Chapter 5

Late one Saturday morning, Jeremy Bentham walked into Anthony Cooper's hospice room. "Hello, Mr. Cooper," he said quietly.

Cooper turned his head to stare at Bentham. He had an IV tube running into one arm, and a heart monitor beside his bed. "What, you again?" he asked. "I thought you never wanted to see me again."

"I changed my mind," Bentham told him.

"Oh," Cooper answered. "I don't suppose you reconsidered about offering a kidney to your dear old dad, did you?"

"No," Bentham said. "There's somebody who wants to talk to you."

"Oh?" Cooper said, noticing the other man standing in the doorway. "Who the hell are you?"

"James Ford," the other man said.

"Yeah? And what do you want with me?" Cooper asked. "You a cop, or something?"

"Just a messenger," James said.

"Well, get on with it, then," Cooper ordered. "I don't have forever, you know."

"You ever been to Jasper, Alabama?" James asked.

"Why?" Cooper asked.

"Have you or haven't you?" James insisted.

Cooper considered for a moment, then said, "Yeah, I been to Jasper. Don't tell me I'm your daddy too?"

"No," Sawyer said quietly. He pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Cooper. "Read it."

Cooper eyed the envelope, then pulled out the letter that was inside. "'Dear Mister Sawyer'," he read. He looked up at James and asked, "What is this?"

"Just read it," James ordered.

Cooper looked back at the letter. "'You don't know who I am, but I know who you are. And I know what you done. You had sex with my mother and then you stole my dad's money all away, so he got angry and he killed my mother, and then he killed himself.' Blah, blah, blah." Cooper put the letter down. "So what? Is this supposed to be you, you wrote this letter? You on some kind of revenge kick?"

"Keep reading," James told him.

"Easy, easy, don't get all worked up," Cooper said. "Look, I ran that con two dozen times. If your mother was one of the…"

"Mary," James said. "Her name was Mary."

Cooper thought for a moment. "Mary, from Jasper, Alabama," he mused. "Yeah, I remember her." He grinned savagely at James and said, "She practically begged me to take her thirty-eight thousand dollars and to rescue her from her sorry little life."

Anger contorted James' face. "You finish the letter."

"Look, I only took her money," Cooper protested. "It ain't my fault your daddy overreacted. If he pulled the old murder-suicide, that wasn't my doing."

"Finish it!" James shouted.

"Okay, okay," Cooper said. He picked up the letter and ripped it into several pieces, then threw the pieces into the air. "There, satisfied now?"

James took a step towards the bed. Bentham also took a step forward, holding out his arm and saying softly, "James…"

James stared into Cooper's face. "You don't give a damn, do you?" he asked. "You don't care about all of those people you conned, all of those lives you ruined, do you?"

Cooper stared back up at him. "Hey, a man's got to make a living," he said. "So what are you going to do about it? Kill an old man who's lying in bed waiting to die anyway?"

James shook his head. "What would be the point?" he asked.

Cooper shook his head, and chuckled. "So, the little boy who wanted revenge doesn't have the guts," he sneered.

"You don't get it, do you?" James asked.

"I guess not," Cooper admitted. "I never got off on revenge, personally."

"This isn't about me," James said. "This is about an eight-year-old boy whose world you destroyed."

"And you aren't him?" Cooper asked.

"No," James answered. "Not any more."

"So what the hell is the point of all of this?" Cooper asked.

"You failed," James snapped.

"Huh?" Cooper asked, puzzled.

"You almost ruined my life," James said. "But you didn't. I made a good life for myself despite it all. And do you know why?"

"This ought to be good," Cooper said, rolling his eyes.

"I beat you, because I'm better than you," James said.

"Oh, for Christ's sake," Cooper said. "Is that all? You had Johnny-boy bring you here for that?"

"Yeah," James said. "That's all."

"All right then, you've had your fun," Cooper snapped. "Now get the hell out of here and leave me to die in peace."

"Fair enough," James said. "I did what I came here to do." He turned on his heel and headed for the door.

"Goodbye, Mr. Cooper," Bentham said.

"What, you don't have anything to say to your own father?" Cooper shouted at him.

"Whatever I have to say, I'll say at your funeral," Bentham said. "I might even bring flowers." And he turned his back and walked away.

They were back at the Ford house by lunch time. James sat down heavily in a chair, and sighed.

"Are you all right, James?" Cassidy asked.

"Yeah," he answered. "Yeah, I think I am." He stared off into space. "I'm just glad I got that over with, that's all."

"Good," Cassidy said. "I was worried, James. When you said you were going to see him I thought you might do something crazy like shoot him."

That forced a laugh out of James. "I don't even have a gun, Cassie," he said.

"I know," she said. "But still."

"I just had to deliver that letter," he said. "After all of these years, it was time to be done with it."

"So," Bentham asked him, "are you satisfied with what happened/"

James shook his head slowly. "He's a pretty pathetic excuse for a human being, isn't he?"

"Yes," Bentham said. "That he is. It makes me glad that my mother put me up for adoption."

"Yeah," James said. "And I guess… I mean, I could have let him consume my whole life."

"But you didn't," Bentham said.

James nodded. "So I won."

"Good work," Bentham told him.

"So are you really going to go to his funeral?" James asked.

"Yes," Bentham said. "Once he's dead, I think I might even be able to forgive him for all of it."

James laughed once, and then said, "You're a better man than I am, Jeremy."

"No," Bentham said, grinning. "I don't think so."

The doorbell rang then, and Cassidy said, "I'll get it." A moment later, she called, "James?"

James went to the front door, and saw Walt standing there, along with a man James assumed to be his father. "Walt!" he said, smiling.

"Mr. Ford?" the man said. "I'm Michael Dawson."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dawson," James said. "Come on in!"

Dawson shook his head. "I don't want to take up your time, Mr. Ford," he said. "We're just here to say thanks." He held up an envelope, and said, "Walt got in to that writing program you recommended him for."

"Fantastic!" James shouted.

"Thanks, Mr. Ford," Walt said. "I really couldn't have done it without your help."

"It's been a pleasure, Walt," James said. "Truly."

Walt held up a stack of papers and handed it to James. "I finished that story I told you about," he said, smiling awkwardly.

Dawson grinned. "He insisted that he had to finish it before we came here," he said. "He worked like crazy on it all morning."

"I just really needed to know how it ended," Walt explained.

James smiled. "Good work, Walt. I'll read it right away."

Walt smiled, and Dawson said, "Thanks again, Mr. Ford. You don't know how much this means to me."

"I think I do," James said to himself, as Walt and his father left.

Bentham looked at Walt's story warily, as if it was akin to a snake about to strike. "Are you going to read that now?" he asked.

"I think I'd better," James said, and settled down to read.

A few minutes later, he said, quietly, "Son of a bitch."

"What is it, James?" Cassidy asked.

"Jeremy, read this," he said, handing Bentham one page.

Bentham scanned it quickly, and then looked up at James with a stunned expression on his face.

"What?" Cassidy asked.

"It's what happened this morning," James said. "Exactly what happened this morning."

Bentham nodded. "Word for word, as near as I can recall."

"But…" Cassidy protested. "What are you saying? Walt wrote down what you two did this morning while you were doing it?"

James nodded. "Yeah. That's what he did."

"It makes you wonder, doesn't it?" Bentham said. "Are we just characters in Walt's story, then?"

James stared at Bentham. "You aren't serious, are you?"

Bentham gave James a lopsided grin. "No, I'm not," he said. "I make my own decisions. Walt just happens to write them down, sometimes."

"So now what?" Cassidy asked. "What do we do about…" She pointed at the story.

James glanced at the story's final page. "Well, according to this, we go have lunch now."

"And then?" Bentham asked.

"Then nothing," James said. "The story ends there."

Bentham grinned. "I guess that means we're on our own now, doesn't it?"

James laughed. "I guess so," he said. "Now, let's go eat. I'm starving!"