Legacy Portal

by R D Larson

Part 1 appears
in this issue.

conclusion

I closed my eyes, picturing my soft, white ass on a double yellow highway line. I must succeed or I might as well kill myself as well as Tim. I had no other options. “Yes, I will, Harold.”

The driver, Karl, a member of Legacy Portal security personnel, knew my circumstances. He also knew my brother before the accident. So we had a special bond. Karl and Andrew had gone to the police academy together. My brother had been killed in a road crash the second month of his rookie year.

Karl didn’t have the heart for law enforcement after that. He just kept working as a rent-a-cop, for this firm and that firm. I heard about Legacy Portal from him actually, although we didn’t see each other very often. Tim was my whole life, and Karl drank a lot.

Karl carried the briefcase with the contract and waivers. I prepared myself for a nasty confrontation as the limousine took me to the Babb House.

Mr. Babb himself opened the door. I recognized him from the dossier. He was a fit-looking sixty-year old with white hair swept back from a high forehead and eyes like a raptor.

“I’m from Legacy Portal; my name is Mandy Swanson. I have great news for you...”

He tried to shut the door but my driver stepped forward to prevent it.

“Mr. Babb, this has been years in the making. May I come in? Please?” His scowl intimidated me but my driver pushed the door harder.

“Oh, what the hell! Come on in.”

We followed him to the spacious living room. He stood silent by the fireplace. I opened the briefcase.

“In 1945, your father got in touch with us. He made a large contribution on your behalf. He specified that the contract be delivered to you just after your 60th birthday.”

“What contract? For what?” He turned quickly looking at the two of us.

“He bought and signed a contract for you to be housed in an area where you will live for all eternity.”

“I’m not dead. What would I want to do that for?” He paced back and forth rapidly. “My father was a crazy fool. He believed in everything; I mean everything.”

“This is an opportunity of a lifetime. You will enjoy ‘retirement’ of the best kind, with good health and everything that you would want to do,” I told him. I tried to look encouraging. “Golf, tennis, dancing...”

“I want to keep doing what I’m doing right here. I have a business to run, and things to do. This is pure crap. If you think I am going to fall for this rigmarole, you are as crazy as my old man.”

“In order to go to Legacy Portal you have to accept the contract. It would be very unwise to turn it down.” I frowned, worried that Tim wouldn’t get his needed medications. I couldn’t lose this client. “Nevertheless, this Saturday you will be picked up. Get your affairs in order.”

“I refuse. How about that? I refuse.” He turned ugly. My heart dropped just as cold and as fast as ice from an airplane. Thank God I had talked to Karl.

“If not then, you will come now.”

Karl stepped forward and inserted the hypodermic needle into the neck of Mr. Babb.

It took about fifteen seconds for the drug to numb him to the point that we could get him into the limousine’s back seat. Karl stayed with him while I prowled the house for documents. I would have to forge his signature and we would have make sure he didn’t talk much when the shot wore off. Karl had made plans and secondary plans just as a precautionary measure.

I could not bear to fail a second time. Because Harold had been so angry with me when I couldn’t get Mrs. Kirk to sign up, I knew he might fire me. Tim wouldn’t have his chance to live. Now, of course, I would owe Karl money, too. The truth is that if it gave me one more day or week with Tim... And Karl understood that. I could easily commit any crime for Tim’s welfare.

This man, Mr. Babb, didn’t deserve the opportunity to go to Legacy Portal, but he was going to get it. Because I was going to help him, and so was Karl. I took a couple of credit card slips with his name scrawled across the bottom. Then I went out to the limousine.

Karl glared at me, “I almost had to give him another shot. What were you doing? Robbing the place? Did you wear the gloves?”

“Yes, Karl, I wore the gloves and didn’t take anything but these slips with his signature on them.” I was exhausted by the strain.

“Fine, get in here and we’ll drive him to Legacy. Get his digitalis from his pocket? We want to be sure he can’t talk when he gets there. It’s a good hour and I want to give him another shot, this time behind the knee.”

Karl got into the front of the limo and drove to a country road. I had taken off Babb’s sock and shoe. Then I helped Karl turn him over. The man was breathing noisily through his mouth. Karl pulled up his pant leg and shot him in the back of the knee right in the crease. I could tell from the dome light that it wasn’t going to show.

“Will they do an autopsy if he dies before he gets there? Or after? The digitalis would show up in his blood stream, maybe,” I asked him, suddenly worried.

“That’s your job. Make sure they don’t do an autopsy. Like, you know, when you told him about this great opportunity he became excited, over-excited and collapsed.”

“Yeah, his heart. Karl, I couldn’t do this except for Tim.”

“I hope it helps. I never got over Andrew.” Karl’s heavy face rolled and crinkled and his eyes seemed moist.

The look on his face made me hesitate, then I found the words. “You and Andrew were lovers. My brother was gay, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah, he didn’t want you to know but he would have told you sooner or later. We’d still be together if it weren’t for the accident. Anyway, I think so.”

“So here we are, cold-blood killers in the name of love? I’m going to get rid of Mr. Babb. This is crazy! I can’t do this.”

Karl gripped my shoulder over the inert Babb. “Listen, do you want to be like me? Going through life without your one true love? Give Tim the chance he deserves. I will take $3,000 from you when you have it and take a gay cruise. Okay? This will work. This guy’s a mean old jerk; you know that. Robbed his own company blind.”

I thought about it with hot tears clogging my throat and eyes. Then I nodded.

I took out the bottle and gave Karl two of the pills. He rolled Babb over and pulled open his slack mouth. Then he put them under Babb’s tongue.

“Keep his mouth shut and I’ll get moving. Just hold his chin up. Come on, Mandy. I’ll help you but you have to help me.” Karl pushed him toward me and I held his jaw up, hopefully his tongue was still on the pills. Karl sat down in the limousine’s driver seat. And we were off for Legacy Portal’s crematorium.

“Karl, I forgot to sign the contracts!”

“Oh, crap,” Karl exclaimed, slowing. He pulled up under a just-leafing tree. I grabbed the case with the contracts and took the credit slip out of my pocket. I lay the contract on top of the briefcase and smoothed the slip. I took my black pen, thinking to make a few practice signtures. I forgot about keeping Babb’s mouth shut so I jumped when I heard his voice.

“Stop, girl. Stop now.” The gutteral growl from Babb astounded me. I looked at Karl who was leaping out the door. He got the door to the back just open when Mr. Babb spoke again.

“I’ll sign it myself. This is what...” He paused, gasping for breath. “It’s what my father would want.”

His voice trailed off but his fingers beckoned for the pen implying writing.

I handed it to him, guiding his hand to the line on the contract. I must have been numb or in shock because everything was much slowed down. And I didn’t have the energy to question him.

As Karl looked on, Mr. Babb scrawled his name along the contract’s line. He looked at me when he finished. “I have never been the son my father wished for. Nor the husband my wife deserved, nor have I been a good father to my children. It’s time for me to go.” He nodded after he said this and leaned back against the seat. Then he whispered, “Go, Karl.”

I let him lie there, barely looking at him as we drove to Legacy Portal and through the gates. As they closed behind us, I reached up to put my hand on Karl’s shoulder.

“It will work out for both of us; we didn’t do anything wrong,” he said to me.

“Nothing wrong. Everything made right now.” Mr Babb took a huge gasping breath and his eyes rolled oddly. Then his body seem to shake and then crumple to the side.

As we pulled under the portico, the medical aides came out. One pushed a wheelchair. It was standard procedure which was always done because clients were sometimes too ill or too upset to walk. One man opened the door. He took a look at Babb.

“Danny, this guy looks like he’s a goner.” He felt Babb’s neck as the other man stepped forward. “No pulse.”

“We’ll just take him into the care facility, Ms. Swanson. Don’t worry. He’ll be well taken care of; we’re used to this. You just go ahead and turn in the paper work. We’ve got — what was his name?”

“Babb, Michael. Here’s his medical sheet.” I handed it to them, then they eased him out of the car and into the chair. Without another word they rapidly took him into the building.

Karl drove me to the office. We didn’t talk about it, and I don’t think we ever will. Mr. Babb became part of the Legacy Portal community.

Harold paid me in cash when I returned to the office. “No taxes, Mandy. Just money.”

“Thank you, Harold. It will help my husband get well.” I smiled at him, still shaky from what I’d almost done.

Karl disappeared after I paid him. I never saw him again.

And Tim is in full remission. He is getting stronger every day. I’m still with Legacy Portal. If Tim doesn’t make it, I know where we’ll be together.