Catch a Falling Knife

age of 49 I think he’s old enough to start noticing girls.”

Chapter 7
     
    I spent every spare minute on Tuesday trying to figure out how to get back to Bethany and Club Cavalier. I was convinced that the Shooting Star was Mark’s accuser, but how could I prove it? And if I did prove it, how would it help Mark? He certainly couldn’t bring it up in his own defense because the reasoning of the adjudicating panel would go something like this: Mark knew victim was a topless dancer, thus thought she was “easy” and had no qualms about harassing her.
    If what Cherub said was true, Club Cavalier needed a harassment policy—to protect the girls from the owner. Perhaps Priscilla Estavez should take that up as a cause.
    I had vague thoughts of blackmailing Mark’s accuser so that she would drop the charges against him. Evidently, she didn’t want her identity known, for whatever reason. It probably wasn’t only because she was a student, although that must be a contributing factor. I had heard of other girls who had worked their way through college as strippers and even as prostitutes. I suspected that most of them didn’t tell any more people than necessary about their secret lives.
    I couldn’t impose on Albert again. When I had returned to the table after talking to the girls, I hadn’t told him where I had been because I knew he wouldn’t approve. And he certainly wouldn’t have anything to do with lying in wait for the Shooting Star to try to prove her identity.
    It had been a wasted evening, as far as he was concerned. At least that’s what he said. I wondered, however, if seeing the Shooting Star, with her youth, freshness and unabashed eroticism, had fanned some dormant spark of manhood inside him, which apparently couldn’t be reached by his girlfriends, none of whom seemed to particularly excite him. I could always hope that he would find somebody to love, and get married again—and not end up a lonely old man.
    In mid-afternoon the phone rang. I immediately recognized the voice at the other end as Albert’s. Since he rarely called me during the day I wondered whether something was wrong. “Where are you?” I asked.
    “At work,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you that our innocent little foray last night got me into trouble.”
    “Trouble?” I said, puzzled. “What kind of trouble.”
    “I got an e-mail from one of my colleagues. It seems that some guy in Bethany has created a website for the sole purpose of posting the license plate numbers of people who visit the strip clubs there.”
    “Huh? I don’t understand. What in the world would he do that for?”
    “I guess he doesn’t like strip clubs or the men who patronize them. Probably considers himself morally superior to the rest of us.”       
    “I don’t like people who feel qualified to tell me what to do.”
    “I know that, Mother. But you’re not the one with the problem. I am.”
    “Does anyone really care what you do with your free time? I can see that it might elicit a few laughs around the water cooler, but what can they do to you? After all, you have tenure. There isn’t some policy at UNC that says you can’t go to nightclubs, is there?”
    After blowing off some more steam, Albert had to admit that being caught going to Club Cavalier wouldn’t really do him any harm. I guessed he was just using this as a way to try to put me in my place, whatever that was. However, he gave me an idea. “I take it you know how to find this website? Could you give me the information?”
    “But you don’t know anything about the Internet.”
    “Maybe it’s time I learned. Mark can reach the Internet from his laptop computer. I’ll get him to help me.”
    “All right, I’ll forward the information to Mark’s e-mail address. But you’ve done all you can for Mark. There’s nothing more you can do to help him. So don’t go getting into trouble on his account.”
     
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    “There it is,” Mark said. “Nice graphics.”
    We looked at the screen of his laptop together. I had just fed him a hearty dinner of pork chops and a baked potato, with a salad and veggies to keep him healthy. For myself, I had eaten a takeout dinner from the Silver Acres dining room. Since I had to pay for one meal a day, anyway, I didn’t want to waste it.
    I wasn’t interested in the pink background on the web page or the small, animated figures of women, moving their