stuart. Most impressive. And this is all yours?"

"Yes t's all mine. What did you expect?"

Myrna closed the office door, and George sat down. "What about her?" he questioned, no doubt in reference to Myrna.

"Myrna is a lovely woman and a damn good secretary. And that's all she is. Why did you come here? To grill me about my love life?"

His father played with the brim of his hat and looked down at it. "No, I didn't come to discuss your love life. I came to go to lunch with my son. Can we do that?"

The humility was unexpected, and Stuart felt guilty about jumping down his father's throat. "Yes, we can do that." He stood and put his coat on. "Anyplace in particular you'd like to go?"

"How about Musso and Frank? I haven't been there for a while," George answered.

"Alright," Stu replied, and he headed for the door. They serve the best drinks in town, Stu thought. And I'm going to need at least one to get through this lunch. The two men walked back into the outer office, and Stu turned to his secretary. "We'll be back, Myrna."

"Whose car?" his father asked.

"Mine," Stu replied. He had a brand-new convertible and, quite frankly, he wanted to show it off. "The white convertible," he informed his father, who couldn't help but whistle. "The company leases it."

"You've done well for yourself, Stu."

Stuart wanted desperately to agree with that remark. But he kept silent – he still had no idea what his father was after. And he didn't trust the overtures already made. After all this time, why in the world did it seem like George was trying to make peace with his son?

They talked little on the way to the restaurant. Some banalities about business and the weather, but not much else. Once they were seated, Stu got his scotch; his father coffee. Their drinks came and they ordered lunch; when the waiter left, George finally spoke. "Does it take one of those to be around me?"

"It helps," Stu replied bluntly.

"Stuart, I'm sorry. I truly am. I don't know how all this got started . . . "

"I do," Stu told him quietly. "You don't really want to discuss this here, do you, dad?"

George shook his head. "No, I suppose I don't."

Father and son ate lunch in silence; when they were finished, Stu grabbed the check. His father looked at him and said, "Thank you," and no further conversation occurred until they were back at Stu's office.

"Any messages, Myrna?" Stu asked when they got there.

"Yes, sir, this one from Bill Fahey at Amalgamated Pipe. He said it's not urgent." Stu took the message and went back to his office. His father wandered in behind him, closing the door.

The lunch had not gone the way his father hoped, and he sat down in a chair in front of his son's desk. "Stuart, I came here with the intention of mending the rift between us."

After all the disagreements and verbal sparring matches he'd had with his father, Stu was naturally defensive. "Did you? Did you think one lunch and a few words of praise would do that?"

"I . . . I, uh, hoped . . . "

"After all this time? All the insults, the criticism, the derision you've leveled at me ever since I came back from New York? You think I can just forget everything you've had to say about me and my choice of career? This isn't something that can be fixed overnight, dad. It's going to take time, and a lot more than one lunch before it even approaches something resembling a good relationship. If that's what you really want."

"I want you to forgive me, Stuart, for the way I treated you. It was wrong, all wrong, and I'm sorry."

Stu took out his pipe and lit it. His father had just said the words he'd waited a long time to hear. Dare he believe them to be true? "Why, dad? Why now?"

"Because . . . I should have done it a long time ago." Almost a minute of silence went by before George said anything else. "You've done real well for yourself, Stuart, and I'm proud of you. Looking around here now, I know how wrong I was to try and make you take over the business. But it . . . it seemed like the right thing to do. And then you went off to war, and when you came back it was to New York, not California. Your mother tried to make me understand why, but I never did. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to realize that what I wanted for you were my dreams, not yours."

Something in the way his father said the words . . . he wasn't telling his son the whole truth. The detective in him wondered why. And then it came to him. Something was wrong, very wrong. "What is it, Dad? What aren't you telling me?"

George Bailey sighed. He'd been dreading this moment since he first heard the word from the doctor. "My son. You had to be a detective, didn't you?" He took a deep breath and plunged ahead. "I'm out of time, Stuart. I'm dying."

Stu almost dropped his pipe. Instead, he set it down in the ashtray and stared at his father. "Dying? You're dying? From what?" The phone rang and he ignored it. Instead, he went over to the small bar he kept in the office and poured himself a scotch. "Do you want one?" he asked his father.

"Scotch?" George asked.

"Yes."

"I would like one, yes."

Stu poured another drink and took it over to his father, then sat back down. He needed it to steady him. He hadn't expected to hear the news he'd just heard. "Cancer?" he asked.

"Yes," his father answered quietly.

"How long?"

His father drank almost half of the scotch. "A month. Maybe two."

"Does Mother know?"

"Yes."

Stu got up and looked out the window. "Dad, I'm . . . I'm sorry."

"I am too, Stuart." George chuckled in an ironic way. "This is not what I had planned for my retirement."

"What are you going to do?"

"Well, I've got a buyer for the business. That will leave your mother well set. Then . . . I'm going to try getting to know my son. If he'll let me."

Stu drained his scotch and picked up his pipe. "I . . . I think I'd like that, dad." And for the first time in a long time, he smiled at his father.

XXXXXXXX

Six months later Stu was sitting in his office reviewing the latest monthly report when the phone rang. It was Tom Winterbottom at Pacific Orient Insurance Company. There'd been a rash of stolen cars that Pacific Orient insured, and their investigators had been unable to solve the mystery of where they were going. Stu agreed to look into it, and when everything was over and the car theft ring was arrested, Stuart Bailey had met Jeff Spencer and a kid named Kookie. And none of their lives would ever be the same.

The End