'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.'
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 Guero'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
