Project Northwest (15 page)

“Yes, sir, she watered it by mistake. I
replaced it.”

“Very well,” said Mr. Wright, taking his
favorite spot on the couch.

Except for the inability to keep a live body
in The Lounge, all was going as expected.

He tossed Cricket the log and said, “How are
we doing on the pictures?”

“They came out very good, would you like to
see them?”

“Yes, let’s see how they turned out. I could
use some good news.”

Cricket grabbed the manila folder, sat on the
couch next to Wright, and spread the pictures out on the coffee
table into two separate piles, one dedicated to the before pictures
and the other to the photoshopped after pictures.

Cricket explained, “This is the original,
untouched picture of Spenser and Spain at the Wild Ginger today.
You’ll note it looks exactly as it was, two co-workers out for a
quick lunch. There’s nothing there to indicate they are having a
romantic dinner and nothing to arouse the suspicion of Spain’s
girlfriend.”

“Yes, I see, go on,” directed Mr. Wright.

“This is the same picture after being
photoshopped in Adobe. You can see, I’ve made the table smaller,
bringing them closer so that their knees almost touch, and placed a
white tablecloth over the bamboo table. Also added two candles and
placed in a nice bouquet of flowers toward the back of the table.
Of course, I removed anything that was Asian or looked like a lunch
setting. I changed the art to what I thought was a more romantic
Italian theme, darkened the overall lighting, and even went as far
as to ensure that the candle’s glow was cast correctly on their
faces. Even took the time to reset the face of his watch to 8
P.M.”

“Wow, this is excellent. So you just, what
did you call it?”

“Photoshopped.”

“You photoshopped the original image and
created an entirely different setting. It’s amazing,” said Mr.
Wright as he compared the before and after pictures. If he didn’t
know any better, he would certainly think Miss Spenser and Mr.
Spain were having a very private, very romantic dinner.

“So I picked the best seven pictures we had,
you know, where the faces matched the supposed romantic mood and
photoshopped each the same way. I think they are very good, but I
can do additional touch-ups if you wish.”

“No, they are first-rate, Cricket, they will
work perfectly,” said Mr. Wright as he viewed each one. “In my
experience, women look at the girl in these types of pictures
first. It’s some type of deep-seated threat analysis system. They
look at her body language. Noting her smile, looking at the
direction of the eyes, the placement of her hands and feet, they’re
looking for intimacy. They really get pissed when they shift focus
on the male mate and see anything that represents pleasure. The
only thing I would suggest is adding some nice jewelry, evening
jewelry, to her arm. But other than that, it looks great.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Cricket, as he collected
the pictures and returned to his desk, disappeared behind the
servers, and went back to work.

Mr. Wright took off his shoes and stretched
out on the couch. “Are we piped into the mics on James and
Bridget?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Put it on the speaker, but keep it low.”

A few taps on a keyboard and Mr. Wright could
hear James talking to a couple of guys in The Lounge while the band
played on stage and he could hear short conversations with Bridget
while she was pushing drinks.

“Sir, I just want to say, I think you’re a
very wise man. I mean, the talk about history this morning on the
conference call and what a woman looks at in pictures, it’s all
very perceptive.”

Mr. Wright closed his eyes. “Quit trying to
kiss up, Cricket. The nickname stays.”

Cricket smiled and selected a nice diamond
bracelet off an internet page, one he could imagine a woman wearing
on a romantic date, and began applying it to the photographs. He
looked over his monitor and saw that Mr. Wright was asleep.

Chapter Twelve

~ An Official Couple ~

James and Bridget
were in the condo at 1:30 A.M. They did not speak of the note
scribbled on the robe and James was relieved. It was obvious to him
she understood completely and was willing to put her trust in him.
He almost tripped over the laundry basket near the dresser, saw the
robe folded on top, and had a crushing feeling of guilt. He was
happy when he received the two-ring call that morning, even happier
when he read her note at The Lounge. But now, seeing the robe—it
brought home what he was asking of her. It didn’t escape him that
she did seem pre-occupied during the car ride home. She just wasn’t
herself and he was fearful of where this might lead.

They undressed in the dark, him down to his
boxers while she put on her favorite pair of cotton pajamas.

“Something on your mind, baby?” he asked as
he inched into bed and hugged up against her. He didn’t bother
whispering, they had nothing to hide. Plus, they were both
temporarily deaf from the volume of the music.

“Yes, there is,” she responded inviting him
to essentially guess. She did this a lot, the passive aggressive
control technique. It was her clever way of getting him to say what
she really wanted to say, but didn’t want to say out loud.

“Does it have to do with the phone call
today?”

“No, not at all James, it’s, well I did
something that may be stupid today,” she said as she pushed her
hips and butt into him.

James’s mind raced. What was she about to
unload? His thoughts immediately gravitated to Cindy and some
mix-up with the phone. Did Mr. Wright now know of Mark? James
reined in his paranoia and decided it best to keep the conversation
calm.

“Well, I trust you, so I’m sure whatever it
is, it isn’t that bad.”

“Really?” She looked for permission to say
it.

“Sure, baby, let’s have it. What did you do
that you think was stupid?”

She was silent for a moment or two. The
silence was deafening in the dark room and as she usually did, she
let the words pour out and he struggled to keep up with her.

“Remember last Friday when you were at The
Lounge and said you had something important to talk about? Well, I
think, I mean, I thought I knew what you were going to say, what
you were going to ask and I had been waiting for a month for you
to, you know, ask it. So I gave ...”

She paused, as if she couldn’t believe she
was about to say it, “I gave my landlord my thirty day notice
today.” She rolled over, pushing her face into the pillow. She let
out a giddy scream, unable to hide her excitement at the thought of
moving in with him. She was here all the time anyway, but this made
it official, this advanced the relationship.

James pulled her shoulders into his chest.
“Yes, I remember, and I was going to ask you to move in with me.
How did you know? I take it you’re not saying no,” he teased.

She rolled over. Now they were face to face.
“I’m not sure how I knew, it just felt like the right time, seemed
like it was the next step.” She mischievously kissed him, pulled
back a little, wanting him to come and get her. He devoured
her.

Their love-making was varied and healthy. It
was at times completely sexually charged and aggressive, other
times it was more intimate and slow. This time it was pure fun.
They giggled and laughed amongst the heavy breathing, both enjoying
a newfound bond and the sexual freedom that came with it. They were
now officially a couple and they both leapt into this new stage of
their relationship, new stage of their lives, holding nothing back.
They didn’t even notice that for the first time in a long time,
they made love under the covers. The fact that they were
being
watched
had sunk into their psyches and now even their private
activities had become clandestine.

She had fallen asleep quickly afterward, most
likely dreaming of how she was going to turn his stark, but in his
opinion ‘Crisp and Stylish,’ bachelor condominium into a home. She
had dropped the hints constantly over the last eight months,
‘...needs a woman’s touch...’ she would say.

He didn’t care what she did, but had made up
his mind. He would stand his ground if any wall even came close to
the color pink. Those were his less important thoughts. What he was
really trying to hash out was a plan that would keep them alive,
keep him out of jail, allow them to be together forever.

His inability to devise a plan over the last
two days invaded his thoughts like background noise, always there
and becoming more and more annoying. At times, it was just white
noise, similar to when a TV station goes dead. Other times, it was
the sound of a jackhammer, each blow signaling the dismantling of
his life.

He closed his eyes and began the rational
process as he always did, with what he knew. Mark had the hair,
Mark was trustworthy and apparently still unknown to Mr. Wright.
Soon, he’d know the identity of the elusive Mr. Wright and now
Bridget was on board. Shelly Spenser had stopped the aggressive
flirting and had suggested that she was being blackmailed herself,
although she could be playing the part of the wounded female in an
attempt to gain his trust.

That’s where the rational process deserted
him. None of what he knew leveled the playing field. He was still
out-gunned if a gunfight were to erupt. As the night before, he had
the sinking feeling that he was overmatched and could not do this
alone. The next logical step—

he had to bring Mark in deeper. He didn’t
want to do it, but saw no other choice.

He was sure Mark wouldn’t refuse any request
for help. They had been best friends since their freshman year in
college and in one instance, James had saved his life. ‘Saved’ was
entirely the wrong word. There was no saving Mark. The more
appropriate phrase is along the lines of he had ‘prevented him from
being killed.’ Now the tables had turned.

James brought his arms under his head and
leered into the past, almost seven years ago.

A smooth tongue can get you far with the
ladies and Mark could certainly do that, but it does little to
subdue an enraged boyfriend wielding an aluminum baseball bat, a
pissed off boyfriend who was willing to take the confrontation all
the way.

Mark, due to his natural ability, and, as
most natural abilities go, it had a curse if used in the wrong way,
found himself in trouble with jealous boyfriends at least once or
twice a year. He’d suffered busted lips, lumps on the head, black
eyes, and busted noses, but always failed to understand why he was
being targeted. “Why blame me?” he would say. “They should be mad
at the girl, not me.” James could never get Mark to appreciate the
complexity of the argument of who was more responsible, the drug
pusher or the drug user?

James had just settled into bed after
studying for his upcoming chemistry test when Mark burst into the
room, winded, with only his boxers and one sock on.

Mark quickly locked the flimsy door and
backed up toward the far wall, stopping when he backed into the
desk. Everyone, after the ordeal, could swear they had felt the
floor shake as the hulk of a young man, a country boy known only as
Bama, because he came from Alabama, ran down the hallway and didn’t
even stop when he met the locked door.

Mark, five inches shorter than Bama, couldn’t
put up a fight and took the full force of the aluminum baseball bat
to his head. He instantly went limp and fell to the floor.

It became obvious to James and to the other
dorm mates now standing in in his doorway, straining to see what
was happening that Bama was not posturing. He didn’t say anything
before the first swing. He didn’t ask why or give Mark a chance to
talk his way out. He was there to kill him. One freshman from the
hall, who had been crossed by Mark earlier in the year, shouted,
“Kick his ass!”

Mark’s limp body took another five hits from
Bama in machine-gun like fashion. Luckily, for Mark, the hits
landed on his arms and back. Bama seemed to realize this too and
James, now seeing everything in slow motion, watched as Bama raised
the bat and eyed the uncovered head of Mark. He was about to land a
deadly blow.

James tackled Bama, but didn’t bring him to
ground. He only shifted the man enough so that the swing landed in
an ear-splitting blow about an inch from Mark’s head, with a loud
metal to concrete sound that rang through the dorm and persisted
for a least a few seconds.

James, unable to take Bama, did the only
thing he could think of. He grabbed the bat and held on for dear
life. As strong and as pissed as Bama was, he couldn’t swing the
bat with it’s newly attached 180 pound counter weight, but he tried
like hell and soon tired. Moments later, the campus police arrived
and Bama was arrested, handed over to the local police, and Mark
was rushed to the hospital.

No one heard from Bama again.

Mark was released from the hospital after two
days of observation and didn’t press charges, even when the police
stated the final swing, the one that missed Mark’s head by a mere
inch, was so forceful that it actually caved in and cracked the tip
of the aluminum bat and left a dimple on the concrete floor. If it
had connected, there would’ve been young impressionable brain
matter everywhere except where it belonged, in Mark’s head. They
felt the blow would’ve certainly killed Mark and wanted to file
attempted homicide charges against Bama and needed Mark to support
the charges. Mark, battered and bruised, was surprisingly
indifferent and refused.

Mark, of course, had his own version of the
story, filled with bravado and told how the first hit was just
lucky. Every fight during the next four years was instantly
compared to the fight between Bama and DeSantis and, as far as
James knew, none even came close unless a gun was involved, but
that wasn’t really the same.