The Question of the Absentee Father Read online

  Many of them were false leads, as a cursory glance at the list revealed. Some were simply not about George Kaplan at all but dealt with other people who shared the surname. Others concerned themselves with businesses whose names included the word Enterprises and had a mention of someone with the name in a related news article, blog post, or website.

  This process of reduction brought the total of new hits to less than three hundred. What was left included references to Kaplan Enterprises purchasing properties in the area, but not so many that it would indicate an enormous financial outlay.

  Perhaps this would be a good time to re-examine the issue of kissing with Ms. Washburn. That thought occurred without any direct process. It might be a way to reduce the tension I was feeling with her in the room, something I had never experienced before. On the other hand, even considering the idea of broaching the subject increased my anxiety noticeably. I felt a band of perspiration form around my hairline. I shook a bit without being able to reduce the effect despite knowing it was coming.

  On second thought, this might not be the right time or place. Back to the research.

  “I’ve got something,” Ms. Washburn said at that moment. “I don’t think it’s something big, but it’s something.” She gestured to me indicating I should come to the sofa and sit beside her. “I’m plugged in,” she said, pointing to the power cord she had attached to her laptop computer and the wall socket near the sofa.

  “Is it about the possibility of a zoning issue on the building in Reseda?” I asked.

  Ms. Washburn shook her head negatively. “From all I can tell, that’s a dead end,” she said. “Nothing’s been filed and no complaints have been made. I don’t think it’s anything.”

  I stood and walked to her makeshift workstation. She gestured to the seat beside her and reluctantly I sat. I could not stand behind the sofa, which was against the wall, nor could I expect Ms. Washburn to turn her computer toward me when she needed access at the same time as I did.

  She showed me the screen. She had navigated to a web page for the United States Department of Labor, which I found immediately interesting. It was not something I would have considered myself. Ms. Washburn proved herself valuable to Questions Answered with virtually every action she took.

  “The individual employment records for Mendoza Communications didn’t show me anything new,” she said. “So I decided to see if the government had any public records showing complaints in their hiring practices, see if there were any legal actions that indicated this name-change thing was something they do on a regular basis.”

  “Does the government make those records public?” I asked. Sitting this close to Ms. Washburn was undoubtedly distracting me but the question remained unanswered and the information she was giving me definitely had some bearing on our work.

  “They have to if they take legal action,” she said. “But as far as I can see they never made a complaint against Mendoza.”

  “I don’t understand,” I told her. “If there are no complaints, what information is there to be had?”

  “There are no complaints against Mendoza,” Ms. Washburn answered, “but there are complaints against other companies that deal in radio and television advertising time. In fact, there are seven complaints against them, and they are from all over the country. Portland, Oregon. St. Louis, Missouri. Boca Raton, Florida. And yes, one filed in Reseda, California.”

  “That is somewhat interesting, but probably not very unusual,” I said. “Any industry will have some employment complaints filed against companies on a regular basis, I’d think.”

  “That’s right, but I wasn’t searching for complaints in the advertising time business,” Ms. Washburn said with a sly smile. “I was running a search for the name George Kaplan.”

  I took a moment to process what I was being told. “You’re saying there are seven complaints about companies buying and selling advertising time and they were all filed by George Kaplan?”

  “Bingo.”

  That last word was not a reference to the game played in many churches and social clubs, but a statement that I was correct in what I had surmised. “What is the time frame involved in the complaints?”I asked.

  “I didn’t look back very far. They all took place within the last four years.”

  My mind raced a bit. “So it’s very unlikely that the man we know as George Kaplan filed all the complaints himself.”

  “That’s right. It appears there are a number of George Kaplans running around the country being hired and fired unfairly,” Ms. Washburn said.

  I sat back and stopped thinking about kissing her for the moment. “Bingo, indeed,” I said.

  eighteen

  Ms. Washburn and I spent another three hours digging into parts of the Internet for as much information as we could find about George Kaplan, companies that bought and sold advertising time, and legal challenges to their hiring and firing practices.

  During that time, we determined:

  There were at least seven complaints filed in seven separate cities in the United States by men whose legal names were all George Kaplan;

  The complaints all suggested that the company by which the Kaplan in question had been employed had engaged in fraudulent or unfair business practices, usually involving breach of contract;

  Each complaint had been investigated by the Department of Labor of the state in question;

  Each complaint had been found valid and disciplinary action had been taken against each of the companies named;

  George Kaplan had not profited personally from the complaints;

  Five of the seven companies had been forced into bankruptcy due to legal fees and the governmental action taken against them.

  Once midnight struck (not literally, as there were no clocks with chimes in the hotel room) Ms. Washburn had said she was tired and needed to go to bed. She stood and said good night and left the hotel room heading for her own.

  I prepared myself for sleep as I always do and lay down on the bed, leaving one light on in the bathroom because I was unfamiliar with the layout of the room. I stared up at the ceiling for sixteen minutes thinking about the question I was trying to solve, but my earlier discomfort with Ms. Washburn in the room also crept into my thoughts.

  I concentrated on the question first: What was the connection among the seven George Kaplans filing complaints with the Department of Labor? This seemed clearly enough to be a coordinated effort; the idea that seven men named George Kaplan each worked in the same industry, one that I had never heard of before researching this question, that each had encountered a similar kind of workplace violation, that each had thought to file a complaint with the same governmental agency, that all of them had been found valid and that each Kaplan had not gained financially from the proceedings was far too unlikely a coincidence to be deemed plausible.

  But if this was a planned initiative, who was behind it? Whose idea had it been, and what was his or her (probably his, given all the George Kaplans) motivation? Surely it was not financial gain.

  My mind was starting to slip into a more relaxed and therefore less cognitive state as I considered Ms. Washburn. More to the point, I wondered about my suddenly odd response to her presence. Ms. Washburn had not changed her behavior but my anxiety level was noticeably higher when she and I were alone in the hotel room than it had ever been before, even higher than when she was in danger of having her head cut off.

  Suddenly I was noticing the way she looked, which had never occurred to me before. I was paying attention to her proximity when we were working, which was hardly relevant to the work at hand. I was inwardly debating the best time to approach her about kissing again when I possibly should have been concentrating on the fact that my mother remained out of contact thousands of miles away. My priorities were shifting and the worst part was that I didn’t understand them.

  I don’t remem
ber much after that because defying all the clichés about troubling thoughts keeping one awake, I fell asleep and did not wake until my iPhone alarm rang at seven a.m.

  As we had previously arranged, Ms. Washburn, Mike, and I met in the lobby of the hotel at eight a.m. with the intention of finding a way to make George Kaplan—the one we had met—come into the open. It would be better to confront Kaplan about Reuben Hoenig on our own terms rather than waiting for a vengeful man to find us.

  But I had continued my musing as I showered and dressed that morning and now suggested we find a suitable restaurant to have breakfast first while we discussed plans for our day. We told Mike about our research of the night before and gave him all the information we had uncovered. Then I looked at Ms. Washburn because I wanted to gauge her reaction. “I have a theory,” I said. “I believe we should discuss it so I can get your input.”

  Ms. Washburn did not look surprised, but Mike smiled broadly. “Want to give us a sneak preview?” he asked.

  “Food first,” Ms. Washburn told him. She is well acquainted with my daily routine, even if it does not typically begin with waking in a hotel room and meeting two people in the lobby. “I’ve found a place near here.”

  She took us to a restaurant called the Eye Opener, which devoted itself specifically to breakfast. There had been a mild protest from Mike about letting Ms. Washburn drive until she pointed out accurately that is was her name on the rental car agreement and she had listed only me as an alternate driver, knowing full well I would never take on such a responsibility. In the past seven years I had driven only enough to keep my skills sharp, twice around the block on which Mother and I live, and had found the experience troubling.

  After ordering our meals, we were not silent for long. Mike crossed his arms and looked at me. “Okay, the food’s on its way,” he said. “So what have you figured out?”

  “I don’t know if ‘figured out’ would be the most accurate term,” I said. “But I have a theory based on the facts we know and I want to hear if either of you sees a way that it does or does not seem plausible.”

  Ms. Washburn, who says she is addicted to coffee, took a sip of hers as if to fortify herself. “Let’s hear it,” she said.

  “The idea is based on the part of the question that goes to motivation,” I said. “It is clear that with the scheme to place George Kaplans in companies around the country, the Kaplan we know—whatever his real name might be—is trying to accomplish some goal. But because none of the complaints resulted in a financial payment I had a difficult time understanding what the Kaplans were trying to accomplish.”

  “I’m still having a hard time,” said Ms. Washburn. “But you seem to be saying you have an idea.”

  Mike eyed the plate of sausage and scrambled eggs headed his way as the server, whose name was Linda, placed our orders in front of us. I examined my bowl and the small box of Special K cereal that Linda had brought. “Do you have any one-percent milk?” I asked her. “This is two-percent.”

  Linda paused after delivering a toasted bagel with cream cheese to Ms. Washburn. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “One percent instead of two percent?” Mike asked. “You can tell?”

  “I would be spending my morning thinking of the extra fat coursing through my veins,” I said. “It would be unproductive.”

  Ms. Washburn smiled, having seen this exchange before. “The motive, Samuel. Why does Kaplan want to file all these complaints with all the other Kaplans all over the country?”

  “Think of the outcome,” I said. “That was how I came to the answer.”

  “Oh, let’s not go to class, Samuel,” Ms. Washburn said as she spread the cream cheese on a half of her bagel. I chose not to look at her hands and had to concentrate on her eyes even if that was not my natural inclination. “Just tell us what you figured out.”

  I would have preferred to lead Ms. Washburn especially to the same idea and give her the sense of accomplishment, but I decided to accede to her wishes. “The idea was fairly simple, actually,” I began. “It was all the Kaplans that distracted me.”

  “Makes sense.” Mike rumbled through a bite of his breakfast. I was very careful not to look at him. I had never eaten with Mike before, and do not care to watch people eat under any set of circumstances. Sausage and eggs simply amplified my distaste. I did not care to think of what they had been fried in.

  “What happened was the Kaplans around the country filed small complaints designed to get the Department of Labor in each state, or if they were lucky, the Federal Government, to investigate the practices of other companies doing roughly the same work Mendoza Communications is doing,” I explained. “In almost every case the government agency found some impropriety and demanded changes in the company’s practices. In a large number of the incidents, the company found misbehaving was forced out of business shortly thereafter.”

  Ms. Washburn stopped with her coffee mug halfway to her mouth and her eyes widened. “So the goal wasn’t to extort other companies into paying the Kaplans to be quiet and there was no reward for bringing the complaints to the Labor Department,” she said. Her tone indicated the truth was coming to her fairly quickly. “The idea was to eliminate the competition through the government.”

  Linda brought my one-percent milk in a small pitcher as I was opening the box of Special K cereal. I thanked her as I have been taught to do and she walked away, which was my preference.

  “Exactly,” I told Ms. Washburn. “I’d guess that if we researched the income of Mendoza Communications from the time the complaints about employment began until they ended, we would see the revenues rise dramatically as more clients, forced out of the markets they had been trading in, came to the company for its advertising time.”

  “Why employment complaints?” Mike asked. “That kind of thing won’t always result in an investigation that will close a company.”

  “It got someone inside the competitor first,” Ms. Washburn said. I look a bite of Special K with the one-percent milk poured over it and it tasted almost exactly like the cereal I would eat at home. It was possible the one-percent milk was actually fat-free milk, but Mother would say it wasn’t worth arguing about.

  I tried not to think about Mother. It was already approaching noon in New Jersey and I had left two new messages. Something else I needed to banish from my mind while confronting the issue at hand.

  “That’s right,” I told Ms. Washburn. “Not only did the planting of a false Kaplan begin the possible process of an investigation, it also gained Mendoza Communications valuable information on the inner workings of the competition.”

  “So how does this help us find your dad, Samuel?” Mike the taxicab driver is nothing if not direct. He is an excellent resource for staying on task and on topic.

  Ms. Washburn, who was facing the door of Eye Opener, looked up from her plate and seemed a bit surprised. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” she said.

  I looked at her for a moment until she gestured with her head toward the door. Then I turned to look in the direction she had indicated.

  Entering the small restaurant were George Kaplan and his heavily eyebrowed associate. Reuben Hoenig was nowhere to be seen.

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  nineteen

  “How could they have found us?” Ms. Washburn said quietly as the two men walked toward our table. “We didn’t even know we were coming here until a half hour ago.”

  “I texted Kaplan,” I informed her. “Better to have them come when we expected them than at some random moment.”

  “Janet and I didn’t expect them,” Mike pointed out. He was correct; that had been an oversight on my part.

  Kaplan reached the table first and stood over my left shoulder. “You have an offer to make?” he said. His social skills required a good deal of revision, I thought. Perhaps a good therapist o
r a weekly group meeting would be of help to him.

  “I see no reason to change the offer I have already made,” I said. “We will be glad to give you the forty thousand dollars in cash when you allow me to speak at length to Reuben Hoenig. But he must not be on his current regimen of medication because that makes conversation with him more difficult.” I looked toward the door. “Did you bring him with you?”

  Involuntarily Kaplan glanced at the door too. Then his face took on a sheepish quality and he looked back at me. “No, of course I didn’t bring him with me.” His voice had a hoarse, urgent quality. “And stop saying how much money we’re talking about when people can hear you.”

  That made no sense. There was little point to speaking when no one could hear me. Why would I even consider altering the volume of my voice to the point that it would be inaudible?

  “When can you bring him to us?” I asked. “It must be sometime today because we are flying back to the East Coast tomorrow morning.”

  Mike winced just a bit. I thought he was reacting to what I’d said but could not be certain. I would ask him later.

  “I’m not bringing him to you,” Kaplan said. “You’re not giving me anything you didn’t already offer.”

  I already knew that; perhaps Kaplan was behaving this way because I had done something rude. I don’t always notice.

  “Would you care to join us?” I asked him. “We can get an extra chair from Linda for your associate.”

  Kaplan sneered. “No, I don’t want to join you. You don’t seem to understand how this works. This is a business negotiation. If you want something from me, you have to offer something I want. You want your dad. I want my money. But you’ve already welched on one offer. You got to talk to him and I got nothing.”