Tahoe Heat Page 18

  I looked into an old lean-to shed on the north side of the cabin. Its door was open, the bottom edge jammed into the dirt. Inside were some yard tools, a coiled hose hanging on a large hook, an open bundle of roofing shingles, a small workbench with miscellaneous hardware on it, an old, rusted barbecue and next to it, a half-bag of charcoal. In the middle of the shed was parked a late-model motor scooter.

  “Herman had a scooter?” I called out to Ryan.

  “Yeah,” Ryan said.

  “Who does his stuff go to?”

  “Us. He had no family.” Ryan came over.

  “You ever ride it? It looks fun.”

  Ryan shook his head. “I’ll probably sell it.”

  “You won’t get much. Might be fun to keep it. Great for nice summer days. Looks like one of the tough ones, too. Good clearance. Decent-sized wheels. Be a fun toy. You should give it a try. You’ll probably feel like a kid again.”

  Ryan shook his head again. He frowned. Looked somber.

  “Ryan, I don’t want to pry, but do you ever play?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, do you ever have fun? Goof off? Do something sporting?”

  “I play video games.”

  “I meant, do you do anything outdoors? Skiing. Water skiing. Snowboarding. Tennis. Golf. Riding a bike.”

  Ryan’s face darkened. He shook his head. “Nothing like that,” he said.

  “You and I should go for a bike ride together. Better yet, let’s fire up this scooter and see how she goes.”

  He shook his head again. “I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle.”

  “It’s just a scooter. Variable speed transmission. You don’t have to shift or anything. You just turn the key, hit the starter, and go.”

  “Motorcycles are dangerous.”

  “Ryan, this doesn’t go any faster than a bicycle. You should try it. You need to learn how to have some fun.”

  “No, I don’t!” he yelled at me. His face was red. He walked over and sat on the steps to Herman’s front porch. He bent at the waist, lowered his head between his knees, took deep breaths.

  Lily was still sitting on the chairlift seat, petting Spot, hanging onto him. She looked at Ryan, concerned.

  I followed Ryan. “I didn’t mean to offend. I just thought the scooter looked like fun.”

  Ryan looked out at the construction site.

  “I don’t try it because it frightens me,” he said. “I have no courage. I’m the ultimate coward. I’m afraid of everything. Someone honks their horn too close to me, I lose it. I start shaking. I have to pull over to the side of the road and breathe deep for ten minutes. I drop a glass in the kitchen and break it, I fall apart. I start crying. Not about the glass. I could care less about a glass. But about the upset. The inner turmoil. My inability to be normal. If I’m at the grocery store and a car backfires in the parking lot, I nearly collapse. I have to watch the clothes drier and turn it off before it’s done, because if I let it go until the buzzer sounds, I nearly have a heart attack. It’s like I have Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder. But I’ve never been to war. I’ve never been through any real trauma, except the trauma of my delusions, the trauma of my fears, the trauma in my heart.”

  I sat next to him on the steps. We were quiet for a bit.

  “I’ve heard that they’ve developed a simple and effective way to treat one’s fears,” I said. “What you do is approach the thing you’re afraid of in a controlled way, slowly and calmly. Take people who can’t get on an airplane. They bring them on a plane that isn’t going to fly. You’re just going to sit in the seat near the open door, have a cup of tea, read the paper. Then they shut the door. The plane still isn’t going anywhere. They spend more time in the stationary plane. Eventually, they progress to flying.”

  “You’re saying I should do that with the motor scooter. Just sit on it. Get used to the idea.”

  “Yeah. With anything that frightens you.”

  That night, I left Spot with Ryan and Lily in their house with the new motion lights and outdoor webcams and off-duty cop on guard. I picked up Street, and we drove around the lake to have dinner at Wolfdale’s in Tahoe City. We had the King Crab and watched the lake as the sunset put on a spectacular show.

  She asked how my day went.

  I recapped how Ryan reacted to the idea of riding a scooter, of having fun outdoors.

  Street brought her wine glass to her nose and took one of her long sniffs without actually drinking it.

  “He’s lived most of his life in a computer world,” she said, “where he has the skills to find his way through it, to conquer it. For him, that is as real as this world is for us. Maybe more real.”

  “Can’t ride a motor scooter in a computer world,” I said.

  “I agree. But our generation is trapped by our myopia. The stagecoach drivers scoffed at cars, but it was the horse-drawn world that disappeared.”

  “When I was a kid,” I said, “if my mother had told me to go play outside, it would have been redundant.”

  “Because almost all play was outside,” Street said.

  “Now most play is in cyberspace. I can’t help thinking that something important has been lost.”

  “Just like when people climbed off horses and got into cars,” Street said. “At least Lily still has a bicycle.”

  “Yeah. I’m glad for that.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Because Spot becomes the main attraction most places he goes, I thought it would be best if he weren’t at Ryan’s party. So I put him in the Jeep and parked it in the trees off Herman’s drive. He would likely spend the evening snoozing.

  The caterers took care of hosting obligations, so my help wasn’t needed. Ryan and Lily and I had already agreed that we wouldn’t advertise that I was staying at the house. I would be just another party guest keeping a low profile. We got both Smithy and Praeger to join the party in plainclothes. Praeger volunteered to spend the evening bird-dogging Lily and never let her out of his sight. I sat on Herman’s front porch, waiting until there was a good crowd before I joined in.

  People started showing by 7:00. While the acoustic music wasn’t loud, by 8:00 the party was already getting boisterous. The caterers had two buffet tables of food and a third set up as a bar, so the party guests had their hands full of food and drink within seconds after they got in the door.

  The drive quickly filled with cars, and it was a lesson in the socioeconomic status of the friends and colleagues of people who live on Tahoe lakeshore. Of all the vehicles, only my Jeep was old. The rest were the pearlescent, all-wheel-drive, leather-interiored, luxury wheel toys of the wealthy. Vehicles spilled like candy corn out onto the street, parked with a casual rakishness, some wedged between trees on the Forest Service lots across the street, some left partway up the slope on the side of the street, some infringing on neighbors’ landscaping.

  Like most of the cars, the people looked like the models one sees in the glossy magazines that cater to the nouveau-riche. They were a study in how the wealthy, educated, business class differs from the rest of the population. With a few notable exceptions, their teeth were whiter and straighter than natural, they were thin, their clothes were tailored, their hair was tended with brushes, not combs, their belts and shoes were soft, supple leather, and they didn’t slouch.

  I milled and mixed and mingled and thought that if I didn’t talk very much, maybe they’d mistake me for an outsider venture capitalist who didn’t have the social grace to dress appropriately to his class.

  I was looking for Ryan when I felt a punch to my upper arm.

  “Hey, tall boy.” Female voice. I turned. It was Glenda Gorman, dressed in a dramatic, billowy blouse/pant combination, satin-smooth fabric, purple over purple, the color accentuating her tight little blonde curls. The look brought to mind silent film stars from a century before. She held a drink that was bright yellow green.

  “Ace reporter Glennie, Sherlock for the Tahoe Herald,” I said.

  �
�Why’s a guy like you hanging with the young rich? You got a case that brings you here?”

  “I was hoping that some of their financial acumen would rub off. What’s your excuse?”

  “A girl haunts the moors long enough, she turns up the damnedest stories.”

  “There some hound here you’re chasing?”

  “Probably,” she said. “I heard a rumor about a secret research facility in Incline Village.”

  “Thought you were in the facts business.”

  “I figured that research equated to intelligence, and the host of this party, whom I’ve interviewed on the phone but haven’t yet met in person, seems to be the epicenter of a good chunk of Northern California’s intelligence.”

  “Good way to mix cocktails and journalism,” I said. I decided to play along with her subject even though I already knew about it. “You think that Ryan’s company is doing secret research? Or some other company?”

  “Don’t know. What’s interesting to me is, why in Incline?”

  “If the rumor is true,” I said.

  Glennie grinned. “Speaking of chasing hounds,” she said, “you should know that I just spent five minutes at an old Jeep parked in the trees, kissing and scratching the ears of a big, spotted dog.” She held out her drink and pointed to a dusting of short white hairs on the sleeve of her outstretched arm. “He learn any new tricks?”

  “No. He just practices the old standards. How to lie down and fall asleep in two seconds. How to sleep sixteen hours a day. And eating. He keeps perfecting that trick.”

  “But unlike Sherlock’s hound, Spot’s teeth don’t glow in the dark.” She looked around. “Probably can’t say that about most of these people. I’ve been watching Ryan Lear’s career. I sold a story on him to Esquire. Anyway, I learned that he’s quite the young tech star. Look at this crowd. There’s enough bank here to float an Initial Public Offering without having to go to Wall Street.” She gestured with her glass. I followed her gaze to a man who was maybe ten years older than Ryan chronologically, but a full generation older in terms of suave polish. He looked like a smiley, rugged movie star, his strawberry blond hair artfully swept back like a sailor who just stepped out of the wind. The contrast between his tan and his teeth made me want to put on sunglasses.

  “Recognize him?” Glennie said. “Preston Laurence.”

  “I’ve heard of him,” I said, remembering that he was Ryan’s 40% investor.

  “He started a software company, which he sold. Then he invested in a long series of startups that all went platinum. Now he’s a playboy philanthropist. He just set up the Preston Laurence Foundation with a fifty million-dollar endowment. The foundation will fund children’s groups. They say he’s got another billion where that came from.”

  “He doesn’t look like a geek.”

  “Got that right,” Glennie said. “I read about him in the Chronicle. They portrayed him as the ultimate business shark, engaging in philanthropy only as a way to direct attention away from some of his activities.”

  “Like what?”

  “Rumor has it that he pressures the young kids with startups into selling him disproportionately large percentages of ownership for disproportionately small investments. The paper quoted a source who said that Laurence is always cruising, always looking for a tip. Apparently, he is ruthless.”

  Preston Laurence stood at the focal point of a half circle of people. It was like watching rapt actors surrounding an A-list movie producer. One of them had his mouth open in a sort of permanent gasp of awe. Maybe Laurence was an A-list movie producer. Half of what he said must have been hilarious. The other half was profound. Every movement and gesture was studied and memorized. His admirers would be adopting his mannerisms at a later date, say, five minutes from now.

  His charisma was undeniable, all captivating charm and smile. He had a Heineken, and he held the bottle in an unusual way, his palm up, the bottle standing on his palm, his fingers rising up the sides of the green glass.

  “Looks like Laurence is about to get some spectacular company,” Glennie said. She aimed her drink toward a young woman wearing a clingy, blue, spaghetti-strap dress with a hem that stopped at upper-thigh. The woman pushed through the group surrounding Laurence, slipped her arm around his waist, then rubbed his butt.

  Her spiky blonde hair, fire-hydrant lips, eye shadow, and cleavage scored high enough on the bimbo scale that even if she could prove she had a Ph.D., I’d still assume it was earned in the non-academic way.

  Glennie sipped her drink and said, “Shame that someone so beautiful doesn’t know that you can skip the excessive paint job, and people will admire the lines of the vehicle even more.”

  “If I had his money and genius, you think she’d rub my butt?” I said.

  “Sure, but then Street wouldn’t want to anymore, and it would be your loss. Look how they hang on him.”

  “I’m guessing Preston’s magnetism is more than his financial statement.”

  “Cobblestone abs,” she said.

  “Explains the tight yellow sport shirt.”

  She nodded, then turned to me. “I bet you’d look good in that shirt instead of that loose sweater. But who would know besides Street? What is it with you? You drive a rusted, old Jeep. You wear worn-out jeans and old running shoes. You don’t primp or wear cologne or even have any jewelry. I bet you never even look in the mirror. You don’t have a shred of vanity, do you?”

  “I can primp,” I said, licking my thumb and carefully pressing down my right eyebrow. “But I learned long ago that his largeness upstages me so completely that no one notices me, anyway. So it doesn’t matter how I show off my tail feathers.”

  Glennie said, “Well, at least Spot has an ear stud. You could take a style lesson from Spot. Strut your stuff a little.”

  I looked back at Preston Laurence. “He live around here?”

  Glennie took my arm and pulled me over to the window. “Forbes Magazine showed a picture of some of his play toys.” She pointed out to a large Hatteras yacht that was anchored off Ryan’s beach. It probably had too much draft to pull up to Ryan’s dock. “That’s one of them. I can tell because the photo in the magazine showed those curved rows of twinkling lights. Gotta be the same boat.”

  The yacht had three strings of lights that sparkled in the approaching twilight, outlining the decks and the flying bridge. The bow was long and pointy.

  “He live in Tahoe? Or is the boat just for vacations?” I asked.

  “I’ve heard that he has a house near Carnelian Bay. Dollar Point, I think.” She gestured toward the north, across the lake. “But Forbes also ran pics of his five-hundred acre spread in the foothill wine country. Down by Jackson in Amador County. I think he spends most of his time there tending to his grapes and his race horses and his Mustangs.”

  “Mustangs,” I said.

  “Yeah. I guess adopting wild horses is one of his hobbies.”

  Glennie looked at me looking at Preston and the people surrounding him.

  “It’s not polite to stare,” she said.

  “Any idea who the armpiece is?” I asked.

  “None at all. I always knew that rich and powerful men can take their pick from the young and beautiful. But when I see it in person, I wonder how it is that so many women of each generation seem to care about nothing beyond a man’s finances. Why don’t they care about the deeper aspects to life?”

  “Like his abs?” I said.

  “Right, forgot that for a moment.”

  “Maybe she’s a poet or an artist, and he’s her patron,” I said.

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” Glennie said. “Emily Dickinson, judging by the humble wrap and the plain presentation.”

  Ryan appeared at our side, looking tentative.

  “Glennie, have you met our host?” I said. “This is Ryan Lear. Ryan, Glenda Gorman.”

  “We’ve spoken on the phone,” Glennie said. “Such a pleasure to finally meet you in person.” She gave him a big smile and t
hen a gentle one-armed hug, holding her drink out so she wouldn’t spill on him. Ryan blushed, awkwardness radiating from him like heat from a woodstove.

  They made small talk, Glennie as polished a charmer as they come, Ryan as nervous as a shy teenager. A minute or two later, Glennie saw her graceful exit. Her eyes moved to a person across the room. “Excuse me,” she said. “I just saw my rumor point man. Gotta go work.”

  She left, and I knew that her quick exit was the technique of a master reporter. By the end of the evening she would have met and spoken with every single person, and sized them up for potential as future sources. She would also know which ones were reliable and which tended toward exaggeration.

  “Rumor point man?” Ryan repeated after she left.

  “Someone who referred to a secret research facility.”

  “What? You were right! You try to keep something secret, and it makes the news spread even faster.”

  Another woman approached us, grinning at Ryan the way a proud aunt grins at a high-achieving nephew.

  “Oh, hi, Mrs. Hughes,” Ryan said. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “This is Owen McKenna. He’s my... He’s a friend here at the lake. And this is Mrs. Hughes, my friend William’s mother.”

  The smiling woman of maybe 45 was six feet tall, broad through the shoulders, and fit in a hard way that reminded me of Bruce Lee in his fighting prime. Her sleeveless tank top showed arms that could probably lift engine blocks out of cars, and her traps made distinctive triangles from her shoulders to her neck. She had on Capri pants that revealed taut, hard thighs and bicycle-racer calves. She was one of the serious fitness buffs, and she chose her clothes to show it. Despite her fitness, she probably looked older than her age, because she’d had enough sun to turn her skin to spotted tan crepe paper. It was beginning to sag over her muscles.

  “Good to meet you, Mrs. Hughes,” I said, shaking her hand.

  She rolled her eyes. “Please, Owen. I’m Holly to everyone but my children’s friends.”