by Mark Gimenez
"Happy birthday, Zach."
"Thanks, Andy."
The boy gave him a quick hug then rejoined the party.
"He likes you, Andy."
"I like him."
"I try to be a big brother, too, but it's not the same."
"He looks good today."
Russell nodded. "Today. Chemo tomorrow."
They didn't speak for several minutes. Andy watched Zach playing with the other sick kids, then he watched Russell watching Zach. He knew exactly what was going through his client's mind.
"We found her," Andy finally said. "Frankie Doyle."
"Let's go upstairs."
They walked to the elevators. Russell used a special key to access the penthouse. The place looked like a fancy hotel suite. Russell led Andy into an office. They sat across a table from each other. Andy removed the dossier and photos of Frankie Doyle and her daughter from his backpack and spread them across the table.
"She wasn't easy to find, Russell."
"That why you went to this Lorenzo Escobar?"
"How'd you know?"
"I keep tabs, Andy."
"Hollis goes by the book."
"Doing whatever it takes to get the job done. I like that, Andy."
Russell studied the dossier and photos under a small fluorescent desk lamp.
"She moved from Boston to Montana to New Mexico to West Texas. Changed her name every time. She now lives in Buda."
Russell looked up. "You went to Boston and Montana and found her fifteen miles from here?"
"Yeah."
Russell returned to the photos.
"So what's her story?"
"Frankie Doyle is twenty-eight, divorced, one daughter. She's eight."
"Finances?"
"None to speak of. She drives an old Toyota and lives in a rent house. Unemployed."
"Problems?"
"Cigarettes and her ex-husband up in Boston. He hit her. She's running from him."
Russell shook his head slowly.
"These poor women. They all have a burden to bear."
"I met hers. Ex-boxer, owns a garage. He's a jerk."
"What's wrong with the girl?"
"Nothing."
Russell's eyes came up again.
"Her child's not sick?"
"No."
"You're sure?"
Andy shrugged. "Frankie said she was in perfect health."
"You saw her? The girl?"
"Yeah. Cute redhead. She seemed fine."
"See, Andy. Just odds."
Russell went back to the photos.
"And she's eight years old?"
Andy nodded. "And Frankie is twenty-eight. Which means, Russell, she couldn't have been your girlfriend."
Russell didn't react. He didn't even look up from the photos.
"Why do you say that, Andy?"
"I did the math. You've been married fourteen years, so she was fourteen when you got married. And she got married four years later."
Russell slowly raised his eyes from the photos.
"I never said she was my girlfriend before I was married… or that she wasn't married."
Now Andy tried not to react.
"You were married… and she was too… when you and her…?"
"It's called an affair, Andy."
"Russell, Kathryn is gorgeous."
"Infidelity is a complicated thing."
"I wouldn't know."
"No one can know. The privilege, Andy."
"That's why she denied it-she was a married woman having an affair."
Russell again dropped his eyes to the photos of Frankie and her daughter. He examined them so intently that another thought crossed Andy's mind-a thought that made sense of a billionaire searching for seventeen former girlfriends.
"Is the girl yours?"
Russell Reeves looked up at Andy. His face was stern. Andy braced himself to get fired on the spot. Instead, his client sat back and blew out a resigned breath. As if it were finally time to come clean with his lawyer.
"Maybe."
He stared into space, as if remembering.
"Frankie and I had an affair nine years ago when I taught a course at MIT one semester. Guest high-tech billionaire, that sort of thing. We met at the hotel bar. We were both married at the time."
For some reason, Andy felt a little jealous at the thought of Russell Reeves having had an affair with Frankie Doyle.
"What bar?"
"I don't remember the name of the bar, Andy. It was in the Boston Grand Hotel."
That was the hotel. It was mentioned in the dossier in front of Russell. Frankie had worked there nine years ago, when she was nineteen years old. A nine-month pregnancy and she'd have an eight-year-old child now. Which she had.
Frankie Doyle had lied to Andy.
"Her ex is a rough character. You're lucky he didn't find out back then."
"No one can find out." He sighed. "Andy, I need to know if she's my daughter."
"Why?"
"Because I passed a cancer gene on to Zach. I gave my son the cancer that's killing him. What if I passed the same gene on to this child?"
"But she's not sick."
"Not yet. If she is mine, she might have the gene and she might become sick-next week or next month or next year. What if my scientists can prevent that from happening? They've made incredible advances in gene therapy, Andy. What if they can keep her from getting the same cancer as Zach?"
"But, Russell-"
"Andy, if she's mine, she might have a ticking time bomb inside her-what if we can prevent that bomb from detonating? What if we can save her from Zach's fate? What if we can save her life? Isn't that worth trying?"
"How?"
"DNA."
"You want me to get her DNA?"
Russell nodded. "We'll check her DNA against mine. Then we'll know the truth."
"Russell, that's kind of creepy, sneaking over there and getting her DNA-assuming I can. Why don't you just talk to Frankie, tell her the situation, and ask to test the girl?"
"Because I haven't spoken to Frankie in nine years. She might be okay with that, she might not be. But what if she moved to Texas to extort money from me? She might want to go on TV and tell the world. Seems to me I should find out if the girl's mine first."
"You're right. But it's still creepy."
Russell stood and walked to the window. He stared out a long moment and then reached inside his coat.
"Oh, here, I brought these for you."
Russell removed an envelope and held it out to Andy. He took the envelope and opened it. Andy couldn't believe what he was holding.
"Four tickets to the game tomorrow? UT versus Ohio State? On the fifty-yard line?"
"The school gave me season tickets when I built the lab on campus. I took Zach a few times when he was up to it, but I'm not a football fan."
"Russell, Texas and Ohio State, they're both undefeated. Whoever wins will be number one in the nation. This is the college football game of the year. You could sell these tickets for twenty thousand dollars."
Russell shrugged. "Take Suzie and have fun."
"I'll take my buddies."
He couldn't wait to see their faces.
"There'd be a bonus, Andy."
"For the game?"
"For the DNA."
Andy looked again at the tickets in his hand. The best seats in the stadium for the biggest game of the year.
"Ten thousand."
Ten thousand. Twenty thousand. The guy tossed those figures around like they were Monopoly money. Russell faced Andy.
"When Kathryn and I conceived Zach, I didn't know I was sentencing him to death. I'd know about her. If she's mine, Andy, and if she were to get cancer because of me, I'd have sentenced two children to death. How am I supposed to live with that?"
"She has red hair, Russell. Frankie's ex-husband does, too. You don't."
Russell gestured at the photos. "Frankie's hair is black."
"So?"
; "So red hair is recessive."
"Which means…?"
"It means you must have two copies of the red hair gene to have red hair, one from your mother and one from your father. If only one parent has red hair, odds are their children won't have red hair. The other parent's hair color dominates."
"So?"
"So the recessive gene skips generations. My mother did have red hair-Maureen O'Malley, that was her maiden name. Her red hair skipped my generation, but I'm a carrier and Frankie's Irish so she's a carrier. Put us together, and our child could have red hair. It's simple genetics, Andy."
"Simple."
"If she's mine. Get her DNA, Andy, and we'll know the truth."
"So that's what you weren't telling me-that tracking down all these women was to find your child."
"To find out if I had another child."
"Were they really your girlfriends?"
"Yes… or at least I had a brief affair with them."
"So you wanted to find out if they had children whose ages corresponded to the time of your affairs?"
"Yes."
"The first six didn't?"
"No. Those children aren't mine, and neither are their siblings."
"But this girl might be?"
"Yes."
"And if she is your child?"
"I'll meet with Frankie, ask her to bring the girl in to the lab for testing. If she has the gene, we'll give her gene therapy. We'll save her life. What I can't do for Zach."
Andy did not want Frankie Doyle's child to die.
"Okay, Russell, I'll get her DNA."
"Thanks, Andy."
"You want me to keep searching for the other women?"
"Yes. This girl might not be mine. One of theirs might be."
They returned to the party. Andy got his Guitar Hero rematch with Zach; he lost again. But Andy's mind wasn't on the game; it was on Russell Reeves. And Frankie Doyle. And the girl. What if she were Russell's child? And what if he had given her the cancer gene? And what if his scientists could save her from Zach's fate? Wouldn't Frankie want that? Wouldn't she beg Russell to save her daughter's life?
It all made perfect sense.
That Russell wanted to obtain the girl's DNA to confirm that she was in fact his child-and thus might have the cancer gene-before going to Frankie.
That Russell wanted to find this child and save her life.
That he did not want to be responsible for another child's death.
Perfect sense.
But it didn't explain why those six other children were sick.
Mickey Doyle stared at the traffic ticket lawyer's business card. His cell phone number was printed on it. Mickey had almost called the lawyer several times, to ask if he had found Frankie and Abby. Three years, he had tried to forget them, then this guy shows up and now he couldn't stop thinking about them.
He shoved the card back into his shirt pocket.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. His life was in the crapper. No wife, no kid, no future. Thirty-five years old, and he had hit the end of the line. He ordered another boilermaker.
He downed the whiskey shot and chased it with the beer. The warmth quickly followed by the cold. His body gave a little shudder. A few more and he would be able to sleep.
Of course, he had no one to blame but himself. His temper. His fists. He had slapped Frankie a few times, but that last time, he had actually hit her. And the way he hit, he could have killed her, the only woman he had ever loved.
He had loved her since she was ten years old. He watched her grow up three doors down. When she turned sixteen, he asked her out. They married two years later, when she graduated high school. She had been a virgin. And Catholic. And guilt-ridden. So sex had not exactly been adventurous. Mickey had strayed, early and often, like South Boston residents casting votes for a Kennedy. Back then, it had seemed like innocent fun; but on Sunday when they had gone to Mass, he had felt guilty. He no longer went to Mass, but he still felt the guilt.
And he missed them both.
He ordered another boilermaker. He had had only two loves in his life: fighting and Frankie. Fighting had gotten him to semi-pro, weekend fights after a week at the garage. But his raw skills could take him only so far. So he had given up on the ring.
But he had never given up on Frankie. She would always be the love of his life. Sure, there had been other women in the last three years, but they were just distractions. When he was with them, he was thinking of her. His one true love, and he had screwed it up. He would give anything for a second chance. The judge had given him a second chance-and a third-but Frankie would not. Because of Abby.
He should have protected her.
He paid his tab and walked out the front door and down the sidewalk; it was three blocks to the house. One block down, a fist hammered him in the mouth and knocked him against a building. Some asshole's mugging Mickey Doyle? Hell, he fought best when he was staggering drunk, like now. He turned to a tall man leaning into him.
"Where's Frankie?" the man said.
"What?"
"Your ex-wife, Mickey, where is she?"
"You working for the lawyer?"
"What lawyer?"
"I told him-I don't know where she's at."
"You don't tell me, Mickey, I'm gonna kill you. And then I'm gonna find Frankie and kill her, too."
All the guilt Mickey had suffered over the last three years, all the times he had cussed himself for hitting his wife, all the love he had felt for Frankie the last eighteen years, now seemed to build in his fists. He gave a little shoulder feint-the guy went for it-and popped him with a quick left jab to the nose. Then he came up with a right uppercut into his chin and a combo to his midsection. He heard the air come out of the man. A few more blows and Mickey had him on the ropes-or at least the side of an SUV.
"You ain't gonna hurt Frankie!"
Mickey pounded the guy's body-he felt ribs cracking under his fists-and he was determined to beat this guy to death to save Frankie, when he suddenly felt something else cracking: his skull. Mickey collapsed to the pavement, and his mind went as black as the night sky. And Mickey Doyle's last thought before he died was, I'm sorry, Frankie.
Harmon Payne stood straight and spit blood.
"Thanks, Cecil."
Cecil Durant, his driver, had clocked Mickey with the tire iron. Harmon rubbed his sore ribs. The boss said no unauthorized killing, now his ribs were going to hurt for a week. A bullet in Mickey Doyle's head would have been considerably less painful for both of them.
"Shit, this guy can punch."
Harmon knelt and checked Mickey's pulse. He was dead.
"Or could."
He then checked the body. In his shirt pocket, he found a business card: Andy Prescott. Lawyer. Traffic Tickets. Austin, Texas. With a cell phone number. Harmon stood.
"Cecil, we're going to Texas."
SEVENTEEN
Andy paid Ramon $500 to get up early the next morning and another $500 to drive him to Frankie Doyle's house in Buda. Andy had to get the girl's DNA-although he had no idea how he would actually do that-get it to Russell, and get to the UT stadium in time for the 2:00 P.M. kickoff. And he wanted to see Frankie Doyle again. But when Ramon turned the yellow Corvette into the driveway of Frankie's house, he said, "They're gone, bro."
Andy knocked on the front door. There was no answer. He looked in the windows. The furniture was still in place, but Frankie and the girl had disappeared. The place was neat, as if it had just been cleaned. He went around back. Nothing. Ramon was right. They were gone. Andy walked around to the front of the house and got back in the car. He just sat there.
"Aw, man," Ramon said.
Andy turned to him. "What?"
"You wanted to see her."
"So?"
"So you should never mix business with pleasure."
"You do."
"I never charged my ex-wife… until she cheated on me."
"Why would they leave in the middle of the night?"
&
nbsp; "Because you found her… and she don't want to be found."
Ramon backed the car out of the driveway "Stop!"
Ramon hit the brakes. "What?"
"That."
A black rubber trash can stood by the road waiting for the next pickup. Andy got out and removed the top of the can. He pulled out a large plastic trash bag. He loosened the tie and opened the bag.
"Man, you going through her trash?" Ramon said. "That's like Floyd T. dumpster diving."
"She cleaned the place before they left."
"So?"
"So there might be something in here."
Andy didn't want to rummage through the trash with his bare hands, so he looked around and found a long stick. Then he dumped the contents of the trash bag onto the ground. He squatted and poked through the refuse with the stick-discarded food and food containers, dirty paper towels, banana peels, cigarette butts and an empty pack-she started smoking again-yogurt cartons, potato chip bags, feminine products, egg shells, Band-Aid… He froze. It was one of those big square Band-Aids he often used when he got serious road rash. He flipped the Band-Aid over with the stick. It was stained with blood.
But with whose blood?
Andy had delivered the Band-Aid to Russell, and Russell had handed him a check for $10,000. Andy also had four football tickets worth $20,000 in his hands. He had considered scalping the tickets, but what's $20,000 compared to watching the college football game of the year on the fifty-yard line with your buddies? UT versus Ohio State. Longhorns versus Buckeyes. The number one and two teams in the nation. And, of course, there were "Cheerleaders!"
Dave was pointing like a kid at the circus. The Longhorn cheerleaders dressed in their orange tights and black leather chaps and short white fringed vests that revealed their tight torsos bounced past. They were cute and perky and fit. Andy, Tres, and Dave stood transfixed. They heard Curtis' voice.
"Man, these new RVs, they cost a million dollars, and they've got Wi-Fi, satellite dishes, GPS systems…"
"Curtis," Dave said, "you're looking at recreational vehicles instead of cheerleaders?"
Curtis' head shot around. "Where?"
They were walking across the parking lot at the LBJ School of Public Affairs just a block east of the stadium. SUVs and RVs crowded the concrete and fans engaged in that all-American tradition: tailgating. A big party in a parking lot before a football game. Tents were propped up. Satellite dishes extended into the sky from beds of pickup trucks; below, flat-screen TVs showed pre-game festivities from inside the stadium. Meat simmered in thick molasses barbecue sauce on monster grills. Beer-lots of beer-was being guzzled. Lone Star, Budweiser, Coors, Miller Lite-but not Heineken or Lowenbrau. This was not a foreign beer crowd. Fans dressed in orange UT jerseys and eating meat, drinking beer, yelling fight songs, and acting obnoxious. They hollered "Hook 'Em Horns!" to everyone who walked by. Anyone who failed to respond with a Hook 'Em Horns hand sign-pinkie and forefinger extended, thumb clasping the middle fingers down, so as to fashion horns-to show support for the Longhorn team was assumed to be an enemy combatant and empty beer cans were immediately launched his way.