Faithful Friend
The door creaked open behind him and without looking back, he knew immediately who it was.
“Spinelli?” His voice was odd, uncertainty and worry shaded its timbre. “You okay?” He was right behind him now, but still he didn’t shift a millimeter, didn’t bother to acknowledge his presence by even a glance or a word.
“It’s freezing up here,” the voice was gruff and suddenly he found himself unwillingly encased within the folds of dark, warm leather which smelled exactly like the man who had just divested himself of the coat.
Stubbornly, he tried to twist his way out of the jacket, believing he was not deserving of comfort or relief from the chill night air. A few lazy snowflakes were starting to drift down from the leaden sky. Its cloudy underbelly was lit a sullen yellow-grey by the reflection of the city nights. He preferred the sterile, silence of the frozen dark to the thought of warmth, light and companionship. He had actually welcomed the creeping numbness in his exposed hands, ears and nose as he perversely contemplated the quietude of death via hypothermia.
“Stop that!” The rebuke was sharp and familiar and suddenly they were back into the well worn patterns of Master and grasshopper. “You’re coming back downstairs with me. Sam and I ordered your favorite shrimp curry from India House. You need to warm up, eat something and then get a good night’s sleep. You’ll see, tomorrow morning everything will seem a lot better.”
Jason’s uncharacteristic speech, both in terms of length and tone, didn’t affect Spinelli in the least even though he did stop trying to squirm out of Jason’s leather jacket because his roommate had literally pinned his arms to his side to prevent him from removing the offending garment. Still, that repressive action didn’t stop the younger man from sending his mentor a baleful glare out of black limned eyes peering at Jason from a fatigued and chalk-white face.
“You think a hot meal and some sleep will mollify the Jackal’s grief?” He queried Jason in a soft but bitter voice.
Jason sighed as he resolutely turned Spinelli’s slight form toward the roof top door, forcing him to walk in reluctant step with him. “No, I guess not but you’d be surprised how much perspective you’ll gain once you aren’t exhausted, cold and hungry.”
“I deserve to be all those things,” Spinelli muttered with a rebellious stubbornness, “It’s the least of the travails through which I can show my respect for a fallen comrade, one who gave his all in order that I…that we might survive.”
Jason abruptly stopped moving forward, he stared intently at Spinelli, able to just barely see his face in the glow provided by the dim light affixed over the door, his face was serious. “Well, I for one can’t regret it. You’re alive, Michael’s alive and that is all that matters to me.”
Jason suddenly shivered but it wasn’t in reaction to the freezing spits of snow cascading around his head and pelting his bare arms. He closed his eyes as he felt a renewed sense of that cold dread which engulfed him earlier today when he received the call from Michael.
“Jason, I’m all right, everything’s fine, really.” The words spilling out in a hyper-excited jumble from his nephew’s lips caused Jason to react in a manner diametrically opposed to what Michael intended.
“Michael,” he gripped the phone so hard his hand ached as he displaced his anxiety and fear and managed to keep his voice calm, knowing instinctively that the boy relied on this side of his personality always being in control. Jason’s stoicism was the one fixed constant in his perpetually shifting world. “Tell me what happened.” He commanded while the familiar upsurge of fury, an expected but laggard fellow to the previous two emotions, filled his belly with an icy certitude that if someone had dared to injure or threaten his boy, they would pay.
Michael responded instinctively to his uncle’s order by slowing his rapid fire speech in an effort to communicate more effectively. “We were just coming out of the movie. It was dark even though it was only five thirty. We wanted to get some dinner and talk about the movie, you know just hang out…” It was working, already Michael sounded more grounded and less borderline hysterical. “We took a back alley next to the theater that connected to Van Ness because it was a short cut to Kelly’s.”
Jason hand was positively throbbing with pain now as he fought against his desire to yell, to say something counterproductive like, ‘Michael, how could you be so dumb! That’s a dangerous part of town and there are lots of criminals in that area.’ After all, he should know, he was one of them. Somehow he forestalled himself and through stiff lips managed to utter a terse, “What happened?”
Michael swallowed audibly, “This guy, he just came out of the shadows and he had a gun…”
Jason closed his eyes as he fought to maintain control of his emotions, “Go on,” he ordered hoarsely.
Michael sounded as though he was close to crying now, “I was stupid and said something like, ‘Do you know who my father is?’”
Jason couldn’t help the sharp reprimanding, “Michael!” which slipped unbidden from his tongue.
“I know, I know,” his choked voice was contrite, “It was about the dumbest thing I could say but I just blurted it out. The guy though, he just laughed and said, ‘Someone rich, I hope.’ Then he told us to get our wallets out and give them to him and we did exactly what he said.”
Michael faltered again and Jason knew the reason why. It was because he was reliving the scene over again in his mind and he also knew that this was just the beginning of the phenomenon. Michael would be haunted by this night’s events, both asleep ,through the agency of nightmares ,and awake as actual memories. Jason was very familiar with how such an undesirable and inescapable movie played ceaselessly in your brain. A lead weight in his chest sat in situ for his heart as he thought for the countless time about what Michael’s life would have been like if he had simply made better choices for him.
Sighing, he scrubbed at his face with his free hand, “So you handed over the wallets, which was absolutely the right move, and then what?”
Jason knew the only useful gift he could offer Michael at this moment was to listen to his story without comment. The telling of a frightening event lessened its hold through every recitation, each time gradually becoming something more distant as though it happened to someone else or occurred in a dream. It was a common therapeutic precept of psychology but Jason lacked any awareness of that esoteric aspect of why he intuitively was inviting Michael to talk about what transpired this evening.
“I don’t know,” now Michael sounded unsure, almost dazed, “I really thought that would be it and we would go our separate ways just without our wallets.”
‘And our pride,’ he wanted to add but didn’t because he realized Jason understood that part of the situation without being told. “Something spooked him, there was a clatter further down the alley. It was probably just a cat or a rat or something but he got agitated and then he looked at us and was just crazy all of sudden.” Jason could hear Michael’s breathing becoming more ragged on the other end of the phone, and when he finally continued speaking, his voice was shaky, “He pointed the gun at me and he fired.”
Jason felt faint, he actually swayed for a moment but then with a supreme effort of will, regained his balance. He needed to know the answer, so he forced himself to grind out the words. He sounded almost furious but anyone who knew him would recognize the tone for what it was, an ill concealed mask for his sudden panic, “Were you hit?”
“No, neither of us were hit,” Michael rushed to reassure him. “Spinelli distracted him and we managed to get away.”
Spinelli, Jason felt a wave of nausea rush over him as he realized he hadn’t even bothered to ask about his roommate’s wellbeing in his overwhelming concern for Michael. “Is he okay?” He asked urgently, vaguely surprised to discover that the intensity of his apprehension was capable of actually increasing another notch.
“Yeah, he’s fine. He’s in with Dante giving his statement right now. Jason, he was amazing, really cool and collected. I didn’t know he had it in him.” Michael’s surprised admiration was unfeigned.
“He’s very brave and can be quite resourceful in a tight spot,” Jason averred with a quiet pride in his roommate’s performance. “How did he manage to distract the mugger?” Jason’s worry about Spinelli wasn’t fully assuaged by Michael’s diverting words of praise.
“Uh,” Michael suddenly sounded evasive, “Hey, Jason, I got to go. They need to talk to me now.”
“Michael!” Jason tried but it was too late, the only noise emitting from his phone was the buzz of a dial phone.
“Stone Cold?” Spinelli prompted his friend, his anxious eyes showing something besides dull grief for the first time since Jason had picked him and Michael up at the Police Station several hours ago. “Are you all right?”
Jason stared down at Spinelli in bemusement. He was almost startled to find himself standing on the cold roof with the ever intensifying snow creating a white screen of whirling static between him and the hacker.
“Yeah,” his voice was choked and he cleared his throat before speaking again, “C’mon, let’s go downstairs and eat.”
Spinelli was in the lead in the dry but still chilly stairwell as they headed down to the penthouse when his voice came echoing back to Jason. “Did you do as the Jackal requested?”
It took Jason a moment to comprehend what Spinelli was asking him and then his mind cleared and he knew exactly what he was talking about. “Yes, Spinelli, I did. I said I would but it wasn’t easy. I don’t think Mac would have cooperated but they had already caught the guy who held up you and Michael.”
Remembering the scene at the police station, Jason’s fists clenched just as they had when Mac indicated the man sitting by Dante’s desk while he performed the booking formalities. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to go over and grab at the man’s old, worn coat in order to yank him to his feet and hit him mercilessly for scaring ten years off his life with his unprovoked assault on the two young men.
It was Mac who forestalled him from acting so rashly right in the middle of the Port Charles Police Station. He correctly read the mob enforcer’s stormy expression and gave him an emphatic warning. “Don’t even think about it, Jason. He’s in police custody and is a known felon with a record as long as my arm. This is an open and shut case and he’s going to be locked up for a long time to come.”
A muscle in Jason’s jaw twitched as he fought against his natural inclination to strike out in violence. He found it difficult to resist the primal urge even in this most hostile of environments filled with witnesses who would revel in arresting and then testifying against him upon a charge of assault and battery.
Finally, when he spoke, his voice was a low raspy growl, “That better be what happens, Mac, because if he gets off on a technicality it’s all over for him.”
Mac laughed, a derisive snort of weary humor, “That’s rich coming from you, Jason. He won’t get off,” He said with confidence. “The jackass can’t afford high priced lawyers who come prancing down to the station in their designer clothing any hour of the day or the night, anxious to make sure they get their clients off on a ‘technicality’ and earn a substantial bonus in the process. No, this poor slob will serve his time and be lucky to make it out of prison alive.”
He sent a knowing look at Jason who just shrugged his shoulders noncommittally as he refused to rise to either Mac’s gibe about Diane or the implication about his own likely vengeance. ‘Mac might be right,’ he thought to himself with a savage spurt of satisfaction, ‘Prison might just end being too much for that creep to handle.”
Spinelli stopped walking down the stairs and stared up at Jason. “The minions of law enforcement managed to apprehend the assailant of Young Michael and the Jackal so efficiently?” He asked unable to mask his surprise.
“Yeah, Spinelli,” Jason affirmed, “He’s a two-bit thug with a long history of convictions. This time though his luck ran out. I will make sure he gets the maximum sentence and doesn’t have the option of parole.”
Jason waited for Spinelli’s protest against such a harsh treatment of one of society’s underdogs. He fully expected to hear a plea about the faulty jurisprudence system and how its intent was meant not to punish but to reform but the anticipated argument never came.
Instead Spinelli nodded his head in full agreement with Jason’s declaration. “Stone Cold is right, the unlawful one should pay dearly for terrorizing young Michael and…” He couldn’t manage to say anything further and once more his eyes clouded and his face took on a withdrawn, defeated look that Jason hated to see.
“You, Spinelli,” Jason interjected fiercely, unwilling to ever relinquish the battle against Spinelli’s low self-esteem, “He terrorized you as well and that matters just as much as what he did to Michael.”
Spinelli stubbornly shook his head as he turned and trudged down the last few stairs to the landing with the fire door, “That isn’t what the Jackal was referring to…” He sighed mournfully as he pulled open the heavy door.
The penthouse was a welcome haven of warmth and light after the cold, ill lit dark of the rooftop. Sam was coming out of the kitchen with several plates of food which gave off a tantalizing aroma causing Jason to salivate in anticipation of eating. He shot a surreptitious look at Spinelli to gauge if he was feeling hungry as well. Spinelli was busy hanging Jason’s jacket in the closet and when he turned back his expression grew even more morose as he caught sight of what was sitting on the desk behind his roommate.
“You retrieved the Jackal’s faithful companion then,” he said as walked around Jason and over to the desk to look with a deep abiding sadness down at his destroyed laptop.
His right hand reached out and hovered over the remains of the small computer as though he were going to stroke it but then he retracted his arm and turned away. His eyes were suspiciously bright and he gnawed at his lower lip with his front teeth.
Jason was at a loss of words to comfort the hacker as he stood with his back to the sad remnants of his beloved laptop. He wondered if it had been the right thing to do to bring what was left of the computer back to the penthouse. Mac only allowed him to take it because the ballistic evidence was a match and they didn’t really need the laptop for anything else. Still, maybe it would have been better for Jason to lie and say they were keeping it or something like that. He simply didn’t know how to help Spinelli feel better especially since he would have gladly given up every damned laptop on the planet to keep Spinelli and Michael safe.
He sent a helpless glance toward Sam, appealing for help in handling the situation. Sam immediately understood Jason’s wordless request. She straightened up from arranging the plates on the coffee table and walked over to her partner.
“Hey, Spinelli,” she said softly in her throaty voice, “It’s rough to lose your computer. It meant a lot to you. I know that Jason and I don’t quite understand how much that is but we’re just glad you and Michael are alive and unharmed. Your laptop did you a great service, it kept you safe and we’re very grateful to it.”
Spinelli was listening to Sam and searching her soft brown eyes as though to check her sincerity. “The Jackal appreciates Fair Samantha’s attempt to console him and her free admittance that she doesn’t precisely comprehend the bond my cyber companion and I share…shared,” He was speaking so softly that Jason could barely hear him. “The Jackal…that is I, realize that to most people it is not meet to mourn a machine when compared against the much greater hazard to human life. Still, it was a true and constant companion to the very end of its brief existence and I wish to memorialize the debt I owe my trusted friend.”
Sam wrapped her arms around Spinelli and hugged him tightly, “Fair enough,” she whispered into his ear, “We’ll give it a proper send-off then.” She stepped back and ruffled his hair, “How does that sound?”
Spinelli stared at her in grave consideration and then a small, shy smile lit up his features. “That sounds perfect,” he responded and Jason felt the tight constricting band which had been wrapped around his heart for the past five hours loosen and begin to evaporate.
“We can discuss it over dinner,” he said as he shepherded Spinelli toward the couch. He was determined to look out for his roommate’s health because he knew full well he wouldn’t do it for himself.
An hour later, after all their plates were empty, Sam and Spinelli were busy planning a memorial service for the laptop. Meanwhile, Jason just listened quietly and tried not to laugh at some of Spinelli’s more outlandish ideas.
“Stone Cold?”
“Huh?” Jason responded guiltily, knowing he hadn’t been paying close enough attention to his companions’ discussion.
“Will you do it?” Spinelli asked him eagerly.
“Say yes, Jason,” Sam chimed in, her eyes glinting with mischief, “It will really add to the ceremony.”
“Yes to what?” He asked suspiciously not liking the way Sam appeared to be fighting against the urge to laugh.
“The twenty-one gun salute,” Spinelli responded impatiently, “I thought you and the dual Protectors of the Night could each fire a rifle seven times. It is an honor befitting a life of service and sacrifice.”
“Um,” Jason had no idea what to say but he knew enough to glare at Sam who was pressing the back of her hand to her mouth in an attempt to keep her giggles contained. “I don’t know, Spinelli, there are ordinances against firing guns within the city limits.” He uttered the disclaimer with a straight face as he blatantly ignored his own hypocrisy and dared Sam to say a single word in contradiction.
Spinelli wasn’t deterred by Jason’s argument, “We won’t be within the city limits though, Stone Cold. Fair Samantha and I have determined that if both she and the White Knight are willing that we will lay the Jackal’s trusted companion to rest on the substantial and verdant grounds of the Valkyrie’s estate which lie distinctly outside the city boundaries.”
Spinelli was positively beaming now and Jason couldn’t help but grin back at him as he capitulated. He knew that Carly would be entirely open to Spinelli’s plan for a funeral for his laptop. It was exactly the kind of crazy thing she herself would do. Besides, she would be so grateful to Spinelli for saving Michael and himself with it that she would probably insist on planning a lavish post-ceremony reception complete with orange soda and barbecue chips.
“All right,” Jason replied with a caveat, “I’ll do it if Max and Milo agree to it.” He didn’t even bother to hope the brothers would refuse. They were just big kids at heart and the chance to both role play and shoot guns would be to good to pass up.
“Then that just leaves one detail to be settled,” Spinelli suddenly yawned, his eyes were overly bright and glassy with weariness.
“You should go to bed, Spinelli,” Jason said shortly, “The rest of the plans can wait until tomorrow. It’s been a long day and you’re exhausted.”
“The Jackal concurs, Stone Cold,” Spinelli rose from the couch and turned toward Sam, “Fair Samantha, the Jackal remembers a tale you told once of playing an instrument in junior high school I believe…”
Sam stared up at Spinelli, confusion evident on her face, “Yeah, I did. What an amazing memory you have Spinelli. I played the trumpet.”
“You did?” Jason said, “How come I don’t know that?”
“Because you never asked,” Sam replied pertly.
“Then the Jackal has the last component to make the ceremony perfect. You will play taps as a fitting end to the occasion.”
Sam gaped at Spinelli, “I will? Oh, Spinelli, I haven’t played the trumpet in years and I don’t even know where the instrument is and I wouldn’t want to mess the memorial up with my lousy playing…” Her voice trailed off as she ran out of excuses and now it was Jason’s turn to stifle his laughter.
“It’s in the closet in the spare room. There are several days before the ceremony which will be more than enough time for you to refresh your memory on how to play a simple tune like taps.” Spinelli’s answer was pure inexorable logic and Sam was trapped.
“I’ll make sure she practices,” Jason offered helpfully, his lips curving up as he met Sam’s baleful gaze with a taunting one of his own.
“Then it’s settled and the Jackal is indeed bone tired. He will retire for the evening.” Spinelli paused once more by the desk and this time he did reach out and gently touch the ruined computer, “Rest well my valiant and loyal comrade. I will make sure your sacrifice was not a vain one.”
After Spinelli was gone, Sam turned and threw a sofa pillow at Jason as hard as she could. He batted it away and reached for her. He wrapped his arms tightly around her squirming body and resisted her struggles to free herself.
“Traitor!” She hissed at him.
“Hey!” Jason responded indignantly, “I didn’t see you getting me out of performing that stupid twenty-one gun salute for a bunch of wires and circuit boards.”
“Yeah, well we all know you shot a gun a lot more recently than I’ve played the trumpet and I was never very good…wanna trade?” She offered as she stared into Jason’s blue eyes, soft and gentle for her and those he loved.
“Nope,” he shook his head adamantly, “I’m not going to miss this for a million bucks. First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll get that trumpet out and you can practice.”
Now Sam was smiling, a crooked grin full of malice, “I guarantee you’re going to regret you ever said that. You haven’t heard me play.”
“I know exactly how well you play,” Jason said, and suddenly his eyes were dark with lust, “Exactly how well,” he repeated and uncontrollable shivers of desire raced up Sam’s spine.
“You put the dishes in the kitchen and I’ll meet you upstairs!” Before he could respond, Sam was already bounding up the stairs.
Jason came out into the living room from the kitchen. He paused by the foot of the steps and reaching over turned off the lights. He started to mount the stairs but then paused and turned back to scan the darkened room. The only discordant note in the neat room was the silent, mangled remains of Spinelli’s laptop gleaming dully in the light from the landing.
Jason walked hesitantly over to the desk and stood staring down at the computer. Just as Spinelli did earlier, he reached to touch it. His fingers felt the different textures-the slick, cold metal case, the jagged edges of plastic and sharp torn wires poking out of the ugly channel carved by the .38 caliber bullet. Jason was all too personally familiar with what damage that same bullet could create in living flesh where the wires would be replaced by gushing blood vessels and the broken plastic by splintered bones and ruptured organs.
It was all too close to be borne, too much for him to comprehend. Michael and Spinelli had almost died tonight, would have died if not for the miraculous intercession of this inanimate object which Spinelli loved so much. Well, Jason didn’t love it. What he loved were those vibrant, special young men who, between the two of them, possessed boundless potential and encapsulated his hopes for the future. Still, he knew what it was to be grateful.
“Thank you,” he whispered sincerely, knowing that he wasn’t really speaking to the laptop. His words were simple and heartfelt, “Thank you for saving my boys.”