Chapter 1

In every other way, it was just another birthday.  Glub, glub.  Even turning thirty didn''t dissuade his yearly ritual of immortalizing memories of “The Graduate.”  He too had an identity crisis somewhat assuaged by sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool breathing through a ten-foot silicone tube.  Glub, glub.  After many years, the birthday underwater ritual was anything but a same-ol’ to him, or Spot.  No, for the constant companion—Jared’s only constant companion—watching his master from poolside sitting statue-like beneath the water with only the occasional glub, glub was just…well, counter-intuitive for a Labrador.  On top of which, Spot was a black Lab.   As a rule, no Lab was prone to standing by doing nothing amid such anomalies in the water, but a blacky?  “Fetch” was one of the first words he’d been taught and having lasted all of seven years with this often-eccentric owner, like any good companion, one of them had to act like an adult.

Belly flops were not Spot’s favorite activity.  Splawhoooooshawash…

The water was too warm for his taste, but what’s a dog to do.  That’s how Jared liked it, and he was the boss—or house sitter, as his formal boss, the real-estate agent, chose to call him.  Reaching the bottom and seeing Jared’s familiar gaze into nothingness got Spot''s attention.    As if the name weren''t enough—an embarrassing name to many for a papered purebred—Spot also had to endure another canine anomaly Jared loved to talk about: a white “beauty” mark on his scrotum.  So, doing what any sane dog would do, he clamped down on the ballooning trunks and gave them a yank, pulling Jared off-balance, and back to a real world he mostly hated. 

For Spot, such impertinent behavior would definitely be followed by dinner-from-a-can.  But, hey, a Lab’s gotta do what he’s gotta do, right?

Jared’s surfacing was followed by, “God Damn it, Spot!  You dumb shit.”

For Spot, such exclamations were commonplace whenever he followed an everyday fetch command and returned with a different stick than had been thrown.  Would Jared ever learn that such consternation was inappropriate to a Lab’s nature? He barked, ran back toward the house a few feet, barked again, finally bringing Jared to realize his faithful buddy wanted him to answer the damn doorbell.

Jared stared at the dog as the bell incessantly continued.  “It’s my birthday, Spot.  Can’t I just be left alone on my birthday?

Spot gave him a “woof.”

Pushing the rickety side door, Jared peered around the corner of the Tudor-styled house.  There, on the porch, was the familiar blue and white postal uniform of America’s stalwart delivery service.  “Jesus,” he grumbled.  “Leave it on the porch.  The owners are in Switzerland.”

“Can’t!” bellowed the scrawny man-with-a-mission.  “Gotta sign for it.”

“I’m just the house sitter.”

“You Jared Kurzen?”

“Yeah...”

“Works for me,” he shouted back.

“Damn forwarding addresses can be a pain in the ass sometimes,” he said under his breath as he maneuvered the overgrown pathway to the front door.  He signed and gazing down at the return address, shook his head.  A lawyer''s letter is never good news.

Spot, still dripping on the terracotta flooring, watched attentively as Jared paced the living room.  After another round trip of the room, Jared sat down opposite the letter and popped another Becks as he maintained his gaze on the single-page letter lying on his coffee table.

Spot barked.

“Yeah, yeah.”  Jared grabbed the Turkish towel beside him and jammed it under his still wet suit.  After a moment, his eye caught that of Spot’s.  “What?  You’re just pissed it wasn’t Aunt Jenny’s care package of cookies.”

Spot lifted one ear, then stepped into his wrap-around terry-cloth-après-swim-bed, dropped his chin on his paw, and rear-projected one of his infamous Parfum D’Spot clouds. 

“Was that necessary?” said Jared as he fanned the air and slumped back into the velveteen cushion.  After taking a long swallow on what remained of the Becks, Jared held his gaze on the embossed envelope, then slid the flap open and removed the fancy linen stationary.  After a few moments, Jared slowly lifted his eyes from the letter and locked onto Spot’s stare.  “What the hell is this all about?”

***

The embossed letterhead somehow didn’t fit the façade of the warehouse carrying the address of 650 Factory Place.  Los Angeles attorneys weren’t noted for their off-Beverly Hills addresses—especially this far off.  South LA’s warehouse district?  The name certainly wasn’t of the Harvard top-of-your-class law graduate ilk either.  Gcina Szadoc was more like a challenging anagram, than the name of an attorney. The lobby registry suggested the building was dominantly occupied by an assortment of other professionals and artistic types.

 Mr. Szadoc’s anteroom was as austere as the weathered teak paneled freight elevator and the brown and gray mosaic inlaid hallway of his fourth-floor half.  The receptionist/secretary was another matter.  Rising from the desk to greet Jared was a tall stately woman who introduced herself as Rasha, revealing yet another layer of the unexpected with an accent he couldn’t pinpoint and a brightly colored caftan, ala ‘70’s, he couldn’t believe was still being marketed.  From wrist to elbow of each arm, she wore an array of mixed bone and semiprecious stone bangles.  The jewelry, complimented by her primitive patterned silk, gave Jared the impression he was about to step into the office of someone who would continue to perpetuate the unexpected.               

    Rasha quietly closed the heavy imported cathedral door and Mr. Szadoc extended his hand…a very black hand.  “Well, so good to see you, Mr. Kurzen.  You’ve changed.  A bit thinner, yes?”

Jared stood motionless for a few moments.  This very fit man in mid-life, wearing matching white linen shirt and pants, wore no shoes.  Jared had been around Hollywood long enough to think he’d seen it all, but a barefoot attorney…that was a first.  “I’ve been this weight for some time.  Do I know you?”

“Well, yes, in a roundabout way.  Please, sit down.  Would you like some coffee, water?”

Jared remained standing.  “Who are you?”

“Perhaps you would be more comfortable hearing about me seated, yes?”

Jared hesitantly moved to one of the overstuffed club chairs opposite a solid cube of black marble.

“You sure you wouldn’t like…”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but…” said Jared.

Gcina, sitting opposite the table in a matching club chair, nodded.  “No, not at all.  Please forgive me.  Many years ago, your picture was shown to me.  I believe you were a chubby ten or so at the time.  South Africa, 1989.  I was called a ‘digger’ in the diamond mines.  A not very dignified identity, but it kept food on the table for my parents and me.  I was eighteen when your father saved my life, but to this day, he claims it was the other way around and…”

“Whoa.  You’re going too fast for me.  Digger, diamond mines, lifesaving by my…

 “I’m sorry,” Gcina continued.  “So much to tell.”  He paused and collected his thoughts.   “Your father was an adventurer as well as a businessman.  He often visited the bowels of the mine—his mine—and even on occasion, dug with us…the crew I was with.  And then one day, a cave-in buried the lot of us behind the tunnel exit.  Two days later, after a lot of screaming and banging on metal rubble, the rescuers found us.  He claimed my hammering brought the help.  I claimed it was his screaming and the miners’ fear they’d all be fired if they didn’t find the ‘boss’.”  He grinned.  “Silly argument, but he had to win…always.  South African diamond mines treated your father very well, and in turn, he more than treated me well.”  He chuckled again.  “For saving his life…  That is why you’re seated in my office.”

Jared, his face still registering disbelief, remained fixed on Gcina,

“You understand the letter?” said Gcina.

Jared leaned forward.  “The letter says you have an important delivery to make to me…from my father.  Mr. Szadoc, my father died in 1982, when I was three.”

Gcina paused.  “And your mother accidentally drowned in her swimming pool exactly ninety-three days ago.  My condolences.  Both, however, were your adoptive parents.  The letter you received from me refers to your biological father, Sam Brenner, my mentor.”  He slid a black envelope with a wax seal across the table.  “And this is the ‘delivery’ the letter referred to.”

Learning in his teens that he had been adopted, as a baby, didn’t do much to prepare him for this unexpected news, especially after being told by his adoptive mother that she didn’t know who his biological parents were.  Priding himself with a reputation for being fearless—he wasn’t one to back away from a good bar fight—Jared was nonetheless frozen with emotions he didn’t understand.  A part of him wanted to just cry, but…-  From the black envelope, he yanked a multi-page, handwritten letter on plain gray stationary.  Taped to the letter was a key with Bank of America and a number engraved on its face.  He sat down and hesitantly started reading.

Some time later, Jared folded the pages and put them in his pocket.  He rose from the down-filled cushion, walked to the far wall of the office, and peered up through the skylight.

Gcina returned from the other end of the art gallery-like loft with two bottled waters and glasses on a tray.  “I’m sorry, we’re temporarily out of beer.  Will a cold water do?”

Jared nodded.  “He waits all this time to shock the shit out of me?”

Gcina placed the tray on the solid marble coffee table and poured the water into the iced glasses.  “As I told you, he was very specific in his instructions to me.”

“Yeah, I know.  ‘Only after his mother passes on is Jared to be contacted’.”

“And only after a reasonable time to mourn,” said Gcina. 

“And I’m supposed to be grateful to the son of a bitch for the ninety days?”

“That’s how he wished it.  He was an unconventional man, Jared.  He respected your biological mother’s wish to give you up at birth for adoption, and…”

“Why?  Why the hell would…”

“Your mother was from a very religious family, and…

“Oh, think I get it.  Talk about cliché.  He knocked her up?”

“As I understand it…she and her parents decided it best to…”

“Fucker!  And where’s my real mother in all this?”

Gcina shrugged.  “Sorry…can ‘t help you there.  Sam kept me out of that loop of his mind.  Seemed to me he had a bitter taste when it came to her. The adoption, though…he stayed true to the conviction all these years.  He held his word to never interfere.”

Jared turned back from his skyward gaze.  “How the hell did he know who adopted me.  Everybody knows that shit is kept secret.”

“Your father was well-connected.  Diamond wealth can do that for you.”

Jared walked back and sat down.  After taking a swallow of the water, he looked across at Gcina now seated in the chair opposite.  “And that’s all you know?  Your letter to me, and this.”  He picked up a safety deposit key.  “Why all the cloak and dagger crap?”  He picked up the black envelope from the coffee table and fingered the wax seal.  “And, what’s with this seal?  Somebody should have told him it was the 21^st century.”

“Sam Brenner never used conventional means of communicating.”

“Got that right.  The emblem?”

“Correspondence and important documents were always sealed with his wax logo.”

“Stands for?”

“As you can see, the wing of a bird cutting through water.”

“And?”

“He never told me its meaning.”

“Logo with no meaning.”

“I’m sure he had a purpose in choosing it, Jared.  He was a very precise man.”

“I’m sure.”

Gcina leaned across the marble and speaking softly said,  “I thought this might be a shock to you.  I’m sorry if it upsets you.  I know it would me.  Following through as instructed was the least I could do.  I owed that to him, and much more.”

“Why didn’t the son of a…..?  Why didn’t he just get in touch with me and do this ceremonial stuff himself?”

“Jared, I’ve not spoken to or seen your father for over ten years.  The black envelope has been in my vault all this time.  I received an e-mail notifying me of your mother’s death, and that started the three month waiting period before sending you my letter.”

“Jesus.  This just gets better and better, doesn’t it?  Thought you said he never communicated by…”

“The e-mail came from an anonymous sender, not your father.”

“Christ.  If it was anonymous, how do you know it wasn’t my father?  Forget it.  For all you know, my real father could be dead too, right?”

“I wish I knew.  Last I heard from him was on my graduation from Harvard Law School in ninety nine.”

“Yeah, the mentoring part—the law school he put you through.”

Gcina nodded.  “Like I said earlier.  I didn’t ask for it.  If I could make the grade, he volunteered to pay for the schooling in exchange for handling any affairs you might need help with.”

Jared laughed.  “Me?  Affairs?  Yeah.  Like a professional house sitter in Hollyweird has anything worth handling.”  

 Gcina gestured toward the key.  “I would imagine a trip to the bank might change all that.”

Jared held a moment, fighting back tears.  “Hell of a birthday present.  Did he really think a safety deposit box would make everything okay?  What kind of father would do this?”

Gcina, his face remaining respectful, allowed a quiet intake of breath.  Letting it go was difficult.