Chapter 2

I arrived at Paul's house about an hour later. I'd stopped off at the office and talked with Adriana and explained that if Deanna called, I was out of the office on a local job. She'd raised her eyebrow at that, but not asked questions – her famous 'I don't give a fuck' demeanor in full force.

I knocked on the door to Paul's house and there was Solomon, tired, bleary eyed and obviously just gotten up. He recognized me and shouted, "Uncle Ryan!" and embraced me. He was just wearing shorts and we were on the porch of Paul's very expensive house in a gated neighborhood. In a way, it was funny. God only knew the rumors that would flow from this.

I disengaged and gestured to Solomon to go inside.

I knew Solomon would recognize me. I'd bought him his first video game console, and some games to go along with it. Sometimes Paul gave me shit, saying I'd started Solomon on his path, but I don't regret it. He'd been kicked out of three different schools and the poor kid just needed an outlet, and I gave him one. We'd been friends ever since.

We went inside and Solomon was making coffee. He gestured with the jug and said, "Want some?"

I nodded, sure. Paul had all the gourmet stuff. Solomon poured me a coffee and plonked himself down on the other side of the kitchen island, where we sat, sipping the hot blue mountain java.

"So what's up, uncle Ryan? You didn't come here just for the coffee."

I didn't look at him immediately, just smelled the hot coffee. Then I blurted out, "Deanna is having an affair."

Solomon immediately put down his coffee, got off his stool and came around and just hugged me. It might not have been appropriate, but it was a nice gesture. My body racked with sobs for just a minute, and then he released me and I got control again.

"So ... that sucks man. Big time. Are you sure ... oh wait. That's why you are here. You want me to ... I get it."

Solomon more than made up for Paul's lack of acumen. Honestly, it was like they were one divided person. Paul got the looks and the charm and Solomon got the brains and the social issues.

I looked doe eyed at Solomon. "Would you? I need ... details. I need to know more and you know how to get that stuff ... I know you aren't supposed to touch a computer but..."

Solomon just smiled at me. "Of course, Uncle Ryan. You don't even need to ask. We'll find out and then we'll take that fucker she's doing to the cleaners. It's all possible."

So that's what we did. Out came his laptop and online he went. It was an instructive morning – I learned a lot about how hackers work and what goes on. I was expecting a lot of little windows on screen opening with code streaming through them, like you see on the movies. Lots of countdowns and stuff.

Turns out Hollywood lies. Most of the time was spent in chat rooms. Turns out that most hackers are lazy. You want to get into any given system? Chances are, someone else already has. What you need to do is find that person, and get them to either tell you how they did it, or give you the credentials they used. There are hacking chat channels all over the world were people share this info. It's all tit for tat though. You have to give them what they want. Turns out Solomon, with his online name of "Scorbius", was well known and people fell over themselves to give him what he asked for.

Firstly, we needed to get into the booking system at Wrigley field. Simon had been convinced that they were sitting in a season ticket box, so we needed to see. Solomon spent some time talking to some people on line – turns out none of them had been into the booking system at Wrigley field; it's a sport. They are nerds. Why would any of them care? But it was based on the same software used by various parts of Ticket Master, and they had been in there. Solomon got the instructions, set about the task and was in within twenty minutes.

While he was doing that, I was looking on the MLB website for the game in question – there were lots of small clips online and I caught one where the camera panned across the crowd and there they were. Thankfully they didn't have the Kiss Cam segment online. I don't think I could have handled that.

From a still of that, we cross referenced the seating plan and worked out where they were sitting. From there, it was a simple matter to interrogate the database and find out if those seats were allocated to a season ticket holder. And they were.

Jordan Lawler. The name of my nemesis. No, my mortal enemy. Nemesis implied he'd already won. And there I went again. Changing my mind. Was I going to fight, or just bury them? I still didn't know.

We got his home address – it was an apartment building downtown. Unlikely he was married then – it wasn't the kind of place you'd raise a family. We didn't get his credit card information. That was more learning I got from this experience – most websites that take credit card information to then charge on them don't actually store those details themselves.

There are a ton of rules and regulations about how credit card details have to be stored – servers with specific configurations, and access methods and so on, and most places that want to offer stuff for sale over the internet don't have the time, money or experience to put that together, so almost all contract it out to credit card storage companies whose major expertise is that. When you go to a website and put in your credit card details to buy, say movie tickets, that part of the website is actually handled by someone else. All the movie ticket company gets is an index id number that they use to communicate with the credit card company.

The practical upshot of which, we didn't get his credit card details. Solomon assured me he could get it in time, if I really wanted it, but I didn't know yet, so we let that go.

What I did want was some information that Solomon couldn't get. I didn't get how often he'd used the season tickets. I didn't get who he took with him. I didn't get that which I wanted most – concrete details of this affair. It was a step in the right direction and I knew more now than I had, but I still didn't know what I wanted to know.

We took a break and I suggested lunch. Solomon just waved his hands at me and said he'd do some digging if I went to Burger King and got him the burger he liked. So off I went. I was back in half an hour, and found out that what that kid could do in half an hour, when I wasn't breathing down his neck, was astounding.

He'd compiled a dossier on Mr. Lawler that any PI company would have been proud of. Alright, it was all gained illegally, but I wasn't about to use it in court anyway, so who cares?

As we ate, I went through it. Turns out Mr. Lawler WAS married – I was wrong. He actually lived in Philadelphia. He had two kids and a wife, and he was in Chicago as point man for a company buy out. He worked for a corporate raider and he was in Chicago negotiating to buy out a large confectionery making company there. He'd been there for at least eight months already, and it looked like he'd be there for another two or three, closing the deal. He'd bought a condo there since he was spending so much time in Illinois – he thought that he could sell it, make his money back and then not have spent anything on the time he was there. The condo was currently up for sale.

He was also, we discovered, a customer of Royals Realty. Which is where Crystal worked. Connection made. That's how they'd met – Deanna was staging his condo.

At one point, when I was engrossed in the documents, Solomon gestured at the file and said, "That was fun, putting that together. Deanna needs to cheat more often!"

I just stopped, didn't say anything and let Solomon work out what he'd just said. It took him a second and then he just went, quietly, "oh shit. I'm so sorry man ... I didn't think."

Social issues, you see. Not thinking what he was saying. Oh well. Need to move on. I glanced at him, said, "Don't worry about it," and carried on reading.

We were making inroads here, but I still wasn't getting the details I wanted. But then I had a brainwave. Crystal. She had to know.

There was one way to find out. I pulled out my phone, gestured to Solomon to be quiet and made a call. The phone rang and after three rings, Crystal answered.

"Hi Ryan. How are you? Feeling better?" Deanna had spoken to her. Good. Boded well. They were sharing.

"Somewhat. Hey Crystal, you know where Deanna is? I think there's some issue with her phone. I tried calling her yesterday and got no answer, and same today. It doesn't even ring. I think there's some setting or something that got flipped? Maybe she's in a place where there is no service? You got any idea?"

"Oh, I don't know Ryan. She's at a staging downtown today, in an apartment complex off Lower Wacker Drive. She said she needed to get some things from storage, so she's probably on her way out to Crystal Lake right now. I can tell her you called though, if she calls me? Get her to get in touch?"

"Yeah, that's fine. It was like this yesterday too – do you know where she was then? I was wondering if location had something to do with it."

The $64000 question.

"Oh, she was with me at a showing. We were downtown again. We've got four different apartments I'm showing right now."

Bingo. That was a direct lie. Crystal therefore knew at least something and was covering for Deanna, which means she was my new line of attack.

"Ok, well, not to worry. I'm sure she'll call at some point. Thanks Crystal. Say hello to Charlie for me."

"Sure, Ryan. Feel better, ok?"

Her husband, Charlie Riggs, was a local hero on talk radio. He was half comedian, half right wing mouthpiece. Very popular in Chicago, and I knew he held political aspirations for the future, but right now, he was just happy making people laugh and subtly poisoning their minds with the Tea Party agenda. In some ways, Charlie Riggs was more dangerous than anyone else I knew. When you laugh, you find yourself agreeing subconsciously. I do the same in some of my sales techniques.

Strangely though, even though we were polar opposites in our political leanings, Charlie and I got on. As long as we stayed away from certain subjects, we had a lot of fun. He'd even called me on his show a few times.

So, now I needed leverage on Crystal. She was obviously covering for Deanna and I needed information from her that she had to give me and then not tell my duplicitous soon to be ex-wife. Boom, that pendulum had swung right back again. Now I was divorcing her. At some point soon I would need to get settled on how I felt and what I was going to do. But not yet.

So back to Crystal. How was I going to get leverage? Well, one thing was for sure, I wasn't going to get it sitting around here. But Solomon might.

"Hey Solomon."

"Yeah man?"

"You wanna keep digging? See what you can find on Crystal Riggs. Bank details, work history, anything. She's one of Deanna's friends and covering for her, and I need dirt so I can make her squeal."

Solomon looked at me strangely and said, "You do know you are talking like some mid century gangster, right, Uncle Ryan?"

I blinked and looked back. "Can you do it?"

Solomon was offended. "Of course I can. I'm just wondering what you are going to do with all this..."

"Don't worry, it'll never be traced to you. None of this stuff is admissible in court. I just need to know what is going on."

Solomon eyes were full of empathy. "Yeah, I can get behind that. I'll keep on this – these fuckers need pain. You need anything, holler, ok?"

"Err, how do I get hold of you?"

"Oh right, you don't have my digits. Hold on," and he grabbed my iPhone and entered a new contact. "There you go. Be careful with that – it'll only last a couple of weeks till I get a new throw away phone."

I smiled at all the cloak and dagger stuff, and then realized it was the first time I had smiled in almost three days. And then with that realization, it went away again.

Crystal. My new target. I needed to focus.

I sat in my friend Simon's car, sitting outside of the apartment building, waiting for Crystal to emerge. I'd called Simon earlier in the day and asked if I could use his car. He'd just said yes immediately, and I'd then rung his doorbell, since I was outside anyway. We chatted, and I could see the concern in his eyes.

I didn't really have time for a long conversation, so I asked for the keys, gave him mine to use in the mean time, and took off as quickly as was decently possible. Part of me just didn't want to even talk about the situation. I was still yo-yo-ing back and forth on how I felt about the whole situation, where I was likely to go, and I just didn't feel up to talking about it just then.

Luckily, he understood. He just hugged me, told me to be safe, told me how sorry he was again, and if I needed anything, to call.

And I took off. Now, I know where the head offices of Royal Realty are. They are in Schaumburg, near the Woodfield Mall. I'd been there a few times with Deanna, so I was aware of their location. I also knew that Crystal was there since I'd called earlier from a pay phone and put on the most ridiculous accent and asked if she was free for an appointment. The company PA told me she was, but that she had a three o'clock, so it would have to be earlier than that at the company offices. So I knew she was there. She'd probably be fuming at being stood up, but oh well. Can't make an omelet and all that.

At two forty five precisely, I watched Crystal come out of the office and climb into her yellow boxster Porsche. I'd given her shit in the past about that car, going on and on about it being girlie, and how Charlie would never be caught dead in it. It was all good natured, but today, well, things would change. I honestly didn't really know what I was doing, following her. I didn't know what I expected to get from it – I just needed ... something. Some opportunity, if only to talk to her. Maybe find out more about her day, who she was talking to, whatever. Looking back, I think it was probably more the need to be doing something constructive, even if it didn't end up that way.

She drove to Des Plaines, went to her meeting in the apartment building and that's where I was now. I sat there, wondering what I was doing, when she came out again. She was on the phone, talking animatedly, and then it was back in the car – thank god it was bright yellow; traffic was a bitch at this time and so the fact that it was yellow made it easier to follow.

We both drove off to Mount Prospect, the next town along, and also the town that provided the police car that Jake and Elwood drove in The Blues Brothers. We cruised along Golf Road and eventually pulled off into a motel in the warehouse part of town. It was one of those crappy little motels that do hourly rentals, where all the rooms are in a strip so each has it's own door to the outside world.

Now what could she possibly want here? It because very obvious, very quickly, when she parked next to a BMW seven series in the parking lot, got out and walked to a specific room. The door opened as she approached and a guy in a suit stood in the doorway, smiling at her in the same way that wolves smile at sheep. He was most definitely NOT her husband Charlie, but he sure acted like he was. He grabbed her, kissed her and shut the door and I sat there cursing the fact that I was not prepared and was fumbling with my iPhone trying to get a pic.

I figured they'd be in there for at least an hour, so I went to get coffee from a nearby Starbucks, and came back and just sat there, playing with my phone and wondering what Deanne was doing right then.

The phone rang and I saw it was Solomon number. I answered and he said, "Hey dog. I got an update. You free?"

"Shoot," I said, simply.

"So Royal Realty. Five partners, of which your friend Crystal is one. As a company they are doing well. Several well-paying gigs, lots of cash in the bank. The other partners are one couple, one single woman and a guy. The couple started the company and they and the guy are devout Mormons. Crystal Riggs herself looks clean, but we've found one extra account that has almost two hundred and fifty grand in it. It's off shore and it's never been declared on her taxes. Man, the things she claims! If she's ever audited..."

"Yeah, ok," I said, interrupting.

"Ok, so we aren't finding more than that right now. She's a party girl, from the socialite pages and is often out with her husband, the Radio guy. You know him, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, they look like a loving couple in all the pics I can find. Can't give you more than that unless you know what you want me to look at?"

"Nah, that's enough for now..." I said, absorbing what he'd said. "No, wait. If I give you a license plate, can you run it for me? Or whatever it is you do. You know I've always wanted to say that..."

"Oh give me something hard. Sure. What is it?"

I gave it to him, heard him typing and while he did, he said, "Cracking the DMV is like your My First Hack. Every hacker does this, just because it's so easy. The security is like a joke. Here we are. Alvin Jeffries. Lives in Rolling Meadows. Lets cross-reference his social..." there was more clacking of a keyboard. "Here we go. CEO of Procent Builders ... they are building condos off Golf Road in Barrington and ... you'll never guess who's helping them sell them."

"Royal Realty?"

"Got it in one. I guess she's sweetening the pot. No wonder she has hidden money. She must be getting kick backs of some kind."

"Well, that's interesting. More leverage. Ok, Solomon, keep rooting around. I'll talk to you..."

As luck would have it, the phone interrupted the conversation and I saw it was Deanne from the caller ID. Without thinking, I switched across to it – that's what I would normally have done and I just didn't consider the situation.

"Hey Honey! How are you feeling?" she asked, concern evident.

"Oh, I'm ok," I said, then mentally kicked myself. Being sick meant I'd be able to avoid her, and I just wasn't thinking. I was too busy watching the door of the motel and not thinking about what I was saying to my loving wife.

"That's good. Crystal said you were trying to get hold of me?"

Oh shit! That lie. Crap. Make something up, quick.

"Oh nothing particular. I was more worried that your phone doesn't seem to getting my calls. You know, in case I need you."

"Oh. That does seem weird. Seems like I can call you though? You want anything particular for dinner tonight?", she said, changing the subject. I wondered why. Damn paranoia again.

"Err, no. I dunno. Chinese?"

"Oh the kids will like that. Jamie has that thing for dumplings. You've seen him. It's adorable."

I just sat there, marveling at how normal she sounded. In that instant I realized that our life was based on a lie. At least partially – probably mostly - and it included some of the most important bits.

"Yeah," I replied. I honestly didn't know what else to say.

"Are you ok Babe? You sound distant?"

"I'm kinda in the middle of something. I have to concentrate. Tedious work I'd rather not be doing, but it has to be done," I answered, quite truthfully.

"Oh right. Ok, well, don't let me distract you. Have a good day babe. Can't wait to see you. I have a little something for you!"

She finished that statement in that upward lilt of tone people have when they are saying something that's supposed to be enticing. I couldn't muster up any enthusiasm, so I just grunted and hung up.

I sat there, for a moment, considering the situation. Here I was, sitting outside a motel where I was pretty sure my wife's friend and boss was having extra marital sex. Two days ago, I'd never even considered this kind of thing – that it was even remotely near my marriage and life. Now, it appeared, everyone was at it. I felt like an idiot. Like someone who runs around with his eyes shut, blissfully ignorant of what is going on around him. It was making me look at everyone and every situation differently. Are the PTSO meetings really PTSO meetings, or meet and greets to find new lovers? What happened to just Not Fucking Around? What happened to people actually, you know, respecting their vows? Where is all this disrespect for their partners coming from? You just never really think about it – about this kind of thing happening to you. The moment you do, you open your eyes and god knows what you find going on around you.

I needed some leverage on Crystal, and boom, there it was, because she was as much of a cheating slut as apparently my wife was. It made me want to run home, get my kids and just move to Alaska, where the nearest neighbor was fifty miles away.

I just couldn't really get my head around the whole situation. Was anyone I knew not screwing around?

I adjusted the phone and put it back into camera mode, and at that exact moment, the door on the motel room opened. I was out of the car like a flash, and had them framed on the doorway. He'd lost his jacket and tie, and the back of his shirt was still out the back of his pants.

She was buttoning the last of the buttons on her blouse, and then they gave each other a big full on kiss. And I was getting it all on video.

I've never really understood why people who are cheating stand in doorways and kiss each other. Well, I've never really understood the whole cheating thing at all, but this particular behavior blows my mind. Lets announced it to everyone! Look, I'm kissing this person at a motel in the middle of the afternoon. And I'm tucking my clothes in as I do it. I wonder what we've been doing! And we probably aren't married to each other either! Otherwise, why would we be at a motel?

It just seems really dumb and stupid. But then here I was being basically a peeping tom, so what do I know?

Alvin grabbed his jacket and tie from inside the door and walked to his car, got in and took off. Crystal got in her car and pulled out her phone and started talking and I saw my chance. Strike while the iron is hot, element of surprise. To be honest, I was just tired, frustrated, pissed off and I wanted answers. Now.

So I walked out, opened the passenger door of her car and just climbed in, looking over at her and smiling.

She looked at me, with a very false smile and said to the phone call, "I'll call you back. Something came up," and disconnected the call.

"Hello Ryan. What a surprise! What can I do for you?" she said, politely, while quite obviously wishing I was anywhere else. The dread in her eyes was evident, but she was obviously going to try bluffing it out.

"Oh, I don't think you can do much for me right now Crystal. You are probably tired. Quite a work out eh?" I said, nodding to the motel room door.

She went red and said, "I'm sure I don't know what you mean. I was meeting a client. He has meetings in the area and he stays here when he does."

"Yeah, I'll bet he does. I wonder why though Crystal. Alvin only lives in Rolling Meadows, and we are less than ten miles away from there. Why do you think he's staying in a motel? And why did he leave when your 'meeting' was done?"

Crystal opened her mouth and closed it again, eyes darting around as she considered what to say.

"Tell you what, there's a bar down here somewhere. Lets drive and go get a drink. I'm sure you need one to settle your nerves and besides, I'm sure you are dehydrated."

She continued to just look at me undecided, until I put on the seat belt and barked, "Drive!" and she jumped.

She hastily put the car in drive and we drove off the Under The Sea Saloon. The bar was every bit as disgusting as it sounds, the kind of place where your shoes stick to the floor. But it had no windows, lots of high backed booths and low lighting – it was perfect for the interrogation I needed to perform.

We parked, went inside and I ordered myself a club soda and her a brandy. That was her tipple I remembered. But not top shelf. She didn't deserve that.

We sat down and I immediately got my phone out, fiddled with it and then presented it to her.

"Before we even get going, I want to show you this. I've already copied it to myself, and at the touch of a button, Charlie gets this."

She watched aghast as she exited the hotel room, kissing Alvin hard and buttoning up her clothes.

"While we are on the subject, I'm pretty sure Charlie would like to know about that secret account you have as well. I'll bet he doesn't right now, does he?"

That was a total shot in the dark, but worth trying. The way her face tightened up and her hands grasped the glass with the brandy in it told me I'd hit home.

"How did you know about that? What do you want?" Crystal hissed at me.

"You know what I want," I said. I didn't really think about how it sounded, until she recoiled from me.

"I will not sleep with you. I'm not making this worse."

I couldn't believe it. I was so wrapped up in my own woes I'd not considered the situation or how she'd take that comment. I should have known better.

"Crystal," I said, in measured tones, "I do not want to fuck you. I wouldn't put my cock or anyone else's anywhere near your gaping cunt right now. God knows, it's probably got cum seeping out of it as we speak. Why the fuck would you imagine I would?"

Crystal was taken aback at the venom in my delivery. In fact I was too. The anger I had inside over Deanna was coming out and Crystal just happened to be in the cross hairs right now.

Give her her due though. She clenched her teeth, then said, "I'm not the one trying to blackmail you."

Touche. I rolled my eyebrows at her to acknowledge her point.

"Well, I'm not the one cheating. And that's what I need to talk about."

"Look, it doesn't mean anything. You can't tell Charlie. He wouldn't understand."

"No, I'll bet he wouldn't."

"It's just sex. It's just a sweetner on the deal. To ... consummate it, so to speak. The money is for our retirement. We are retiring to Florida. Eventually. I want to be sure we have what we want."

"I really don't need your justifications, Crystal. I don't care. You've made your bed, you lie in it, sweaty and stained as it - and you - are. I'm not interested in your sordid little affairs. Your revolting little reasoning that allows you to go home to a man who loves you and works his ass off for you, after you've spent the afternoon with another man's cock in you is not my business."

"Then what do you want?" she asked, defiantly. "Money?"

I scrunched up my face in distaste. "Like I said, you know what I want. I want to know about Jordan Lawler."

Crystal stared at me and then murmured, "Oh shit." She took a gulp of the brandy and avoided my eyes.

"Yes, Crystal. You are about to throw Deanna under the bus, or your marriage will be over before that drink is done. I shouldn't imagine your partners at Royal Realty will be that thrilled with you, either."

"Oh, I think some of them would be proud," she said, quietly.

"Really? Think the devout Mormon couple would be happy to hear about how you're screwing clients on company time? About your little nest egg? Oh I think they'd have quite a lot to say about that, don't you?"

Crystal just stared at me.

"So spill Crystal. Tell me about my whore wife and this fuck face ass wipe. Tell me what you know. I already know a lot, and you don't know what I know or not. One lie, one omission, and this video gets sent out. So do whatever you need to do to get over it, but TELL ME NOW."

I thumped the table at the end of the rant, anger starting to flow. I'd done what I thought was a good job of controlling myself, but now the details were in sight, I wanted them, with no waiting around.

Crystal took a deep breath and, then trembling, said, "OK. Jordan Lawler is a client of mine. He has a loft downtown that he bought last year that he's trying to shift. It's been on the market a few weeks and not moving, so I brought Deanna in to stage it. I've shown it several times, but nothing was clicking. It needed ... arranging. She did what she always does, but this guy was home while she was doing it. I don't know the details, we don't go into those. Something clicked between them – they've been, I don't know what you want to call it, fucking, dating, falling in love. I don't know. She's into him, he's into her. She knows it's short term, or at least that's what she's said to me. She knows he's going back to Philly when the job is done, and she's determined to enjoy it while he's here. There. Is that what you wanted to know?"

Crystal was still trembling. I could see it from her point of view. Delivering the truth to me wasn't going to make me love what she'd been doing any more. Truth might well unhinge me to the point where I pushed that button on her marriage anyway. And she was right to think it, too.

I was trembling too. Here was the proof. The details. The data I needed.

"How long?" I asked, simply.

"I don't know exactly. At least six weeks now. Possibly more."