pockets were tighter than Joan Rivers’s last facelift, our phone system was hardly state of the art. I made a mental note to look into it.
“In the meantime,” Felix continued, “I don’t feel good about you being out there alone today.”
“‘Out there?’” I asked.
“Let’s keep to the desk for now, okay, Bender?”
“Fabulous.”
“Was that sarcasm?” he asked.
“Damned straight.” And before he could say it, I added, “I know, I know. Swear Pig.”
The first thing I did when I left Felix was visit Cece, our accounts receivable/human resources/office manager lady. As her title hinted, anything that didn’t directly end up in the newspaper fell under her fortysomething, sensible-shoe-wearing, uber-organized territory. Her desk was in the corner near the elevator and constantly cluttered with beanie babies.
“Hey, Cece,” I said, popping my head around her partition.
“Yes?” she asked, not even looking up from the spreadsheet she was typing.
“I need a favor. Last night, eleven thirty, a call came in. I need to know who made it.”
Her forehead furrowed. “Well, I know our program keeps track of all outgoing calls.” She paused, then sent me a wan smile as she added, “Felix likes to know who’s using up our long-distance minutes.”
“Of course.”
“But, other than a time stamp, I don’t think there’s a way to record the incoming calls.”
Drat. I chewed the inside of my cheeks, rapping my fingernails on the side of her partition. “What about the phone company? They must have a record, right?” Cece nodded. “Most likely.”
“Who’s our provider?”
Cece opened a new window on her screen, then pulled a Post-it from her pink dispenser and wrote down their name and number. “L.A. Bell. But I don’t really think they’re going to give out that kind of information.”
“Wanna bet?” I asked, giving her a wink as I took the Post-it back to my desk.
I immediately dialed the customer service number, going through the automated options until a mere fifteen minutes later I was connected to a real person.
“L.A. Bell, this is Jeff speaking, how may I help you?”
“Hi, Jeff. This is…Carol. Carol Brady. Listen, I have a problem.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Miss Brady. What can I do for you?”
“I’m knocked up.”
There was a slight pause on the other end. Then, “Oh. I…well…oh.”
“That’s right. With child, bun in the oven, in a family way, one condom short of a bikini body.”
Again with the awkward pause. “Er, ma’am, I’m not really sure what I can-”
“Jeff, I’m gonna level with you,” I said, plowing right over him. “When I saw that positive pregnancy test, I may have said a few things. Things I shouldn’t have. Things about my boyfriend not being able to keep it in his pants long enough to roll a condom on. Things that, quite frankly, hurt my boyfriend Mike pretty bad. He left me, Jeff.”
“Uh…I’m sorry to hear that, but Miss Brady, I don’t really-”
“You got a dad, Jeff?”
“What?”
“A father. You have one, Jeff?”
“Um. Yeah.”
“I bet he took you to baseball games, didn’t he, Jeff?”
“Sure. I guess so.”
“And taught you how to ride your bike. How to tie your shoes. I bet he even taught you how to wipe your own tushie, Jeff.”
“Uh…”
“Here’s the thing. My baby won’t have that. Poor little Bobby’s gonna grow up fatherless unless I can find Mike and apologize. That’s where you come in.”
“I do?” he squeaked.
“Look, last night Mike calls saying he’s leaving L.A. for good. But the caller ID was blocked. I have no idea where he is. If I could find out where he was calling from, I might be able to stop him before he makes a terrible mistake.”
He paused so long on the other end I thought maybe he’d hung up.
“Jeff? You still there?”
“I feel for your situation, ma’am, but we can’t give out addresses of other clients.”
“I don’t even need his address. Just…can you tell me the name of the person who owns the number?”
“I’m not sure that’s in keeping with our policy…”
“How about just the number? Can you at least give me that? Please, Jeff. Little Bobby deserves a real family.” Even if my story was utter crap, the desperation in my voice was real. This was the best lead-scratch that, only lead-I had on Mystery Caller’s identity.
I think maybe it was the “real family” bit that got him, as his voice dropped to just above a whisper, and he said, “When did the call take place?”
I did a mental “squeee!” and said, “Last night. Eleven thirty p.m. to this number.”
I heard the sound of a keyboard clacking in the background. “I’m really not supposed to be doing this,” Jeff repeated.
“You are doing me such a favor. In fact, I’m thinking Jeffery would make a fine middle name for Bobby, huh?”
“Okay, I’ve got one call logged, coming in at eleven thirty-two.”
“That’s it! And the number?”
Jeff took a deep breath, and I could almost feel him looking over both shoulders for hovering supervisors before he rattled off the digits.
“You are the best, Jeff!” I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote the number down. An L.A. area code, I noticed. When he was finished, I promised him that he’d be mentioned at little Bobby’s bris and hung up the phone.
Immediately, I dialed the number. It rang on the other end. And again. Fifteen rings into it, I gave up.
Instead, I pulled up a reverse lookup directory on my computer and typed the number in.
Bingo.
The number came back as being owned by PW Enterprises.
I pulled up a Google screen and typed in the name. Not surprising, about a million hits came up, ranging from mortgage brokers to used car dealers. I bit my lip, narrowing the search to L.A. County. What do you know, only half a million hits this time. I mentally cracked my knuckles, going in deep for a serious webcrawling session.
Two hours and several dozen webpages later, I was bug-eyed, brain-dead, and no closer to identifying what PW was, let alone who there might not be my number one fan.
“You get the tip on Blain Hall?”
I looked up to find Cam hovering over my desk.
“The drugs in rehab?” I asked, struggling to focus as my eyes adjusted from squinting at the computer monitor.
She nodded. “Felix is sending me over to snap a few pics of Blain through the rehab windows to run next to your story. Got a headline yet?”
“DIRTY DOG TAKES REHAB AS SERIOUSLY AS CRITICS TAKE HIS SAPPY BALLADS.”
Cam laughed, flipping her blonde ponytail over her shoulder and showing off a row of perfectly white teeth. I am about as heterosexual as a gal can get, but even I had to admit, Cam was hot. Volcanic. Rumor was she’d been a model or something in her teens. I had no idea if it was true, but I swear seeing her fresh face and neverseen-a- split-end gorgeous hair on a billboard would sell me on any product.
“Harsh headline, Tina.”
“He deserves it.”
“Aw, have a heart. You know, I kinda like those sappy ballads.”
“Ugh. Seriously? They’re like saccharine. And so trite. ‘I’ll love you ‘til the end of time.’ How many times have
