Bab 11: Turn off the Light ch.11
Peter is sick of the circle in which they seem to be traveling. He is also "bent out of sorts," as Leight has called it, about Leight's juvenile flippancy. "You shouldn't have lied to him."
He is decidedly not making eye contact with Leight because he's angry (and not just about Leight's dishonest interrogation methods) and he knows that if he so much as looks at Leight his anger will flicker, falter, and fade away. He stares determinedly at his own reflection in the window. Either it needs cleaning or his glasses do. (Or both.)
"It wasn't a lie." Leight shrugs. "I merely bent the truth. We do work with the police."
"And that bit about arresting Jennifer Smith?"
"She will be gone for two weeks, on honeymoon. No harm in letting the man think it was my doing."
"You're insufferable."
"You wouldn't have me any other way."
Peter shuts his eyes. He hates that it's true. It's high time he changed the subject. "Do you think Huckabee sent the note?"
"Of course not."
"Why not?" Peter's eyes open. "He clearly doesn't like Jennifer Smith or David Markoff. He expressed racist (and ageist) sentiments. It could easily be him."
"Oh, Peter," Leight claps him on the shoulder. "Weren't you listening at all?"
"Of course I was listening," Peter replies stiffly.
"You heard Huckabee speak, then."
"Yes, I did."
"Then surely you must have observed the grammatical disparity between Huckabee's speech and the stalker's note."
"The note wasn't exactly Shakespeare, Mal."
"No, it was rather infantile, but its author did have a firm enough grasp of grammatical conventions not to use double negatives. Huckabee did not."
"The Southern drawl could have been an act." The suggestion sounds flimsy in Peter's own ears.
"Oh, Peter," he squeezes the shoulder lightly, "Huckabee isn't anywhere near clever enough to pull off something like that."
"Mal," Peter sighs, torn between embarrassment and frustration and something else entirely, "we don't have any other leads."
"No matter," Leight shrugs. "I've solved the case." He beams—so bloody insufferable.
Peter can't decide whether to slap him or kiss him.
It's the same café, the same table, and the same faces. It's just the expressions that have changed. The Captain and the soon-to-be newlyweds have gone from thoroughly frightened to cautiously hopeful. Leight has gone from vaguely curious to insufferably smug. Only Peter has managed to stay consistently confused and off-kilter throughout the past five hours.
"So what's the deal, Leight?" the Captain finally asks, his moustache twitching. "Do you know who sent the letter? How concerned do we need to be?"
"Of course I know who did it," Leight snaps. He turns to Jennifer Smith. "You needn't be concerned. Your stalker is mostly harmless."
"Stalker?" she echoes.
"The note wasn't really about Markoff, or even you marrying a black man. The author really only cares that you are, in fact, getting married."
"But," David Markoff stammers, putting a protective arm around his fiancée's narrow shoulders, "what sort of creep would stalk Jen?"
"Neither Sam Jameson nor Brandon Huckabee."
"Damn it, Leight!" the Captain roars.
He slams his open palm on the table. The only cup on the table—Leight's second Turkish coffee—trembles, and a few drops of the black liquid dribble onto a napkin.
The Captain pays no notice. "This is no time for your games. You said you know, so tell us already. Who the hell is stalking my daughter?"
"All right," Leight nods abruptly before thrusting his hand out in a grand gesture. "It was him."
They all turn to see that Leight is pointing at Café Cairo's own pimply shaky too-awkward-to-notice barista.
"Hunter?" Jennifer voices the incredulity they are all experiencing. "You can't be serious. He's just a kid. A little unusual, I guess, but perfectly nice."
"He's Brandon Huckabee's great grand nephew, isn't he?"
"What?" This from Peter, who is more confused than he was before Leight started this wrap-up. "How could you possibly have come to that conclusion?"
Leight gives him that patronizing look (the one he knows all too well). "He was in the pictures on Huckabee's mantel. It also explains why he lives in a building that is overrun with Generations X, Y, and Z." He pauses. "And the gunpowder tea—that's what he gave us, by the way."
And that's why the tea tasted exotic. Peter hadn't heard of gunpowder tea until Leight announced that that was what was in the envelope.
"It also explains," Leight continues, "why we're here at this mediocre coffee shop." Addressing Jennifer once more, "Huckabee recommended Café Cairo to you, didn't he? Because of the great grand nephew."
Jennifer nods meekly.
The Captain is skeptical. "This is all circumstantial."
Leight rolls his eyes. "The stationary the note was on? It's on sale at the store next door; it's in their window display. The stain on the note is identical to the stain on my napkin. Turkish coffee, and there aren't many places in town that have it."
"The kid has an intention tremor; his hands shake. That's why he spilled on the note, why his handwriting is so juvenile. Now, if you'll take a moment to compare the handwriting on the note to the handwriting on that board over there," Leight gestures to the blackboard on which the drink specials are written, "you'll see that this isn't so circumstantial after all."
There are decorative red chalk hearts at each corner of the board.
"Why?" Jennifer murmurs. "Why would Hunter send such a terrible letter?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Leight shrugs. "He's a misguided youth with self-esteem issues raised by a delusional old man with an antiquated set of social mores. He somehow decided that you're the love of his life and in need of rescuing. The threat on your fiancé's life was his irrational way of proving his devotion to you. Harmless, really."
The Captain looks back and forth between the barista, who hasn't noticed the scrutiny he's under, and Leight, who continues to smirk so damn smugly. "You're sure, Leight?"
"Completely."
"All right then." The Captain gives his daughter a quick kiss on the forehead before he stands up and makes his way over to Hunter Huckabee, who, quite suddenly, realizes what's going on. It's easier than it should be to ignore his frantically shouted declarations of love for Jennifer. The Captain handcuffs him and marches him straight out of Café Cairo.
Leight watches the scene with thorough satisfaction. Mostly to himself, he says, "There it is."
Meanwhile, David Markoff has pulled Jennifer a little closer. She is thoroughly shaken up and seems to have lost all awareness of her surroundings. "A nice kid," she mumbles to herself over and over. "He seemed like such a nice kid."
After the Captain drives off out front and Markoff manages to quiet her down, he looks up at Peter and Leight. "Thank you," he smiles sincerely. "I really can't thank you both enough for spending your Saturday off on something like this, but really."
Peter smiles back, just a little. "It was no trouble."
"I know this is short notice," Markoff goes on, "but we'd really appreciate it if you'd both come to the wedding. It might not have happened otherwise."
Peter does his best to hide his emotions because it doesn't matter what he wants so much as what Leight wants, and honestly, that fact doesn't bother him nearly as much as it probably should.
"That's generous," he keeps on smiling, as much as he doesn't want to, "but I'm not sure we'll be able to make it. There's—"
"We'll be there."
Peter stares at Leight; he has never been more surprised.
But what has this day been but a series of coma-induced surprises?
So he smiles, nods, defers, relishes the feel of Leight's hand on his thigh.
Peter is lost. The wedding reception is in the largest ballroom of the ritziest hotel in the city. Everything's diamond, crystal, porcelain, satin, or silk. His rental tux is stiff and uncomfortable.
The room's full of strangers, he lost track of Leight twenty minutes ago, and he really wishes he could just disappear. So he stands against the wall, next to a water cooler, pretending he matches the yellow and salmon striped wallpaper.
It doesn't work. A cheap suit spies him from the other side of the room and begins its approach.
There's nothing Peter can do, nowhere he can hide, especially not after he realizes that the cheap suit is in fact Sam Jameson. Suddenly, she's in front of him, smiling an imaginary smile, holding out her hand. "It's Peter, right?"
"Yes." He nods and shakes her hand. He's nervous and twitchy and sweaty. He doesn't want to talk to this woman or anyone else. He has nothing to say. He isn't good at small talk, but it spills out all the same. "Lovely ceremony."
"Lovely," Sam agrees tightly. Her smile is gone. "Did you and your detective catch the creep?"
Peter doesn't have the energy to correct all the flaws contained in that short sentence. "Yeah," he nods wearily, "we did."
"That's good. It looks like Jen's going to get her 'happily ever after' after all. It's good. She deserves it."
Peter ducks his head. His shoes have become indescribably fascinating because he hasn't the slightest clue how he's supposed to respond.
"So do you."
Peter's eyes snap back up.
"Your detective," she shrugs. "You left him, didn't you? But you came back."
"How do you…?"
"Body language," she shrugs again. "And the way he looks at you—it's the way I look at her, even now." She's not looking at him anymore, but somewhere just past his shoulder. "He doesn't deserve you, and he knows it. He's trying to show you that you have all the power—that, if you wanted, you could break him."
Peter stares straight at her, but although she's speaking to him, she isn't really there. She is stuck five years ago, stuck in the moment that Jennifer Smith broke her.
"I don't want to," Peter insists. "I didn't. I didn't leave. I stayed. It's just—"
"You don't want to be broken."
"No," he shakes his head. "I don't want to be broken if he doesn't care enough to pick up the pieces."
"But he does, Peter. It's clear, even to strangers. It's in the way he looks at you."
Quiet and a little broken, he asks, "But how can you be sure?"
She shrugs, and her imaginary smile returns. "I've been there, and I understand. I'm telling you what he can't, what I couldn't tell her."
And for once, Peter understands.
When Peter finally catches sight of Leight, he is dancing with Jennifer Smith. It's a pretty picture between the flowing white dress and Leight, who wears a tux so magnificently.
Peter just stands watching them. He's a bit jealous of Jennifer, but it's her wedding, and Leight's being a gentleman (for once). And his jealousy pales in comparison to another stronger, brighter emotion.
The love and affection well up because (for once) he understands exactly what Leight has been hinting and implying since the not-quite-argument on the subway. He understands what he wants, what Leight wants, and what he has to do.
He makes his way toward the pair, just as the current upbeat dance track begins to fade. He's surprisingly calm as he presses his hand to Jennifer's forearm.
They both look at him—Jennifer confused, Leight expectant—as he asks, "May I cut in?"
Jennifer is, perhaps, somewhat surprised when Peter moves into Leight's arms.
The next song comes on, and it only takes a second for Peter to recognize it—Coldplay's "Yellow."
He sighs and presses closer to Leight. He rests his head against Leight's chest. He inhales deeply, and the scent of opium is conspicuously absent. He shuts his eyes. He has never wanted more than this.
They keep swaying, stepping, turning in time with the song.
Quietly, Leight murmurs, "You had a talk with Sam Jameson, didn't you?"
"Yeah," Peter sighs, "I did. I get it. And," he pulls back enough that he can look up and meet Leight's brilliant blue-gray eyes, "I want this. Us. Dancing in public places."
He's nervous, suddenly, because he never imagined saying anything like this aloud. He has never realized exactly how much he controls their relationship.
"I mean," he stammers, "only if that's what you want too."
"Oh Peter," Leight rolls his eyes, but it's almost endearing, "don't be daft."
And then he kisses him, thoroughly, for the duration of a particularly intense guitar riff. When he breaks the kiss, he asks, a little breathless, "Is kissing in public places also on that list of things you want?"
Peter blushes and laughs and pulls Leight in for another kiss.
The song ends, but they don't notice.
.
.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone