Invasion of Privacy

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  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."

  "For that, you have to fax me everything in there about him," Paul said. "Teams, clubs, whatever he was involved in."

  "I’d have to cut out some pages. I could do that. Ronnie bought me a fax for Christmas."

  "Now? You’d do that now? That would be wonderful, Trish. You always were a good girl."

  "No, I always was a bad girl, Paul," Trish said. "That was why you fell for me. I’ll help you for old times’ sake, though. For the sake of the way you cussed at the climax of passion."

  "That’s what you remember about me?" Paul said.

  "That was so cute."

  Bob had to stay late at school to finish some makeup work from the days he had missed. His uncle Matt was supposed to be picking him up, but he had a tow job— someone had crashed into a tree over by Emerald Bay. He’d get there as soon as he could. He wanted Bob to wait in front of the office if the teacher kicked him out.

  Sure enough, at four-thirty Mrs. Yeager slammed her lesson book shut and sent him and the other kids out.

  One by one, moms and dads pulled up in cars to cart off their kids, while he sat on a bench in front of the office, wondering if anyone was left inside behind the blinds. Although there were still a few cars in the parking lot, the school had a deserted, lifeless feeling without all the kids, almost spooky.

  He decided to go into the office to wait. He tried the door and found it locked. He pulled a quarter out of his backpack and called his mom’s office. Her machine answered. It must be after five. He looked for another quarter to call his aunt at home, but remembered loaning it to Jasper at lunch for milk. So he would just wait.

  Only one car remained in the parking lot. The door opened. A big black dog jumped out and ran straight for him.

  "Hey," Bob yelled. "Stay back!" He jumped onto the bench and got his foot ready to kick. The dog stopped short, wagged his tail, and licked Bob’s shoe.

  "Hitchcock!" a woman called. "C’mere, boy." She came running up behind the dog with her hand on a dangling leash. "Oh, hi," she said. "Bob, right?"

  8

  UNCLE MATT DROVE UP IN THE BIG YELLOW TOW truck a few minutes after the lady and her dog had gone.

  "Sorry to be so late, Bob. You okay?"

  "Fine, Uncle Matt."

  "Boy, it got dark fast, didn’t it? Just sneaked up on me."

  "No problem, Uncle Matt. I just sat here on the bench. Mostly."

  "Finish your work up?"

  "Yep."

  Matt turned the radio on.

  "I almost got a ride with that lady Mom knows. She didn’t like me being alone in the dark."

  "What lady?"

  "She has this black dog who slobbers all over the place. He’s a real bruiser. She lets him run out on the field after everyone leaves. Don’t worry. She cleans up his messes. "

  "Who was it, Bob?"

  "Terry somebody. Like I said, she’s a friend of Mom’s."

  "You were right not to take a ride with anyone, even if it’s your mom’s friend. You did the right thing. "

  "I ran with her and the dog for a while, though."

  "You should have just waited for me. What if I couldn’t find you?"

  "We stayed right on the field!" he said, although Terry had wanted him to join them on a walk up the street. He’d refused and she told him she understood that he sure wouldn’t want to make his mom mad.

  She’d been nice, and wanted to hear about his trip to Monterey. She’d even said that name, Kurt Scott, sounded familiar, and she might be able to help him look.

  He told her how he had promised his mom not to look for him himself while she was thinking things over, but Terry had said, well, Bob, that doesn’t apply to me, does it?

  Maybe the look on his face made his uncle soften. "Really, it’s okay," he said. "Here you are, no harm done. Now, you leave it to me to tell your mom it’s my fault you’re late tonight. I hate to worry her with this."

  "We don’t have to tell her you were late. That would be fine with me."

  "I guess she’s less likely to get upset if she doesn’t know I left you to fend for yourself for a few minutes."

  Bob felt relieved. Uncle Matt hadn’t made a big deal out of him talking to Terry, so he didn’t need to feel guilty.

  Anyway, he’d probably never see her again.

  As it turned out, Paul did find a St. Patrick’s Day party, and he paid his respects to Dionysus, who repaid him with a skull-splitting headache on Saturday morning. When he stopped by the office on Sunday, wearing shades to keep the fog from hurting his eyes, he found several curled sheets of fax paper on the floor, where his machine always filed them.

  The faxed photo of Scott showed a large young man with longish dark hair swept back from his forehead, wearing a polo shirt, solemnly facing the camera. The features were all normal size, no awesome forehead or jutting nose or geeky neck and Adam’s apple; no facial hair.

  You could tell a lot about how a guy looked into the camera for a class picture, even if the picture quality was poor. From the polo shirt, Paul deduced that he wasn’t a flaming radical. He could even be a science student. His expression meant he wasn’t a fun-type guy either, took himself seriously. Longish hair? Youth, that was all, could go on to become a corporate banker. Norma
l weight, neither a runner nor a line-backer.

  So ... studious type, too big to be a nerd, though. Paul pondered the young Scott’s face for another minute or two. Well-defined lips, deep-set eyes, very light, could be green or blue. Some character there.

  He had Scott memorized. Under the picture a heading said, Kurt G. Scott. Major, Music. Minor, German. Well, that fit with everything Harlan had told him.

  As expected, the next page presented the University of Nevada’s orchestra. The dark-haired fellow at the grand piano, face shown in profile, was identified as Scott. Yes, the piano. The Chopin type, Paul thought. Sensitive, intellectual, attracted women like a goldfish attracts cats. Probably wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to go out for a pass....

  Next page. Track and field. Kurt G. Scott, javelin. Well, that took shoulders. Scott stood on the college track, his javelin poised for a throw, his eyes whited out by glare. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt and shorts, showing off a medium-size, rangy body with good muscle definition. Behind him a few others worked the long-jump pit and bleachers. Scott had picked up a distance-throwing record in his junior year.

  Sissy stuff. Real men played real sports: football, baseball, and basketball, in that order. Hockey had the requisite vicious spirit, but unfortunately fell to the indignity of men wearing skates. And no self-respecting American man bounced a ball off his head to play soccer.

  Javelin throwing was in the category of activities for guys that couldn’t cut it on any team at all.

  Last page. The German Club consisted mostly of girls. Kurt G. Scott sat in the back row. And well he might. The club’s adviser, Frau Ingrid Sheets, a gray-haired lady in long skirts, stood to the right.

  Paul tried to think charitably about the guy. Not all men could measure up to his standards of excellence. Not all men were all-man. Musicians, except jazz musicians, and language students were excluded by definition. Why did women fall in love with them so regularly? It was another mystery, like where he’d put his favorite comb, that he might never solve.

  He didn’t like it, but he could see Bob in Scott. Black hair, the same. Chiseled chin, the same. Build, similar, if scaled up from age eleven. A complicated expression, maybe guile, maybe repressed feelings, played over the father’s face in the same way he’d seen it in the boy’s.