"Thanks, Russell."
"Good coffee."
"Not for the coffee. For Floyd T."
"I know." Russell shook his head. "Hospitals. This is a private non-profit hospital-they pay no state or federal taxes in exchange for providing free care to indigents. But they don't. They send poor people to the public hospital. And when they do treat the uninsured, they charge them double what they charge insured patients."
"Why?"
"Because they can. And because the insurance companies demand discounts normal people can't get."
"Different prices for different people for the same treatment? That's not fair."
"No, Andy, it's not. They should have their tax exemptions revoked. But the government doesn't enforce the law. Politics. I've been against national health care, but now I know it's the only fair way to go. Otherwise, it won't be long before only people like me will have health care. At least then we could operate the health care industry like a business instead of politics. The U.S. government is the biggest single purchaser of drugs in the world-Medicaid, Medicare, the VA-but it doesn't negotiate discounts from the pharmaceuticals. It pays list price. How stupid is that? But the drug companies bribe politicians with campaign contributions, so Congress makes it illegal for a U.S. citizen to go to Canada and buy the same drugs cheaper."
Russell took a few moments to calm himself.
"So tell me about the eighth woman."
Andy handed the dossier to his client. Russell thumbed through it while Andy gave him a full report on Sally and Jimmy Armstrong in San Diego. Russell was shaking his head.
"Paralyzed at sixteen… his whole life in a wheelchair."
"Seven out of eight kids, Russell."
"He's not mine, Andy. And neither is his sister. I knew Sally twelve years ago."
"Another married woman? While you were married?"
"She was divorced. She must have remarried."
Andy recalled that Sally Armstrong's divorce and second marriage were mentioned in the dossier.
"All these sick kids."
"You're over-thinking this, Andy. Life is random. Cruelly random."
"At least Jimmy's getting great care."
"I'll still wire a million to your trust account. You can fly back out to San Diego and give it to her… after you find Frankie Doyle."
"The DNA matched?"
Russell Reeves nodded. "The girl's mine, Andy."
"Natalie Riggs is pregnant?"
Tres' face was grim. "Two months, the doctor said."
Andy and Tres were sitting at their usual table at Guero's. Dave was at his nude yoga class, and Curtis was teaching an evening seminar.
"How's she handling it?"
"She's happy." Tres shrugged. "Hormones must've kicked in. She and her mother, they're at Neiman Marcus right now picking out maternity clothes."
"Hey, she'll probably start wearing underwear now."
"Yeah… big underwear."
"There's just no pleasing you, Tres."
"She took her cameraman with her."
"To buy underwear?"
"For the news. Says she's going to do a series on pregnancy and motherhood from start to finish, in real time." He drank from his beer. "Course, that means we've got to get married now. You'll be my best man?"
"Do I get free beer?"
They drank Coronas and contemplated life for a few minutes, as if offering a moment of silence for Tres' bachelorhood.
"Man, she had a great body," Tres said softly, as if speaking of a deceased dear friend.
"She'll get it back, Tres. Natalie's not the type to keep the baby fat."
"That's what she says. But you should've seen her getting down on the double-chocolate cookie-dough ice cream last night."
Another moment of silence, this time for Natalie's great body. Tres broke the silence again.
"How's Floyd T.?"
"Good. Double bypass surgery. They said he needed to sleep, so I left, came straight here. Doctor said he'll be in the hospital for a week."
"Reeves took him over there in his limo? Paid for his care?"
"And gave him mouth-to-mouth."
"Can't say I would've done the same. He really is a good guy, like they say."
"Yeah, I guess so."
Tres turned to him.
"You guess? Talk to me, buddy."
Andy hesitated then said, "Tres, you can't breathe a word of this to anyone, not even Natalie."
"With what you could tell her about me?"
"I can't imagine what Russell Reeves would do to me if this got out. And Natalie's a reporter."
"I can't imagine what Natalie would do to me if she found out I hired a PI to follow her. We're in a Mexican standoff, buddy."
Andy drank beer for courage.
"I'm tracking down Russell Reeves' old girlfriends. Seventeen."
" Seventeen? No way."
"Way. All over the country."
"That's why you've been traveling so much?"
Andy nodded. "We found the first six women easy enough."
"We who?"
"Downtown PI, ex-FBI. Russell gave me his name, only the PI doesn't know Russell's the client. Anyway, we found them, and Russell gave each woman a million bucks. Anonymously."
"Why?"
"He doesn't want anyone to know-"
"No. Why'd he give them money?"
"To make amends, he said. Because he treated them badly and they're down on their luck."
Tres nodded. "He's suffering that rich-guilt complex. Feels guilty for being filthy rich, so he relieves his guilt by giving his money away. It's a common affliction among the rich… not for me, but for some rich people." Tres shrugged. "Course, for him, a million is like us giving a bum a buck. Well, for you anyway."
"Thanks."
"So he's giving away a bunch of money. What's the problem?"
"We had a hard time finding the seventh woman-her name's Frankie Doyle. So I went to her last-known address in Boston, talked to her ex-husband. Name's Mickey. He hit her, so she divorced him three years ago and took off with their five-year-old daughter. They moved to Montana then to New Mexico and West Texas and now to Buda."
"As in Buda just down the road?"
"Yeah. And they changed their names every time."
"She must really be afraid of Mickey."
"Maybe. But we found her. Or Lorenzo did."
"Why not the FBI guy?"
"He goes by the book."
"You meet her?"
Andy nodded. "Says she never dated anyone but Mickey."
"She's lying."
"Why would she lie about that?"
"Everyone lies."
"Maybe."
"Okay, so she's on the run from Mickey. And Reeves wants to give her a million bucks. I still don't see the problem."
"Russell says the girl is his."
" Whoa. Hold on. How?"
"He says they had an affair while he was up in Boston, teaching at MIT. Nine years ago."
"While he was married?"
"And while she was."
"Now that's a problem, Russell Reeves with a love child. How does he know the girl is his?"
"DNA."
"How'd he get her DNA?"
"He didn't."
"You did?"
Andy nodded.
"How?"
"Band-Aid in the trash."
Tres seemed impressed.
"Does she know Reeves is the father of her child?"
Andy shrugged. "When I went back out to get the DNA, she and the girl, they had already bolted."
"Why?"
"They're scared."
"Of what? Or whom?"
"I don't know."
"So Reeves had you tracking down his old girlfriends to find this girl?"
"Yeah… or to find out if he had another child. But here's the weird part."
Tres laughed. "Like none of that was weird?"
"Seven of the eight women have sick kids, like Russell."
"How sick?"
"Cancer, paralysis, cerebral palsy… The only kid who's not sick is-"