"You know I don't like working on custody cases." The only thing more foolish than trying to argue with an attorney was arguing a point that was inconsequential. I didn't know whether this early morning meeting made me the bird or the worm but I didn't become a private detective to turn down work.

    "I could say that my client needs you to find some inflammatory things about the father if she means to keep her son but I won't stoop to that. You wouldn't be swayed by the wholesome picture represented by a mother's love."   

    Laughing out loud, I saluted the good attorney. "Nor by the tears that well up in her eyes when she talks about junior, the catch in her voice when she utters his name." Shaking my head, I leaned back in my seat. "You know how these cases are. The parents say that they're fighting for the child but they're really just battling each other, using the child as a weapon. Custody cases are as nasty as they get."

    "I'll just say this about the job." He brushed an invisible piece of lint off his suit sleeve. "The father's attorney has retained the services of Dan Discher."

    I let loose a low whistle. If I attempted to stay away from custody cases, Discher succeeded. That hyena succeeded in everything he did, whether it was stealing my wife or the golden-goose client that took me six months of smooth talking to land. "Discher doesn't touch anything but corporate cases now that he has Javelin Networks."

    "The way I understand it, the father's attorney snagged Discher by mentioning that the mother hired me and that I usually hire you."

    Grunting, I looked out the window and imagined that I saw Discher falling past it. Having won every round so far, why was he so eager to step back in the ring? He didn't have anything to prove. He was the one with the prime client and the belle of the ball.

    After counting to ten, and then to twenty, I agreed to take the case. Discher didn't have anything to prove but I did. The chance for revenge didn't escape my attention either.

    Out came the yellow pad and I was soon scribbling away. One thing about working with attorneys was that they were prepared with the necessary information, no hemming and hawing. Time was money and they appreciated that fact as well as I did.

    Since the end client was the mother, I called her as soon as I was alone. While I knew that the attorney had been thorough giving me what he had, I couldn't be sure that she gave him everything.

    "I'm the detective working for your attorney and I wondered if you had any additional information. Maybe you forgot something or you were too embarrassed to mention it at the time."

    "Well, one of his deadbeat friends called last night. I guess he didn't know we split."

    I grabbed the pad. "Just what did this friend say?"

    "That he'd be fishing at Bluff Point today until noon and that the creel was full, whatever that means."

    I glanced at the clock and saw that I had three hours. "The creel is where the fisherman stores the catch."

    "Whatever. Fishing was never my idea of a good time. Is this going to help me keep my boy?"

    "Maybe. I want you to call the father and pass on the message."

    A whine crept into her voice. "Do I really have to talk to the SOB?"

"You want to keep your son, don't you?"

    Disconnecting, I found a map and traced the length of the local river until I found Bluff Point. The road didn't come closer than a half mile and I figured that if the father was going to do anything worth hiding then he couldn't have chosen a better place to do it.

    Folding the map into my pocket, I grabbed my camera, the telephoto lens, and the video camera that hadn't begun to pay for itself. While it seemed that everything that happened in the world was captured on videotape, my purchase had as yet produced nada.

    In the car and driving towards the river, I had little to think about besides Dan Discher. I had been in business for two years when Discher rolled into town. He was flashier, dirtier, and perhaps even better at the job than I was.

    While I was out nights on surveillance work, Discher wooed away my wife who thought that his brand of detecting was going to give her a better life than mine did. While I was out days serving papers and photographing disability claims as they mowed lawns and painted houses, Discher was convincing Javelin Networks that he could better meet their needs.

    While we saw each other from time to time, we had been alone only once. This was after my wife moved in with him. I was conducting a background check, talking to a food store manager about someone who once bagged groceries there. Who should I meet in the pasta and rice aisle but Dan Discher carrying a basket filled with some of my wife's favorite things.

Discher held out a hand, "No hard feelings?"

    "Not quite." My fist shot out and he went flying although I had to admit that he probably sustained more damage from the cans that he sent tumbling than he did from my fist.

    I took a right onto Edgewater Road.

    While I had thought the encounter at the food store evened things out, I knew now that it hadn't. I was going to do a better job than Discher this time and he was going to lose.

    As I reached the sharp turn that was as near as the road came to Bluff Point, I pulled over and gathered my equipment. While I didn't fish myself, I knew enough to play the part of a freelance photographer if I was unlucky enough to walk into the father or the deadbeat friend, not that they would just shrug and go on with their dirty business.

    The trail to the Point was well worn and I couldn't tell if there were any recent footprints. I just hoped that I was here sooner than the father so that I was able to capture his meeting on film or perhaps even video.

    The deadbeat friend had said that the creel was full. Since the creel didn't fill until after the day's fishing, that meant that the friend was bringing something to the meet. A charge of handling stolen goods or drugs would go a far way towards making sure that the father didn't get custody.

    As soon as I heard the river, I cut off the path and headed towards the sun. I didn't know which way the river flowed, nor whether fishermen moved upstream or downstream, but I knew that I'd both get better photographs with the sun at my back and have less chance of being sighted if the sun was in their eyes.

    The bugs started getting at me and I silently agreed with the mother that fishing was no way to have fun. Of course I wasn't fishing, I was trekking through bug-infested woods with surveillance gear which meant that detecting wasn't much fun either.

    Though I stopped every ten yards to listen for a minute, I was soon at the river's edge. Taking a long look upstream and downstream--I could tell by the way the water piled up against the rocks--I saw no one either fishing or passing illegal goods.

    Putting the telephoto lens on the camera, I saw that I could see a sandy outcropping which I assumed was Bluff Point. Moving only five yards at a time, I moved closer to the spot in case the meeting happened on the other side: downstream if it matters.

    Fairly sure that I deep enough in the woods to see without being seen, I waited for the father to appear or the deadbeat friend to come appear from further downstream. Trying to ignore the bugs, I let my muscles relax.

    Noon came and went without sight of the deadbeat friend, the father, or even an interesting bird. Either the mother had misunderstood the message or passed it on to the father who called the deadbeat friend with a better meeting place.

    Breaking down my camera, I walked along the shore to the path and took the easy way back. When I reached my car, I saw that all my tires were slashed.

    Just in case Discher was watching from the woods with his video camera, I restrained from a display of emotion and thought about revenge. I didn't know how, but I was going to get him for this. Leaving me up a creek without a paddle wasn't going to win Discher the case and he knew it.

    Discher had resorted to schoolboy tactics just to add insult to injury. Looking back, I realized that I should have asked the mother whether she knew the deadbeat friend, or whether she just assumed that he was a deadbeat friend from something he said. I should have asked if she would recognize Discher's voice.

    Shrugging the camera equipment into a more comfortable position, I started walking towards town. For whatever reason, it seemed like Discher took this custody case because he wanted to play cat and mouse games with me.

    Did I turn the other cheek and concentrate on the case, or did I swing a two-by-four at him from behind? Perhaps if I hadn't remembered the car he drove, I would have chosen the nobler path. Then again, perhaps if I hadn't remembered the car he drove, I simply would have made a telephone call to my friend at the Registry.

    I needed to make an appropriate response to Discher's move, and I thought I knew what it was. All I needed was a bag of sugar and a little luck tracking down his car. While I was aware that getting revenge wouldn't prove me the better man, the better detective, or the better human being, I knew it wouldn't hurt.

    I found Discher's car after two hours of driving the rental around town, just after I promised myself that I would quit this goose-chase if I hadn't located the car in the next ten minutes.

    At this rate, the custody case would be decided before I unearthed a single thing on my client's behalf. While I realized that this might be part of Discher's plan, I couldn't keep the tremor out of my hands as I sighted his car in a street lot next to an office building.

    While he was inside probably selling some company on why he could do a better job than me, I was pouring sugar into his gas tank. Then I popped open his trunk and pulled out the spare tire to leave it laying against the side of his car.

    We were even, an eye for an eye. He had disabled my car and I had disabled his. Of course his would be more expensive to repair which didn't hurt my sense of justice.

    Meanwhile, I didn't want to win the battle only to lose the war. I turned the rental around and headed back to my office to find another chink in the father's armor. The attorney had given me an employer, a landlord, and a list of friends who actually existed.

    When I walked down the hallway, I saw that the door to my office was open.

    I called out "Hello" as I walked through the door, hoping to disarm anyone waiting to jump me. Perhaps the father wasn't at Bluff Point because he was waiting here for me.

    The small office was empty, and appeared completely undisturbed. I took a moment to wonder whether Discher had slashed my tires before breaking into my office or afterwards.

    A quick look found everything in order. My filing cabinets were still locked. My computer was functional. My answering machine didn't have an obscene outgoing message. My desk drawers weren't turned upside down.

    Perhaps Discher had just broken in to spook me. While he might just have done it to prove he could, the open door bothered me more than the physical act of slashing my tires.

    Was he hoping that I stayed in the office worrying instead of working on the case? Was he hoping to make me snap and do something stupid? Had he left the office and tried to start his car yet?

    To be completely honest, I wasn't sure what would happen when he turned the key, whether the car would run for a short time or whether the engine would immediately seize up.

    I looked up at my closed door, glad at least that the lock hadn't been broken.

    Opening my middle drawer, I pulled out the folder to get the telephone number of the father's employer. When I opened it up, I found a strange document on top.

    It was a photocopy of a Bill of Sale. Discher had sold his car yesterday which meant that I had poured sugar into the wrong person's gas tank.

    I closed the folder and cursed Discher. He was so far ahead of me that I couldn't even see his dust any longer, not that I ever had sight of it. I couldn't believe that I had destroyed the wrong person's engine. Inside this folder was the name of the person whose day I had just totally ruined.

    Now I knew why Discher had broken into my office, to leave this photocopy to prove that he had countered my move before I even thought it. I wondered if my ex-wife was helping him.

    It had to be a mind-game. There wouldn't have been any information in the folder that Discher didn't already have. As a matter of fact, he probably knew enough about the father to win the case for us. I needed to hustle and get a piece of that action.

    I picked up the telephone to call the father's employer and then paused. Discher could have bugged my telephone while he was here but then why advertise his presence by leaving the door open? Was the open door his way of taunting me, of daring me to discover all he had done while he had free reign of my office?

    Was the Bill of Sale photocopy the only reason Discher had been here or was it only the most obvious reason? How much time had he spent planning this whole thing out?

    I was zero for two and there was no reason to believe that Discher wasn't going to throw me another curve.

    Putting down the telephone, I decided that I had to stop simply reacting to his moves. Action was called for, and I needed a plan of my own. It wouldn't be enough to simply slug Discher the next time I saw him. That hadn't worked last time and it wouldn't work this time.

    I needed to create a plan as complex as his own. I needed to create a thing of beauty, something that would catch Discher by surprise and solve this thing for once and for all.

    A half hour later, I had my plan. In case Discher had bugged the office, I walked across the street to the Red Creek, ordered a sandwich, and then used the payphone near the bathrooms to make the call that I had sketched out.

    When I returned to my seat, there was Ellen waiting for me. That was the problem with an ex-wife, she knew where to look.

    Ellen glanced at me and then stuck to her fingernails. "Did you get my message?"

    "No."

    "I called your office and left a message."

    "I was just there...." Discher must have listened to my messages and deleted them. "It probably got erased by mistake."

    She shrugged or nodded or something. "It's just as well. I didn't make a lot of sense."

    "What's up?"

    Ellen took a deep breath. "I broke up with Discher."

    "You're joking."

    "I called to see if you were doing anything tonight."

    "Actually, I am."

    "Oh."

    I laughed as I realized what sent Discher charging after me in the first place. He had something to prove after all. "Tomorrow I'm free but tonight I have to finish an investigation. Actually, you could help."

    Ellen blinked. "How could I help?"

    I nodded towards the telephone. "I just called the opposing party in a custody case and told him his attorney hired a detective to investigate him."

    "So. Attorneys don't like being surprised in court."

    "I told him that Discher dug up so much dirt that he approached me willing to sell the photocopies and pictures. I said the trade was happening tomorrow and that then I was willing to sell the materials to him for twice what I paid."

    "Were you serious?"

    "Of course not. Discher's office is fifteen minutes from the father's apartment but five minutes from here. After I videotape the father breaking into Discher's office, you can call the police and report hearing suspicious noises."

    I smiled. "With any luck, the cops won't arrive before he wrecks the place."