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"The women live together?"

Tres nodded. "To prevent conjugal visits. They'll have twenty surrogates in one house."

"Baby factories."

"And you don't have to worry she'll abort like over here. We paid for it, it's ours, and she signed a contract. She's got to deliver."

Tres drank from his beer.

"Only downside is, Indian women die in childbirth at ten times the rate of American women."

"So the surrogate has a good chance of dying while birthing your baby?"

"Yeah… but Natalie's willing to take that risk. Besides, if she dies, we get a full refund."

"I'm sure that'll make the surrogate feel better."

"And Natalie gets to keep her figure."

"Hers is a figure worth keeping, Tres, no question about it, but the whole thing seems kind of like 'ugly American' stuff-you know, exploiting poor people in Third World countries."

"You sound like your mother. Andy, it's no different than American companies manufacturing their products offshore for the cheap labor."

"Exactly."

Andy looked for Ronda with their beers then turned back to Tres.

"So you're going to manufacture little Cuatro in India after having sex with a test tube?"

Tres shrugged. "I get to look at a Playboy. "

"That's romantic."

Dave broke away from his conversation with Curtis and said, "It always is for me." Back to Curtis: "They figured you couldn't afford their drinks."

Curtis scratched his scalp deep in the dark jungle that was his hair then examined his fingers as if he'd found something.

"So?"

"So you'd just be taking up valuable space. Rent in the warehouse district is out of sight."

Curtis pushed his glasses up on his nose.

"The doormen at Qua, they laughed at me-and I'll have my Ph. D. in nine months."

"Advanced degrees won't get you in that door, Curtis."

"Qua," Andy said. "That's the lounge with the aquarium in the floor?"

"Shark tank," Curtis said.

"Curtis," Tres said, "those places have strict dress codes. What were you wearing?"

Curtis gestured at his attire.

"Same clothes I teach in."

He was wearing black-framed glasses, a white T-shirt with "got root?" across the front, baggy cargo shorts, and burnt-orange Crocs. He was scrawny, twenty-eight, and a grad student working on his Ph. D. in mathematics; he was a TA at UT. One of hundreds of teaching assistants employed by the University of Texas at Austin, Curtis Baxter taught math to undergrads so the tenured professors had time to write political op-eds.

"Curtis," Tres said, "you wouldn't get past the security guard at my condo wearing those clothes. This is the only place you can dress like that."

This place was Guero's Taco Bar, formerly the Central Feed amp; Seed. Guero's still looked like a feed store, but it was now an Austin institution-everyone came to Guero's for Mexican food and beer and margaritas and mariachis: UT students and faculty, politicians and lawyers, trust-funders and slackers. The dress code was "come as you are," and so they came.

Andy was wearing shorts, a Willie Nelson "Don't Mess With Texas" T-shirt, and flip-flops. Dave wore a red-and-black cowboy shirt over shorts and sandals, although he had recently tried to upgrade his appearance for his burgeoning business career; he now wore white socks. He swept his black hair back like a young Elvis, meticulously and often, like now.

"You missed a spot," Andy said.

"Where?"

Dave checked his hair in a spoon; Andy shook his head. What a crew. Tres Thorndike appeared sophisticated and worldly with his stylish clothes and professionally cut hair; he was from Connecticut. After flunking out of the Ivy League, Tres enrolled at UT for the frat parties-UT consistently ranked as the number one party school in America-and ended up president of the most exclusive fraternity on campus. Dave Garner had gotten into a lesser fraternity on a legacy. Curtis Baxter had been denied admission to every fraternity at UT. Andy Prescott had never wanted to join a fraternity.

The story of their lives.

Ronda returned with four cold Coronas. Tres told her to put them on his tab; he was good about having a trust fund. Andy leaned back in his chair and took a long drink of the cold beer. It was another great night at Guero's. The sun was setting behind them, the heat of the day had broken, and they were sitting at their regular sidewalk table, a prime location to enjoy the live music of Tex Thomas amp; His Danglin' Wranglers playing in the adjacent Oak Garden and to check out every female entering or exiting the establishment. God, the girls of Austin. Between the twenty-five thousand UT coeds and the thousands of young women who moved to Austin every year for the nightlife, there were beautiful girls everywhere you turned in Austin.

Except, of course, at their table.

It wasn't that they were homely individuals. Tres, in fact, was rather handsome, and he exuded that confident aura of a trust-fund beneficiary, for which girls seemed to have a sixth sense, like dogs could smell fear; consequently, he attracted frequent glances from passing females. Curtis, Dave, and Andy did not. They were just regular guys, not something you put on your curriculum vitae in Austin. Sure, Curtis was a math genius, but that meant absolutely nothing outside the math department at UT. And, worst of all, they were broke.

Tres' phone pinged.

"She's texting me again."

"Natalie?"

He nodded and checked the message.

"Says she found an Indian clinic that'll do it for four thousand."

"You sure you want to hire out your baby to the lowest bidder?"

"Hell, Andy, I'm not sure I even want a baby… or to get married."

Tres drank his beer then leaned toward Andy and lowered his voice.

"You know a PI?"

"A private investigator? No. But I know someone who does."

"Can you get me his number?"

"Sure. What's up?"

"I think Natalie's cheating on me."

" What? Why?"

"To have sex."

"No. Why would she cheat on you? Dude, she wants to have your baby."

"She wants an Indian woman to have my baby. And maybe she wants to have one last fling before marriage and motherhood."

"She wouldn't leave you."

"She wouldn't leave the trust fund. Me, I'm not so sure."

He drank from his beer.

"See, you guys complain about being broke, but being rich isn't all it's cracked up to be either. If you guys ever do get a girl, at least you'll know she's not after your money."

"It'd be nice to have a girl after me for something."

Andy smiled but Tres didn't. This was serious.

"What's got you worried?"

"She's acting different."

"How?"

"She stopped wearing underwear."

That got Dave's attention. "No shit?"

"Look, guys," Tres said, "this is confidential, okay?"

"Oh, absolutely," Dave said. "Sure thing. Now tell us about the underwear."

"Well, you know, she's always worn thongs-"

"What kind?"

Tres shrugged. "I don't know. Just thongs."

"Lacy ones?"

"Curtis," Andy said, "douse him with your beer."

"Anyway," Tres said, "all of a sudden she just stopped wearing anything."

"God, that's hot," Dave said.

"Not if she stopped for some other guy."

"Oh, yeah, that wouldn't be so hot."

"Did you ask her why?" Andy said.

"She said that was the fashionable thing now."

"You don't believe her?"

Tres took no notice of a girl checking him out.

"I think she's having an affair with the weekend sports anchor at the station. Bruce, he's an ex-UT jock, lives out at the lake."

"You want a PI to follow her?"

Tres' expression turned grim. "I need to know. Besides, it's nothing compared to what my father will do before we get married."

"Track her cell phone," Curtis said. "It's GPS-enabled, isn't it?"