Title: High Society

Chapter 5: Breakfast of Champions

Authors: Rabid Raccoons

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

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Martin Van Clefe sipped his health drink – hell, there was a stalk of celery in the Bloody Mary, wasn't there? – and regarded his old friend over the rim of the glass. J.T. looked relaxed; but then, he usually did. He had both more money and more power than God. In fact, in Hollywood, he was God – and it was wise for a working stiff attorney specializing in entertainment law to keep that sort of thing in mind. Van Clefe knew which side his bread was buttered on, and he was staying on Morrison's good side as long as he possibly could. He set his drink down on the patio table and smiled ingratiatingly at the young kitchen's helper placing a plate of scrambled eggs and hash browns in front of him. He winked, delighting in her blush. Damn, for such a young gal she was hot in bed. He enjoyed breaking her in so much that he had even talked J.T. into letting her stick around a little while.

The fiery red was creeping into her hairline by the time she managed to present J.T. with his poached eggs. Murmuring something about fetching some hot coffee, she headed back for the house without looking at Martin again. It was cute, how she thought J.T. didn't know what was going on. Amusing; especially considering the fact that J.T. had arranged it all to begin with.

Morrison pierced an egg with his fork and read Van Clefe's mind. "Martin, old friend, I do believe you're embarrassing the sweet young thing."

Martin snorted, nearly exhaling bits of hash brown all over the place. He swallowed. "Look who's talking," he teased. "Don't think I didn't see the way you were drooling over Eppes last night. If you weren't standing right next to him in some secluded corner, you were hiding behind a potted plant staring at him."

J.T. laughed easily. "Oh, dear. I had hoped I wasn't being obvious."

His friend jabbed the air with his fork to emphasize appropriate parts of his response. "Come on, J.T.! You asked us all to be on our best behavior and keep things under wraps last night. You had to know we'd be curious about your new friend."

Morrison shrugged. "Discretion is the better part of valor," he noted. "I wanted him to get comfortable before he's…exposed, so to speak." He grinned disarmingly before inserting almost an entire poached egg into his mouth.

It was Van Clefe's turn to laugh. "Oh, J.T. You're such a naughty boy!" The two men ingested more of their breakfast before Martin took another hit of his Bloody Mary.

The girl from the kitchen was back with the coffee by the time he was finished and he smacked his lips a little as he returned the glass to its place. She started, blushed again and spilled a little of the dark liquid around his china cup. She plucked the tea towel from her arm and wiped at the puddle almost frantically. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, afraid to look at her employer. "Mr. Morrison, I'm so sorry…"

Van Clefe patted her on the rear. "No harm done, Angel," he said, and J.T. smirked at him before waving the girl away.

"Leave us," he ordered, and she tripped in her haste to exit.

Martin feigned a wounded face. "Now, J.T. You said I could play with her awhile." Morrison rolled his eyes and Van Clefe turned the topic of conversation back to Charlie. "It sounds as if your little friend has been invited back?" Morrison just smiled beatifically and nodded. "I'm not sure how long we can control the natives," Martin pointed out. "The regulars are used to having a much better time at your soirees than we did last night."

J.T. turned a bored eye toward the foothills. "We can turn it up a notch," he yawned. "And you know the hard-core partiers always have the other affair, on Saturday nights. I'll see how he reacts. I'll have my sommelier stock the cellar with something really impressive; turns out Dr. Eppes has quite the palate. Fancies himself an expert, no doubt."

Van Clefe had finished his meal and now pushed the plate away. He nodded, thinking, wondering how far to go. "By all means, get him drunk first," he advised. "Perhaps you should even enhance the wine with a few well-chosen pharmaceuticals." Morrison tilted his head a little, a dead give-away that he was considering the suggestion. Martin cleared his throat and continued. "I had the girl at the office do some research. ' Google' and what-not."

J.T.'s eyes narrowed as he turned them fully upon his friend again. "Martin…" His voice was a warning.

Van Clefe held up a hand, palm-forward. "Someone needs to protect your interests, J.T. Heaven knows when you get…fixated…like this, you can't be bothered with it! Besides, I'm an entertainment lawyer, and he has a book on the Times' 'Best Sellers' list. I'm sure several of my colleagues have already approached him with offers of representation. One more attorney looking into his background won't set off any alarms, even if he figures it out."

Morrison looked somewhat mollified, but Martin could tell he wouldn't get away with much more. "Look. According to his bio, he has a brother who's a fed. I'm just asking you to be careful, J.T. – for your own good."

Morrison let his eyes roam to the horizon again. "When he's relaxed, I'll ask a few discrete questions about the brother – you say it's in his bio? Public knowledge?" Van Clefe nodded. "Then he won't be surprised that I know," J.T. mused. Suddenly he laughed loudly, and graced Martin with a brilliant smile. "That's good," he chortled, "because I have all sorts of other surprises in store!"

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Amita was at the Craftsman bright and early Saturday morning, in time for waffles. It was a pleasant meal; Charlie entertained his father and his fiancé with grand descriptions of his evening. He spoke of the wine so lovingly, he nearly waxed poetic.

Amita was trying very hard not to think about her own odd behavior the evening before. The constant work of 'not thinking' made her nervous and jumpy, and terrified that someone would notice. So, she kept plying Charlie with questions, trying to keep the focus on him. "Is that all you did all night?" she laughed now. "Hide in the wine cellar with your host and drink him out of house and home?"

Alan smiled, but added his own two cents' worth. "I certainly hope you didn't drive home intoxicated at – what – one in the morning?"

Charlie rolled his eyes, accepting a carafe of maple syrup from Amita. "The answer to both of your questions is 'No'. We had two glasses each of the Lafite, early in the evening. There was a bar out by the pool, but I stuck with water the rest of the night."

He poured some of the syrup onto his waffles and passed it on to his father.

Alan shook his head. "I still can't believe you went swimming. Surrounded by strangers – famous ones, at that. You're usually much more shy, Charlie!"

Amita swallowed a bite of her waffle and nudged Charlie with her elbow. "So what kind of party was it, exactly? A pool party?"

Charlie shrugged, reaching for his milk. "I couldn't detect a pattern. I'd need more data. Things seemed to be going on all over. J.T. has a media room, and I watched some of the rushes from his latest movie in there for a while with lots of other people. Of course, there was the usual party stuff; groups standing or sitting, laughing over drinks and talking." He gulped some milk and set the glass down, glancing at Alan. "You'll get a kick out of this: In one of the dens, or game rooms – I can't remember, the house is gigantic – anyway, there was a chess match going on!"

Alan blinked at him. "Really?"

Charlie smiled. "Not only that, I recognized one of the men playing – Trevor Miles." Alan just looked at him blankly until Charlie sighed and provided more details. "He's an actor. 'Wild Tomorrow'?"

"Wild Tomorrow?" Alan repeated. "What kind of sense does that make?"

Amita giggled. "I'm not sure I know that one either, Charlie – and it disturbs me not a little that you do!"

He looked at her and grinned sheepishly. "I don't, actually. I could have the name wrong. J.T. was telling me about him; he's built quite a reputation as a scholar and a chess player, apparently." He faced his father again and winked. "Pretty rudimentary stuff, if you ask me. I think you could take him."

The three concentrated on their meals for a few minutes until Charlie suddenly laughed. "I'm not sure I fit into this crowd. My knees turned to rubber out by the pool when a naked woman floated by."

Amita's eyes widened for a brief moment – long enough for Alan's fork to clatter to the table. "Charles Eppes! You're an engaged man, now!"

Charlie started to respond but Amita did it for him. "That doesn't mean he's dead," she said, thinking not so much of the naked starlet as she was of the fully-clothed Rastenbaum. "Or blind…" she hesitated when she felt both men looking at her and tried not to blush. She went on defensively. "I'm just saying. I think it's perfectly rational to notice when a naked woman floats by at a party." She glanced at Charlie, a little desperate, now. "I mean, if we never looked at anyone else ever again, the fact that we willingly choose each other over all of those other people wouldn't mean as much, right?"

Charlie's eyes crinkled and he smiled. "I don't know if I should be relieved that you understand or curious about whom you've been observing," he teased.

"Shut-up," Amita muttered, losing the battle of the blush and turning back to her breakfast. "See if I ever come down on your side again."

Charlie and Alan both laughed. "J.T. said that I'm welcome at his parties anytime," Charlie informed the table. "He even indicated that I could spend the night in one of the guest suites if I had too much to drink." Both Amita and his father looked at him curiously, and he stammered on before they could protest. "I know it's…quite unlike me, but I found the whole thing remarkably relaxing. I've been so tense, lately." He looked troubled, and laid his silverware down, finished with his half-eaten meal. "The whole clearance thing, and the way Don is acting about it…I didn't really know how badly I just needed some time way from it; a distraction."

Amita shot him a wary look. "You're planning to go to another party?"

"You're right," Alan noted at the same time. "Relaxation is quite unlike you." Charlie snorted and his father went on. "Perhaps you and Don should do something together on some of those free Friday evenings while Amita is working. The two of you have to find a way to get over this, you know."

Charlie answered in a sullen voice. "He's with Robin a lot. Besides," he sulked, "I'm not the one who's having a hard time adjusting to my new clearance-free status. He's the one who keeps baiting me, the one who hardly ever comes over anymore." He was warming up to the argument now, and raised his voice a little. "Where is he now?" he challenged. "When I was his personal calculator, he used to come and have breakfast with us almost every Saturday!"

Alan had heard all he cared to hear. "That's enough, Charlie," he huffed, standing to return his plate to the kitchen. "I swear, the two of you! I'm about to call Dr. Bradford myself and ask for a group rate." He picked up his silverware and stormed past his son, through the swinging door into the kitchen.

Charlie stared in a dark and silent fury at his drowning waffle. Amita had missed the whole change of tone, and most of the conversation. She was concentrating hard, trying not to think about Dr. Dane Rastenbaum's butt.

……………………………………………..

Colby speared a sausage link with his fork and shook it in Don's general direction. "This is just the kind of case that really makes me miss the Whiz Kid. He could save us a lot of time on this."

David sipped his ice water and silently rehearsed his lines. He'd let Colby talk him into this little performance on the drive from the crime scene to the diner, but now, seeing the look on Don's face, he was a little nervous about the whole thing.

Don scowled at Colby over a fistful of breakfast sandwich. "We're not talking about this," he declared. "You said we should stop for breakfast and salvage what we could of our Saturday morning off, and I agreed. I never would have if I thought you had an agenda."

Colby regarded him with innocent and hurt eyes, chewing the link and then swallowing it down. "Agenda? No, man. I was just thinking about all that encrypted information on the vic's computer, that's all." He looked to his partner for help. "Dave, don't you think connecting that with Charlie was a natural progression?"

David cleared his throat, looking at the grease beginning to congeal on his over-easy eggs. "What?" Colby kicked him hard under the table and he jerked. "Oh. Right. The computer. Wish Charlie could help us with that."

Colby rolled his eyes and Don's burned fire. "Well he can't," he spit. "He threw away his clearance and the files are encrypted; until the code is broken we don't know what level of security is required on this case."

Colby, having just shoveled a forkful of hash browns in his mouth, gulped some water and returned the glass rather forcefully to the table. "Point taken," he answered seriously. "Maybe Charlie can't help us on this one – but Don, what about the half-dozen other open cases on your desk?"

Don's eyes narrowed, and David suddenly remembered his lines. "Colby's got a point too, Don. Not all of our cases require security clearance. Hell, I remember when Charlie first started working with us; we didn't even know he had clearance, until the CDC called him in on that virus case.

Don sighed. "Et tu, Brutus?" he groaned in David's direction. He laid down his fork and slumped tiredly against the back of the booth.

Colby veered off-script, his heart going out to his friend. "It's not really the work, Don; we can handle the work." He grinned. "Maybe a little more slowly, but still."

David chimed in with his own ad lib. "Right. Actually, it's not right. Charlie never comes by the office, anymore. Even your Dad meets you there for lunch on a regular basis. You hardly ever talk about going by the house, or just…hangin', with Charlie."

Colby nodded, taking over again. "Look, if Megan was still here we'd make her do the dirty work. This kind of touchy-feely stuff was always her responsibility. Fact is she ain't here anymore; the three of us gotta have each other's backs, ya know?"

David shook his head and smiled a little. "I think he's trying to say we're just…kinda worried, about both of you," he translated. He looked fondly at his partner. "You should have stuck with the script."

Despite himself, Don laughed. "You guys had a script?" The other agents shrugged and while he tried to feel indignant that they had set him up, Don was oddly touched by their concern. "Yeah," he finally admitted, sitting up a little, "I've been hearing the same kind of thing from Dad. Even Robin thinks I'm being too hard on him."

Colby looked sadly at his empty plate. "Well there you have it," he commented. "Tell you what – ask him to join the three of us for lunch some day next week. He can let us know how things are going with Amita. You know – guy talk."

Don had been about to spill the engagement news himself, but now he stopped himself and chuckled. "I suppose there could be some news on that front," he said instead. He pushed the small saucer containing his last piece of toast toward Colby. "Knock yourself out."

Colby's entire face brightened and he smiled broadly, reaching for the toast as if he hadn't just finished his own meal and half of David's. "Thanks!" he crowed.

Don smiled fondly and sincerely at both his partners. "No," he murmured. "Thank you."

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End, Chapter 5

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A/N: Because this site deprived the loyal Raccoon fan her Monday fix -- and in rampant fear that said site shall glitch again prior to Thursday -- two chapters will be posted for your enjoyment on this day (Tues., 2-24-09)