Rich Man

Strings of data sped through my mind as if a power point on a film strip was being run right before my eyes. The information came quickly, but with the skillful grace of a dancer and the calculated genius of a micro-physicist. Every single fact came to light the instant it was brought to my attention.

Blake Wheeler was an open book.

He smirked in my direction, unleashing a cacophony of observations to blossom in my head. Body language is hunched. eyes are awake. Mouth is lazy. Doesn't match the eyes-thinks he's got my attention. Cocky, no-arrogant. Both. Takes more than three second to blink-thinking too much. Disorganized, restless, impulsive- Thinks he's got me figured out. Over confident, but those eyes-sly, not surprised. No question of my identity. Knows me? No-knows my character. Did his homework. Can play the calculation game. Witty, still over-confident, sly.

Mister Wheeler, meet your maker.

“I'm-”

“Ray, I know. Except Lex never told me you'd be-”

“Fortunate-looking? Sure, sure. She never told me you'd be so forward, especially since you're taken.”

For a moment, the boy's eyes seemed to narrow, but the look immediately melted into his relaxed stare. “It's not a crime to be honest.”

Underestimates. Trap him?

“But it should be a crime to compliment your girl's cousin.”

“You read too far into that,” he returned rather quickly.

Nervous, unplanned, disorganized, still too confident. Make him think he can trust you. Give him the bait he'll readily take.

“Do I?” I asked with a near blank face, which quickly turned into a small laugh. My hand instantly shot out for a shake. “Relax, kiddo, I'm just messing with you. I know you guys are in love and all that; no need to explain yourself. Great game, by the way.”

“Oh-er-thanks,” he replied. I commended his ability to hide that nervousness behind his half-closed eyelids whenever he smiled or let out a small laugh. “So you're staying with Lex for how long?”

A decent actor-Guard stays up at all times. Not quick, just street-smart. Curious about me? No, just cautious.

“Few months while some shit gets sorted out. Crazy ex-boyfriend. You get it.”

The boy's mouth formed a small 'o', eyes bearing down into mine with sympathy, maybe even a tinge of genuine worry. “Well you're in good hands. Me and the guys are around a lot so you're safe. Maybe I should give you my cell number, actually. That way if anything goes down you have me on speed dial.”

Eyes vacant of sympathy. Hunger-an empty void. Womanizer.

“Man, you're still pulling that old trick?” another voice, male, sounded from behind me. “I mean, you're right about being in good hands, but she can get our info from Lex. You know you shouldn't be flirting around, Blakey.” There was a certain laughable quality to this other voice that I couldn't quite place.

Genuinely happy-Breathing is rough, labored perha-

And then my thoughts silenced.

It's the guy from earlier. Damn it, Roark, do something. You look like a blithering idiot.

“See, I already told him not to flirt. What were your words Blake?” I asked in the most venomously kind voice I could muster, “Just being honest, right?”

The other man chuckled lightly from my left. “Wow, you must be pretty bad if this girl you just met is already calling you out, Blake. Maybe you should try being straight-up faithful to Lex?”

“Yeah, yeah, shut up, dude.”

Unlike his buddy, this one seemed to have more energy. Upright body language-Genuinely happy. Optimistic. Laugh has low pitch-eyes show-Darkness. Darkness? Deep but blank... But he's happy? My mind instantly began swimming with questions. Nothing my psychological knowledge amounted to could help me gather a reading. A simple reading was all that I wanted and yet studying this man, I found it impossible not to answer my own questions with oxymorons that got me nowhere.

Confusing. Welcome to my mind.

“Is there something wrong?” he asked, snapping me out of my stare.

“Oh, uh, sorry,” I panicked, shaking my head in a nervous minor bout of laughter. “Your eyes,” I instantly blurted, “They're nice.” Regain composure. Falter once and it'll only make it easier for you to do it again.

“Oh, thanks. I'm Patrice, by the way.”

“Call me Ray.”

--------

As predicted, the gentlemen had all decided on hitting the club scene. Was I the least bit surprised? No. After all, they weren't the slightest bit difficult to analyze and read. Honestly, they were all like walking billboards of their minds. Well, except for that one boy. Patrice was his name.

For a kid with the same name as my senior year English teacher, he sure was something different. It had been years since I screwed up that bad, since I let my guard down so low for that amount of time. It wasn't like I was expecting to have a rock thrown at me or something, but hey, when your guard is down then your guard is down. Anything could happen.

Even so, it irked me, to say the least, that such a little detail could get me so wound up. Never in all my career had I failed so miserably at reading someone, but I guess that was to be expected. After all, this was also the first time I had encountered someone with such contradicting features. If it weren't for the fact that I knew he wasn't one, I'd have thought he was some sort of trained liar.

While his entire body read alert, intelligent, and happy, his eyes threw me completely in the opposing direction. One of the basics of reading a person is through his or her eyes. In this case, his eyes were either the windows to his soul, or a completely misleading barrier I couldn't get passed.

Just the thought of being unable to read another person gave me the chills.

Yet there I sat, in the guest bedroom of Lex's place, staring at the blank white wall from my bed contemplating every possible detail of this odd boy's personality. “Hand shake is firm, but not dominating. The back of my hand ended up facing the ceiling. He isn't calculated in personality and obviously isn't domineering. His forehead had no defined lines in it indicating her doesn't raise his eyebrows a lot. Calm-He's calm and subtly smart. Kid's got a humor on him, though. First quiet comedian I've had in awhile... Those eyes.” I fell back onto the cool bed beside my suitcase. “Those are something. So contradictory to his entire being... Soft yet with an underlying intensity I can't place. Not to mention a weird cross between tired and innocent. Note to self,” I yawned, “Be able to profile this kid inside and out by the end of the week.”

-------

If I would have known exactly what this week had in store for me, I probably wouldn't have made such a stupid goal.

“So... Exactly what is it we're doing?” I asked with one of my classic annoyed stares. It was the kind I used only when someone was about to propose something totally ridiculous or completely irrelevant to my job. This was one of those moments.

Lex walked beside me decked out in a pair of over-sized Chanel sunglasses. Her blonde locks were curled and pressed into a messy bun sitting low on the back of her skull. “We're finding you a job.”

“You're fucking kidding me, right?”

“Not at all,” she grinned, “I was thinking something artsy so you can work with me. That's why we're going out right now to get you a nice camera.”

“I drive a four-fifty k car. You don't honestly expect them to believe that shit and no, that's not a question. Seriously, you need to just let me do my thing.”

“Well it's a bit hard for me to do that when not even I knew what your alias is! And you're supposed to be my cousin!” she whined, which immediately made me roll my eyes.

“I'm a twenty-four-year-old psychobiologist currently working as the 24-hour private therapist to some very powerful people who pay me all too well. The rest is patent confidentiality. If they don't like that answer, they can shove their suspicions up their asses.”

“Suspicions?”

“Yeah, suspicions. People are weird these days. Think everybody's out to get 'em.”

“Well I'm just trying to make it easier,” she defended, obviously getting a bit agitated with me. Who wouldn't? I couldn't blame her. I was always conscious of my conceited tone, vindictive nature in full form almost every waking moment. I had to be frustrating at least.

“Yeah, well, you should just leave the work to me. I appreciate the added effort, though. You have no idea how many I jobs I get where nobody gives me a speck of crucial information because they're terrified I'm going to screw something up. I mean, come on. What was I hired for again?”

There was a brief moment of silence then, “Your job must get lonely.”

My ears perked at this unfamiliar set of words. “Lonely?”

“Do you ever get emotionally involved with your clients?”

“Never. It's part of the job. Getting involved emotionally would screw everything up.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Why is that relevant?”

“Because I'm making a point of your job and social isolation-”

Wow, big words over here.

“-and that maybe you need to just relax. Either that or get laid.”

And there we sink back to normal.

“Getting laid wouldn't help shit. Unlike the vast majority of the imbecilic sex-driven morons that inhabit the planet, I don't feel primal urges to do the horizontal tango.”

The woman laughed out loud. “Oh man, forgive me, but 'primal urges'? Where the hell did you learn to speak?!”

“Excuse... Me?”

“Honey, you talk like you've memorized a script.”

“That's just the way I speak,” I countered, raising a slightly confused eyebrow. It wasn't a bad thing that I had a decently large vocabulary that saw daylight on a daily basis. Time for seriousness again. I've had enough of this. “Look. I really just want to get to work on fixing up this whole charade. The faster I learn this Wheeler kid inside and out and the quicker he trusts me, the better.”

Her eyes slightly widened followed by an distrusting, skeptical stare. The woman then ran a hand through her short hair, straightening out and splitting up some of the loose curls. “Look, just please don't hurt Avery. She's been going through so much lately and the last thing we need is for her to go on suicide watch.”

“Elaborate more on the girl. I need to know as much about her as possible anyway.”

“Well, she comes from a pretty screwed up family. Her father was abusive, mom was always drunk. She put herself through college and met Blakey frosh year. They've been at it on and off ever since,” the girl briefly explained, all the while digging through her Juicy purse in desperate search of something.

The moment we approached a Camera World, I prepared my wallet for a minor beating. I needed a decent camera anyway. “Alright, go on.”

Finally digging her small Gucci wallet from the depths of the bag, Lex replied, “Well what do you want to know?”

The consumer grin slapped across my face could apparently be seen through walls because before I could even approach the front counter, a man came out to greet me and attempt to sell me any and everything in the store. I decided to just shut him up fast with, “Get me the best professional-grade camera you have for sale. Price tag is unimportant.” With that, he rather too excitedly scampered off to fetch my new toy. It was then that I turned to Lex. “Give me everything you know about her parents and what she was like before Blake. And only the facts. Guesses are just wrong answers we subconsciously throw out to hear ourselves yap.”

The man returned shortly with a rather large box. From the inside, he pulled a very flashy, large camera with a lens that was nearly the length of my arm. I removed it gently from his hands and inspected it for the tiniest scratch Once finished, I handed him back the thing and told him I'd pay in cash.

“Please tell me you don't always carry that much money on you all the time.”

“Yeah, actually I do.”

“You just dropped like three grand back there. Is that even legal?”

“Well even if it wasn't, I gave him proof of my profession, which makes paying in cash a lot more probable. Anyway, tell me about her family?”

Lex stared at her feet as one glided in front of the other down the nearly empty sidewalk. “Her parents got married young because her mom was pregnant with her. I wanna say they were fresh outta high school, but I could be wrong.”

“No guessing. Just facts.”

“Right, sorry... Um... Well, I know her mom went to the hospital because of alcohol poisoning when she was ten. Her dad blamed her for like all of her mom's problems and one random day he just started hitting her. It became obvious she needed to leave and start life on her own when he nearly killed her with a beer bottle when she was fifteen so she moved in with her grandma in Boston. She graduated highschool early at like seventeen, I think, and then she went into BU majoring something like biochemistry.”

“So she's a smart girl?” It was more a statement than question.

Lex nodded and replied, “Oh yeah, Avery is way smart. You'll prolly like talking to her. She seems like she'll be able to keep up with you.”

“Probably. I took a biochem class back in the day, so we'll have something to talk about. Remember that this little trip and talk of ours, it never happened. We walk and talk together, yes, but about shopping and movies, not this girls private life. As far as everyone goes, you don't tell me a thing about them. Got it?”

“Got it.”