Night Games Pt. 16

"I woke up this morning and I fell out of bed. Trouble waiting to happen.

Shoulda quit while I was ahead. Trouble waiting to happen.

I turned on the news to the third world war. Opened up the paper to World War IV.

Just when I thought it was safe to be bored. Trouble waiting to happen.

Trouble waiting to happen."

-Warren Zevon, "Trouble Waiting To Happen"

*

Tracy Baker, Morris Sinclair, and Gordon Walker returned to the yacht that did not actually belong to Franz Hauber, but their group considered it his for the moment. They stumbled, high off adrenaline, into the lounge where the others sat waiting.

"This is a positive sign." Oscar Dodge said to the looks on their faces.

"It is!" Tracy exclaimed. "They fucking got it!"

Alice Mei stood up.

"And the door?"

"All your stuff worked!" Gordon assured her. "Only one of the Ultimados made it through the gas to attack us." He lowered his tone and grumbled the last part. "Who I could've taken."

"We needed to get out of there." Morris assured him, needing a drink. He got both of them beers. "The others were starting to come down after him. They shot at us!"

"But everyone's all right?" Spencer Malone, still sitting at his keyboard, asked.

"Everyone's fine." Tracy said. "And we've got this!"

She held aloft the item she'd really brought them to San Finzione to steal. The emerald teardrop, two carats for her second birthday as Contessa Helena de San Finzione, in a silver housing on a gold chain. The clasp was broken from Morris grabbing it from around the neck of La Contessa. It twinkled in the light. Tracy stared at it a few seconds longer than the others were comfortable with before seeming to remember where she was and coming back to them.

The rest of the team applauded. Tracy looked around the room at them. Oscar smiled that "I knew you could do it, kid" smile of his at her. Morris picked up the bag he'd set down when they came in and hefted it over to the coffee table.

"Picked up a little bonus for everyone, too." He proclaimed, unzipping the bag, and dumping €300000 onto the table. The group cheered as he took a stack of bills and tossed it to Franz Hauber, who'd been forgiven by the others since earlier.

Tracy thought that looked fun and picked up a stack to toss to someone else. That was when her eyes set on something else amidst the money. She absently tossed the cash to someone and picked it up. It was an envelope with a wax seal on the back. Tracy turned it over and read the words written in Italian on the front. "To be opened only in the event of my death."

Her eyebrow raised. Followed by her interest.

"Have fun for a bit without me." She told the rest of them. "Franz, maybe it's time to bring out that cocaine. Might try a bit myself. Back in a tick."

She took the envelope and the necklace down to her room. Tracy looked in the mirror and placed the pendant around her neck. She had to hold it in place until she could fix the clasp. She admired it on herself for a time, then draped it over her vision board. That vision was now fulfilled but was immediately replaced by another. She held the envelope in both hands and slowly turned it over.

She'd done what she set out to do: get one over on the greatest criminal of them all. La Contessa was probably only now recovering from the gas and realizing what had been taken. And having it dawn on her that she was beaten. But Tracy had something else now. She had a secret of hers. The envelope was too thick to contain only one page. This felt like something important.

Tracy realized she'd been rotating the envelope and gazing at it for almost a minute and broke the seal. She turned it upside-down and dumped the contents onto the bed. Two birth certificates and some other documentation fell out. Landing on top of the pile was a hand-written letter.

She skimmed the other documents. Blood test results or some such. But she could derive their meaning from their presence with the other papers. These concerned the parentage of her sons.

Tracy picked up the letter and began to read.

* * *

You're reading this. So, either I'm dead or you're someone with whom I'll be having an intense conversation soon. We'll talk then. If I am dead, the person likeliest to have opened this is Maria, and I've told you everything I need to elsewhere, Dearest One. This is for the rest of them.

I hope that I have done my job for San Finzione well. If not well enough to please The People, well enough to please Vincenzo. I don't pretend to know what comes after this life. I don't know what he'll have to say about how I've cared for his country until Maria's time. I don't even know if he'll be too busy with Sofia to even care about me or the things I've done in the name of preserving his legacy. But thoughts like those are not what this letter is about, nor why you opened it.

By now, the world has been introduced to a man named Troilus Equals. Call him Troy, he prefers that. His name is, I'm certain, being said on the news and in gossip rags at this moment. I can assure you that any claims he has made about me, however wild, are completely true. But the one I'm writing to address now is the most pressing and the reason his name would be in the news: His claim that he is the father of my sons. I can absolutely confirm this, and the documents and medical records included with this letter will prove it.

You haven't heard of him before now because I have gone to great lengths, financial and otherwise, to make certain that you have not. He is a private man and the prospect of fame terrifies him. I have, of course, supported the artwork of his wife, Julie Equals, whose talents I will endorse as long as I am able. Yes, he is married and was at the time we conceived the boys. That will be explained as well. I feel that I cannot do so adequately without telling you first who Troy is to me.

I met Troilus Medina at the age of five. Books have been written about my life, so you are aware of some of this. How the respectable families in our neighborhood were wary of the drunken, violent, habitual thief and his future murder victim wife. So, the other children weren't allowed to play with That Parker Girl from The Bad Family at The End of The Street. That experience and dealing with that reputation at school made me wary of passing my own crimes along to my sons, and I detest alcohol to this day. If my sons never saw their mother drunk, I will consider myself to have been a successful parent.

What I've tried to keep out of things is that there were two families who lived side-by-side at the opposite end of the street from the Parkers: The Andrews family and the Medinas. Their children had been born a week apart and had been best friends ever since.

You would think that a third child introduced into that mix would be the odd one out. That the girl who'd known nothing but abuse and neglect would fail to find acceptance here as well and have to play by herself while the two best friends did whatever until her mother sobered up enough to remember that she had a daughter and came stumbling back for her. Leaving the other two was always traumatic because I knew what was waiting for me at home.

But while I was there, they didn't exclude me. I participated in their fun and enjoyed it and enjoyed them. It was freedom from a world where I'd come to accept that sometimes Mommy just throws up on herself and Daddy will just decide to start yelling at you and hit you. And when I got frightened enough to run from my family, those dear friends at the end of the street were always there.

I have few memories of Troy's parents. They would die in an automobile accident a short few years later. I remember them being nice people. Troy was already the most important man in my life when I met his great-grandfather. If you've read the biographies, or if you've just taken a stroll around San Finzione, you've heard about Byroni Medina and how important he was to me. I've talked about the old man who, at a time in his life when his primary concerns should have been his garden and enjoying the rec room he'd built in the garage, saw a little girl whose home was a place to be fled and took her in.

You probably know how he fought Wade Parker in the courts and sometimes in the streets to adopt me away from the man who is the reason I have never known my older sister. Those events are a matter of public record. As well as the ruling that, by the time Wade was dead and no one stood in the way, Propappou was too old to take care of me. I would have happily spent the rest of my life taking care of him, the man I regarded as my real father. The one who taught me that there was goodness in the world. Passing mention is made in one of my biographies of my being a friend of his great-grandson. And the fact that it is only passing is entirely due to my influence.

What the book won't tell you is that Troy was the first boy I ever loved. That the boy who was the first man to show me that kindness existed was the one whom I gave my heart to. If you recall when the boys were born, Maria made a joke about Byroni being her grandfather. She was referencing conversations Troy and I would have in our youth, where we'd joke about how we'd carry on our relationship once Propappou adopted me, and I'd technically be Troy's great aunt.

And when that didn't happen, I continued to call myself Helena Medina. Because it seemed a foregone conclusion that, when we were old enough to be married, we would, and I would be a part of Troy and Propappou's family that way. What caused me to give up that dream was the knowledge that there was someone else whom we both loved and whose claim on his heart was, I thought at the time, greater than mine. Yes, there was always another woman in our lives, and she was as important to both of us as we were to each other. And if she's followed my instructions, Julie Equals is already writing the tell-all book that I have told her to go ahead and cash in on my death with. MANY of the things she says will be true. Ask Troy if there's any confusion. If Julie says one thing about me and Troy says another, Troy's right.

I thought that after Troy and I were done, there would never be another man like him. That the best possible thing that could ever have happened to me already did. I didn't have many friends besides those two. When I overheard adults besides Propappou and Julie's parents talking about me, the women said I'd grow up to be just like Marion Parker. An abuse victim in denial whose primary concerns were hiding her cuts and bruises and trying to play off the fact that her purse smells like wine because the Franzia bag inside sprung a leak. And who would be beaten to death by the only man who'd accept a trainwreck like her.

The men, on the other hand, whispered about how hot I'd be once I was "old enough," and said that I'd either be a sex worker or a piece of shit criminal like Wade Parker. Of course, they used less-kind phrases than "sex worker." And the "old enough" part was optional. Of the choices that seemed before me, "criminal" was the least distasteful, so that was the one I pursued. And when it was time to leave high school, I encouraged Julie to come see Europe with me, figuring that the time apart would make Julie and Troy see how much they needed each other.

It would take a few years and college for that plan to work. And it was during Julie and my time partying across The Continent that something I thought would never happen happened a second time. That I would meet a man who would see more in me than I did in myself and wanted to be my husband.

I would only have Vincenzo for two and a half years. I would have loved to produce an heir for him. I would love for there to be more of the man in the world than what I see in Maria every day. Vincenzo spent years thinking that it would be up to her to fill this palace with life again. And, for a long time, so did I.

I reconnected with my dearest friends when they got married, although that might be the wrong word to use. The three of us had sworn long ago that if any of us needed to talk, whatever was going on between us would be cast aside and we'd be there for each other. They were always a phone call away, but I thought their happiness required the sacrifice of my own. So, it wasn't until they got married and came to San Finzione that I learned that their love had never diminished and had room for me all along. I could never choose between the two of them. I consider myself fortunate that I did not have to.

When a man stabbed me, they ran across the globe to be at my side. They were the first faces I saw what I came out of surgery. And when I needed help after that, they were there. Those experiences caused me to realize that I couldn't dump the problem of preserving the royal line on Maria. One of us needed to produce an heir, and I wasn't going to assign her the task of becoming a mother to make it happen. It had to be me. Vincenzo was gone, so when I thought about which living man I would want to be the father of my child, there was only one answer. I again consider myself fortunate that the love between the three of us is so great that they both readily agreed.

None of us imagined that he would give me two sons to name after both of the other men that I have loved in my life. For years, my priority was myself. Then it was San Finzione. And now it is them. I know that my death has left San Finzione in Maria's hands, and it could be in none safer. There will always be people who claim that I stole this country. That I deliberately murdered my husband for his throne. I have merely been keeping it safe for Maria until she was ready. And now I have two more people to keep it safe for.

But they are people who need to be kept safe themselves. That is why it is my wish that full parental rights be given to Troy and Julie Equals. I know the children will be raised in a loving environment and that their parents will teach them the values they will need to be good rulers one day. Yes, parents. Julie is, in a very real way, also their mother. There is someone else whom I consider one of their parents as well, but I'll let that person decide their own level of involvement in things.

As for the boys themselves, my final words to them are recorded elsewhere. But the question of who should take care of them after I am gone has been answered.

This, I do decree as Contessa and as their mother,

Contessa Helena de San Finzione

* * *

Tracy returned to the lounge, holding the pendant in her hand. Others in the group had decided that now was the time to celebrate and were partaking in Franz's cocaine. Oscar looked up from the crossword puzzle he'd been doing rather than joining the others and examined Tracy's face. The rest of the group saw him staring expectantly at her in silence and turned as well.

The look on Tracy's face was that of someone who'd found Enlightenment. Someone who'd been expecting one thing out of this job and got something unexpected, and therefore, better.

"I know who the father of her sons is." She told the group.

There was silence for a moment. Alice broke it.

"Tracy, that's big. Almost as big as the Star. Any news outlet would pay you a fortune for that information."

"Fuck real news!" Spencer pointed out. "The tabloids will pay far more!"

"Hell, fuck the tabloids." Walker added. "SHE'LL pay you MUCH more to NOT tell them! This is dirt, Tracy."

"I know it is." She told them softly. "And that's why I'm going to give it back."

Another silence fell over the room. This time, Oscar was the one who spoke first.

"You're not going to try to break in again and put it back, are you?"

"What?" Tracy asked. "Of course not. I'm not stupid. I'll drop it in the post. 1 Strada Al Castillo, easy enough address to remember."

"Maybe that's for the best." Morris advised. "You've proven your point. She's already going to be looking for us. Pissing her off further sounds like a bad idea."

"You're absolutely right. I'll make the exchange..." She checked the time. It was almost 1 AM. "Later tonight. Then we sail away from San Finzione, richer and with a story to tell."

Everyone applauded. Tracy smiled and allowed herself a little bow.

"All right, it's time for some fun, everyone. What the hell, the job's done. Cut me a line too, Franz."

He did so.

* * *

Three cars were parked side by side at the San Finzione docks. A silver 1964 Aston Martin DBV and a 1960 Lotus Seven. On the other side of the Lotus, an Army staff car was parked, the occupants except for the driver missing. Helen and her friends watched from the two cars as members of La Squadra de Ultimados piled out of an APC and faded into the darkness.

Julie Equals rolled down the passenger window of the Aston Martin and leaned out to speak to Contessa Helena de San Finzione, who was sitting in the passenger seat of the Lotus, having a smoke. Nigel Mander sat next to her in the driver's seat and Julie had to lean to the side to see her past him.

"So, when are we doing this?" She asked Helen.

"They moved at eleven, we'll move at one. Are you all sure you want to do this?"

Troy Equals leaned forward so that he could be seen behind his wife and nodded. In the back seat, Susan Bailey did the same.

"Oh, fuck yeah!" Julie agreed.

"You said they weren't armed with anything besides that weird gun they shot you with." Susan told the others. "And that'll be occupied."

Generalissimo Hernando Ramirez and Supervisor Luc Allaine walked away from the APC and returned to the others from briefing the Ultimados.

"They are moving into position." He informed Helen. "I know that there is nothing I can do to persuade La Contessa not to come along. Are you certain you want your friends to be involved?"

She took a drag and responded.

"We want them all alive, and now you have four people who can command them to surrender instead of just me. And I already told Julie she could have Walker, so I'd just be a bad hostess now if I didn't provide her with some entertainment. And my birthday's in two days, there's going to be fireworks. We're just starting a little early." With that, she picked up her phone and called Ammiraglio Antonio Bagglia, admiral of San Finzione's Navy. "We ready, Antonio?"

"Si, Contessa." The Ammiraglio assured her. "The Avanti is in position and awaiting your order."

Helen got out of the car. Mander and her friends did the same. She looked at the time.

"About to strike one... now."

* * *

Back on board the yacht, the party was in full swing. Oscar had found that the owners of the yacht had a stereo system with some CDs of music from the 1980s. Was (Not Was)'s "Walk The Dinosaur" came from the speakers. Franz and Spencer were the only ones of the younger group who recognized the song and were singing along while Franz cut Spencer a line. Tracy and Alice danced along to the old tune.

The watch that Gordon wore beeped, indicating that it was now 1:00 AM. He and Morris got up from their stools at the bar. Gordon walked over to the case for the Byrna, which was still open on the coffee table. He picked up the extra magazine, walked over to one of the doors leading out of the lounge and onto the deck of the boat, and reloaded the weapon. He stood blocking the door and pointed it at the others.

On the opposite side of the room, Morris smashed his beer bottle and stood guarding the other door. Both men looked at each other with confused faces but continued to stand at their posts.

Tracy looked up from dancing and saw the weapon pointed at her. She stopped moving and nudged Alice, who noticed and did the same. Over at the stereo, Oscar turned off the music.

"Gordon?" Tracy asked, her criminal instincts causing her to check the other door out and seeing Morris standing there and brandishing a broken bottle. "Morris? What's this about?"