Project Northwest

by C. B. Carter

  By the time Bridget arrived at the car, James had burnt a gallon of gas and raised the interior temperature to a toasty seventy degrees. James knew Bridget would customarily balk at the heat. She enjoyed the cold and loathed the repulsive heat of summer. A Seattle native, she believed that seventy degrees was blistering heat. When the temperature hit about seventy-five, Bridget would almost shut down; she felt it was so oppressive. She had tried Bikram yoga, but bailed during the first ten minutes unable to deal with the one hundred plus degree heat and, in her mind, couldn’t fathom why anyone would do that type of yoga. Bridget was a struggling tree-hugger to be sure, but she was a devout snow-bunny.

  She opened the door and instantly noticed her man, the guy she was going to marry and have children with, the man she was totally in love with, was buck naked under a bed sheet.

  She settled into the driver’s seat, removed her coat, and purposely, sexually, far too slowly, placed her purse at his feet. “Well someone feels better,” she said, implying sexual undertones, totally intrigued with what she thought was on James’s mind. “I got the schedule. Luckily, I’m off on Monday,” she hinted.

  James recognized the moment and so wanted to see where it would go. He definitely wanted to explore it. Bridget was a beautiful woman and had no fear when it came to sexual attitude, but he had an agenda and laughed it off. “Shush, do you remember the spot of our first picnic last July?”

  “Yes.”

  “Drive there.”

  “Okay, baby, whatever you want, it’s a drive though, about thirty minutes,” she said, still mistaking his plan as sexual innuendo.

  * * * *

  The noise canceling programming worked like a charm. No matter what James and Bridget said in the car, with the cancellation CD of Concrete Blonde in place, what the surveillance tech called “the source,” all ambient noise was almost completely cancelled out by their sophisticated software. Simply put, as the associate bragged days earlier–‘...regardless of the volume of Concrete Blonde, it will be cancelled out and reduced to the level of low ambient noise.’ His sales pitch turned out to be true and the conversation between the two in the Honda was blasting across the laptop speakers in the Tahoe.

  They heard the request from James to get a drink, the response that they would head to the Shell or get juice from The Lounge.

  They heard Bridget forget her purse and, to the disgust of Mr. Wright, all of their technology was once again negated by whispers, apparently near the trunk of the vehicle.

  He pounded the dashboard as he loudly criticized, “Why isn’t there a mic on the outside of the car somewhere?” The technicians responded to the outburst, swearing they could tweak the software parameters to the point where they could, in fact, hear what was said. He crossed his heart and assured Mr. Wright, “I can pull that conversation, sir.” The tech didn’t really believe it, and Mr. Wright knew it was a lost cause.

  Parked on Union, just outside The Lounge, the tech was still working on the voice parameters as the other techs and Mr. Wright impatiently waited.

  Impatience turned to panic as the next series of events exposed themselves.

  “She’s in the building,” directed the technician in the Tahoe into the earpiece of the associate inside The Lounge.

  “I have a clear view at the front door and I don’t see her. Where is she?” the associate asked.

  “She’s entering the back of the house. She’ll be in The Lounge in minutes, move to the backdoor. She’s not at the front door—she’s entering the employee entrance, roger?”

  “Got it, on my way to the back of house. I’ll find her.”

  Moments later, they received an update. The associate had found her, she was in a hallway off the bar and heading toward a room.

  “What do I do?” The associate asked to his team in the Tahoe.

  “Pour beer on your hands and rub it over your face. You’re going to pretend you’re drunk and you are looking for the restroom. I don’t care, get into that room, and see what she is doing!” Mr. Wright yelled.

  They heard the door burst open and the drunken conversation between the associate and Bridget. They giggled when Bridget shot the associate down after the ‘you’re so pretty’ line, but understood the associate was only doing his job and they, oddly, took pride in the fact he was successfully passing himself off as a drunken patron. And no one in the Tahoe could argue that she wasn’t pretty. More importantly, she was buying it and so were they.

  “She’s exited the building, she left the way she came,” directed the pretend drunken associate.

  “Very well, we see her now,” Mr. Wright responded.

  “I find it hard to believe she was there to collect a schedule with today’s technology, a simple phone call and she can get it. It’s probably online somewhere. Mr. Spain is trying to get the upper hand somehow. She was there for another reason,” continued Mr. Wright.

  “Turn that room, top to bottom, and let me know what you find. There is something there I can feel it.” Mr. Wright, in final contemplation, ordered, “She was there, they are here for a reason, and it has nothing to do with a damn work schedule. Find me something!”

  “Yes, sir,” said the associate, who had successfully passed himself off as a drunk.

  He turned the room upside down, looked for anything and after a few minutes realized he had no idea what he was looking for. He had checked the corkboard. It consisted of only notices of work schedules for the employees, shift trades, and the occasional babysitting job, followed by items for sale. The corkboard yielded little information and certainly wasn’t offering up any clues.

  He turned and noticed the nine lockers and started pawing through each of the open lockers. He checked every purse, looked at every phone, and didn’t notice anything that would seem nefarious in any remote sense of the word.

  He reported back, “The locker room is clean, boss. From what I can tell, she got her schedule and left. Two of the lockers are locked. Do you want me to bust them?”

  “No, we don’t want to leave any hint that the room has been searched. Women take their privacy seriously, and they would complain if the locks are busted. Leave them and search the rest of the room.”

  He pushed aside the newspaper and clutter from the small table that hugged the back wall of the locker room. He picked up a work schedule. It was the schedule of those working tonight, and took a seat in the only chair in the room. He perused the schedule and noted that five girls were scheduled to work tonight, a Bridget D., a Dawn J., a Tiffany K., a Keisha M., and a Cindy S.

  “I have today’s work schedule, but it only shows the first name and last initial.”

  “Take it, we’ll check on each and see if Bridget made contact.”

  “Yes, sir.” The associate stood, gave the room a once over and grasped the door knob. At that exact moment, The Lounge’s hired muscle, a brute of a man with pectoral muscles so big they stretched the XXL security shirt to its breaking point, busted into the room.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” he demanded as he clutched the associates’ collar jerking him into the hallway.

  “Noth—Nothing. I was looking for the restroom.”

  “Right, the nearest one is about two blocks away. Here let me show you.” The associate struggled with the bouncer, who delivered a well-aimed punch to the stomach. The associate hunched over and struggled to free himself, but it made little difference. He was escorted to the front door and impolitely pushed to the sidewalk.

  “I’ve been thrown out.”

  “Yes, we heard. Get your ass back to the truck, swap positions with the driver. Give the schedule to the driver. Driver two,” requested Mr. Wright.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Get into The Lounge and find the last names of the staff on that schedule, just the ones who are working now.”

  “Roger.”

  “What’s our mark doing?” Wright asked the associate in the back of the Tahoe.

  “Nothing much, it sounds like
he’s moving around a lot. Maybe he’s seat dancing to the music or something. Ms. Davies just arrived back at the car.”

  “They will be on the move in a couple of minutes heading to their first picnic spot,” the associate in the back seat announced.

  “Do we know where that is?” Mr. Wright asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Ah, great, just great! Okay, driver two, get those names. You,” he said as he placed his hand on the shoulder of the driver next to him, “get us in position. This time I don’t want them to know we’re tailing them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sir, what about the cricket?” an associate in the back seat jokingly asked.

  “What’s your number?” Mr. Wright demanded.

  “Associate number three,” replied the young man, now fretting why he had even opened his mouth and wishing he could disappear into the darkness of the back seat.

  “Well, Associate number three, let me be clear. Get!—The—Fuck!—Out!”

  “What?” the shocked associate asked as he gripped the door handle preparing to make his exit.

  Mr. Wright paused for effect, “That’s how you deliver a joke.” Wright laughed and the others nervously laughed with him.

  The moment passed. “Let’s go!” Wright shouted, startling everyone in the Tahoe.

  Chapter Four

  ~ Green Lake Tryst ~

  Bridget let her right hand wander to James’s left leg, just above his knee. She pouted a bit when James stopped her progress. She was well on her way to his inner thigh and didn’t plan on stopping there. She good-naturedly slapped him on the knee, denoting her displeasure.

  “Not here, baby. Let’s go to our spot.”

  “You got it.” The car was in reverse and back on Union heading west.

  She passed The Lounge and saw the drunk on the sidewalk. “I think that guy pissed in our locker room,” she said, pointing.

  James eyed the obvious drunk as he bent over, barely able to keep himself from falling onto the sidewalk. “That guy was in your locker room?”

  “Yes, I think that’s him, he smelled like a brewery.”

  She turned onto University and made her way to the I–5 on ramp. She loved this part of town. The renovations in the area made the drive a pleasure and the entire area was a postcard for the culture available in Seattle.

  “We have to go to that,” she said, motioning to the banner outside the Seattle Art Museum that read ‘Roman Art from the Louvre.’ “Cindy said the marble sculptures were amazing. She spent four hours in there and didn’t even see it all.”

  “Sure, baby, sounds like fun,” James said looking at the banner, noting the lights on the bank’s data room floors outer offices were all dimmed. The financial system was asleep for the weekend. Then he tracked the headlights in the rear-view mirror and checked the side-view mirror. He didn’t see the black Tahoe with the yellow fog lights and began to relax.

  “I’m going to relax a bit,” he said as he turned up the CD player. Moments later, Bridget was singing along with Concrete Blonde’s “Bloodletting” and they were heading north on I–5.

  James let the music wash over him and enjoyed Bridget’s energy as she sang along. He buried his head into the seat rest and watched the traffic go by. When Bridget took Exit 170 to Ravenna, he checked the mirrors again and didn’t see the Tahoe. He kept checking and didn’t see anything as they entered into Green Lake Park and made their way onto the service road.

  James waited for the perfect spot. He needed an area of road that was secluded and, as Bridget rounded the Golf Course area, he turned down the radio and said, “I think we have a flat.”

  Bridget immediately looked concerned, but didn’t notice the car wasn’t handling differently.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, I think it’s the front right tire, pull over here.”

  James reached into her purse, found Cindy’s cell phone, and grabbed the flashlight. He motioned ‘shush’ to Bridget as he exited the car, wearing only the bed sheet. She was perplexed, but popped the trunk when James tapped on it.

  He dug out the spare and rolled it to the front of the car, then retrieved the jack.

  He was freezing and pulled the bed sheet tight around his shoulders and over his head. He looked back and didn’t see the Tahoe, but he was sure they were there somewhere in the distance, watching. He dialed Mark’s number and silently begged, Please, Mark, answer the phone...

  James hadn’t spoken to Mark, his old college roommate, since Christmas. Mark had a smooth tongue, it was laced with charm and notes of understanding—the epitome of charisma, and it all came naturally to him. He had a gift, he was magnetic, and he could chat up anyone, especially women. The fairer sex seemed incapable of not engaging him with their most sheltered secrets. It was because of this ability that James understood Mark’s chosen profession as a private investigator, even though Mark graduated from UC with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. Mark’s natural appeal was about to pay off for James in a big way. What he wanted from him was not what Mark could talk you out of, but what he could talk you in to.

  “Hello.”

  “Mark, its James, I need your help.” James shivered from the cold and wanting to quickly get to the point.

  “Sure, bud. What’s going on?”

  “I’m going to send you a package and I need you to sweet talk one of your police buddies into doing some work off the grid.”

  “Well sweet talking is my game. What’s in the package?”

  “A hair.”

  “Ah, man, is Bridget cheating on you? Did you find it in your apartment or something?”

  “No, nothing like that Mark, you know better.”

  “Yeah, sorry, it’s my first instinct in my line of business, it’s way too common nowadays, infidelity, you know. I’ve seen the dark side of the human condition. Shame is my clients never realize that by the time I’m involved, the marriage or relationship has been over for months or even years. So, you want to know who the hair belongs to, right?”

  “Yes. But there can be no record of the lookup.”

  “Right, this type of thing isn’t usually posted on the police docket, if you know what I mean.”

  “Great, so I’m going to send it to you general delivery, to the post office on Royal. You know the one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Check the main post office on Wednesday. I need the results like super fast, okay?”

  “That’s the only way I work, buddy. I already have an idea of a pretty lady that will take care of this for me. Trust me, it will be my pleasure. Who’s the suspect?”

  “What do you mean? I was hoping the hair would tell me that.”

  “The hair will confirm a suspect was at a location. It’s only valuable in that way. You’ve been watching too many movies if you think the hair will give us the name. You’ll need someone to match it to.”

  “Shit. Here I thought I had the upper hand. What if I don’t know the name? I mean he said his name was Mr. Wright, but I’m sure that’s not it.”

  “Okay, just get me something, a tag number, an address, a bill. Hell, look through his trash if you have to, get me any detail and I can start investigating.”

  “I can tell you they drive a black Tahoe, but I don’t know the tag. Oh, and they rented rooms on or before Friday. It was room 122 and most likely the nearby rooms at an Embassy Suites near the Airport, I–405, next to the Amtrak lines. I don’t know the address. I’m dealing with ghosts here.”

  “Okay, I can start with the hotel. It should provide our first trail. Can I contact you?”

  “No, the phones are bugged, my condo is bugged. Hell, they even said they have bugs at the bank. I borrowed this phone and I’m at the lake naked under a sheet.”

  “Are you fucking with me? You’re naked under a sheet and being bugged? What’s going on?”

  “I’m in big trouble, Mark, being blackmailed to do illegal things at the bank. They tail Bridget and me everywhere. Th
ey beat me up and wrecked my mustang.”

  “They wrecked the mustang? Oh, shit, got it. Okay, check for messages from me in the Seattle Times, personal ads section. I’ll be telling you what I find there. Look for SAM M.D. Use the third, fifth and seventh letter in the words to decipher it. The first one will be in a couple of days. At the end of the ad will be the new key for the next message. How are they blackmailing you?”

  “Okay, that will work. They’re watching me, but I don’t think that will be obvious, just keep the ad short. I’d go into the blackmailing part, but I need to cut this short. You’re a godsend Mark. Thanks.”

  “Not a problem, I owe you one. Check in two days and send the hair, I’ll get started. Bye, James, be careful, man.”

  James pressed end—call and felt a sense of despair come over him, but it was quickly chased away by the cold.

  The GPS transponder was tucked into the wheel well inches from James’s head. James never saw it, but he suspected they were carrying some type of tracking device, so it didn’t matter. He looked around the area again, the lake was eerily quiet. He quickly gathered the spare and jack and put them in the trunk and walked back to the passenger door, convinced any listening device on his phone or wallet or wherever else they may have placed one was foiled by his plan.

  By the time he sat back in the passenger seat, he was so cold that his entire body was visibly trembling.

  “Oh, baby, you’re freezing,” said Bridget as she climbed onto his lap. “I know you’re teasing me, but I also know what will warm you up.” She started to kiss his neck. “Where are you cold?” she asked suggestively.

  James wasn’t really in the mood, but Bridget had a way of making him forget all his troubles. “Here,” he said touching his bruised lips.

  She kissed him on his mouth. His swollen lip hurt, but the kiss felt good at the same time. She began to breathe heavily. Soon with a little stimulation from Bridget, James was a healthy 98.6 degrees and rising. She removed her jeans, her panties, and was in his lap, moving up and down in little crescent moon movements. Concrete Blonde was singing ‘Take Me Home’ and James let Bridget control the pace. He closed his eyes, felt the rhythm of her hips, and knew he loved everything about this woman.