I was forwarded this hilarious story by a friend. If anyone knows
 who the author is, please let me know. 

>
>
>The Climbing Man
>
>	I've seen a guy take a hammer to his friend, just because his friend
>refused to go with him.  As he flailed away, he chanted an insane
>enraged mantra: "If you won't come with me, nobody can have you."
>I've seen a woman walking around, arms held away from her body like a
>gull trying to take off, her fingers dripping blood, laughing, proud
>of finishing off her 'little project' as she told horrified witnesses.
>I've seen guys with beaten and emaciated bodies, reduced to almost
>nothing  because they were hooked on an insidious habit: they called
>it 'Doing Rocks'.  I've seen the grungy places where these seamy
>characters hang out, and I've been there with them.  I've seen the
>dirty underbelly of climbing.
>	"Either tuck in your t-shirt or take a bath!!!" I shout up at my
>partner as he clips into the belay station.  "I'm tired of looking up
>at your dirty underbelly."
>	Yeah, I've seen it all.  The case of the missing partner was just
>another day in the life of this P.I. (Poseur Internationale)
>	   *		       	*	       		*
>
>	Some days hang over the cliffs like a blanket, slowly smothering the
>routes until you can hardly breathe.  Then the rain comes, soaking up
>the dust and sand from the air, and when it lands, it isn't rain at
>all, but the sweat of the desert.
>	I sat in my tent, waiting for customers, wasting time like I had a
>thousand days before.  Staring at the walls, staring at my test flap,
>the sun outlining words
>Mike Piton, P.I. against faded nylon.
>	Click!  Click!  Click!  The sound of  graphite lubricated metal
>slapping home added tempo to the music of the desert wind as I flexed
>my trigger finger.  I like to keep my trigger finger nimble,
>practiced.  Its a habit that's saved my life before, when I've been in
>a jam.  Also saved my life on a runout traverse.   Never know when a
>quick trigger on a friend will make the difference, so I stay
>prepared.
>	Then she walked in.  She had the hardbody of a goddess, real zero
>percent body fat stuff.  Short powerful legs shown off to advantage
>under spandex bicycle pants.  Above the shorts and below her sport top
>lay an expanse of ripped ab muscles, like speed bumps saying "Slow
>down, big boy!"  Her sport top hid a cleavage beyond comment, because
>there was nothing there to comment on.  Her hands could crack Brazil
>nuts.  Yeah!  My kind of woman, just the way I like 'em!
>	Her long stringy sun-blonde hair was tied back in a pony tail,
>completely exposing her gorgeous leather tanned face.  Irridium Blades
>hid her eyes, but pouty full chapped lips bespoke a woman on the edge,
>a woman who'd been on the edge for days.
>	"Mr. Piton, P.I."  those chapped pouty lips half spoke half whispered.
>"They tell me you're the best."
>	"Yeah, Miss, I'm the best."  I reach into my pack, dig out a handful
>of photos, and toss them at her feet.
>
>	"That's me posing at Boiux.  There's me posing at the Dente d'Midi.
>Me again, Camp 4.  There I am below Smith Rocks' Monkey Face.  That
>pose went 5.14c.  Unrepeated."  I tell her proudly as she leafs
>through the pile.  "I've posed all the big ones."
>	"Then you're the man I want.  I need your help.  I've lost my friend."
>She said, her voice tightly controlled, like if she didn't control
>herself completely all the emotions she thought she kept hidden from
>the world would come bursting out:anger, fear, despair.  Despite the
>sunglasses, I could read her face like a book.
>	"Sorry honey, I can't help you.  I only pose, I don't retrieve lost
>friends.  If you bailed out and left pro behind, find a climber."
>	"No!"  She shouted, exasperated.  "I've lost my boyfriend, who's also
>my climbing partner!"
>	"Missing person, huh!  Yeah, I've had a lot of experience with that.
>I've seen the dirty underbelly..."
>	"Save it!"  She cut me off  "I read the intro."
>	"Ohhh."  I mutter, angry that she ruined my best line.  Without
>missing a beat I continue.
>	"So you lost your partner, huh? Was it a bad belay? Or did you just
>push him off a cliff.  It's the same thing, sister.  Murder, plain and
>simple.  Do your soul good, confess, only do it to the cops instead of
>your priest."  I sneer.
>	"What are your talking about?  He's not dead!  He didn't' show up for
>our rendezvous!  We were supposed to meet at Red Rocks 4 days ago.  I
>showed up, he didn't."  She concluded, a touch of despair creeping
>into her voice.
>	A missed rendezvous.  No good will come of this.
>	"So you missed your rendezvous, did you?  That's tough."  I really
>felt for the kid.  I'd been there myself.
>	"I waited, I posted notes, I drove around looking for his car, I, I,
>I...."  She broke down, her control broken.  The entire sordid story
>came out, like propane from a hot metal tank with its valve twisted
>full left.
>	She and her boyfriend planned this vacation for months, only, just
>before they were supposed to leave, he had an office emergency.   So
>she went on ahead, to scout the region and set up camp.  Notes left on
>the BLM office post board would serve as a guidepost to camp when he
>finally arrived.  With only two campgrounds in the region, how could
>they miss?
>	Sounded to me like a plan for failure.
>	"You been climbing long?"  I asked
>	"Just over two years. "  Long enough to become an experienced climber,
>sure, but maybe not long enough to learn how to rendezvous.  Amateurs.
>	"Did you drive around the entire loop route looking for his car?
>	"At least twice a day"
>	"Did you post notes on every board in the park?"
>	"Yes."
>	"Checked for notes left by him?"
>	"Every morning and evening."
>	"Wrote and left new notes every day, even though you had no evidence
>he was in the park?"
>	"Of course."
>	"Waited in camp all day long, giving up valuable climbing time, in the
>vain hope he would show up?"
>	"Except when I drove around looking for him.  I didn't even drive into
>Vegas for those really cheap buffets."
>	"You did everything right."  My estimation of her talent had gone up
>with each answer.  This lady was good, very very good.
> 	"So what do I do now?"  She pleaded.
>	"What do we do, you mean."  I added.  A smile broke across her face as
>she realized she was no longer in this alone.  A stunning smile.  My
>heart skipped a beat.
>	So I outlined the plan.  I told her to park at the exit to the Red
>Rocks Scenic Loop, a one way road that's the only access to the good
>climbing routes.  While she acted as a blockade, I swept the park.  We
>had him.
>	Only he wasn't there.
>	"Did you consider the possibility he's not here?"  I asked, after
>finishing the sweep.
>	"No, he's here, I can feel it."  Yeah, I know the feeling.  I'd had it
>myself, looking for a partner at a rendezvous.
>	"Then we'll have to do this the hard way.  We'll search every route in
>the park."
>	"That may take days!!!"
>	"Do you want to make this rendezvous or not?"  I said, pointedly.
>	"Yes, I do."
>	"Well, then.  What level does your boyfriend climb, and does he like
>multipitch?"
>	"He leads 5.10a on a good day, and yeah, he does multipitch."
>	"Does he have any climbing characteristics, something we can use to
>track him?"
>	"He never closes his chalk bag."
>	"Hmmm.  That might be useful."
>	So the search began.    We found evidence of his passage 5 hours
>later, at the base of "Dark Shadows", a 5.8 four pitch lark.  Little
>bits of chalk floated down from micro ledges on the cliff above.  I
>looked around, deciding where I would belay from if I did the route.
>Yeah, over there!  Chalk spray covered the ground.  The pattern
>indicated a man sitting on an open chalk bag.
>	"He was here, alright."  I said, pointing out the chalk.
>	"How can you be sure.  Anyone could have left that mark."  She
>protested.
>	"Don't delude yourself, sister.  He was here.  And he's climbing with
>someone else."   Better harsh medicine now, than leaving her to
>indulge in wishful thinking. "You'll never make that rendezvous.
>Sorry for being blunt, but it's the truth."
>	"What do you mean?!?"  she demanded, unbelieving.
>	"Didn't it ever occur to you that your boyfriend might be enjoying a
>rendezvous with another 'partner'?"  I said, looking her straight in
>the eye.
>	"NO!!!  He loves me!"  Complete denial.  I sighed.  I hate this part
>of my job.
>	"You've been climbing together for a couple years, right!  You've been
>getting really good.  I've seen your body, I can tell."
>	She nodded acknowledgement.
>	"So you finally flashed a route, a route your boyfriend couldn't even
>second.  Right?"
>	"Yeah, just two weeks ago."  She answered in a daze.
>	"Just before the office emergency, right!!!  Yeah, you did a route he
>couldn't do.  You crushed his ego like a mammoth stomping on brittle
>65 million year old dinosaur eggs, turned him into nothing more than a
>belay slave.  Better you should have put a bullet through his brain,
>it would have been kinder!!!"
>	"What was that about a mammoth?"  She asked, perplexed
>	"Just something Mikey Spillane might have wrote.  It doesn't make any
>sense to me, either."
>	She shook her head, not believing what she was hearing.  She recoved
>and got back into the story.
>	"But how do I get him back?"
>	"You don't!  You've lost him forever.  He's not good enough for you
>anyway.  Forget him.  You want a man who doesn't mind being a belay
>slave, a man without an ego.  A Poseur."
>	"Like you?"  She added with a come hither voice.
>	I checked out that awesome climber's body from top to bottom.
>	"Yeah, kid.  Like me."