The Common Lawyer Read online

  Andy Prescott couldn't afford to buy a round for the table.

  At twenty-nine, his financial condition should be a major life concern. By now, he should be contributing to a 401(k) plan, saving for a down payment on a mortgage, and planning for a secure future. Why wasn't he? Why didn't he have a burning ambition to make a lot of money, like Natalie said? Was it just a stubborn refusal to grow up? Was it genetic, an inherited trait like his brown hair and eyes? Or was it a character flaw? Why didn't he care more about such mature matters instead of "Jesus, Tres, check her out."

  A gorgeous girl glided past their table and into the restaurant, but not before giving Tres a sly glance.

  Andy yelled to her: "He's taken! I'm not!"

  Natalie had given Tres the night off-she was at home researching the "rent a womb" business in India-so they were drinking Mexican beer with Dave and Curtis, two buddies from their UT days, who were in deep conversation on the other side of the table.

  "She got back to the condo," Tres said, "jumped on the computer, hasn't budged since. That magazine article at the pool today really got her hormones pumping."

  "You really thinking about doing that? Outsourcing your baby to India?"

  "Not until Natalie compared the costs. With an American surrogate, you're looking at a hundred thousand total out of pocket. In India, it's only five grand."

  "You paid more than that for your trail bike."

  "Yeah, but that's a fortune in India. Natalie said a third of the population lives on a dollar a day. An American surrogate makes fifty thousand, an Indian twenty-five hundred-but that's like seven years' pay over there."

  Andy scooped salsa onto a tortilla chip and stuck the whole thing in his mouth, an act he immediately regretted: the salsa was seriously spicy. He turned his beer bottle up and tried to shake a few cold drops out onto his hot tongue. No luck. So he grunted and pointed at a cute coed behind Dave and Curtis; when they swiveled their heads around to check her out, Andy grabbed Curtis' beer and drank from it, then replaced it without Curtis being the wiser. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  "Nine months at twenty-five hundred dollars? That's what, three hundred a month?"

  "Two seventy-seven," Tres said.

  "She's renting her womb for nine bucks a day?"

  "Yeah, and they've got better quality control. The clinic boards its surrogates for the entire nine months, makes sure they get proper pre-natal care and nutrition-they eat better than they have their whole lives."

  "The women live together?"

  Tres nodded. "To prevent conjugal visits. They'll have twenty surrogates in one house."

  "Baby factories."

  "And you don't have to worry she'll abort like over here. We paid for it, it's ours, and she signed a contract. She's got to deliver."

  Tres drank from his beer.

  "Only downside is, Indian women die in childbirth at ten times the rate of American women."

  "So the surrogate has a good chance of dying while birthing your baby?"

  "Yeah… but Natalie's willing to take that risk. Besides, if she dies, we get a full refund."

  "I'm sure that'll make the surrogate feel better."

  "And Natalie gets to keep her figure."

  "Hers is a figure worth keeping, Tres, no question about it, but the whole thing seems kind of like 'ugly American' stuff-you know, exploiting poor people in Third World countries."

  "You sound like your mother. Andy, it's no different than American companies manufacturing their products offshore for the cheap labor."

  "Exactly."

  Andy looked for Ronda with their beers then turned back to Tres.

  "So you're going to manufacture little Cuatro in India after having sex with a test tube?"

  Tres shrugged. "I get to look at a Playboy. "

  "That's romantic."

  Dave broke away from his conversation with Curtis and said, "It always is for me." Back to Curtis: "They figured you couldn't afford their drinks."

  Curtis scratched his scalp deep in the dark jungle that was his hair then examined his fingers as if he'd found something.

  "So?"

  "So you'd just be taking up valuable space. Rent in the warehouse district is out of sight."

  Curtis pushed his glasses up on his nose.

  "The doormen at Qua, they laughed at me-and I'll have my Ph. D. in nine months."

  "Advanced degrees won't get you in that door, Curtis."

  "Qua," Andy said. "That's the lounge with the aquarium in the floor?"

  "Shark tank," Curtis said.

  "Curtis," Tres said, "those places have strict dress codes. What were you wearing?"

  Curtis gestured at his attire.

  "Same clothes I teach in."

  He was wearing black-framed glasses, a white T-shirt with "got root?" across the front, baggy cargo shorts, and burnt-orange Crocs. He was scrawny, twenty-eight, and a grad student working on his Ph. D. in mathematics; he was a TA at UT. One of hundreds of teaching assistants employed by the University of Texas at Austin, Curtis Baxter taught math to undergrads so the tenured professors had time to write political op-eds.

  "Curtis," Tres said, "you wouldn't get past the security guard at my condo wearing those clothes. This is the only place you can dress like that."

  This place was Guero's Taco Bar, formerly the Central Feed amp; Seed. Guero's still looked like a feed store, but it was now an Austin institution-everyone came to Guero's for Mexican food and beer and margaritas and mariachis: UT students and faculty, politicians and lawyers, trust-funders and slackers. The dress code was "come as you are," and so they came.

  Andy was wearing shorts, a Willie Nelson "Don't Mess With Texas" T-shirt, and flip-flops. Dave wore a red-and-black cowboy shirt over shorts and sandals, although he had recently tried to upgrade his appearance for his burgeoning business career; he now wore white socks. He swept his black hair back like a young Elvis, meticulously and often, like now.

  "You missed a spot," Andy said.

  "Where?"

  Dave checked his hair in a spoon; Andy shook his head. What a crew. Tres Thorndike appeared sophisticated and worldly with his stylish clothes and professionally cut hair; he was from Connecticut. After flunking out of the Ivy League, Tres enrolled at UT for the frat parties-UT consistently ranked as the number one party school in America-and ended up president of the most exclusive fraternity on campus. Dave Garner had gotten into a lesser fraternity on a legacy. Curtis Baxter had been denied admission to every fraternity at UT. Andy Prescott had never wanted to join a fraternity.

  The story of their lives.

  Ronda returned with four cold Coronas. Tres told her to put them on his tab; he was good about having a trust fund. Andy leaned back in his chair and took a long drink of the cold beer. It was another great night at Guero's. The sun was setting behind them, the heat of the day had broken, and they were sitting at their regular sidewalk table, a prime location to enjoy the live music of Tex Thomas amp; His Danglin' Wranglers playing in the adjacent Oak Garden and to check out every female entering or exiting the establishment. God, the girls of Austin. Between the twenty-five thousand UT coeds and the thousands of young women who moved to Austin every year for the nightlife, there were beautiful girls everywhere you turned in Austin.

  Except, of course, at their table.

  It wasn't that they were homely individuals. Tres, in fact, was rather handsome, and he exuded that confident aura of a trust-fund beneficiary, for which girls seemed to have a sixth sense, like dogs could smell fear; consequently, he attracted frequent glances from passing females. Curtis, Dave, and Andy did not. They were just regular guys, not something you put on your curriculum vitae in Austin. Sure, Curtis was a math genius, but that meant absolutely nothing outside the math department at UT. And, worst of all, they were broke.

  Tres' phone pinged.

  "She's texting me again."

  "Natalie?"

  He nodded and checked the message.

  "Says she fo
und an Indian clinic that'll do it for four thousand."

  "You sure you want to hire out your baby to the lowest bidder?"

  "Hell, Andy, I'm not sure I even want a baby… or to get married."

  Tres drank his beer then leaned toward Andy and lowered his voice.

  "You know a PI?"

  "A private investigator? No. But I know someone who does."

  "Can you get me his number?"

  "Sure. What's up?"

  "I think Natalie's cheating on me."

  " What? Why?"

  "To have sex."

  "No. Why would she cheat on you? Dude, she wants to have your baby."

  "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 Guero'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 Guero'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."