Reilly 02 - Invasion of Privacy (9 page)

"No, he was pretty dirty. Don’t worry. He’ll be back. We are discussing some business. And he doesn’t know I called you yet.’’

"Promise you won’t let him go."

"Don’t worry."

Neither of them spoke for a minute. Then Nina said, "Paul, why did he come to you?"

"He offered me a job."

"What?"

"Seems he’s looking for someone. Smart kid. Hires the best."

"He’s hunting for his father," said Nina flatly.

"That’s right. Kurt Geoffrey Scott."

If Nina was surprised he knew the name, he couldn’t tell from her voice.

"Tell him whatever you want, but keep him with you. Take him to my father’s. I’m coming down right away, but it’s going to be five hours—"

"Can’t you fly?"

"It’s snowing again, poor visibility, the airport’s closed...."

"I’ll take care of him."

"Thanks. Thanks so much! I was so scared!"

"And you wonder I don’t want kids," Paul said. He kicked himself for saying it after she hung up the phone.

Paul explained to the boy that he was still thinking about whether he could take the case, but that Bob had taken it as far as he could, and his mother needed him. Then he fed him a big lunch, which the boy paid for with an abbreviated story of his past couple of days.

As they drove, Paul sneaked looks at the kid. Only eleven years old, and he had traveled across the state, done some investigating, slept out one full night and part of another, sauntered into restaurants and ordered meals, traveled around the Monterey Peninsula on the bus.

He didn’t want to think what the kid would be like at fifteen.

He’d never talked to an obsessed eleven-year-old before. What would Nina do with him? Whup him good? No, that went out in the fifties. You didn’t hit kids anymore. Counseling, that’s what she would do, keeping her toes on the politically correct line. He thought about what he would have done if Bob had been his kid.

Whup him good, tell him all about his father, and dispel the cloud Nina had put over the guy’s name.

He could sympathize with Bob on at least one point: Nina kept too much to herself, things she had no business hiding.

Dropping the boy at his grandfather Harlan Reilly’s house, he stood in the doorway attempting to pick the man’s brain about Nina’s former lover.

Harlan insisted he come in for a little coffee. Round as his beloved golf balls, with powerful arms and a perfect tan, Nina’s father led Paul out to a backyard patio that overlooked hills dotted with gnarled Monterey pines.

All around the yard, yellow and red flowers were sprouting in the early spring. There was a late afternoon sparkle in the air, and the day’s weather had settled into a temperate seventy degrees. Paul couldn’t help picturing Nina braving the storms, coming over the pass from the mountains. Didn’t she get tired of living up there, with all those months of cold weather? Tahoe was one of those amenities for Californians who craved winter snow, a place to visit and then have the pleasure of leaving for sunnier climes. She would love living back down here again, if he could only convince her....

Pouring a lot of whiskey into the cups and a little coffee, they each drank one cup and most of a second before Harlan had satisfied himself that he trusted Paul enough to tell him anything.

"Naturally, she never told me a thing about Bob’s father. Once the bum took off, she had too much pride to go after him."

"You don’t know anything?" Paul asked, disappointed.

"I know plenty," he said. "I’m her father, aren’t I?"

7

NINA ARRIVED AT HARLAN’S HOUSE AT SEVEN. SHE had driven up the mountains, down the mountains, and through the Central Valley at a speed completely incompatible with snow, rain, narrow roads, and poor visibility. By the time she reached Monterey Bay, she had decided to make Bobby stay in his room after school for the rest of the school year. Without TV or video games.

But when she saw him at the door, looking shamefaced and shabby, she drew him to her and held him. He said, "I’m sorry, Mom."

"We’ll talk about all this, honey, until I really understand what happened."

"I had to go."

"Shhh. Lots of time to talk on the way back home. Are you really all right? Nothing bad happened?"

"Of course not. I had my knife. I wasn’t scared."

"But ... where did you sleep?"

"Down at the wharf. It was pretty cold."

"Supper!" Harlan called.

They all rushed through dinner. Paul sat next to her, joining cheerfully into conversation with Harlan and his wife Angie, quizzing Nina’s dad on his par. Bobby ate three servings of the chicken, but Nina could hardly eat. Food choked her. She sat next to her son, touching him frequently.

As soon as she had carried the dishes back to the kitchen, she said, "We have to get back."

"You could stay over," Paul said. "It’s too far to drive back now."

"No," Nina said. "I had two cups of coffee. I want this boy home in his own bed."

Paul walked them out. While Bobby settled himself in the passenger seat, Nina took Paul aside and said, "I’m so grateful."

"I didn’t do anything."

"Did you tell him you aren’t going to help him?"

"Not yet. I’ll call him tomorrow after school. I thought you should talk with him first. And maybe you should tell me what’s going on."

"There’s nothing to tell. I haven’t seen Bob’s father for twelve years." She looked into Paul’s inquisitive eyes.

"Bob’s not going to let you coast too much farther on this one," he said.

"We’ll see. Thanks for everything, Paul."

"My timing is rotten, but every time I see you, my mind tends to run in the same tracks."

She smiled.

"When can I spend time with you? Let’s ski, soak in the spa at Caesars, maybe more.... I like you, Nina. I’m getting attached."

"Don’t get attached. I’m—"

"Involved with someone else?"

"No."

"Love can’t always wait," Paul said. He put his arms around her. She could feel his desire as he stroked her back, pressing against her. "And as you know, in both our lines of work, control’s a luxury. Chaos is the norm".

"I’ve got to go," she said, pulling gently away from him and climbing up into the driver’s seat of the Bronco. "I promise, I’ll call you soon."

She reversed herself driving back, over the valley, up the mountains and down the mountains, never exceeding the speed limit, while Bob lay in the backseat, the seatbelt fastened firmly around his sleeping form. They didn’t get back until two in the morning. Dragging him to his bed, she left the car packed with his dirty bags and jumped into her own bed, trying hard to sleep, images of Bob and Paul and Terry popping like balloons in and out of the courtroom of her mind.

Paul called Bob the next afternoon, telling him as kindly as he could that he would see what he could do. For one thing, that would keep the kid from running off again. For another, he didn’t want to refuse outright and get on Bob’s bad side. He was Nina’s kid, after all. Of course, Paul couldn’t do much. Poking his nose into Nina’s business might net him a black eye.

All morning he cruised cyberspace. At noon he finally caught up with and swatted der Fliegel on-line. He called his client, ate lunch at the Hog’s Breath, played racketball, and watched The Good, the Bad and the Ugly for about the forty-seventh time on his office TV.

He drifted into a lonesome mood. At four o’clock on this balmy March afternoon, a certain brown-haired pixie was far away. It was St. Patrick’s Day, and he didn’t have a date for the evening. One of the lawyers he worked for in Salinas had invited him to a party, but he couldn’t let loose among the stuffed shirts and potential employers he might encounter there.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t let loose for a long time. What had happened to all those parties he remembered in hot, squalid apartments lit by firelight and candles, loud crashing music and cheap wine stripping away clothes and inhibitions, bodies packed together, everyone available at least for the night, heavy anarchic conversations in the kitchen, clouds of marijuana smoke out on the back porch—what had the world come to, when he couldn’t find a decent party on St. Patrick’s?

Down below, in the Hog’s Breath courtyard, extremely young people caressed each other, argued, made up, smoked, drank too much, and did all the self-destructive things he had sworn off since receiving the results of his latest cholesterol test. A big sandy-haired kid down there reminded him of himself at nineteen, jock turned nihilist. His long hair struck Paul now as sloppy; did indulgent parents pay for the espressos and the sky blue Miata he figured was parked down the street?

He went to the mirror behind the office door and examined the four gray hairs up there, just above his hairline. There was a new one, number five. He plucked all five.

At least he had a hairline. He shouldn’t complain. He still had the shoulders, the ’ceps, from his football days. Where was his football? He scrounged around, finding it in a neglected corner, and drew back his arm in a couple of imaginary passes. A terrible thought came to him. Perhaps such parties were in full swing at this very moment, and he wasn’t invited.

He suddenly realized how lonely he felt. He saw Nina’s face the night before, as she had talked about Bob’s father, the way her brown eyes looked away from him toward a whole history that still propelled her life. She had made it plain that the subject of Kurt Scott was off limits.

He should respect that. He had no right to invade her privacy. This was between Nina and Bob.

He was just ... a friend. He didn’t like thinking of himself like that. He wanted to get closer. That made Scott his problem now too. A strong sensation of inner turbulence moiled and boiled in his gut, saying, "Do something!"

Apologizing mentally to Nina, he sat down at his computer, dialing up CompuServe. These days, you couldn’t disappear. Nobody escaped the clutches of cyberdick.

His fingers typed KURT GEOFFREY SCOTT.

He had decided to find the son of a bitch.

"Sandy? Can you come in for a second?"

Sandy, who had been passing Nina’s door, said, "Okay. Just let me get the frozen coffee out of the freezer. Then I’ll measure it carefully and put it through the grinder. Then I’ll get out the gold filter. And all."

A few minutes later she returned to Nina’s office, carrying two cups of fresh brew.

"Thanks," said Nina, breathing in the smell. "I’m waking up already."

Sandy looked at her watch. "Four o’clock in the afternoon. Right on schedule."

"You don’t like it that I freeze my coffee," Nina said. "You think it’s a waste of time."

"It’s a white middle-class ritual," Sandy said. "You don’t mess with my rituals; I don’t mess with yours."

Sipping at the fresh, strong liquid, Nina asked, "Have we received our final payment on the London case?"

"There’s no balance outstanding." Sandy returned to her desk, looked it up on the computer. "The retainer covered everything," she said.

"Excellent," Nina said. She picked up her microphone and began to dictate. "On letterhead. To Theresa London."

When Sandy brought letters in for Nina to sign at the end of the day, she remarked that Nina sounded remarkably pleasant in the letter. "You stone her and then just say ’good luck.’ "

"That’s standard insurance. Give her nothing to object to. Cross your fingers. And pray she’ll sign the substitution form and let me out of the case."

"What did she do to get on your list?"

"Plenty. Don’t forget to mark the calendar to send her another one in a week with a follow-up letter. If she doesn’t return it, I’ll get a motion ready."

"What do I do if she calls?"

"Field my calls for the next couple of days, will you? I’m not available to Terry London."

"Will do."

Paul’s fingers twitched. In a couple of hours of hunting on-line, he had established that Kurt Scott didn’t live in Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel, Big Sur, Seaside, Marina, Salinas, or Carmel Valley. He had no California record of felony convictions, at least in the major counties that had such information computerized. TRW had no credit records on him. And he did not possess a California driver’s license.

Poking through Harlan’s mind for irrelevant bits of information that he’d gathered or come by over the years had helped more. Harlan knew some potentially useful things. He knew Scott had been working for the U.S. Forest Service when he’d met Nina, and he was some kind of musician. Harlan couldn’t remember what instrument he’d played. Not rock and roll though. In fact, Harlan even remembered that Scott’s favorite musician was Van Cliburn, a pianist, so maybe he’d played the piano too. His family was from Tahoe, but he’d lived for a bit in Germany as a child.

And Scott had met Nina while she was vacationing in the Tahoe area twelve years before.

Paul had always wondered, why had Nina fled her divorce only to settle in South Lake Tahoe? Now he knew she had one reason, and he didn’t much like it.

He decided to call Harlan, who answered on the second ring. Retirement probably made every phone call a treat. Harlan told a couple of jokes in honor of St. Patrick and Paul laughed. Then he said, "I just wanted to clear up something you said when we spoke yesterday. You said you thought Scott had finished college. Any idea what college he attended?"

Silence for a moment. When Harlan spoke again, he had dropped his usual bantering tone. "You intend to find Bob’s father, don’t you?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Gotta do it. He’s in the way."

"Have you considered how Nina’s going to feel when she finds out?"

"No."

" ’Love has pitched his mansion,’ hasn’t he?"

"In a mess, as always," said Paul.

"I like a man who knows his Yeats. But you realize she won’t like you digging up old dirt."

"I’m not doing this for her."

"Will you tell her what you find out?"

"I don’t know."

Harlan thought about that, then apparently bestowing his tacit approval on the endeavor said, "Try UNR. The University of Nevada at Reno. That’s the four-year college closest to Tahoe. And I seem to remember something about it."

Once upon a time Paul had married a robust cross-country skier from Reno, Nevada. He consulted his watch, a gold Rolex, his one and only treasure. Six o’clock. She would be home from work.

On impulse, he called her.

Her new husband, Ronald something or other, answered, and Paul explained in a slightly affected tone that his wife had ordered Vogue and InStyle recently, or was it Vogue and Vanity Fair? He hoped his company hadn’t inadvertently erred.

"Just a minute," Ronald said, putting his hand over the phone. "Some asshole says you ordered Vogue," he said in an only slightly muffled voice.

"I never," a woman’s voice protested.

"Like the vacuum cleaner you bought last week from that jerk at the door."

"That was different, Ronnie, I’m telling you.... Never mind, hand me the phone." The volume of the TV in the background went back up. His ex-wife, Tricia, said stridently, "You better talk fast, ’cuz I have diarrhea and I’ve got to go." Laughter exploded in the background.

"That’s disgusting, Trish. Why did I ever marry you, anyway?" Paul said.

"Oh, right, those magazines," Tricia said. "Hang on, I’m going to get on the phone in the other room." A minute later she picked up an extension in a quieter place and said, "No, I won’t come back to you. You can beg and plead all you want."

"I’ve matured a lot since then."

"So have I. That’s why you don’t have a chance."

"How are you?"

"I have three kids, that’s how I am, and I haven’t heard word one from you for about a decade."

"I have no excuse."

"You used to be great at thinking those up. So why are you calling me? Ronnie gets all cranky when your name comes up. I guess it’s a boy thing, so I’m glad you used an alias." She sounded friendly and curious.

Paul suddenly had a vivid memory of her in bed, on her hands and knees as he approached her from the rear, her round pink-and-white behind presented so invitingly. It was funny, the images you remembered most from your marriages.

"Are you still a cop?" she said.

"No. I moved on. I’m a detective agency now."

"Well, I hope you’re making better money."

"Better than Ronnie," Paul said.

"Hunh! I doubt it. Ronnie’s a gynecologist."

He decided to let that one pass.

"Listen, Trish, I need a favor. A little favor, tiny, minuscule in fact."

"Like what?"

"I’m looking for a man."

"You have changed. I never would have guessed."

Paul ignored her. "This man might have gone to the University of Nevada at Reno, maybe even while you were there, sometime in the early to middle eighties. I thought maybe you had some old school annuals—"

"Why are you looking for him?"

"His great-grandpa wants to leave him his fortune," Paul said. "Who knows, he might be very grateful to know you helped find him."

"You’re such a liar, Paul," Tricia said, but she was amused enough to go and drag out her old yearbooks and look for Kurt Scott.

The fog had thickened outside Paul’s window. He was getting antsy, dredging up the past in pursuit of a guy he had no business looking for. Long shots like this never paid off. He’d do better buying a Lotto ticket. At least then he’d have one chance in a trillion.

"Aren’t you the lucky boy," Tricia said. "I found him in one of Ronnie’s yearbooks. Kurt G. Scott, class of 1981. He was a couple of years before my time."

Jackpot! "What would I have to do to get you to fax me the photo?"

"Promise never to call me again. Or call more often."