by Paul Edwards
Chapter Five
Peter's office was looked like something out of an architectural magazine, it was an expansive open area with a low stucco ceiling, an enormous desk dominated the room, it sat in front of a long wall of exterior windows. There were large flat screen TV's hung everywhere.
In front of his desk there were two leather couches facing each other, a long wooden coffee table in between.
"Have a seat, I'll fix you a drink... if you want?"
"Sure, I'll have a glass of white wine," I said as I sat on one of the couches.
Peter walked over to a large cabinet sitting against a wall, he opened its doors to reveal a well stocked bar. He returned a minute later with a glass of wine which he gave me, he was holding a can of beer in his other hand.
"This is quite the office," I said as he sat down on the opposite couch.
"Ya... kinda embarrassing, always wanted to be Tom Swift when I was young, figured he would have an office like this."
"Tom Swift?"
"He was the hero in a series of books, he was a boy genius, every book featured a different invention."
"The strangest things inspire us," I said sipping my wine.
"What inspired you to be an Egyptologist?"
"Kinda fell into it... wasn't really a choice."
"What did you want to be?"
"I don't know, I've honestly never thought about it... my parents weren't rich, I always thought I would end up catching fish like they had done, and their parents."
"Ya... I thought I would be a farmer until my parents died."
"Why didn't you?"
"Got sick of depending on Mother Nature, not a very co-operative woman."
"I know what you mean... very strange sense of humor."
"I remember not getting rain for six weeks, then when we started to harvest what was left of our crop, it rained three weeks straight destroying it."
"What happened to the farm?"
"My brother still runs it... we haven't talked since I left, he wanted to keep going, figured our parents would have expected that."
"How did they die?"
"Car accident."
"That's too bad... how's your brother doing?"
"Does most of his farming on a bar stool... I've been paying his bills."
"So what's your next invention going to be... Mr Swift?"
Peter looked at me with curious expression, "I'm afraid that's a secret."
Peter's cell phone rang then, he had a brief conversation with the caller and then hung up.
"I gotta go for a few minutes, I'll be back, make yourself at home."
Peter quickly got up and walked out of the room's entrance, he had left me alone in his office.
I waited for a few seconds making sure he had left, I then quickly got up and walked over to his desk. It only took a few seconds to open all the desk's drawer's, all I found was some pens, an empty pad of paper and a chocolate bar.
I looked around the large room to see if there were any filing cabinets, there weren't, I did notice a large workbench covered in blue prints and what looked like machine parts.
I walked over to the bench and picked up one of the metal parts, I could see that it was actually a model of some sort, it looked familiar.
I suddenly realized that it was the spaceship from a popular TV show, someone had roughly cut large pie shaped chunks out of it.
I lifted up my fake prescription glasses and examined it closely, the detail was incredible I could see rooms and hallways in the cutaway sections, the rooms against the exterior hull of the ship even had windows, there were even what looked like working doors.
I put the model down and then unrolled one of the blue prints, it was a drawing of the same spaceship, the detail seemed overly complicated for a simple model. I could see bathrooms and conduits.
I picked up another blue print and unrolled it, it was of the spaceship again a blow-up of one section, I looked at the rest of them, they were all of the ship.
"We use these plans to test our fabrication procedures."
I jumped in surprise, Peter was right behind me.
"Oh... that's why you cut the model open, why did you use a fictional spaceship?"
"It seemed appropriate, we are in the spaceship business."
"You were fond of the TV show?" I asked.
"Space destroyers? When I was young... now it seems corny"
"I never watched it."
"Every show was the same, they always lost half a dozen crew members, there was always a beautiful alien girl which the Captain seduced and the ship escaped disaster at the last second."
"It must have inspired a lot of people, hasn't it been in reruns since the fifties."
"It was the only science fiction show on TV for years, I think that's why it got so popular."
"Soon sci-fi will be reality... with your Frambulator."
"Ya... do you want to grab some dinner? I can have a car send you home afterwards."
"Ok, sure," I said.
Janet was right after all, he did have idea's.
Twenty minutes later we were sitting at a table in an upper scale restaurant, I felt a little underdressed when I looked at the other tables, most of the women were wearing expensive looking gowns.
"This place is kinda ritzy," I said.
"My assistant booked the reservation, she said the food is fantastic."
We soon had large menu's handed to us by a server, he was dressed in a white shirt with a black tie, a white apron over his dark trousers. When I opened the menu I noticed there were no prices beside the different food selections.
"Order what you want, I'll pay," Peter said.
The server soon returned with a bottle of wine Peter had ordered and two glasses, we both told him our food orders, I picked the lobster. The server filled our wine glasses and then left.
"So Kem you're an Egyptologist, what else do you do."
I had put a coin in my hand before we had sat down, I looked closely at Peter's face.
"I know how to do magic," I said.
I waited for a second trying to gauge his expression, he seemed to be trying very hard not to have a reaction.
I showed him my coin and did some simple sleight of hand tricks, he smiled at me.
"That's pretty good."
"Do you know any magic?" I asked, again looking for a reaction.
"I can juggle," he smiled again.
I took a sip of wine, "I found your story about finding the comic books quite interesting, who's estate did you say you found them at?"
Peter gaze suddenly became very intense," I didn't."
"Guess you don't want the estate owners descendant's to make a claim on them, course you could buy a hundred of them now," I said with a laugh.
Peter took a swig of his wine, "his name was Jim Sampson, he left everything to charity," he was still staring at me intently.
I thought for a moment, I was surprised he had told me the estate owners name, I then realized he had no choice, he didn't want me to think he was hiding something, or maybe he actually wasn't.
"Did you know anything about him?"
Peter relaxed his gaze a bit, "no, but his house was beautiful, not ostentatious, you know like most mansions, everything was just perfectly laid out."
"How'd he make his millions?"
"I don't know... probably like most rich people, just inherited it."
"Did you ever find anything that good any other time?"
"God no, half the time I was just paying for the privilege of taking away someone else's garbage."
"So the store didn't do so well?"
"No... I never had enough money to buy something good, that's how you make serious cash, get a big markup on an expensive piece."
Our server returned with some bread rolls then, he topped off our wine glasses as well.
Peter stared at me for a second, "there is something so different about you Kem."
"What do you mean?" I asked self consciously.
"It's hard to explain... like you're not from here."
"Well of course not... I'm South African," I said tersely.
"No... it's more than that... like you're from a different... something."
"That's ridiculous," I felt my heart start to beat harder.
"Hmm... where in South Africa?"
"Oh you won't have heard of it, just a small village," I said brusquely.
"Where they catch fish... are all the women there as beautiful as you?"
I felt a bolt of anger," so that's what you do... a bit of food and flattery and then an invitation to your bed."
Peter started laughing," so that's the secret? God, you are so peculiar."
I felt my face go warm, thankfully the server returned with our food then, I quickly started to eat my lobster, it was very good.
"How did you catch fish... when you were young?" Peter asked cautiously.
"Nets, it was all by hand... what did you farm?"
"Corn and Cattle... it was all done by machines, which constantly broke down."
"How'd you fix them?"
Peter held up his hands, "I can weld because of it, not a half bad mechanic too."
We chatted cautiously with each other for the rest of the dinner, both of us trying to discern what the other was hiding. I had thought my disguise to be foolproof but Peter had somehow been able to sense I was not who I appeared to be.
After our meal was finished Peter used his cell phone to summon a car to take me back to my hotel. He waited with me in front of the restaurant until it arrived.
"Maybe we can do this again," he said as a long black vehicle pulled to a stop in front of us.
"Maybe," I said enigmatically.
Peter grabbed my waist then, pulling me towards him, he kissed my lips. I felt a bolt of anger, the arrogance of the man, I thought to myself. I was preparing to push him away when I realized my traitorous arms were already encircling his neck.
