Brent Sinatra: All of Me (16 page)

“You know an awful lot about Brent’s life,” Belma said.
 
“That’s nosy where I come from.”

“That’s brotherly love and affection where I’m from,” Tony
shot back.

“At least I’m not a radio therapist,” Belma said.

“At least I’m not a mean old lady,” Tony fired back.

“You may not be mean,” Belma said, “but the old lady part is
debatable.”

Tony had to smile at that one.
 
“You’re wicked.
 
Make her stop, Brent,” he said playfully.

But Brent was still too shocked to mix it up with Tony or
Belma or anybody else for that matter.
 
A
kid was in his office.
 
A kid who just so
happened to have his name in his pocket.
 
A kid found next to a dead body, holding the murder weapon.
 
He could hardly think straight.
 
“You said the child has no ID on him at all?”
he asked Eddie.

“None,” Eddie responded.

“What about the victim?
 
The man?
 
Any ID on him?”

“Nothing on him either.
 
It’s as if somebody, possibly the victim, wanted somebody to know that
the kid belonged to you, and he wanted to keep his own identity as secret as
possible.”

“So you suspect it’s a kidnapping?” Tony asked.

“Why not?” Eddie asked.
 
“He snatches the kid, brings him to Jericho, holes up in a motel ready
to call and ask for a ransom.
 
Maybe he
put that paper in the kid’s pocket because he was going to leave him in the
motel after he collected his money, and he needed to make sure the kid was
identified.”

“Why didn’t he use the child’s own ID?” Belma asked.

“Because maybe when the kidnapping went down,” Eddie said,
“the kid didn’t have any ID on him.”

Belma nodded.
 
It made
sense to her.

But nothing made sense to Brent at this point.
 
He looked at Belma.
 
“Run the wires for any reports of a missing
kid.
 
Start on the east coast.
 
If no kid matches the description, search
west.”

“Yes, sir,” Belma responded, and fired up her computer.

“Make sure they’re running the victim’s prints,” Brent said
to Eddie.

“You know how slow those guys are with the labs,” Eddie
said.
 
He pulled out his notepad to take
notes.
 
“But I’ll get on it.”

“Tell them I want it expedited,” Brent responded.
 
“And check every database.
 
If your theory is correct and he’s bold
enough to kidnap somebody’s child, he’s probably not new to the criminal
life.
 
Kidnapping isn’t usually the
stepladder to crime, it’s usually the pinnacle of their career.”

“What about Ira?”
 
Eddie asked.
 
“Want me to notify
him?”

“No,” Brent said firmly.
 
“No D.A. and no media.
 
Not
yet.
 
Not until I . . . Not until we have
a firmer grasp on what’s going on.
 
We
have forty-eight hours before we have to notify the D.A.”

“Yes, sir.
 
And if you
ask me, I think you and the kid should get DNA swabs while he’s in our
custody.
 
His mother, when we finally
track her down, may not consent.
 
And we
don’t want to have to wait for a court order.”

Tony frowned.
 
“A DNA
test just because the child had Brent’s name, and that little
Junior
addition to the name, in his
pocket?”

Eddie looked at Brent.
 
Brent knew Eddie was not the kind of man who asked frivolous
questions.
 
So he agreed to the
test.
 
“Set it up,” he said.

“Will do.”

“Who knows,” Tony said, “the answers could be simpler than we
think.
 
The victim could be that kid’s
father.”

Eddie nodded.
  
“Could
be.
 
But I doubt it.”

Brent and Tony looked at him.

“Go see the kid,” Eddie responded to their looks.
 
“You’ll see what I mean.”

When Eddie left, Brent and Tony looked at each other with
that
here goes
look on both their
handsome faces.
 
And then they walked
over to Brent’s office door.
 
But just
before Brent turned the knob and opened the door, he stopped in place.

Tony, who stood behind him, could feel his anguish.
 
He squeezed his brother’s big bicep.

Then Brent opened the door.

When he saw the young man sitting on his office sofa, and saw
those undeniable Sinatra-green eyes, and that Sinatra raven hair, although his
was more curly than wavy, Brent knew.
 
That child either belonged to Tony, or to their father, or to him.
 
Since his name was the name in the child’s
pocket, and since he was the one who had a string of relationships with black
women around the same time as this kid could have been conceived, Brent could
not deny it.
 
That paper didn’t lie.
 
That strong feeling of connection that was
suddenly overwhelming him wasn’t lying either.
 
The young boy, with that Sinatra blood coursing through his veins just
as surely as it surged through Brent and Tony’s, was his.

Brent and Tony sat in chairs side by side in front of the young
man, as the young man was leaned forward, his bony elbow on his thin knee, his
chin cupped into his small, brown hand.
 
Tony was trying to engage him.
 
He
had asked him in ten different ways what was his name, who were his parents,
where did he live, but the young man remained mute.
 
But Tony kept at it, using every skill he
could muster as a trained psychologist to relax the kid, and get him talking.

Brent sat there, his legs crossed, his hands in his lap, and
he wasn’t talking either.
 
He honestly didn’t
think he could.
 
His mind was too busy
racing with possibilities.
 
He and Tony
both agreed that the kid was probably ten or eleven.
 
And in that two-year window, Brent slept with
so many different women of African-American or Hispanic descent that he could
hardly remember them all.
 
Some he slept
with once, some he slept with twice, and a few, like Olivia, and Shania, and
Maria, and Denise, and Candace, and a couple others whose names escaped him
now, lasted for more than a few times.
 
But did he have unprotected sex with any of them?
 
He tried not to have unprotected sex with
anybody.
 
But he was much younger then,
and was developing a serious preference for women of the African persuasion, as
Tony would put it.
 
He slipped up lots of
times.
 
And one of those slip-ups, with
one of those women, led to this little raven-haired beautiful child in front of
them.

And the agony Brent was feeling.
 
Not only from not knowing who the mother was,
but the fact that he had a child in this world for all these years, and he had
no clue.
 
No clue at all!
 
And this was his child.
 
Not just because of his looks, which he knew
could lead to false positives.
 
But he
could feel a connection to that young man as surely as he could feel his own
heartbeat.
 
He wanted to hold him and
smell him.
 
He wanted to
touch
him.
 
But when they first arrived in the office and
saw him, Tony held him back.

“Children before adults,” Tony reminded his brother.
 
“He’s been through too much.
 
You want answers, and to get closer to him,
and that’s natural.
 
But you can’t.
 
Not yet.
 
Not until he comes back to himself and can accept the harsh reality of
his existence right now.”

And Brent deferred to Tony, who did, after all, have a PhD in
clinical psychology, although he chose to squander it as some half-ass,
gossipy, radio therapist.

But Brent’s deference would only go just so far.
 
Because Tony wasn’t getting anywhere with the
young man either.
 
And Brent needed
answers.
 
Not just for his sake, but for
the child’s sake.
 
He undoubtedly wanted
his mother.
 
He undoubtedly
needed
his mother.
 
Where was his mother?
 
Who was his mother?
 
The only way they could begin to find her,
they had to ask.

He hated to do it.
 
The
kid had already been to hell and back.
 
But
Brent didn’t see where he had any choice.
  
He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward.
 
“Brent,” he said to the child, to see if that
would rouse him.
 
“Junior,” he said
next.
 
But neither name elicited so much
as a blink.
 
So he went down the list.

“Olivia,” he said to the child.

Tony responded more than the child did.
 
He looked at Brent, wondering what in the
world did he think he was going to accomplish that way.

But Brent kept trying.
 
He was grasping at straws, but at least he was grasping at something.
 
“Shania?” Nothing from the child.

“Maria?”

Nothing.

“Denise?”

Still nothing.

“Candace?”

Brent thought he saw something respond in the boy, a flicker
in his eyes, after he said the name
Candace
.
 
Brent looked at Tony.
 
Tony nodded.
 
He saw it too.
 
Brent moved
further to the edge of his chair.
 
He and
the boy were very close.
 
“Is your
mother’s name Candace?” he asked him.

But as quickly as the boy had showed some sign, he clammed up
again.
 
And although Brent continued to
feed out Candace’s name, the boy didn’t take the bait.

“Does he favor her?” Tony asked his brother.
 
“Does he look like this Candace person?”

The sad thing was that Brent had no idea.
 
He barely remembered what any of those women
looked like.
 
When it was over with
Brent, it was over.
 
“I don’t know,” he
said.
 
“God help me, but I don’t have a
clue.”

Tony heard the pain in his brother’s voice.
 
And Brent didn’t care anymore.
 
His son was in trouble, and in pain himself,
and he couldn’t care anymore.
 
They were
getting nowhere with the name game.
 
He
had to change the game.

He stood up and went to his son.
 
His son continued to stare at some spot in
the floor when Brent reached down and stood him up by the catch of his arms.

“That’s not a good idea,” Tony said as he rose to his feet
too.
 
“Brent, we could lose him.
 
That’s not a good idea.”

But Brent wasn’t listening.
 
This was his child.
 
A child who
needed him now unlike he probably ever needed him before.
 
Brent lifted his son, and pulled his small,
fragile body into his massive arms.
 
And
to his shock, and to Tony’s utter surprise, the boy didn’t resist him.
 
He didn’t fight, he didn’t curse, and he
didn’t demand to be released.
 
He didn’t
succumb to Brent’s show of affection either by showing affection too, but he
didn’t resist him.

And then an amazing thing happened that brought tears to
Brent’s eyes, and to Tony’s as well.
 
An
amazing feat for both strong men in and of itself. But they couldn’t help
it.
 
Because it was truly
remarkable.
 
Because the child finally
gave up that burden of isolation, of fear and confusion that had been weighing
him down like a burden his young body could not bear, and laid his head on his
Brent’s shoulder.
 
And then he spoke.

“You’re my father,” he said.

Tony looked at Brent in pure shock.
 
Brent, beyond shock, lifted the boy’s head
and looked into his eyes.
  
“What did you
say?”

“You’re my father,” he said.
 
“You’re Brent.”

Tony was filled with joy and hope.

But Brent was filled with questions.
 
“How did you know that?” he asked the little
one.
 
“Who told you I was your father?”

Nothing from the boy.

“Did your mother tell you?” Brent asked.

The boy nodded.
 
Tony
held onto Brent’s arm.

“Who is your mother?” Brent asked.

But the boy said nothing.

“Name names,” Tony suggested.

And Brent named the same names again.
 
Olivia.
 
Shania. Maria.
 
Denise.
 
Candace.
 
And, one again, when he mentioned Candace’s name, there was a flicker of
recognition from the child.
 
But the
flicker quickly went away, and the boy refused to speak.

“What’s your name?” Tony asked him.
 
But the boy laid his head back on Brent’s
shoulder.
 
But it was confirmed as far as
they were concerned.
 
Brent was this
child’s father and somebody brought him here to prove it.
 
Something went horribly wrong in the
transport, but any doubt was now gone.
   

And for nearly an hour, Tony stood back as Brent held his son
as if he was holding a newborn baby for the first time.
 
He held him and rocked him, he squeezed him
and asked him questions he would not answer, and he teared up with joy and pain
and grave concern.
 
Because this was no
easy reunion.
 
The boy was found with a
dead body, and a murder weapon in his hand.
 
Which meant the boy’s future could be in jeopardy.

But Brent believed in his soul his son did nothing
wrong.
 
He believed it with all he
had.
 
No child that looked this innocent,
no child of his, could do something that horrific.
 
And if the boy was forced to go there, Brent
thought with anguish in his heart, he went there because he had to go
there.
 
But Brent couldn’t even began to
process that horror.
 
This was life
altering enough.
 
He therefore closed his
eyes to any background noise, and continued to hold his son.
 
Until his son, now completely protected, went
to sleep.

“Why don’t you lay him down?” Tony asked.

But Brent was nodding his head.
 
“Not here,” he said.
 
“I’m getting him out of here.”

Tony was surprised.
 
“Is that proper, Brent?
 
I mean,
isn’t he a suspect?”

“No.
 
And he hasn’t
been arrested, and he hasn’t been charged with anything.
 
We’re getting out of here.”
 
He began heading for the exit.
 
“You can stay if you want.”

“No thanks,” Tony said with a smile as he grabbed Brent’s
hat.
 
“Where to?”

“I’m going to get that DNA swab first,” Brent responded.
 
“Before anybody tries to prevent it.
 
It’s obvious the mother didn’t want me to
know, or she would have revealed it by now.
 
And after that?
 
We’re going to
see Mom and Dad.”

Tony put Brent’s hat on Brent’s head.
 
Brent looked at his younger brother.
 
“By the way,” he said, “I thought you said
holding him was a bad idea, Mister Psychologist.”

“I did say that,” Tony admitted.

Brent continued to stare at him.

“What?” Brent’s stare wouldn’t ease.
 
“Why are you looking at me like that?
 
I am a psychologist!
 
I didn’t say I was a good one, but I am one.”

Brent smiled and shook his head.
 
That Tony.

Tony smiled, too, and opened the door.
 
“Want a lift?”

“In that bat mobile of yours?
 
Not a chance.”

“Not funny,” Tony said, offended by the slight, but he
followed Brent.