Queasy Rider

Part I

Chapter 1

Just a routine, yearly exam, taken a week ago. That's all it was--or all Dan expected it to be. The guy who did all the listening and probing, with a deadpan look on his face, was almost a friend. As much a friend as any doctor could be while still keeping the requisite professional distance. The doctor kept carefully expressionless during his examination so as not to give away any hint of news, good or bad.

Apo Vijay, MD, from Mumbai, India, for Christ's sake. That's what you got from your HMO these days: third-world medicine. But Dan had no complaints, VJ knew his stuff. And he was a nice guy.

This year's exam was different. So many tests! A whole week taking tests he had heard about only from his friends. X-rays, CAT scans, echograms, MRI--plus a battery of blood tests from samples sufficient to revive a wounded elephant. Something was different this year. VJ was on to something. This morning Dan would get a clue as to what it was. The results were in.

Just yesterday the front-office girl had called to tell him that. She had made him an appointment to see VJ today. That was quick. Wonder why? Doctors' appointments usually took forever to make.

Dan got to the doctor's office ten minutes early. The waiting room was overflowing. He would be running late for sure. He sat down, took out his cell phone and navigated to the blackjack game, trying to ignore the racket coming from a rowdy litter in the kiddy korner.

It was hard to concentrate on the tiny numbers of a game that required dexterous thumbs. He was starting to worry. What had his doctor's probing revealed? What indications had prompted him to order such an array of expensive tests?

He was within three plays of a win when a smiling young Mexican nurse popped open the reception-room door and called out his name. That was quick. He had expected a long wait.

Mr. Lundt?

He waved in reply, snapped shut his phone and rose to walk toward the open door. He followed the waddling behind of the nurse down a corridor to an examination room. V J, seated on a wheeled stool, smiled a greeting that was dazzling white in contract to the tobacco brown of his skin.

Hey, Dan. V J rose from his stool. He had a faint British accent.

Dan extended his arm for a handshake, but V J brushed the arm aside and enfolded him within his white jacket. Indians were huggers.

Hugging was not an act natural to Dan, but with his doctor it seemed appropriate enough. How's it going, Vee?

The smile dimmed on the Indian's face. He ended the embrace but still held Dan by the shoulders and looked directly into his eyes. Fine for me. Not so good for you. I am sorry, Dan.

Dan felt a stab of fear in his gut. He should have known. He had felt it coming.

Please sit on the table and remove your shirt. I want to listen a bit more.

Second opinion, eh?

Dan complied and sat studying his friend's face, not knowing how to behave. Surely V J would offer him some easeful word soon. Was he just kidding? No, V J would never kid.

The stethoscope was icy-cold against his torso. The doctor listened, pushed and probed, nodding to himself.

Yes, he said at last. That's why I ordered those tests.

What is it? Dan wanted to ask, but couldn't.

His unvoiced question was obvious to V J. Straight to the point. "Vlad’s Syndrome. Textbook case. Rare but well-documented.

Dan turned aside to gaze at a big live oak outside the window. The branches were clumped with mistletoe. Never heard of it, he managed at last. Rare?

Exotic, actually. But the etiology is well-known and the prognosis is consistent. That is to say, the condition is fairly easy to diagnose and it's progress is highly predictable.

Maybe I don't want to know, Dan said, speaking to himself.

V J's face had turned darkly serious. You've got to know, Dan. This condition has some peculiarities that require your attention. First, it is inherited and inheritable. You got it from your parents. Second it emerges late in life; fifties or sixties. Third it progresses rapidly and is invariably fatal. There are as yet no known remedies.

The straight dope. Dan got up from the examining table and walked to the window. The live oak had not moved. That tree would live longer than he would. Even infected with parasites.

How long?

A year at most. More likely, six months.

Dan turned to face his friend. I'll be dead in six to twelve months. There are no remedies. No ambiguities there. No hope, either. Sounds clear-cut to me.

V J put a hand on Dan’s shoulder and tried to engage his eyes. "Remember I said this disease is inherited? That it lies dormant until late middle age? Then it breaks out and its progress is rapid and fatal?

The anomaly is that there is a remedy that eradicates the disease if applied before the condition erupts. If used early on, the treatment is 100% effective. Which fact leads to my next question.

What?

Do you have any children? I haven't heard you speak of any. With Daphne anyway. How about before?

That question evoked memories. Yes, there was a life, a marriage before Daphne. Not pleasant to think about. One, he said.

V J nodded. At least there was something to be done. Some way medicine could be used to advantage. Dan was doomed, but at least a son or daughter could be saved. Only timely notification was essential.

Then you'd better waste no time in letting him, or her, know. And get treatment started.

Dan took his shirt from the hook on the back of the door, and shrugged into it. He gave V J a wry smile. Only one problem.

What's that?

I haven't seen my daughter Lise for almost twenty years. I don't even know where she is.

Chapter 2

I should have come with you, Daphne told Dan as he came through the door. She jumped up from her chair and came over to him. What is it, honey? What happened?

You don't want to know. Dan dropped into his recliner. "I don't want to know."

Can I get you something?

Dan declined, then set about explaining. When he finished, the silence in the room was so intense they could hear the hum of the overhead fan.

I don't buy that, Daphne said, at last. There must be something we can do. At least get another opinion.

The test results are clear. All I can do is locate Lise. She can be helped.

Daphne headed for the kitchen. Let me fix us some lunch, anyway.

The house stayed quiet except for the tinkle of silver being set on the table and the bang and scrape of pans. The microwave came on for a minute. Dan could guess what Daphne was thinking.

She had done everything in her power to distance him--both of them, really--from Lise's mother. She was called Ingrid, the woman who had caused Dan grief and a financial meltdown during the breakup of their marriage. Way back when, way back before Daphne and Dan had gotten together.

Things had settled since, due, perhaps, to Daphne's strategy. Key to that separation had been a hard decision made by Dan. He let go of all claims upon Lise. He signed papers allowing her to be adopted by her stepfather.

There were lots of excuses--or rationalizations--to justify this. For the good of the child was the centerpiece of them all. Dan knew he was a lousy parent. The first day home from the hospital told him that. The incessant, nocturnal howling; the stream of dirty diapers; the despairing lack of sleep all told him, you cannot do this. He felt no affection, as did Ingrid, for the purplish, contorted face of his daughter who seemed eternally discontented with her new life.

Things got better with time. Of course they did. Dan participated in the feeding and diapering of his kid, but he was always aware of his lack of feeling for her. He knew for certain he would never make an adequate parent.

To alleviate the unwelcome domesticity, Dan had an affair that temporarily distracted him from fatherhood. Ingrid, hyper and on the edge of postpartum psychosis, clamored at once for a divorce. She telephoned friends and family in Norway, who offered both advice and a solution. An ex-boyfriend of Ingrid flew to Alpine, California, to extricate her from the crazy American and provide little Lise with a proper Norwegian father-figure. Gustav Helm was his name. It was he who insisted upon a legal adoption.

Trouble was, Gustav was a drinker, like many of his countrymen, and careless in learning English. Getting and keeping a job in America proved difficult for him. With all parties living in the same rural community, Ingrid quite naturally turned to Dan for financial help. Gustav was a great parent, but lacking in the role of provider. Dan filled the gap, even though he had no legal obligation to do so. And he kept out of sight of Lise.

Daphne sized up the situation at once; and after she and Dan decided to make a life together, saw the need to remove themselves from Alpine. They went to live in San Antonio, Texas.

Your adoption agreement rids you of all responsibility for Lise and Ingrid. Alpine is way too small for all of us. We've got to leave town.

Dan had to agree. In moving to Texas they sat about erasing lines of communication: the phone numbers, PO Boxes and street addresses that provide the connections needed to sustain relationships. Dan justified his removal from the paternal scene as the best way to provide for the well-being of his daughter. He often asked himself if this were really the best way to deal with Lise, or simply a rationale. Was an absent father better than a bad one?

Years passed, 17 of them, without a thread of conduit between Dan and his daughter. His conscience bothered him. He would wonder if some day Lise would take the initiative, like many a daughter consumed with curiosity about her real parent, and show up on his doorstep. He realized with surprise that he would now welcome the occasion. It was stunning to try to imagine what his girl, now nearing twenty, would be like.

Daphne caught his distracted gaze and read his mind. Don't even go there.

I've got to find her. I can't just let her die before her time. Like me.

Daphne came over and knelt beside his recliner, holding his gaze with her eyes. Dan, this is no concern of yours. You gave up responsibility for your kid when you signed the adoption papers. Let it go.

Dan shut his eyes tight and made a face. I can't let it go.

Dan--

Some things reach beyond the legal arrangements. I've got to find her. I can save her life.

Daphne stood up and patted the top of his head. She sighed. Okay, dear, then that's what you'll do. Find Lise.

Chapter 3

How the world has changed! Dan was thinking, as he set about finding Lise. No longer did you plow through out-of-town phone books, call 411 for info, or try to get access to DMV files. Now you looked for people search sites on the Internet. A few would allow a simple search for free, but inevitably the searcher was led into a subscription to the site or a pay-per-search deal. Or try Google.

If your own searches came up empty-handed, which was the case with Dan, you were offered the services of pros, who, like bounty hunters named Dog, would use advanced techniques to find your target.

No wonder his efforts had failed. He had little data to input into the search squares. Date of birth, sex, and some imagined physical characteristics were all he could provide. Who knows what she looked like now, an almost twenty-year-old woman? And her surname might already have changed. Even a social security number was unavailable to him. The trail was not just cold, it was buried under glacial ice.

When Ingrid and Gustav left Alpine with Lise, Ingrid had also taken care to erase the trail behind her. Mainly to evade creditors. As for Dan, he had no motives to keep track of the Helm's. Once he and Daphne had split for Texas, both sets of doors closed. No support orders from a divorce judge compelled Dan to keep Lise's address for mailing monthly checks. He had waived and had no interest in visitation rights. So the Helms disappeared and the Lundt's left the county.

Ingrid had taken a conflicted attitude toward Dan for signing the adoption agreement. She insisted he give up Lise, yet despised him for doing it.

Since you are giving up your daughter, I expect you to cut off all ties with her. Forever. Keep out of her life. I don't want her confused about who her real father might be. So far as Lise is concerned, Gustav is her father. Not you.

But I am only trying to do the best thing for her. Not confuse her.

"Helvete! Ingrid swore in Norwegian. Don't kid me. This breakup is not about us. It's about you."

So Dan sent no birthday presents, no cards at Christmas nor for any other Hallmark holidays. He lived up to the letter of the legal document. He tried to blot out this segment of his life, because when he thought about it he felt a hollow pain in his chest. But he got through the first early years, and, with time, the poignancy eased.

Dan’s Internet searching for Lise came to nothing. His input data was just too thin. Then he finally linked up with a pay-search site that began to turn up clues. The search artist assigned to him was a guy called Bruno. Bruno took his search into some imaginative areas. He hit upon the fact that Lise's adoptive father was dependant upon a government-issued green card to keep legal residence in the US.

Using this innovative approach, Bruno was able to track Ingrid and Gustav Helm for about seven years. Then Gustav applied for and attained citizenship, at which point the green-card tracer no longer worked. The Helm's melded into the citizen population. Tracking them became harder.

Their migrations were frequent but mostly within California. Gustav was a carpenter by trade, which made for easy employment at sites throughout the state, where construction was, for the most part, booming. Trouble was, Bruno soon found abundant clues that Gustav was a drunk. He would show up diligently at his job sites for about six weeks at a time. Then he would hit the akvavit bottle and drop off the payroll.

Once Lise entered high school the migrations slowed. With her daughter in class, Ingrid got a job and took over the mainstay support of the family. Gustav would find work during his periods of sobriety.

Ingrid had gained US citizenship through her marriage to Dan; Gustav through application and due process. Both now had social security numbers; but, ironically, in more recent years these had become increasingly hard to get. The scam of identity theft had provoked tightening security. Bruno had little to latch onto.

Lise was a popular name in school records. So was the Norwegian family name that Bruno latched onto and tracked with some success. After high school graduation in Fresno, California, Lise sank into a vast ocean of anonymity. She may have eloped out-of-state, though nothing turned up in the Clark County records for Las Vegas, the most popular elopement site. Maybe she never actually got married; just began using the surname of a significant other. Maybe she went to college.

So, Dan, looking for a bright side, reasoned that Ingrid, his ex-wife, at least was locatable Then he could get access to Lise through her mother. Bruno's most recent hit for the Helms was an address in Spring Valley, southeast of San Diego. Most likely a trailer park, Bruno had emailed him, or rather, in PC parlance, a mobile home community.

Ingrid will know where her daughter is, Dan told Daphne that night of the recent hit. If Lise is not living with her.

Can't you just phone or write? Why go all the way to San Diego?

I have to tell Lise in person. It's too important to leave to someone else, even her mother.

Daphne gave him a long, unsmiling look. You are not going alone. Not on that motorcycle. Take the guys with you. Ride on a mission this time.

Chapter 4

Wednesday morning at nine o'clock was the set time for the three riders to meet for their weekly jaunt, which led to lunch at a restaurant decided-upon the week before. The eating place chosen thus defined the conditions and route of the ride. A Mobil station north of San Antonio was a convenient site for all three as a starting point; and it provided an opportunity to top off the gas tank if anyone's fuel were low.

Wimberley, Texas, was today's destination. A touristy rural village northeast of San Antonio, it featured a restaurant worthy of the trip. At a distance of only 40-some miles, the cafe was easily reached by lunch time. The place was almost too close, since The Bursitis Bunch, as the trio had disparagingly named themselves, liked to ride at least 100 miles on their weekly outings. They could always tack on more miles by taking the long way home: go on north to Dripping Springs, then US 290 west to US 281, which would take them due south and back to San Antonio.

They had to wait for the restaurant to open at eleven, so they sat outside at a picnic table under a live-oak tree and watched for the doors to unlock. Once inside they took their time ordering lunch.

They compared notes on the morning's ride. Love that stretch over Devil's Backbone, Barry said, stroking his trademark grey beard. The twisties wake you up, and the road surface is new and smooth. He was a psychiatrist, a retired Air Force shrink, who continued to work part-time in private practice. Chubby and soft, he had an agreeable voice and manner, fine-tuned by coping with patient hostility, Dan guessed.

Bob, the other guy, was a complete opposite. He was lean and wiry, with a sarcastic edge to his voice that kept people at a distance. Retired jet fighter pilot, also Air Force. Mean and hard.

Did you doze off again? You're the only guy I've ever met, said Bob, who has trouble staying awake on a motorcycle.

Their mounts identified them. Barry rode a Honda Pacific Coast model, full of high tech and comfortable amenities. Stereo, soft seat, big fairing, plenty of storage space. Hard-core cyclists sneered at that model as being scooter-like, a sissy ride.

Bob's hard-core personality was mirrored by his big Harley, a minimalist, powerful and hard-edged bike, with an aggressive burbling roar that identified the mark. Loud and impatient.

Dan rode a middle-of-the-road Yamaha rice burner, a Seca II 600cc machine, an all-purpose street bike that compromised the extreme features of the other two mounts. That choice, too, reflected his moderate personality.

Bob seldom overlooked an opportunity to complain, even when not called for. He bitched as a matter of principle. He did so at this moment. He looked around the dining room for the waiter.

They sure take their time around here.

Barry gave him a lop-sided smile. You're not even hungry yet, Bob. You just said so.

"They don't know that."

Dan intended to tell them about his physical exam and the urgent problem with his daughter. But he would bring it up later, after the lunch of sandwiches and fries, and the one-limit beer they allowed themselves on rides.

The three had been riding together for five years now. Sharing danger and discomfort, such as prolonged, drenching rainstorms and cold exacerbated by wind-chill, had bonded them in mutual confidence. Barry could grouse about his remote wife, who led a life of her own in academia, buried in research and classrooms. Barry was left almost alone to carry on his part-time practice, ride his motorcycle and play internet bridge. Little left of intimacy in that marriage. They did take long annual vacations together, wherein, Dan hoped, they renewed the closeness of marriage.

Bob's personality was reflected by his choice of mate also. May was a chirpy little dingbat who managed the house and kept in touch with their grown children and their offspring. Totally deferential to her redneck husband. As she jolly-well should be, Bob would be the first to say.

Dan, too, was perfectly complemented by an outgoing wife, whom everybody liked at first meeting. Daphne helped balance out his tendency toward solitude. She helped make up for his social deficiencies.

The lunch was quickly gone, even though all diners had complained that it was too soon to eat. Dan noticed that Bob was staring at Dan's plate. Don't you want the rest of your fries? Bob asked. It's not like you to leave any.

It's too early for me, Dan said, thinking that he would tell them later about his exam results. Not over lunch.

Not for me, Bob said, reaching for a handful. We eat breakfast early at my house. Military habits never die."

When they got up from the table, the cost-sharing exercises began, a ritual repeated through countless shared meals. Acute as was the annoyance and embarrassment at the time, the lessons learned earlier had all been conveniently forgotten.

You can't simply divide by three, Bob was saying. You had desert, Barry, and Dan had a BLT instead of a burger. It don't compute.

Barry threw down on the table two twenties. Money, obviously, was not a sticking point with him. I'll get it, he said, shrugging. We can settle up later.

Dan, a former accountant, began prorating, unable to resist a challenge in math. Wait a minute, he said to the other two. It's not that difficult.

In a few seconds Dan had assigned each man his approximate portion, and the three dug in wallets and pockets to come up with