The Sirena Quest by Michael A. Kahn Page A

pretzels and beers were downed, as Bradley or Frazier hit one from the head of the key with less than a minute left and the New Yorkers roared and the Celtics fans cursed, you’d turn to say something to Billy…and he’d be gone. And when the game ended and you’d returned to the room with Gordie or Ray, laughing as you opened the door, there he’d be, hunched over his desk, head bobbing slowly to the beat in his headphones as he underlined a passage in his calculus textbook. And more often then not, Ray would grab his headphones, knock the books off his desk, and drag him out for another adventure.
    They did it because it was their duty. As Ray explained to Lou one night on their way to the library to haul Billy out for a field trip to a reggae club in Springfield, “Think of what’s waiting for that poor bastard—house in the ’burbs, mowing the lawn on Saturday, rooting for the Browns on Sunday, doing it missionary style once a week with the lights out. Hell, man, we gotta make sure Bronco puts in a little time on the dark side of the moon before that happens.”
    Little did they suspect what the fates had in store for their boring roommate.
    As Lou pulled away from the curb, he glanced at Billy in the rearview mirror. Despite all that had happened to him since college, he looked the same as he had on that September afternoon twenty-four years ago when Lou returned from lunch to discover his new roommate unpacking a box of Foreign Affairs .
    It seemed almost an optical illusion. How could you go through so much and change so little? How could such upheavals inside leave no trace outside?
    Lou glanced over at Ray—a man who’d weathered a pharmacopoeia of controlled substances, a violent failed stint in grad school, a wretched marriage, two years in a Telluride commune, the rigors of the Southern California cocaine trade, and other assaults on body and spirit with no visible impact beyond a few gray hairs at the temples, reading glasses in the breast pocket, and twenty-five extra pounds around the middle.
    Clearly, there was some fundamental lesson here. But what it was, Lou had no clue.

Chapter Seventeen
    Lou gazed at the assistant probate court clerk and tried to keep his tone unruffled. “Okay, sir, and where would the file be?”
    The assistant probate clerk scratched his ample belly as he stared at Lou. “I cannot say for sure.”
    â€œWhy is that?”
    The clerk had a grave expression, as if pondering the mysteries of the cosmos. “The presiding judge could have it if there’s a hearing scheduled. Someone could have checked it out. Or—”
    He shrugged.
    â€œOr what?” Lou said.
    The assistant probate clerk raised his eyebrows. “It could be missing.”
    â€œMissing?” Ray said. “How can an entire goddamned probate file be missing?”
    The four of them were in the Office of the Clerk of the Probate Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County, which was located on the twelfth floor of the Daley Center in the Chicago Loop.
    The assistant probate court clerk—a fat, bald, middle-aged white man in a white short-sleeve shirt and dark wrinkled slacks—stifled a yawn. “It happens, gentlemen. Yes, indeed, it happens. You are now standing inside the filing area for the biggest and busiest circuit court in the entire world. The entire world, gentlemen. Literally. You’ve got your court files back there.” He gestured behind him toward the rows and rows of floor-to-ceiling metal filing stacks. “Tens of thousands of court files, gentlemen.”
    Lou looked to where he’d gestured. There were at least a dozen clerks moving up and down those aisles, most pushing metal carts filled with files. Occasionally, one would stop along the way to remove a file from the stacks or replace a file in the stacks. It reminded Lou of the vast underground government storage facility in the final scene of Raiders