Now that I decided to do this favor…to take on this assignment, this job…I might as well keep a record of my effort. A journal of sorts.
I’ve worked as a journalist for most of my adult life. Well I did until I got laid off some years ago. Now I’m mostly unemployed or…barely employed. I’ve never been able to keep a diary. Oh I’ve tried. I just could never keep it going. Every time I would only banalities would come out. What I ate. What I did. What I watched on television. What I said to someone. How I felt about something someone said. I’d just end up doing a catalogue of things I did that day. I’d bore myself to death writing it all down and then would bore myself even more when I’d read my entries a few days later. Still I’d go on for a while, thinking that the trick was just to persevere and that I’d break through and start writing something deep and literary, like something someone from 19th century would write. Entries full of lucid fully formed thoughts and sharp observations about myself and the world around me. But the breakthrough would never come. It would all be the same banal stuff, day in and day out. So after a few weeks of trying, I’d stop. It really weighed on me. I wrote for a living, chronicled complex issues, got awards for it. That was my life, the only thing I really knew how to do. But I couldn’t keep a simple record of my own thoughts and observations. This was always a private embarrassment for me. I believed…and still do…that it revealed a fundamental flaw. I wasn’t really a writer. I was faking it. Yeah I could describe what others had done and describe it well but I was essentially parasitic…I required a host.
So although this is sort of a journal, I don’t want to call it that. And it’s really not. It’s not even about me. It’s about my old friend and his disappearance. I’m not even sure how long this little project will last. No doubt my friend will turn up soon…probably fresh off some marital affair that he’ll try to convince his wife that he regrets…and I’ll go back to my shitty job with a bit more money in the bank and nothing more.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I should probably start from the beginning — or from where my part in this story begins.
It all started a week ago when I got a strange call from Misha’s mom Rita. I hadn’t seen or talked to her in close to twenty years. Hell I hadn’t seen her son in probably a decade. She wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone, other than that it was about Misha and that it was very important and that she needed my help. She sounded distressed, her voice quavered. We agreed that I’d come over the next day.
They are retired doctors and live in Cupertino. So I took the train down from San Francisco and then a robotaxi over to their house. They lived in the hills…on a private drive that snaked through their property
Dima, Misha’s dad, met me at the door and walked me into the living room. It was one of those clean minimalist suburban houses. Open plan...you could see pretty much the entire first floor from any spot inside…the big open kitchen, the living room, the foyer, the little reading nook with the fireplace. It was nice outside, a perfect 80 degrees. But all the windows were sealed shut, as was the big glass wall separating us from the seamless inside/outside patio with views of the valley and the San Francisco Bay. Like everyone else they kept their windows closed and their air purification system cranked on, afraid of the dust…terrified of the dust.
I asked to use the bathroom when I first got there. I pissed in their automated toilet, washed my hands and my face. And as I reached for the towel I noticed in the mirror behind me a small wooden picture frame. Inside it was a white flag with two blue stripes and a star in the middle. I was surprised. I couldn’t believe it in fact. Displayed right there in a bathroom, a bathroom mostly used by their guests. They were unrepentant. They still believed!
I came out of the bathroom. Rita was there now on the couch with Dima. We made some small talk. They asked about my daughter, where I lived these days. I praised their new house, asked if they had it built custom. They were clearly proud, told me that it was built with a specially designed cool suite — an off the grid basement apartment dug under the house to use in case of heatwaves and power failure. I nodded, impressed. This was Misha’s hand at work here. His parents were doctors but they never made the kind of money that could build a home like this.
Then Dima finally said, “You’re probably wondering why we called you out here?”
“Yes, very.”
And then they explained, interrupting each other and finishing each other’s sentences: Misha had disappeared three weeks earlier. He ate breakfast with his wife and three daughters, kissed them goodbye, walked out the door of his house in the Oakland Hills to go to work, and was never seen again.
“Disappeared?” I was surprised. “Was he kidnapped?” I knew these things happened more often these days. Organized crews running straightforward ransom schemes, especially on tech guys like Misha who sat on real money.
“No, it’s worse,” his father said.
“Worse? He…he passed away?”
“No, no. Thank God,” Dima said, raising his voice. “He’s alive. Sarah managed to talk to him by phone last week. Only briefly. He...”
“—He told her to forget about him,” Rita said, cutting in. “He told her that he’s starting a new life. He told her not to worry, that he’s fine, that he’s better than he has ever been, and that the house, the money and all that is all hers. He told her he could tell her more because she wouldn’t understand. And then he hung up and we haven’t been able to reach him ever since.”
I looked at the two of them. Dima with his square piggish face and button nose. Rita, petite, her head the shape of an almond. I first met them when I was ten and Misha was eight. Dima was probably in his thirties and Rita probably still in late twenties back then. They were a lot like my family. They had also just moved from the Soviet Union, and just like us they were struggling to get on their feet. They were much older now…Dima probably in his seventies, Rita in her sixties. And they showed their age, although they tried to hide it. His hair unnaturally dense and solid brown, a color that reminded me of shoe polish. She was all taunt and reflective, lips puffed up like balloons. I had trouble looking at them, as I always did at people who have gratuitous work done. Why not just age naturally? Why the desperation to try to look young? Who did they think they need to impress? And it never works anyway…
“Do you want a drink?” Dima asked, getting up and heading the direction of the kitchen. “Sorry I should have asked earlier.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll have what ever you’re having.”
“A beer ok?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
As he was in the kitchen, I turned to Rita. “Do you think it’s an affair? Did he run off with someone? ”
Rita shook her head. “Sarah, that was her first thought, too. But it just doesn’t make any sense. He hasn’t touched any of his money. Not the investment funds. Not the regular bank accounts. If he ran away with a woman he’d need to live off something—”
“The whole thing is a mystery,” Dima said, handing me a beer. “It’s like he just disappeared off the map.”
“Sarah is devastated. Everything was normal and then just one day,” Rita said, trailing off. “How could he just walk out like that? Not just on his wife but his three daughters. We just don’t understand. Sarah doesn’t know what to tell her girls.”
“Have you talked to the police?” I asked.
“The police won’t help. They said there’s no law against a person leaving his family,” Rita said.
“The only issue is child support,” Dima cut in. “But that’s done through the courts and it’s not an issue right now. He left everything to Sarah.”
“What about his friends? Misha and I haven’t been close for a long time So I wouldn’t really know—”
“No—” Dima said.
“—None of his friends have any idea why he’d leave like that,” Rita cut in.
I was surprised. “So there was no warning? None at all?”
Dima shook his head.
“He was depressed and withdrawn after…you know…the tragic events,” Rita said. “But then we were all deeply affected by that horrible…horrible catastrophe.”
“I see,” I said, nodding.
I wasn’t sure what to say to so I sat there, drinking my beer. I was a bit confused as to why they called me all the way out here from San Francisco. Were they hoping I might have an insight into his disappearance? Did they think I knew something? Rita was looking down at her hands, fidgeting with her rings. Dima was staring out into the distance through the glass wall. The sun was setting behind the mountains at out back, bathing the valley below in a hazy orange light. Then, finally, Dima got to why they called me out there. They had a job offer. They wanted me to track Misha down. I’d get to be a private dick…the kind I used to read about as a kid. A Mr. Marlow.
I was too tired last night to finish writing about the details of their offer.
It was a very generous one — $25,000 a month with a minimum guaranteed contract for six months, including all expenses and a million dollar bonus if I manage to track Misha down. Even if he turns up next month and we find out he had some big affair with someone, which I think is likely, I’ll still get $150,000 — that’s more than five times what I make now with my sporadic corporate writing work. And if I do manage to find him myself I’ll get another million on top of that. This vastly improves my situation! If this thing goes through I’ll be able to finally pay out some child support, put some money into her college fund, take her on vacation, maybe even move back to New York to be closer to her.
It was like winning the lottery. But I played it cool and said I’d have to think about it. Dima nodded but clearly saw through my bluff because without skipping a beat he said that he knew I had been having financial problems and that I really should take their offer. “Misha and you were so close for so long. We think he’s in trouble now. We don’t know what to do. He needs your help…we need your help. And from what we’ve heard you’re not doing that great…you need this money.” Right away I felt like an asshole. I was treating this like any other job offer, jumping for joy inside just thinking about the cash while these people…people who I used to know and call family…were clearly distressed and needed my help. But I still tried to stand my ground. I mumbled something about the money being appreciated but not important and that I want to help no matter what. “As much as I want to I can’t just drop everything,” I said. “I have to square things with my work.” I lied.
“Of course. We understand,” Dima said nodding. “Take care of your business. But we’ll transfer the money today. I’ll tell Sarah.”
It was then that I realized that it was Sarah offering me the job. She was the only one who could pay out like this…payout with Misha’s money.
Next: Entry #2: The Wife.