Chapter 14 #2
She turned to Terri and smiled, “Perchance we can both get some tonight.”
Soon they were off, driving over the bridge in Marie’s horseless carriage...a pick-me-up.
“Let’s make a pact,” Terri said, “We’re gonna paint the town red, or die trying.”
Britta glanced around the vehicle. Not a brush or container of paint in sight. With a sigh, she wondered if she would ever understand this strange country.
MEMO
From: Captain Lenore Feldman
To: Commander Ian MacLean
Subject: WEALS
Provide Tampax dispensers and air fresheners in all toilet facilities.
His son, the sex advisor...
Zach was not a happy camper.
It was Friday night, but was he out on a hot date, or at least out trolling for a hot date?
Nope. He was sitting in an Italian restaurant in San Diego with his son, the sulker; his father, the celebrity show-off; his father’s girlfriend Bridget, the dumb twit; and enough security guards to give the leader of a small nation heartburn.
“Yoo-hoo, Doctor Bratton!” a woman three tables over called out.
Bridget giggled...for about the hundredth time, and squirmed in her seat, which was a feat in itself considering how tight her red silk slip dress was with the deep scooped neck.
His father flashed his twenty-thousand-dollar toothy smile and gave a little Hollywood wave to his fan at the other table.
Meanwhile, Zach’s security squad, along with his Dad’s, “circled the wagons”...uh tables...a little tighter. What a great way to have a nice quiet dinner with family! Not!
People thought his dad really was the doctor from the soap Light in the Storm, a part he’d been playing for fifteen years.
Hell, he probably did consider himself that toney doctor from some daytime dynasty.
He certainly dressed the part. Tweed sport coat with leather elbow patches.
A sissy white scarf wrapped casually around his neck; he’d probably seen Cary Grant wear one.
A hairstyle with just the right sprinkling of gray at the temples; it had probably cost five hundred dollars, or more. And a perpetual sun tan, of course.
A woman had tried to kidnap his father five years ago, believing Doctor Bratton could cure her husband of Alzheimer’s.
Thus, his father always traveled with some well-dressed grunts who looked like they were straight out of The Godfather, where his security detail resembled special forces guys, which they probably had been at one time.
His father employed his guards for show as much as safety.
He’d certainly gotten a pigload of publicity over the kidnapping episode.
Meanwhile, his dad was talking to Bridget about an upcoming storyline where he would be doing a liver transplant on his wife who had been in a coma for five years after having been cloned into her own twin sister.
Bridget giggled.
His father smiled.
Sammy slouched and muttered something about assholes.
Zach wasn’t exactly sure who he was referring to, and wasn’t about to ask.
Just then, he noticed that Sammy was wearing as much spaghetti sauce as he’d left on his plate.
Dipping a napkin in a glass of water, he proceeded to put Sammy in a neck hold and wipe his mouth and nose and chin.
With all the squirming, the napkin slipped from his hands and floated to the floor.
Bridget bent down to pick it up, and he and his son...five going on twenty-five...got a gander at a set of world class breasts. She gave new meaning to cleavage.
“Behave yourself,” he whispered to Sammy, who he could tell was about to say something inappropriate.
Just in case, Zach clapped a hand over the kid’s mouth.
Lips twitched on a couple of the guards.
Luckily, Bridget was talking to his dad and didn’t notice the two of them.
“Uncle Dan said he would bring me a new video game,” Sammy whined to him once he took his hand off his mouht.
“I know he did, but he was held up. He might not be able to come at all this weekend.”
Sammy’s eyes teared up. The least little disappointment seemed to set him off these days. He was getting spoiled, but it was hard not to spoil a kid who, until recently, had nothing.
“I can get you a video game,” he offered. “We can stop on the way home.”
Sammy’s blue eyes, which matched his own, lit up. No more sulks. “No Dora the Explorer.”
“Okay. But no blood and guts either.”
“Oh, I forgot. I got a little present for you, Sammy,” Bridget said, laying a square box on the table.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Zach said.
“I wanted to, but, really, I just happened to see them in one of those Rodeo Drive boutiques, and they screamed Sammy to me.”
Sammy was giving the box the evil eye. From a kid point of view, square flat box usually meant clothing.
Opening the box hesitantly...as if a snake might pop out—or clothing...he removed the tissue. Then he and Sammy stared incredulously at the tiny briefs with “Hot Shot” imprinted on the butt and flames all over the black background.
“How come everyone always gives me underpants? Do I smell?” Sammy asked Zach.
“No, you don’t smell. At least not all the time,” he told him, then turned to Bridget. “Thanks, Bridget, that was really nice of you.”
He squeezed Sammy’s hand under the table till he, too, thanked Bridget for the “really cool ass-covers.”
Just then, Danny, with perfect timing, plowed his way through the Odd Squad. “Dad, sorry I’m late. There was a mother of a traffic jam on the freeway. Oops, sorry for the language, Sammy old man.” He squeezed Dad’s shoulder, then leaned down to kiss Bridget on the cheek. “Hey, Bridge!”
In that blink of a second, Zach noticed Danny noticing Bridget’s breasts. That was confirmed when Danny looked his way and winked.
Bridget just giggled.
His dad beamed, pleased as always to have his two sons with him, like a familial entourage.
And Sammy was happy as a hog in a mudhole now that Danny was here. He probably figured Danny would buy him any kind of video game he wanted.
“Boys,” his father started, “I have a really good idea, which should solve all our problems.”
They waited as the old man paused dramatically.
“I think we should have a family compound. Like the Kennedys used to. Stone fences. Guard dogs. The works. That way no bad guys...or loony women...could enter. What do you think?”
“Cool!” Sammy said. He didn’t know what a compound was, but he liked dogs.
“Maybe you could build a moat, too,” Zach offered.
“That’s a thought,” his dad said, not getting the sarcasm.
“Here’s a newsflash, dad,” Danny said, barely stifling a laugh, “We are not the Kennedys. There are only four of us.”
“And your mother and your grandfather and grandmother.”
“Oh, that’ll happen.” Zach couldn’t believe he was even discussing this ludicrous idea. “Remember the last time Mom was in the same room with you, Dad?”
“Hmpfh! It’s about time Lillian got over herself.”
“Remember to tell her that next time you see her,” Danny suggested.
“We’re not having a compound,” Zach said.
The idea of being locked up anywhere with his father and his bimbo du jour made his skin crawl.
One time, he’d stayed at his father’s Hollywood pad and heard him making loud sex through the thin bedroom walls.
Yeech! “Eventually, this situation with Arsallah will be resolved, and we can go back to living normally.”
Sammy peered up at him with a mixture of hope and disbelief.
“So, pipsqueak, I’m starving.” Danny poked Sammy in the arm.
“Me, too,” Sammy replied.
“You just ate a pound of pasta,” Zach pointed out.
“So? I’m growin’. I need lotsa food.”
“What say we go over to Pizza Pizza for a few slices and a game of pinball?” Danny suggested.
“Cool!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! You can’t go out in public without a guard detail.”
“Sammy and I will let them hold all our winnings,” Danny said. “Last time we got five hundred tokens.”
“And only spent fifty dollars,” Zach pointed out.
“What’s your point?”
“And what’s with the you and Sammy business? What am I? A potted plant?”
“A pretty potted plant. Jeesh, are those leather pants you’re wearing? I didn’t think anyone other than rock stars and gay men wore leather.” Danny smiled at him.
“They’re faux leather, and they’re the latest style.”
“I have a pair,” his father said.
Forget faux leather—that was a designer faux pax he and Danny could not imagine, as evidenced by their exchange of horrified looks.
“Anyhow, Sammy and I are giving you a break,” Danny continued. “Go out and take a breather. Drink a beer. Relax.” He checked his watch and added, “I give you five hours before curfew, big boy.”
“I don’t know.”
“This is the last time I’ll be able to help out for a while,” Danny said. “My leave is over tomorrow.”
“Take him up on the offer,” his dad advised. “He can take two of my guards with him. You need some free time, son.”
“I think you should go find Britta and boink her a bunch of times,” Sammy said around a mouthful of garlic bread.
The entire table went silent.
Finally, Zach choked out, “I beg your pardon?”
“What? Why’s everyone starin’ at me? You and me need someone to take care of us, Dad.”
Zach’s heart lurched. It was the first time he’d heard Sammy call him Dad.
“You’re grouchy all the time, and Britta tells good bedtime stories, and she’s nice-looking, even if she is big and talks funny.” Sammy was on a roll. “And Uncle Dan says the best way to make a woman fall for you is to boink her till her eyeballs roll.”
His father stopped chewing his chicken cacciatore.
Bridget giggled.
Danny grinned shamelessly.
“Oh. My. God!” He wondered with hysterical irrelevance if Sammy even knew what boinking was.
And soon found out.
Leaning in close to Zach’s ear, Sammy told him, “Boinking is lotsa yucky kissin’.”
Everyone turned to stare at Danny, who shrugged. “From the mouths of babes.”