The Pendleton Omens - 10. Chapter 10

When Amy called back, all she could talk about was traffic. “It’s a good thing Scoot lives right off the 405,” she said. “If he lived any further, I’d never be seeing him.”

I didn’t have to ask what the 405 was. Scoot had told me about the freeways and sometimes even sent me text messages while stuck on them. The 405. The 101. The 5. The 10. The 134. The borders of his life.

“What’s his answering machine say?” I asked.

“It’s mostly messages from your wife. Should I delete them?”

“Yeah. Are there any others?”

“A couple from you. And some from your daughter.”

“Delete all those. What else?”

“Some from me, but I already erased them.”

“Anything from Zak?”

“No, but he’s halfway around the world.”

“That’s never stopped him from phoning every day. We were all out for breakfast one Christmas when Zak called from Singapore.”

“What was he doing there?”

“Making a commercial.”

Amy laughed. “Other people have more interesting lives.”

“But the fact he hasn’t heard from Zak may mean they’re together. Now what else was on the machine?”

“Not a lot.”

Three other calls. None with information that made any sense. Two guys and a woman, all basically saying, “Call me.” None had left numbers, so they were obviously close friends.

“Do you know them?” I asked Amy.

“I don’t even recognize their voices. Scoot has a lot of friends.”

“He always did. Now when was the last message? Is there a date and time?”

“The machine only says days of the week and times. And the last message was from your wife, so I couldn’t tell if it was this week or last.”

“Probably last week, when Sharon said the machine shut down. Did it need to be reset?”

“It did that automatically.”

“And you left the three messages?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yeah. And who’s Scoot got programmed on his speed-dial?”

That took a while to work out. Scoot had a two-bedroom apartment but three telephones. One by his bed. One in his office. One in the kitchen. They all had speed-dials, and none of them had notes. But one good thing about Scoot is he’s methodical. The phones were all programmed the same way.

Number one was Sharon. Two was her office. Three, her cell. Four was me. Five was the station. Six was my cell. Seven was Jamie’s cell. Eight was Zak. Nine was Zak’s cell.

Of course, it took a half-hour to figure all that out, while Amy made twenty-seven calls. She spoke with Sharon twice, got a mess of answering machines, and talked with Rob Perez who was subbing that Sunday at the station.

Both of Zak’s phones went straight to message.

“What about Scoot’s computers?” I asked.

“What about them?”

“There should be a handful, if I remember. He uses two or three just for editing.”

“They’re in his office. Which is a mess.”

That wasn’t a surprise. Scoot was creative.

“Well, see if you can find the one he uses for e-mail. I’ll bet that’s what he uses for an address book.”

“His laptop?” Amy asked.

“Is that there?”

“Right on his desk.”

That was the first thing that told me Sharon might be right. Scoot might still be in LA. I couldn’t imagine him going away and leaving his laptop.

“Are his cameras there?” I asked.

“There’s a couple of them on the work tables. And, wait, there’s more equipment in the closet.”

But Scoot was always buying and trading up cameras, and I didn’t know how many he owned. So I didn’t know which ones were important.

“Look at his laptop,” I suggested instead. “Is it on?”

“All his computers are. He always leaves them that way.”

For me, that would be a great sign I wasn’t far away. But for Scoot, it was typical behavior.

“Well, look at his e-mail. See what’s there.”

That took a while. I didn’t think the password would be a problem. There was no reason it wouldn’t be stored. But Scoot had over two hundred messages.

And I’m not talking spam. That was extra. But these were more messages than Amy had patience to read through.

“Just look at the most recent,” I said. “Is there anything recognizably from Zak?”

“I don’t know his e-mail address.”

“Well, what’s the most frequent one? I’ll bet that’s him.”

“There are three or four from INGOT every day.”

“What’s the last one say?”

“Where the fuck are you?”

“What?”

“That’s what it says,” Amy told me laughing. “There’s no, ‘Hi, Scoot.’ And no name. Just ‘WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?’ in one-inch purple caps.”

I laughed with her. “Well, now we know Scoot’s not in New Zealand.”

That would have been too easy. So my bet still was that he was hiking or camping. Now that I’d talked with Amy, it was less on some girl in Mexico. And maybe Scoot hadn’t taken his laptop because he didn’t want it stolen.

“What’s the next most frequent name?” I asked.

Amy read me a couple. And she read me a couple of dozen messages. All were one-sided conversations, generally frustrated, from friends who’d been trying to reach Scoot for several weeks.

I also wondered how many messages had already been deleted. My service kept them for two weeks, but I knew there was another limit. If there were too many messages in too short a time, the early ones began dropping off.

Before Amy ran out of patience, I had her check two other things. The first was any e-mail Scoot had recently sent. It was stored in a of couple of places sometimes. So even if Scoot regularly cleared one file, the other might be there. But every place we looked showed Scoot hadn’t sent any e-mail since January thirty first.

The other thing I had Amy check was Scoot’s online address book. She copied and sent me Zak’s numbers and e-mail address and a couple for other people whose names she recognized.

“Who were the friends you mostly hung out with?” I asked. But that turned out to be a hard question.

“We spent a lot of time alone,” she told me. “We went to movies no one else wanted to see, or we watched them here. Then we talked about them. A lot. I think one of the reasons Scoot liked me was because I could watch a movie with him every night. Sometimes two or three.”

“When did he see other friends?” I asked. “I know he did.”

“When I was at work – either during the day or in the evening, depending on my shift. He didn’t have to work as much as I did. He could earn a couple thousand dollars in a couple of days so only had to work so many days a month. But he was always looking for jobs.”

“That’s why he has all those friends.”

“And sometimes work got canceled at the last minute,” she added. “Or jobs came up. That’s why I wasn’t worried when I didn’t hear from him at first. I was sure he was busy.”

If Scoot worked in anything but movies, I might have thought he was selling drugs. But he rarely got high. He preferred beer.

“It’s legal. It’s everywhere. It’s cheap,” he’d told me. I only had to worry about his driving drunk.

That reminded me. “Is his car still in the lot?”

Amy said she’d check then locked his apartment and went downstairs.

“Yep. Covered with dust,” she reported. “It probably hasn’t been moved since I was last here.”

I thanked her, and she headed home before I thought to have her sort through Scoot’s mail. She said it was all on his dining table, but I’d never asked what it was. Obviously not the electric bill, if his computers were still on.

The person I wanted to talk with next was Zak. If he was in New Zealand, it made sense that he wasn’t answering his phone in LA. But he also might not be answering his cell.

When it was two Sunday afternoon in Massachusetts, it was eight Monday morning in New Zealand. I used Noah’s computer to find that out, then I left a pair of phone messages for Zak.

“Hey, Zak. Hi. This is Scoot’s dad, Don Burris, in Massachusetts. I hate to bug you when you’re working halfway around the world, but we’re having trouble getting through to Scoot and thought you might know how to reach him. Hope all’s well. Give me a call when you get a chance.” Then I added my cell phone number.

I already knew Zak didn’t know where Scoot was. That’s what the purple caps told me. But I thought he might be worried enough, or pissed off enough at Scoot, to call me as soon as he could. And I was right. He called within an hour.

“Mr. Burris?” he started.

I hate being called “Mr. Burris” by my kids’ friends. It made me feel old. But there was no choice.

“Zak?”

“Yeah?”

“How are you?”

“Busy. Tired. Stressed. You?”

“Worried. Or maybe a little concerned. I don’t want to get involved where it’s not my business, but we haven’t heard from Scoot for a couple of weeks, and his mother’s getting nervous.”

Oh, sure, blame it on Sharon. But I wasn’t sure Zak knew Sharon and I were divorced, and it seemed best to slide by that.

“I don’t know where he is,” Zak admitted. “I’ve been trying to reach the dumb fuck almost since I got here because right after I left LA, I found out there was a job here for him. All he had to do was get his ass to Auckland to make a fistfuck of money.”

“Got it,” I said, laughing. “And when was the last time you spoke with him?”

“He dropped me at LAX on the thirty-first. That’s almost three weeks ago. I haven’t gotten an e-mail since.”

“And when was the first time you called him?”

Zak had to think about that. “I’m still working out the time changes,” he said. “But it might even have been from Hawaii. You can’t send anything from the plane. And I found out about the job from a guy I was flying with, so I probably called Scoot before someone else grabbed it. It’s a good gig. I’ll be here for a couple of months.”

“What was he doing when you left?”

“You mean for work?”

“Yeah.”

“The usual stuff. He has a semi-regular gig that calls him at all hours. And a couple other places he works for on and off. And he was editing a piece of his own. Two, I think. They’re both pretty short. And doing more research. And trying for grants. I think he almost got one before I left.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. He’s always writing proposals. And entering competitions. Doing anything to get his films around.”

“Was he having luck?”

“Oh, yeah, but he doesn’t need any. He’s really good, Mr. Burris. You know that. It’s just a matter of time.”

I had no idea if that was true. I’d probably seen every film Scoot had made and pretty well liked them all. But I had no idea if he could make a living doing that.

“Was he seeing anyone?” I went on.

Zak laughed. “Oh, yeah! Amy, the death nurse.”

“Is that what he called her?”

“No. I’m sorry. That’s what I call her. I have no manners.”

I laughed. But he wasn’t telling me anything new.

“But she’s hot. I only met her a few times but always wanted to see her more. I even accused Scoot of keeping her away from me. I’m not ready to get married. I’m not sure I ever will be. But she could change my mind.”

“Congratulations.”

“Nah, Scoot wouldn’t let that happen. They were seeing each other steadily. He thought she was great.”

That was interesting, but nothing I could tell Amy.

“Though I’d hate it if Scoot got married,” Zak went on. “No more three AM calls. No more surprise trips to Vegas. He’s great fun to be with.”

“I’ll tell him that,” I promised.

“Yeah, and when you talk to him, tell him I’m going to kick his butt for missing this gig. It couldn’t be better.”

“Okay. Take care. And if you hear from him first, please tell him to call.”

“I’ll do that, sir.”

“Sir” was the only thing worse than “Mr. Burris.”

After talking with Zak, I phoned Sharon. She wasn’t especially pleased with the news, because it didn’t tell her immediately where Scoot was. But she said she’d pass word on to Jamie. Then she asked, “What next?” It was getting to be a habit.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I do know that kids sometimes don’t call their parents for weeks. Months, even. And the world doesn’t end. In so many ways, we’ve been lucky.”

“It isn’t luck, Don. It’s how they were raised.”

“Well, they are raised. Maybe our job is done.”

“This isn’t about that.”

“No? Are you sure?”

She seemed to think for a moment, then decided to change the subject. “Is that all you’re going to do?” she asked.

“For now, yeah.”

It must have sounded pretty final, because it certainly backed her off. Finally, she said, “I don’t want to fight about this.”

“I didn’t think we were. I thought we were doing fine.”

“I’m worried.”

“I know that.”

“Really worried.”

“I am, too,” I lied. “But let’s see what happens.”

“How much longer?”

“Another few days.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Well, look what we’ve done already. Just today. We’ve talked with Amy. We’ve talked with Zak. Amy seems the kind who worries. Zak thinks everything’s fine. My money’s on Zak. He’s known Scoot a lot longer.”

Sharon again considered. “All right,” she allowed. But I knew she wasn’t happy when she hung up.

“That’s the third time I’ve heard that conversation,” Noah said, as I put down my phone.

“You have any suggestions?” I asked.

He did. But they weren’t about Scoot.