Unplugged by Lois Greiman Read Free Book Online Page B

being branded with a name like “Frances” would have caused some lasting emotional damage to my character. “Anyways, we were just ’bout ready to put the January issue beddy-bye. I’d done a bang-up piece about a guy making robotic mousetraps, but turns out he was a droid, so I need a new line quick. Thought maybe I could do a follow-up on J.D.”
    I let my lunacy soak in for a moment.
    “Another article?” Teri said. “That’d be swell. But, like I said, Jeen doesn’t live here anymore. He’s got a nice big house in L.A. now.”
    “At 13240 Amsonia Lane,” I said. Clever, see, because that would make her think the Geekster and I were buds and she could trust me with anything from his Social Security number to his ring size. “I called him at his pad this A.M. , but it was a no go, and I need some info ASAP. You don’t know his present loci, do you?”
    She was silent for a moment. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to decipher my gibberish or decide if she could trust me with her little angel’s whereabouts. “Well, no,” she said finally.
    I felt my shoulders droop.
    “But . . . wait a minute.” I heard her cup the phone. “Steven, when was Jeen going to that big convention?”
    “I don’t know,” came the answer.
    I assumed the voice was Solberg’s father’s, because, by the sound of it, he couldn’t have cared less if J.D. had been conferring on Ursa Minor. The tone reminded me of the first twenty-odd years of my life. Schaumburg men are solid citizens: They have fifty-hour workweeks, high cholesterol, and belly fat. Give them three solid meals and a remote and they don’t complain. But mess with their evenings in front of the tube and there would be hell to pay.
    “Yes, you do.” Teri’s voice suggested that she might already be contemplating a battle for the revered remote. “He told us about it.”
    There was a mumbled response.
    “Remember, he was doing that presentation. He and that Hilary girl were working on it together.”
    My ears perked up. Hilary? A woman? Solberg had found a woman who was willing to work with him? Was every female in L.A. on the skids? And could it possibly be that Elaine had been right? Might Solberg have actually fallen for someone else? Someone female? Someone with an opposable thumb?
    I shook my head.
    Teri came back on the phone. “I think he may be at that big convention. The one in Las Vegas.”
    “Oh, yeah!” I said it like it was an epiphany, and didn’t bother to tell her that the convention had been caput for several days now and Jeeno still hadn’t turned up. It was, after all, entirely possible that maternal instinct was stronger than the instinctual desire to stamp out mutants, and that she would, therefore, worry about Solberg’s absence. “The con. He and Hilary are doing that gig together, huh?”
    “Yes. I believe they are.”
    “She seemed like a cool chick. Maybe I can do a piece on her sometime, too. What was her last name again? Meine, wasn’t it? Or—”
    “No, no,” she said. “It started with a P . Patnode. No, that’s . . . Sheila’s married name. Pierce. Pershing! It’s Pershing.”
    “Righto,” I said. “Pershing. Good job.” I scribbled the name in the margin of Nerd Word . “Hey, you don’t happen to know where they bedded down while in the big V, do you?”
    There was another pause as she considered my odd verbiage. What the hell was wrong with me? “I think they were staying right at the hotel where the event was held.”
    They. Not he . Damn him to purgatory! “Spectacular,” I said. “I’ll try him at those digs. Oh, but . . . hey, when was he expected back in L.A.? Phone interviews are okey-doke, but face-to-face with the Geekster himself . . .” I let the sentence hang as if the idea gave me goose bumps. In a way it did.
    “I’m not exactly certain.”
    “Sure hope he doesn’t get caught up in the slots there,” I said, trolling madly for some kind of feedback.
    “Jeen? Oh, no, he