The Sins of the Father
by Amanda Rohrssen
Chapter Five
“Agent Mallard, have you heard a word I said?” snapped Director Bonaparte, his large, slanted eyes darkening in warning.
He had assumed the role of director just yesterday. He was a stone-faced, no nonsense kind of man – the kind who took everything much too seriously and did everything by the book. Jacob already couldn’t stand him. John, however, thought very highly of him.
“Yes, sir,” Jacob replied tersely, lifting his eyes from the posh maroon carpet.
But Jacob hadn’t heard anything the new director had said beyond “You must follow these rules to the letter…”
He was too busy wondering why in hell John wouldn’t want to stay in the field. They’d talked about being partners for years, why had he chosen now to back out? Jacob wasn’t worried for himself. He knew he could hold his own and still show SHUSH a thing or two about what a real agent should be. But he’d wanted to do it with his best friend at his side.
For the first time in his charmed life, things hadn’t gone the way he’d wanted, and it bothered him. A lot. It would be the first of many disappointments.
“Mallard!”
The sharpness in the director’s tone cut into Jacob’s thoughts, and he looked up.
“I’ve looked at your file, and I’ll be completely frank with you. I don’t like you. I don’t like you at all. You’re unscrupulous, undisciplined, disrespectful, and injudicious, but for some reason former Director Hannigan and a few other high-ranking officials here see some potential in you. Don’t prove them wrong.”
“I won’t, sir,” Jacob said evenly, knowing that this would be the first of many tense conversations he would have with Director Bonaparte.
Minutes later he was strutting down the hallway, his discontent over John’s untimely transfer gone, and Director Bonaparte’s obvious disdain for him not concerning him in the least. He was like a watered-down version of Sergeant Pondrains; Jacob knew he could handle him.
The thought of his new assignment brought a self-assured grin to his youthful face. He gave a nod to a passing female agent, who ducked her head and sped up, blushing. Jacob could not wait until his shift was over. He was ready for a night on the town.
With an air of accomplishment, Jacob pushed open the swinging door to the break room and strode toward the coffee pot.
“What’s with you, Mallard? Get a good lay last night?”
“Even better, Nelson,” Jacob replied smugly. “The director’s sending a unit to Cuba to infiltrate a communist military base, and guess who he put in charge?”
“No way,” Nelson said with surprise. “You lucky son of a gun. Why Cuba?”
“SHUSH intelligence believes that the Reds are hiding some nuclear weapons in warehouses on the base. We’re going to scout it out and see if it’s true.”
“And if it is?”
Jacob grinned. “We get to blow some Commies away.”
“That’s some pretty heavy stuff.”
“I can handle it.”
“Oh, I know you can,” Nelson grinned. “I’m just worried about all those poor Cubans.”
Jacob flashed an impish smirk. “Hey, McCarthy ain’t got nothin’ on me!”
Right after his shift, Jacob headed directly to what was quickly becoming his favorite hangout: The Old Haunt.
“Not sittin’ at the bar tonight?” The bartender observed as he passed by Jacob’s booth, a dishrag in his hand as he busily cleaned a beer stein.
“Not tonight, Charlie, I’m expecting company, if you know what I mean.” He smiled suggestively.
Charlie just shook his head with a wry expression. “If you’re bringin’ in another new one, that’ll make five in the past month. What you got, some kinda new cologne just reelin’ ‘em in?”
Jacob chuckled. “Just using the old charm, Charlie. You ought to give it a try sometime. I could give you a few pointers.”
The barkeep only smiled. “We’ll see, sir. I like to keep my options open.”
“Me too, Charlie,” said Jacob as Charlie wandered back behind the bar. “Me too.”
A quarter of an hour later, Jacob downed another double bourbon and smiled suavely at what was his fifth new girlfriend of the week. Right now he was juggling about eight total. It was an outrageous amount of luck and time management on Jacob’s part that not a one of them knew about the other. Yet.
“So, Michelle…can I get you another drink?” he asked smoothly, popping a piece of ice into his mouth and letting it melt on his tongue.
The young redhead opened her mouth to answer, but Jacob’s attention had shifted to a slender hourglass-shaped figure dressed in a tight, flaming red dress. She was standing right at the end of their table and had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
Jacob inhaled a little too sharply and the piece of ice shot into the back of his throat. While he gagged helplessly, eyes bulging in quite an unsophisticated manner, Lolita folded her arms over the red satin of her dress.
“So, this is why you never call me,” she said in her thick Russian accent. “And why you avoid me in the hallways at SHUSH.”
“What?” Jacob managed to choke out once the ice had sufficiently melted and somewhat cleared his airways. “I don’t avoid you…I’ve just been busy.”
“Who’s this?” Michelle cut in, looking Lolita over with a curled lip.
“Nobody, just an old girlfriend,” Jacob said hurriedly.
“Actually, we never really broke up. After a night of lustful romance, he stopped returning my phone calls.”
Michelle’s questioning expression suddenly fell on Jacob. It felt suddenly warm in the tavern. He pulled at the collar of his shirt.
“Well, I…lost your number. That’s all.” Then he looked at Michelle imploringly. “But that was a long time ago, I’ve moved on. She means nothing to me now.”
“My number isn’t all you ‘lost’,” Lolita sneered spitefully, pulling a small black book out of her purse.
Jacob’s face instantly paled.
“Where did you get that?” The question tumbled from his bill before he could stop it.
“You left it that night in my place; you were in such a hurry to leave.” She folded her arms, a scowl marring her otherwise beautiful, flawless face. “…I wonder what would happen if all your girlfriends found out about each other…and the way you treat women.” She smiled then. A twisted, cunning smile that, had it been any other moment, would have turned Jacob on.
“What is she talking about?” Michelle pressed, her voice strained and her brows knitted.
Jacob shifted in his seat nervously, ignoring Michelle’s question in the hopes of never having to answer it. Yet he still managed to smirk and reply evenly to the Russian, “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me,” retorted Lolita with a flip of her hair. “By this time next week there won’t be a single woman in Saint Canard who will so much as bat an eyelash at you.”
He shrugged carelessly, though he was anything but. Still, he wasn’t about to back down to Lolita’s scheme. He would not be blackmailed.
“All the numbers in there are old anyway,” he lied. “None of the girls in there will care what you have to say.”
The truth of the matter was that he was still currently seeing a few of the women in that book, and a few others he’d recently broken it off with. It would be bad for the business of romance if old girlfriends were continuously popping up and harassing him for an explanation of why he hadn’t called them. Worse yet, if Lolita revealed his lack of commitment and his desire to merely sleep with as many women as possible, he knew a few old flames who would be out for blood.
Yet he remained unfettered at his core. He was confident enough that he could make new girlfriends if worse came to worse. He had a knack for sweet talk and could charm his way out of capital punishment, if the executioner happened to be a lady. He folded his arms behind his head and leaned back in the booth, looking rather like a feathery Huckleberry Finn.
Lolita scowled at him, her stony face settling into cold resolution. “We shall see.”
His coal black eyes followed her out of the bar, a self-assured smirk on his face.
“What did she mean by girlfriends?” Michelle prodded suspiciously from across the table.
Jacob just smiled, shook his head, and picked up the drink menu. “So…how about a little Sex on the Beach?”
The next week was hell for Jacob Mallard. Dates he’d set up cancelled on him. Dates he attempted to set up were denied. All of his current girlfriends would not answer his calls, slammed doors in his face, called him less-than-ladylike names, and his cheeks were continuously stinging from being slapped in disgust and anger. This would have amused Jacob immensely if not for the fact that it kept happening to him at every turn. Even women he didn’t know soured the minute they found out his name, and he was growing tempted to start using an alias.
Shaking the rain from his trench coat, Jacob strode into a small bistro on the north end of St. Canard and was about to sit at his usual table until he spotted a familiar avian chatting with a friend in a nearby booth. He smirked voraciously and made his way toward them, smoothing back his hair as he went.
“Ladies,” he crooned suavely. Then he nodded to address the woman he was already acquainted with. “Stacy.”
The swan named Stacy turned up her beak. “What do you want, Mallard?”
“Why so formal? Have you forgotten my first name already?”
“You never returned my phone calls,” she replied resentfully.
“Well, I’ve been thinking lately…what do you say we give things another go?” He leaned forward, resting his hands on their table. “We could take a walk in the park…catch a local stage production…I could help Tommy with his homework.”
“How dare you bring Tommy into this!” she shouted, and before Jacob could recoil she’d thrown the ice cold water from her glass into his face.
Stunned, Jacob remained in his rigid stance for a few moments before blinking and wiping the liquid from his eyes.
“Okay,” he sputtered, managing to maintain at least a little dignity. “I’ll take that as a no…” Then he turned his alluring gaze to the other woman who had been watching with some amusement. “What about you, beautiful? Are you free later?”
Automatically her beak curled up and she folded her arms. “Not likely. At least not for you.”
Jacob shrugged. “Well, in case you come to your senses, here’s my number.” He slipped a small card from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Thanks,” she said flatly.
He appeared unaffected by her negative reaction and flashed her a charming smile, then nodded once again to Stacy before heading back toward his regular table.
Lolita really had somehow gotten to every girl in the city. He stirred the coffee in front of him mindlessly. It had been a week since he’d seen any action, and it was driving him crazy. He had to keep reminding himself that he was leaving for Cuba bright and early the next morning, and it wouldn’t be long before he could find a few new girls across the gulf.
The thought was at least a little gratifying, but it didn’t do much to soothe the void he felt. As the last few bitter coffee grounds settled underneath his tongue, his bill curled up in distaste. A slim container of breath spray was out of his pocket within seconds, and he spritzed the inside of his mouth twice before flashing his waitress a come hither smile as she cleared away his empty coffee cup. She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
Jacob frowned slightly. His charm had always attracted women, not repelled them. It was a stinging blow to his ego, and he started to resent the fact that he had ever laid eyes on Lolita Yetka.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. Fifteen minutes and he would have to return to SHUSH. Mechanically, he swung his trench coat back over his shoulders and thrust his arms into the sleeves. Leaving a few bills on the table, he glanced up just in time to see a familiar figure walk past the front window of the bistro, her dark blonde hair bouncing down her back in lustrous waves.
He started to run after her, but got caught up in a couple of the chairs and nearly fell flat on his face. Spinning out of the entanglement, Jacob was off again with a quick, apologetic shout, throwing himself out of the restaurant and high-tailing it after the woman. As he burst through the doors, the sun finally peeked through the clouds for the first time in a week, and, for a moment, Jacob was blind.
“Gail!” he shouted above the roar of traffic. “Gail!” She ignored him and continued walking, her head held up high.
He knew he was going to have to do more than yelling her name to get her to speak to him again. Tires screeched to his left as the light changed red. Her shapely figure was disappearing across the street. A plan quickly formulated itself in his mind, and he smirked deviously before resuming his swift pursuit.
Just as she reached the middle of the street, he bellowed fearfully, “Gail! Look out!”
She paused and turned around to see Jacob Mallard barreling toward her. She was about to give him the cold shoulder, but in the next instant he’d slammed into her, throwing her to the sidewalk.
Breathing hard, her heart pounding in her breast, Gail looked up to see Jacob sprawled on top of her. She scrambled out from under him and smacked him mercilessly with her purse.
“Jacob Mallard, what are you doing!?” she shouted in a piercingly high voice.
“I think I’m saving your life,” Jacob replied with a grunt as he pulled himself slowly to his feet while simultaneously dodging her blows.
“Saving my life!?” she repeated exasperatedly. “From what, may I ask?” A scowl crossed her petite face and she raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“From that maniac of a driver!” Jacob retorted, pointing in the direction the supposed maniac had gone. “Didn’t you see that car? It almost hit you!”
“Oh…” Gail said softly, as if just realizing exactly what had happened. Not two seconds later she was helping him get up, keeping him steady as he waited for his throbbing head to clear. “Well…thank you, Mr. Mallard, but I’m afraid I must be going.”
“Gail, wait!” he demanded, reaching out to grab her wrist and stop her. It seemed his plan had worked only for a split second, but Jacob was determined to make that second worthwhile.
She looked down at his hand on her and then glared at him. “I know what you want, Jacob, and I’m not going to give it to you.”
“But I thought –- I’m not -–" he stammered.
Gail had been the only one of his girlfriends with whom he hadn’t gotten past more than the first kiss. Her resolve was unusually strong, and that surprised him considering she looked like such a small, frail, unsuspecting creature. He had expected her to swoon at the idea that he had just saved her life. Now, for once in his life, he wasn’t quite sure what to do.
“I just want to talk to you,” he managed to say.
“What about?”
“Look, whatever you may have heard, have I ever treated you that way?”
“Well…” she thought hesitantly. “…No…no, I guess not. But you were dating seven other women at the same time as you were dating me,” she added matter-of-factly, folding her arms. There was a hard-set scowl on her face, and it took him by surprise. She should be fawning all over him by now, not putting up walls!
“Yes, I was,” he replied truthfully. “But it’ll be different this time, I promise! Just give me a chance.”
“Give me one good reason, Jacob Mallard.”
“Because despite everything, you still like me. And I still like you.”
Though she tried to hide it, he still caught the delicate flush of her cheeks behind her small spectacles. It was time to make his move. Taking one step toward her, Jacob added softly, “I’m going on an important mission for SHUSH tomorrow out of the country…I probably won’t be back here for a while…Could I maybe write you?”
He gave her his charismatic, boyish smile, and not even her bent head could hide her shy smile.
“Here’s my address,” she said breathlessly, taking out a receipt and scrawling on the back of it.
He took it from her gently, his fingers brushing hers as he did so. Her blush deepened, and she pulled back. Jacob grinned in response and felt a surge of pride and relief. He had won.
“I’ve got to go,” she said hurriedly. “But you’d better make good on those letters…I don’t give three chances.”
He nodded with playful solemnity. “My lady, I wouldn’t dream of letting you down again.”
Watching Gail as she disappeared back into the crowd, Jacob couldn’t seem to wipe the smile from his face. The plan had worked. Chivalry still had its beneficial uses, and it usually rewarded Jacob tenfold whenever he employed it. His charm was still in high gear, and he knew that as long as he still had one woman in St. Canard who actually believed he could be her “soul mate,” he would be in the clear. After all, women had a lot of friends, and word spread pretty quickly through the gossip chain, especially when it came to sweet and thoughtful men. He’d be back in business in no time. All he had to do was write a few sappy letters and get her to believe he was actually in love with her. That way, even if he didn’t end up breaking down her walls, he could reap the benefits. He just hoped Gail had a lot of gorgeous, single friends.
There would be one more briefing before the flight to Cuba the next morning, and Jacob was looking forward to getting out of the city. He’d lived in Saint Canard all his life, and now it was time for adventure, danger, exotic backdrops, intrigue…and with Gail’s address tucked firmly in his breast pocket, twenty-two-year-old Jacob Mallard felt like he could take on the world.
May 1, 1959
Dear Gail,
Well, I made it here in one piece, and I’m confident I can return that way. Being in the Caribbean is a whole lot different than being in Saint Canard, and even though you’re not here to enjoy the sunny beaches with me, I’m trying to have a good time. The locals here are especially accommodating, and we’ve set up camp on the outskirts of a small village. We’re following through with our mission tomorrow morning before dawn. Wish me luck.
Yours,
Jacob
P.S. You’ll have to send your return letter to SHUSH, since I can’t reveal my location. Don’t worry; they’ll get it to me.
June 9, 1959
Dear Jacob,
I’m glad you made it there all right, though I never doubted your ability to get out of a tough situation. And I’m sure you’ve had no problems finding company to keep you entertained at night.
The children are doing wonderfully in classes. We’ve moved on to learning about constellations, weather and climate, and about the Sun – some of my favorite subjects.
I hope everything goes well with your mission. Good luck.
Gail
July 23, 1959
Dear Gail,
We accomplished what we came for, and the President himself wants to use our surveillance photos to plan an infiltration of the Communist bases here. Can you believe it? The President! I’ve been commended for my leadership skills and have already been given my next assignment, this time a solo mission. Looks like I won’t be back home so soon after all.
I miss you. But whenever I feel lonely I look up at the moon and it makes me feel better knowing you’re looking up at the same one…well, except when our time zones aren’t exactly aligned, but you get the idea. Now that I’m out here, I wish I’d have asked for your picture so I could look at it every night before I fall asleep. Oh well, I’ll make due with memories until I next get the chance to see your beautiful face.
Yours,
Jacob
August 31, 1959
Dear Jacob,
Please don’t use your empty flattery on me. I’m not one of your bar girls. In fact, I’d rather we keep these letters purely of a friendly nature.
That’s wonderful news about the President. Be careful on your solo mission. I’ll be thinking of you.
Gail
September 19, 1959
Dear Gail,
I apologize if I offended you with my previous letter, but what I said was true. You’re different than the other girls I’ve met, and I mean that in the most sincere way.
How are your classes going? Have any of the particularly unruly students put a whoopee cushion in your chair? That was always my favorite thing to do to teachers when I was a kid. You, however – I’ll bet you were a real straight-laced little lady who never got in trouble.
The mission’s going well, but I have to stay undercover. Can’t say much else.
Yours,
Jacob
October 4, 1959
Dear Jacob,
I would love to know what you were like as a boy. About your family and the dreams you had growing up. My class is thinking about their career choices right now, and I am having guest speakers in my classroom to talk about different jobs.
I didn’t have any whoopee cushions, but I did have a frog put in my drawer. The poor thing now resides as our class pet. His name’s Wart.
I never got into trouble when I was in school. I always got good grades and turned things in on time. It’s no wonder I had few friends growing up. I was always pretty reserved, even boring at times. It makes me wonder why a guy like you would even bother writing letters to a girl like me.
Gail
November 12, 1959
Dear Gail,
We’re heading to theOrient now. Things are really picking up, but I love every minute of it. This is exactly the way I wanted my life to be.
As for my childhood, well, there’s not really much to tell. I have a little brother, Nick, who stuck to me like glue when we were kids. Our father was an ex-soldier, fought in World War I, and worked for SHUSH his entire life. He expected my brother and I to do the same, and when we weren’t good little soldiers, well, let’s just say it wasn’t exactly all hugs and kisses. My mother was an alcoholic. I don’t think I need to get into it more than that.
The last time I saw my father was the day he tried to beat Nick because he’d failed one of his classes. I could take him pushing me around, but I wouldn’t let him touch Nick, and that day I hit back. Turned tail and left home with Nick and never went back. And I’ve never been sorry.
That was a long time ago. I’ve never told anyone that before. Do you want any kids of your own, Gail? What about traveling? I love traveling, which is what attracted me to SHUSH in the first place. I guess I followed in dear old Dad’s footsteps after all.
Let me know how you’re doing, Miss Straight-and-Narrow. When I get back I may have to see if we can’t make a little curve in your path.
Yours,
Jacob
February 16, 1960
Dear Jacob,
I hope that you are staying cool, wherever you are, and that you are safe.
That’s awful about your parents. I’m sorry for asking – it wasn’t my place to pry.
I love to travel. In fact, I’m going on a trip next month to New Boarleans with my boyfriend, Thomas. I met him a couple of months ago, and I think I’m going to marry him. He’s wonderful. I hope you can find someone like that for you in your adventures. It all sounds very exciting. Please keep me updated on how you are doing.
Best,
Gail