The Common Lawyer (5 page)

"She wants an Indian woman to have my baby. And maybe she wants to have one last fling before marriage and motherhood."

"She wouldn't leave you."

"She wouldn't leave the trust fund. Me, I'm not so sure."

He drank from his beer.

"See, you guys complain about being broke, but being rich isn't all it's cracked up to be either. If you guys ever do get a girl, at least you'll know she's not after your money."

"It'd be nice to have a girl after me for something."

Andy smiled but Tres didn't. This was serious.

"What's got you worried?"

"She's acting different."

"How?"

"She stopped wearing underwear."

That got Dave's attention. "No shit?"

"Look, guys," Tres said, "this is confidential, okay?"

"Oh, absolutely," Dave said. "Sure thing. Now tell us about the underwear."

"Well, you know, she's always worn thongs—"

"What kind?"

Tres shrugged. "I don't know. Just thongs."

"Lacy ones?"

"Curtis," Andy said, "douse him with your beer."

"Anyway," Tres said, "all of a sudden she just stopped wearing anything."

"God, that's hot," Dave said.

"Not if she stopped for some other guy."

"Oh, yeah, that wouldn't be so hot."

"Did you ask her why?" Andy said.

"She said that was the fashionable thing now."

"You don't believe her?"

Tres took no notice of a girl checking him out.

"I think she's having an affair with the weekend sports anchor at the station. Bruce, he's an ex-UT jock, lives out at the lake."

"You want a PI to follow her?"

Tres' expression turned grim. "I need to know. Besides, it's nothing compared to what my father will do before we get married."

"Track her cell phone," Curtis said. "It's GPS-enabled, isn't it?"

"It was expensive."

"Then it is."

"GPS, like with a satellite?" Andy said.

"Like with three satellites," Curtis said. He pointed up. "The Air Force has twenty-seven global positioning satellites orbiting the Earth. GPS tracking requires three to plot a location—it's a mathematical equation called trilateration. The GPS chip in your cell phone receives signals from three satellites, determines the distance to each, and plots a sphere around each satellite—"

Curtis was now teaching a class. He pulled out a mechanical pencil and on a napkin drew the Earth, three satellites orbiting the Earth, a stick figure holding a phone on Earth, and circles around each satellite.

—"and those three spheres intersect at only two locations, one in space and one on Earth. Your phone is located at the intersection on Earth."

Andy handed his cell phone to Curtis, who served as their personal tech support staff.

"Does mine have that GPS chip?"

Curtis dug in his pants pocket and pulled out a little utility tool. He opened the tiny screwdriver and then the back of Andy's cell phone. He shook his head.

"Nope. Let me guess: you got it free with your cell contract?"

Andy shrugged. "Yeah."

"Dude, you can get a GPS phone for a few hundred bucks."

"Exactly. That's why I chose free."

"Well, they can still track your phone."

"How?"

"Triangulation. See, when you make a call"—Curtis flipped the napkin over and drew again—"the phone sends signals to the nearest cell masts—the towers. As you move from cell to cell—the area covered by each mast—the masts monitor the strength of the signals. When the signal is stronger at the next mast, that mast takes over the call. By calculating and comparing the time it takes the signal to travel to each mast—a mathematical equation called TDOA, time difference of arrival—and the AOA, angle of arrival—the computer determines the distance and angle from each mast to the phone, triangulates the signals, and plots out the location." He shrugged. "It's simple math."

"Must be why I don't understand it," Andy said.

"Triangulation isn't as precise as GPS. In the city they can track a phone to within thirty feet of its location. Out in the country, with fewer masts, it's maybe a thousand feet."

"I never knew they could do that."

Curtis pushed his glasses up. "Cell phones are just tracking devices that make voice calls. Government mandated tracking capability for nine-one-one emergency calls, now the Feds use them to track terrorists and drug dealers."

"Man, that's kind of scary, the government being able to track us with our cell phones."

"It's not just the Feds. LBS providers do it, too."

"What's an LBS?"

"Location Based Services. They've got deals with the carriers to capture the tracking data and they'll ping a phone for a fee. They say they require the permission of the person being tracked. They're mostly used by employers to track their employees, like truck drivers."

"Natalie was reading about these chaperone services," Tres said. "You put a GPS-enabled phone in your kid's backpack and if they leave their school, you're automatically notified. In case they're kidnapped."

"With their backpack."

"So I can track Natalie the same way? See if she goes out to the lake to meet Bruce?"

"Sure," Curtis said. "Give me her phone number and when you want her tracked. I've got a friend at an LBS. Geeks rule."

"Except at Qua," Dave said.

Andy turned to Tres. "You gonna ask Natalie's permission?"

Tres frowned. "What if I don't? Would that be illegal? Maybe a violation of her privacy or stalking?"

"Don't ask me, dude," Curtis said. "You're the lawyer. I'm a mathematician."

Tres sat back in his chair, obviously considering the ramifications of committing an illegal act versus his need to know if Natalie were cheating on him. Andy shook his head: How many men throughout history had been driven to crime by a woman? There was Adam, of course, and Clyde Barrow, and …

"
Ooh!
"

They all turned to the street. A car had almost nailed a pedestrian. Sitting on the porch, they had front row seats at a sporting event: watching jaywalkers trying to make it across the five lanes of Congress Avenue alive. The spectators
ooh
ed and
aah
ed with each near miss.

"That would've left a mark," Dave said.

"Guys, listen to this girl's personal statement."

Curtis had returned to the stack of personal ads from Lovers Lane online. He always printed out the promising ones and read them at their Sunday night beer bash at Güero's.

"She says, 'I'm everything your mommy wants for you. I'm cute and cuddly and love to cook. I hate shopping. My favorite season is football season. Hook 'em Horns! Barbecue is my favorite food, beer my favorite drink. I like black lacy undergarments. I love to take long walks at night, especially through the cemetery …' "

"Whoa!" Dave said. "The cemetery? Damn, she was sounding good."

"Says she's looking for an LTR."

"A long-term relationship? With whom, Dracula? Next."

Curtis flipped to the next ad. Tres leaned over to Andy.

"I break the law, I lose my law license. Better get me the PI's number."

Andy nodded. "I'll get it tomorrow."

"This one's looking for 'friends with benefits.' "

"Means sex," Dave said.

"Here's her profile: 'Age … twenty-two. Body type … full figured, HWP.' Height-weight proportionate. 'Occupation … hair stylist. Want children? … I want children to stay away from me. Drinking? … I'm drunk right now. Drugs? … Let's burn one.' She says she spends her free time working out and having sex."

Dave was shaking his head; he was about to vent.

"Every girl in those ads says she spends her free time working out and having sex. If they're having so much sex, why'd they put an ad in the personals for 'woman seeking man'? Answer me that."

"I can't," Andy said.

"There you go. They're lying. They haven't been laid since high school prom night."

"Neither have you."

"And when was your last serious relationship, Romeo?"

"With a female?"

"
Homo sapiens
."

"Fourth grade. Mary Margaret McDermott at St. Ignatius. My first kiss."

It had happened during recess behind the slide. Andy let her go up the ladder first, hoping to look up her uniform skirt only to discover that she wore privacy shorts underneath; she had abruptly turned and kissed him right on the lips. He could still feel that kiss. Andy realized that Dave was staring at him.

"What'd you do this time?" Dave said.

Between the pool and Güero's, Andy had doctored his cuts and abrasions and taken two Ibuprofen, but his entire body still hurt like he'd fallen a hundred feet down a ravine. Oh, he had. Of course, the four Coronas were acting as a nice anesthetic.

"He took a header for some senior citizens," Tres said. "The ravine above Sculpture Falls."

"Ouch. You see a doctor?"

Andy tapped the Corona. "I self-medicate. And I need my prescription refilled."

He held up his beer bottle for Ronda again. He wasn't worried about driving home drunk because (a) he didn't own a car, and (b) he lived only a few blocks from Güero's. He had often biked home drunk, which wasn't a crime, at least not in Austin.

"You were bombing the Hill of Life again," Dave said.

Andy shrugged.

"Hill of Death is more like it. Andy, are you afraid of anything?"

"Women."

"Amen, brother," Curtis said.

They fist-punched in the air above the table.

"You're gonna die on that bike one day," Dave said.

"Not
that
bike. And there are worse ways to go."

The guys fell silent and dropped their eyes. Tres put an arm around Andy's shoulder.

"How's he doing?"

"Still waiting for the call."

After an awkward moment of silence, Tres said, "Curtis, read us another one."

"Okay." He turned a page. "This girl wants a guy who's kind and considerate and loving with a sense of humor and a pleasing personality … and, oh yeah, he's got to have the mind of Einstein and the body of Matthew McConaughey."

"That's what they all want," Dave said, "the perfect male."

Dave pulled out his comb and swept his hair back again. He smiled at a passing girl; she smiled at Tres. Dave shrugged it off then slapped Curtis on the shoulder.

"Well, we've got half of perfect right here—the Einstein brain."

"And the other half with Andy," Tres said.

"Please. McConaughey's pumped. I'm … wiry."

"Natalie says you've got a great body. Hell, I'd be worried she was cheating with you if you had any money."

"Thanks."

Curtis shook his head with apparent disgust. "I'll bet McConaughey couldn't solve a quadratic equation to save his life."

"What's that?" Tres asked.

Curtis twisted around to reveal the back side of his T-shirt, on which a long mathematical equation was printed.

"This. Simple algebra."

Tres laughed. "Curtis, movie stars like McConaughey, they've got people to do their algebra for them."

"I saw him in here a while back," Dave said. "The girls were falling all over themselves to get near him. Even Ronda."

"She's a lesbian," Andy said.

Dave turned his palms up. "The allure of celebrity."

"We'll never get a date if they want McConaughey," Curtis said.

"I know how we can get dates," Dave said. "Answer the ads from women over forty. There's a lot of older women out there rebounding from divorces—they're lonely and desperate."

"But are they desperate enough to date us?" Curtis said.

"You're desperate—how high are your standards?"

"Excellent point."

"Still, a forty-year-old woman," Andy said, "that'd be kind of creepy, like dating your mother."

"My mother's dating a thirty-five-year-old guy she found in the personals," Dave said. "Says he can be the older brother I never had."

"No kidding?"

Dave nodded. "And my dad's dating a twenty-six-year-old girl. He says she can be the sister I never had. But what does it mean if I want to have sex with my new sister? And if he marries her, then I'll want to have sex with my stepmother."

"See, that is creepy."

"You haven't seen her."

Ronda dropped off four Coronas and took their orders. Beef tacos, chips and
queso
, and more beer. All the essential food groups.