“Certainly, Mister Hampton.” John went to the monitoring desk and flipped several switches. The screen for Adam’s room turned black. “Everything’s off.” John ushered Adam to his father’s bedroom. He unlocked the door and stepped aside.
“I want to see him alone.”
“Of course, sir,” he said. He closed the door behind Adam and returned to his office.
Adam II’s bedroom was dimly lit. Adam could see that his father was awake but lying quietly in his bed. He flipped a wall switch and the room became illuminated with the soft glow of the recessed lighting.
His father reacted by sitting up in his bed. “Who’s there?”
Adam stepped closer to the bed hoping that his father would recognize him.
“It’s me, dad. I need to talk to you.”
Adam II squinted to see his visitor more clearly. “Adam? Is that you, son? Is something the matter?” he asked in a halting voice.
Adam smiled at his father’s recognition of him. That was an important breakthrough attributed to the new medicine and far better than the last time. He pulled a side chair up close to the bed. “I have to ask you a really important question. Take your time answering.”
“Of course son. You can ask me anything, like you always did as a young child. You always wanted to know about everything. I couldn’t keep up with you. We used to spend hours in my library as I showed you pictures or read to you.” He smiled as he briefly recalled some of these memories.
“Yesterday, during your exam you told the doctor that you had two sons. Why did you say that?”
He was hoping that his father would tell him that he had made a mistake, or that he had misunderstood the question, but apparently that wasn’t going to be the case.
Adam II sat stoically. His eyes locked on his son.
“Did you hear what I said?”
Finally his father answered. He looked remorseful. “I heard you. I just don’t know how to say this. You know that I wasn’t always faithful to your mother. Over the years I was with a lot of whores and I kept several mistresses. It was the early seventies and everything was different then. Your mother knew about them, but she didn’t care as long as I provided for you and her. This is hazy, now, but I recall that back in ’74 I had an affair with a married woman. She got pregnant and had a boy. She said it was mine and somehow I knew she wasn’t lying. I broke things off and made her promise never to tell anyone about our affair or try to contact me again. I paid for the expenses through my lawyer. She never contacted me after that and I let the matter go. She gave the boy her husband’s name. I was really fortunate that it didn’t turn into a scandal.” His eyes filled with tears and his voice quivered. “I’m not very proud of those years, son.”
“I’m not judging you, dad, but I think that after all these years it would be all right to talk about it. I don’t give a rat’s ass about your infidelities. I screwed around when I was young too. What I do care about is that you’re saying that I have a half-brother. Who is he and who is his mother?”
Adam II was slow to answer his son. “It was such a long time ago. There were so many I can’t remember all their names. I still have trouble remembering simple things.”
“Try, dad. This is important. Surely you can remember the name of a woman who had your son.”
His father began to tremble. His face turned ashen and saliva began bubbling in the corner of his mouth. His body was shaking uncontrollably as he fell back against the pillows.
Adam reached for the call button.
Seconds later John and another nurse entered the room with a cart. “I called Dr. Seagrams, he’ll be here in five minutes. I’m going to give him a sedative for now.”
Within a few minutes his father was breathing normally.
“Do what you have to do. We were having a discussion when he suddenly started shaking. What could be wrong with him? I thought the Arecept was helping.”
“I can’t say for sure, but sometimes Alzheimer patients have episodes when they recall periods that were emotional plateaus in their lives. It may not have anything to do with the medicine. He’s been trying hard to remember things. It probably has more to do with a painful memory. He’ll need to rest for a few days, then he should be back on track.”
“Thanks, John. Keep me informed with his progress.”
“I certainly will, sir.”
Adam left his father’s bedroom in an agitated state. Questions raced through his mind as he made his way back to the main house. Do I have a half-brother somewhere? Would he have any legal claim to the estate if this gets out? Does he know who his real father is? I sure don’t need this now, with everything else I have to deal with. Life’s a real bitch sometime. I’m going to have to follow up on this, with, or without, my father’s help. My instincts tell me that there is something more to this.
Milton approached him in the foyer. “Are you ready for breakfast now, sir?”
“No, Milton. I’m going to skip breakfast today. Just bring some coffee to my den.
“Right away, sir.”
When the coffee arrived he closed the doors to the den and took out his cell phone. “Chuck, I’ve got another job for you. I need an extensive background check done.” He explained that he needed some information dating back to 1974.
“Wow! That’s a long time. You’re talking thirty seven years ago. It won’t be easy to access records going back that far.”
“I understand that. You’ll just have to do your best.”
“Who’s the subject?”
“My father, Adam Hampton II. That should make your job easier. I need you to look at his activities for that entire year. I should have all his personal papers for that year in storage. You just have to sort through them.”
There was silence on the other end. Then finally, “You want me to investigate your own father?”
“That’s right. Does that present a problem for you?”
“No, of course not, it just caught me by surprise. Is there something specific you want us to look for?”
“Yes! I want you to look into every relationship he had with women, especially with married women. I want to know their names and everything you can find out about them and their families. This will be a monumental job, but my father kept meticulous records. You’ll have file copies of memos, personal papers, his bank statements and appointment calendars. to go through. He was away from home for long periods at a time when I was young, From what I’ve heard, he was hell raiser back then, but what I am looking for should be in evidence somewhere in those papers.”
“It sounds like I’ll need to assign a lot of people to this. It’s gonna be costly.”
“I don’t care about the expense. Get me those names, and make sure that this is kept on the q.t. I’ll make his private records for that year available for pick-up at our long-term storage facility. You’ll need to check them very carefully.”
“We’ll do the best we can, but this kind of an investigation will requires a certain amount of candor.”
“Don’t tell anyone any more than you need to and do it as quickly as possible.”
“You can count on me Mister Hampton.”
Chapter 20
Adam was the first to reach his office. Marcia and Kane showed up with three bankers boxes full of files slightly before 10 o‘clock.
“Good Morning, Adam”
“Good Morning, Marcia.”
The men nodded perfunctorily. Coffee service was wheeled in and all three filled their cups, picked up a donut and chose a seat at the round meeting table. Marcia presented the sales and revenue projections. She was interrupted several times by Adam as he rechecked the data on a hand held calculator. Her analysis was flawless and brought them to the same conclusions that she had given Adam earlier that morning.