Catch a Falling Knife

Chapter 7

I spent every spare minute on Tuesday trying to figure out how to get back to Bethany and Club Cavalier. I was convinced that the Shooting Star was Mark’s accuser, but how could I prove it? And if I did prove it, how would it help Mark? He certainly couldn’t bring it up in his own defense because the reasoning of the adjudicating panel would go something like this: Mark knew victim was a topless dancer, thus thought she was “easy” and had no qualms about harassing her.

If what Cherub said was true, Club Cavalier needed a harassment policy-to protect the girls from the owner. Perhaps Priscilla Estavez should take that up as a cause.

I had vague thoughts of blackmailing Mark’s accuser so that she would drop the charges against him. Evidently, she didn’t want her identity known, for whatever reason. It probably wasn’t only because she was a student, although that must be a contributing factor. I had heard of other girls who had worked their way through college as strippers and even as prostitutes. I suspected that most of them didn’t tell any more people than necessary about their secret lives.

I couldn’t impose on Albert again. When I had returned to the table after talking to the girls, I hadn’t told him where I had been because I knew he wouldn’t approve. And he certainly wouldn’t have anything to do with lying in wait for the Shooting Star to try to prove her identity.

It had been a wasted evening, as far as he was concerned. At least that’s what he said. I wondered, however, if seeing the Shooting Star, with her youth, freshness and unabashed eroticism, had fanned some dormant spark of manhood inside him, which apparently couldn’t be reached by his girlfriends, none of whom seemed to particularly excite him. I could always hope that he would find somebody to love, and get married again-and not end up a lonely old man.

In mid-afternoon the phone rang. I immediately recognized the voice at the other end as Albert’s. Since he rarely called me during the day I wondered whether something was wrong. “Where are you?” I asked.

“At work,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you that our innocent little foray last night got me into trouble.”

“Trouble?” I said, puzzled. “What kind of trouble.”

“I got an e-mail from one of my colleagues. It seems that some guy in Bethany has created a website for the sole purpose of posting the license plate numbers of people who visit the strip clubs there.”

“Huh? I don’t understand. What in the world would he do that for?”

“I guess he doesn’t like strip clubs or the men who patronize them. Probably considers himself morally superior to the rest of us.”

“I don’t like people who feel qualified to tell me what to do.”

“I know that, Mother. But you’re not the one with the problem. I am.”

“Does anyone really care what you do with your free time? I can see that it might elicit a few laughs around the water cooler, but what can they do to you? After all, you have tenure. There isn’t some policy at UNC that says you can’t go to nightclubs, is there?”

After blowing off some more steam, Albert had to admit that being caught going to Club Cavalier wouldn’t really do him any harm. I guessed he was just using this as a way to try to put me in my place, whatever that was. However, he gave me an idea. “I take it you know how to find this website? Could you give me the information?”

“But you don’t know anything about the Internet.”

“Maybe it’s time I learned. Mark can reach the Internet from his laptop computer. I’ll get him to help me.”

“All right, I’ll forward the information to Mark’s e-mail address. But you’ve done all you can for Mark. There’s nothing more you can do to help him. So don’t go getting into trouble on his account.”

“There it is,” Mark said. “Nice graphics.”

We looked at the screen of his laptop together. I had just fed him a hearty dinner of pork chops and a baked potato, with a salad and veggies to keep him healthy. For myself, I had eaten a takeout dinner from the Silver Acres dining room. Since I had to pay for one meal a day, anyway, I didn’t want to waste it.

I wasn’t interested in the pink background on the web page or the small, animated figures of women, moving their hips and continually taking off and putting on their tops. I was interested in the heading that read, “March Patrons at Club Cavalier,” and the list below it that contained license plate numbers plus make, model and color of the vehicle associated with each one.

Mark showed me how we could do a search on any of those items of information if we were looking for a particular vehicle, using Albert’s pickup as an example. It was there, all right, and we could find by searching on any combination of “Toyota,” “Tacoma,” “blue,” and his license plate number.

“So,” I said, “if you are a suspicious wife, mother, girlfriend, employer, minister, whatever, you can check this site periodically to see if your guy is straying.”

“Exactly,” Mark said. He chuckled. “Talk about Big Brother. But, according to what you told me, it isn’t keeping the young studs of Bethany in line. You said Club Cavalier had quite a crowd there last night.”

I had told him everything I had done, if not everything I was thinking of doing. I did it in such a way that I knew he wasn’t going to go running off to Club Cavalier to confront the Shooting Star. In fact, he was more or less resigned to what he considered to be his fate. He had agreed to return to work on the weekends at the restaurant where he had been a bartender, figuring that he would probably be suspended from his teaching job sooner or later.

“What do we know about the person who created this website?” I asked.

“We have his e-mail address. In fact, he’s so proud of what he’s doing that he even listed his name. Here it is: Eric Hoffman. Probably a pillar of the Bethany community.”

“You must know the young woman who gave me the information about Club Cavalier. She said she was taking physics from you, but not the same course as your accuser. And she works in the Administration Building. You may have seen her when you went to talk with Priscilla Estavez.”

Mark thought. “Yes, I did see her and yes, I do know her. If you give me a moment I’ll remember her name. It’s Donna…Donna Somerset. She’s taking my advanced class. Quite smart, actually. But I don’t know of any connection between her and…my accuser.”

“Perhaps she gave me a bum steer. Who knows why? Maybe it’s her idea of a joke. She did tell me not to tell you the information came from her. In fact, she seemed to be afraid of being found out.”

“If she’s really trying to help me, I can understand why she’s afraid of being found out. Helping me might be a hanging offense. At the very least, she would lose her job in the Administration Building. And speaking of my accuser, she showed up for Chemistry lab today.”

“How did it go?”

“We ignored each other.”

Mark had more forbearance than I did. Next topic. I asked, “When is your appointment with Burt Brown?” Burt was a lawyer friend of mine. I wanted Mark to speak to him, even though he couldn’t be present at Mark’s hearing.

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Say hello to him for me. I hope he can help you.”

“At least he won’t make things any worse.”