I chugged my Miner’s and got down to business. The next searches opened even my blurry eyes. Both, including one that was the second closest born to Dr. Jones’s magical halftime, blinked up on my screen as deceased. When I began checking newspaper articles and obits, my eyes widened yet again. They had died accidental deaths within six days of one another; one died in a car crash and the other in a bizarre cycling accident. Could it have been a coincidence—two relatively young women, out of a group of just fourteen, dying within a few days of each other? I followed the leads as far as they would go, making notes, and bookmarking sites where I had found pictures and other relevant info. It was a long, time-consuming effort.
Of the final four women, three showed up married—one in Washington, another in California. The third married woman was living in town, though she had clearly made some efforts to conceal her contact information. But the final Super Born was not even trying to hide, as her listing showed an address and phone. By then, though, my mind was too unfocused to go on. The time at the bottom of my glowing computer screen read 5:32. At first, that seemed weird, but then the light coming in from the windows made it clear: 5:32 a…m. Shit, I was right. I did do my best work late and drunk. Who knew?
But when I got to bed I couldn’t sleep. I just stared at an empty spot on the wall, thinking of the blond from the bar An hour later, the spot hadn’t moved, and I still felt my blood racing. No deep breathing or reasoning quieted the anxiety. All I had of her was the image of her at O’Malley’s and the photo of her at Skelly’s; both played over and over in my mind (minus the part where she had spoken to me and I’d been unable to respond, naturally). Then I thought of her words on the website the night before, how I had almost exposed her. I could feel the veins in my neck pumping rapidly, uncontrollably.
Then a realization shot through me, causing me to sit up in bed. I had three things going for me: I knew how she looked, I knew she had a daughter, and I had the computer address from which she had contacted the B.I.B. site. I would check birth records for the B.I.B.’s child and have Rebecca Sans interpret the hit log to try to locate that computer. By then, it was 6:37 a.m. Hell, I should be up anyway.
An hour later, I was cleaned and java-ed up, ready to go. It was just another beautiful Saturday morning, nothing special. Just any other day—like the day life had first crawled out of the slime, or the universe had burst into being with a big bang. Today was the day I would find the B.I.B.
I was full of energy and anticipation, but, at the same time, my stomach was in knots. And you wouldn’t want to be standing behind me for any length of time, if you know what I mean. Call it anticipation and fear or whatever, but I had it—a bad case too.
When I asked Rebecca for the computer trace, I had a detailed explanation of my request prepared, but didn’t get halfway through it. She had not only the IP address for me within a minute, but all the information tracked down to the subscriber’s home address. Damn, she’s good! I remembered thinking, like a sap. But when it came time to give me the information, I could sense a hesitation in her voice. Later I would realize that she’d been battling the ethical dilemma of whether or not she owed it me to give me the true information.
I thanked Rebecca wholeheartedly, hung up, and stared at the address on the paper for a long moment, as if admiring a priceless prize—the Mona Lisa, perhaps, or a personal note from god concerning the meaning of life. I cleared my throat to drive down the acid from my nervous stomach, and then navigated a route to her house on the computer: trip time, thirty-seven minutes. Thirty-seven minutes, I thought, feeling like Neil Armstrong after being given the okay to start his descent for the lunar landing. Thirty-seven friggin’ minutes to the B.I.B.
Thirty-seven minutes, my ass! It was almost a belching, farting, hour later before I coolly slid past her house, 007-like, and parked along the street a block or so down. I sat in the car watching the door for as long as the untrained could take it and then began nervously patrolling the sidewalk across the street from her house.
My body’s reaction to the idea of seeing her again made me debate leaving and just giving her a call or writing her an email first. Maybe that was the way to go. Then I thought about those gray eyes as they had flashed at me in O’Malley’s. I could feel the warmth of our connection snapping us together like two magnets of opposite poles; billions of fingers of energy connecting with a great and comforting force. At least that’s the way it was in my mind. I just had to convince my stomach and feet of that.
Frankly, the neighborhood was not what I had expected. It was an old, rundown part of Scranton—I mean even older and more rundown than the rest of Scranton. As I walked slowly down the street, I could see the local residents were either the very young who had no money, or the very old who had no money: RFDs lived beside retirees.
I walked past one RFD who wore his jacket on backward and, when he turned to say hello, he promptly ran into a small tree. His friend, working on his car in the driveway, laughed at him for a moment before the hood of his car closed on him. His neighbor, a little old man, just looked at the trapped RFD from his front porch and waved his hand in disgust. “I’m not getting you out of there again, Jimmy,” he said as he stepped inside. “I told you there’s a stick to hold that up. A stick, you moron!”
The fourth inconspicuous time I belched my way past her house, I had finally built up the courage to knock on the door. As I started across the street, I heard the roar and saw the flash of a beer truck that had suddenly appeared around the corner and accelerated in front of me. I stepped back, and an RFD on a bicycle ran straight into a parked car. “I’m okay,” he said, holding up an arm from the other side of the car.
When I got to the door, the veins in my neck were pounding like bongos and I was glad I hadn’t tried to have anything solid for breakfast, if you know what I mean. It was early on a Saturday morning, so I thought my chances were good that she would be home. No answer. I tried a second ring and then heard an unintelligible voice drawing nearer. As the door swung open, I swear my heart stopped.
In the doorway stood not the B.I.B., but a middle-aged, dark-haired woman dressed in a robe. I asked her if there was another woman living there, and she replied in an Eastern European language. I tried again to make it clear that I was looking for a blond woman. I doubt she understood half of what I said, but the “looking for” and “woman” part seemed to incite her. She grabbed my arm, pulled me in, and closed the door.
She continued speaking in her language, but the tones became slower and she emphasized the parts that must have been significant to her. The fact that her words hadn’t sent me packing implied I was in agreement, bringing a smile to her face. How did I know what the hell she was saying? She got close and kept talking while she ran her hands over my shoulders and began squeezing my arms, each squeeze making her hiss a little.
I looked around the house in the hope that someone else was there who spoke English. As I turned, she loosened the belt and her robe dropped off her shoulders, revealing a very hairy, very naked, very horny woman who spoke only some language that I didn’t.
I gracefully tried to back away without insulting a woman whose cause, I had to admit, I supported wholeheartedly. If there were a “Horny Women Who Want to Use Me” committee,” I would be certain to give…regularly. As I shook my head and began to apologize, the nimble old minx pulled my arm and swept my legs with her foot, leaving me to fall right on top of her, while she continued to speak and hiss in her language. She took hold of my hand and dragged it over her cheek, her breasts, down her stomach, and finally slipped it into the soaking wet jungle between her legs while trying to reach up to kiss me.
The cavalry arrived in the form of a potbellied old man in pajamas who came waddling into the room—quickly, but still waddling. He yelled at her. She yelled back. I began my feverish escape while she tried to push my hand deeper into her steamy, excited jungle. As he neared us, she turned her attention to him, I pulled away, and then she g
ot up.
She and the man continued in loud tones and gestured toward one another while I backed away. The fact that Mr. Potbelly hadn’t paid me the slightest attention told me that she may have done this before. They spoke no English, but from the look of them and their gestures, I imagined that this woman had married a much older man whose potbelly had grown while something below it had not.
By the time I closed the door behind me, their tones had already changed and I heard them begin to laugh amid a quieter conversation. I guessed the woman’s ready body had given Mr. Potbelly other ideas. Apparently, someone else had entered the jungle “l’amour.”
I, on the other hand, was devastated. Not only had I failed to find the B.I.B., I knew I didn’t have any hand wipes in the glove compartment. How could that have been the wrong address? I looked back one last time to make certain it was the house Rebecca had given me. I shook my head as I opened the car door, but then heard a laugh. When I looked down, I heard another laugh and saw an RFD slide out from under the front of my car and run into a yard nearby. I shook my head, thinking, What the… Then two more appeared from under the back of my car and ran away, one tripping over a raised section of the sidewalk, while the other howled with laughter as he continued to run.
“I could have killed you!” I screamed after them, shaking my fist. “Fuckin’ RFD’s!”
I looked under the car and all around, but I didn’t see any more RFDs—except for the one across the street who had run his bicycle into the parked car. He remained on the ground behind the car. He was not holding his hand quite as high as before and his “I’m okay” didn’t seem quite as believable anymore. After a minute, I watched his hand plummet, and he began to plea for water.
I called Rebecca, and she insisted that the address was the house from which the site had been accessed. That was the first time I began to doubt anything Rebecca had done. Plus, she’d told me that she was at home, but I could hear the cars passing her on a street. Was it possible that she’d been lying to me—on both counts?
I ended the call and this time, I looked left, right, left, and right again, before pulling out; you never knew when a fast-moving beer truck would appear in this neighborhood.
I started to crash from the lack of sleep and the overdose of adrenalin even before I got home, in thirty-nine minutes (still not thirty-seven). I hit the couch and felt everything drain out of me.
I still knew what she looked like, and I still had the Super Bowl information to research, but my “ace in the hole” computer trace had vanished. Could the B.I.B. know that strange woman I’d met, or have actually been at that house in RFD/retiree land? I doubted it. I doubted Rebecca and I doubted myself…again. Welcome home.
Chapter 26
Finally
I couldn’t tell who the woman was, but every time I passed the kitchen window, I saw her sitting in her car, and it seemed like she was looking right at me. She spoke on her cell phone now and again but spent most of her time staring at my apartment.
I crouched beneath my window, watching her, and waited her out, hoping she’d lost sight of me. She seemed to yell at someone on the phone, and then took a last glance—did she know she was looking right into my eyes?—before her car sped off with a squeal. It made my blood run cold. Had someone found me?
I checked the window one more time to be certain that she was gone, thankful that Paige wasn’t home. Then I put my fingertips to my mouth as I thought and began pacing the living room like a caged animal. I hadn’t made any mistakes, right?
Well, there was the picture from the bar with the mask on, thanks to too many Miner’s. But that was it.
No, there was also the fish face picture. But that was it.
No, there was the contact I’d just made with the website. But the picture was gone now, right?.
No, there were a million other things that could have gone wrong; security cameras, witnesses, fingerprints, DNA, my own daughter might have figured it out. I started to feel paranoid. If I kept at this, something was certain to go wrong eventually. Maybe it already had.
I texted Paige; no reply. I panicked and called her as I mumbled, “Come on, pick up, pick up” with every ring of the phone.
“Hi, Mom. What’s up?” Paige said, and then spoke to someone in the background.
“You okay?”
“Well, I just had one of Lori’s meat loaf sandwiches, so how good can I be?” she asked, and then laughed to whoever was with her.
“Nothing weird going on over there?”
“Other than Lori painting her bathroom green…again?”
“There aren’t any creepy people hanging around over there, are there?”
Paige burst out laughing. “Yeah, this house is full of them!”
“Okay, just wanted to check in with you.”
“Okay…oh, Mom? Is it okay if Kelly and I hit a movie tonight? Her mom’s taking us, so you don’t have to freak out or anything.”
“Fine. That’s a good idea…love you.”
“Love you? Mom, is something wrong?”
“Can’t I say I love you?”
“Sure, but that just sounded a little creepy.”
“I don’t care how it sounded. I don’t say it enough.”
“Well, okay…love you too.”
I clicked off the phone and sighed, feeling relieved. Paige was okay, but it would just be a matter of time if I weren’t more careful. It seemed that time had come.
* * *
When I blinked and found that it was already dark in my stylishly sloppy apartment, I knew I had crashed badly. I didn’t even feel rested, just…nasty. My mobile phone was ringing merrily somewhere like a joyous bird, which I hated and wanted to kill. I dug around furiously and finally found it on the floor beside me. “Yeah,” I said, pushing my hair back out of my eyes.
“She’s ’ere!”
“What?” my bleary voice started. “Who’s this?” Smooth, ain’t I?
“It’s me, you old sod, Martin from O’Malley’s. You told me ta call when she was ’ere and I’m calling.”
“Huh?”
“Your blond bird, remember, the big tipper? She’s ’ere at her table as we speak!”
My body found a new supply of adrenaline and shot into a panic. I leapt to my feet and started turning left and right trying to decide what to do next.
“It’s still three hundred dollars, right? You said three hundred if she were ta show.”
“Sure, sure, whatever.” I knew he had inflated the reward, but I didn’t care. (What, money didn’t matter anymore? Did I have a fever?) “You hold her there. I’m on my way!”
“Sure, sure, I’ll just sit on her till you gets ’ere…If she leaves, it’s still three hundred!”
“Give her free drinks,” I stammered as I fumbled for my shoes in the dark and ran my toe into the table leg instead. “The drinks will be on me—whatever, free food—
just keep her there!”
“It’ll be my pleasure. I’m sure she’ll love the lobster flambé special we’re havin’ tonight.”
I remembered the greasy chili fries O’Malley’s served and knew the old man was just telling me that he was inflating the bill some more. “Just keep her there!” With that, I clicked the phone off and started through the door. I returned a few seconds later, remembering that a pair of pants would be a good idea….and a shirt.
* * *
When I walked into the bar and found her sitting at the same table where she’d been sitting in all my wet dreams, my heart changed neighborhoods and began bouncing around in my body. But I kept my composure and walked slowly toward her without a word in my head to say. Martin broke my cool when he came running over with an order pad, trying to collect his money up front. But I gave him a glare that put him in his place. He and I handled the quick negotiations in relative privacy and were done. I slid into the booth across from her like I owned the place and feasted my eyes on her, waiting for the blue/green flash, prepring the greatest opening
line ever.
* * *
When he walked into the bar and stood staring at me I thought that at first he was going to hurl. Then, when the old bartender nearly ran him over I had no idea what to think. He slipped something into the old man’s hand, they exchanged some rough words, and then he zigzagged his way back toward me. For a minute, I thought he was going right back out the door, but then he zagged and stood over me.
“Mind if I sit down?” he asked uncertainly, and was that a belch he muffled?
I gestured for him to join me. He sat, looked at the table for a minute, and then looked up and said, “You come here often?”
* * *
She was obviously impressed. Apparently, I had made the same kind of impression on her that she had made on me a few months back, with the possible exception that she hadn’t created a website for me, been searching for me feverishly, or appeared to be under any sort of gaseous attack, as I was. Other than that, she felt the same as me. I was sure. Her eyes glowed and she smiled at me. “I remember you! You sat right over there,” she said, turning and pointing, “with that Dr. Jones I’ve read so much about in the paper. I saw him on TV. He’s the big B.I.B. expert, right?”
I nodded. “Dr. Jones and I have both been…in the media a lot lately,” I said. “I have a website…”
“I know. Pub Crawler and B.I.B. Rescue—love those games you have,” she interrupted in a milder tone, her eyes dropping to the table, which was littered with empty Miner’s Lite bottles and two barely touched orders of O’Malley’s finest. She offered me a basket of untouched chili fries.
“No…thanks.”
After an RFD slid past us on a chair pushed by two other RFDs, I felt the words escaping from my mouth without control; hey, at least it wasn’t another burp. “Look, it’s no accident that I ran into you tonight. I paid the bartender to call me if you showed up. Your feast here,” I said, gesturing sarcastically to the table, “was to keep you here until I arrived.”
“Why?” she asked vaguely amused. “Most guys…”
“No, that’s not it…I’m not most guys. You see…I just have to know…are you the woman who complained the other night about the fish-face picture on my website?”
Super Born: Seduction of Being Page 21
