Definition: "hubristic, adj.; of or relating to hubris; overly arrogant or self-confident;" usage: "a hubristic belief in his own self-proclaimed genius"
I've come to realize that virtually all of my stories are a female's first person narration. I thought that I'd try something different; a male first person account with a female as the protagonist.
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As I sat listening to an apparently very wealthy prospective client, with the pretentious name of Tobias Richmond von Berswordt-Wallrabe, drone on I was starting to zone out due to boredom when suddenly a two word phrase and a photo snapped me back to reality. The phrase was "substantial bonus" and the photo was of one of the most intriguing women I had ever seen in my life.
My name is Patrick Drake -- no, not Paul Drake, although I was a Perry Mason fan as a kid -- and I'm a high priced Private Investigator. I'm not one of those flea-bitten, barely-able-to-make-ends-meet, rubes you see on trashy TV shows. I wear $2,000 suits (unless incognito), get $100 haircuts, and belong to a cushy country club. I got my creds working as an NYC police detective liaison with Scotland Yard and had the best solve rate of any detective in the history of any large metropolitan police force in the US. I "retired" at the young age of 40 and started my own high-end practice. I pride myself on being the highest paid PI in the country -- at least that I know of. I have a staff of twenty but always involve myself in the most difficult cases.
Once I was awakened from my lethargy by the aforementioned phrase and photograph I cut to the chase. "I don't usually do domestic investigations," that's a euphuism for cheating spouse inquiries, "but I can tell that you're a cultured man and in a bind. Let me ask some pointed questions."
"Please proceed," Toby (that's what I'll call him except to his face) replied, crossing his legs like an ancient duke or some such royalty.
"First tell me about the woman in the photo -- I assume that is your wife," I said, staring at the photo and then looking Toby in the eye. The woman in the photo was not the most beautiful woman I had ever seen; but WOW was she alluring. She was dressed in a stylish business suit with an unnecessarily short skirt without a hair or iota of makeup out of place. Her blouse and suit jacket could not hide her seemingly massive mammaries, however. Her legs looked sculptured and her expression was confident and superior. What was most striking, however, were her eyes. They were the closest to YInMn Blue that I'd ever seen outside of an inorganic crystal -- the most intense blue color known.
"Priscilla" [of course she had to have a haughty name] "is a very intelligent and accomplished woman. She has been rich most of her life -- not as rich as I am, but very rich. She is thirty five years old, has a Masters in Economics from Oxford and a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from MIT. Although she doesn't need to work because both she and I are so wealthy she insists on working as a consultant in a company that she is one of the principal partners of doing troubleshooting for corporations and institutions that have financial difficulties."
"Why did you marry her?" I cut to the chase.
"Because of her physical beauty, intelligence, and because she is the most prim and proper person I have ever met in my life. She never uses crude language of any type, is stoic in interpersonal relationships, never wears any clothing -- even for exercise which she endeavors at least five times a week -- that doesn't have a crease in it, and never even sweats -- she glows," Toby replied, seemingly getting starry eyed while he talked.
"What makes you suspect that she is cheating?"
"I can't really articulate it. My ancestors were known for having a keen sixth sense and I have had a number of situations in my life that lead me to believe that I inherited that sixth sense. I would say that the main reason, however, is that in the last two years she has transitioned from being a great -- although entirely proper -- lover to as hot as the best high-priced call girls I used to hire before I met her," Toby responded, turning red after his last statement.
I chuckled to myself "Most guys would accept their wife being hotter than a firecracker and not care about the origin; but I guess when you have the perceived social standing of Toby you need to be concerned." To him I said, "OK, let me have everything you know about her schedule, some more photographs of her, and a list of her friends and places that she frequents even if not on a schedule."
I have to give Toby credit; he came prepared. I got all of the information I needed, some of which surprised me. The most surprising thing -- he didn't know if she had any female friends. He named a few acquaintances including a couple of women she knew at the gym that she often worked out at -- but she never did anything with female "friends."
Finally I gave him my fee schedule and asked about the "substantial bonus" he had indicated. The response "$100,000" was music to my ears. He signed a contract that one of my secretaries generated, gave me an advance of $40,000, gave me the phone number I should call or text to him on, and we shook hands as he exited my office.
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After Toby left I called in my most experienced male (William) and female (Cheryl) operatives and had them get to work on all of the preliminary stuff. Since I wanted to be sure to get the performance bonus I would be working with the two of them -- and anyone else we might need to bring into the investigation later -- to make sure we were successful. A tracker was immediately put on her car, to the extent possible we put small remote-controlled wireless cameras at various locations where she might go, and we started background investigations of her partners and co-workers at her office.
I guess that I was too confident the first two weeks of the investigation. Either I, or one of my experienced operatives, followed Priscilla around. She always seemed to wear very colorful -- although still entirely proper -- clothes when she went to her office or to visit clients, including often wearing a distinctive hat and sunglasses. She seemed so easy to follow that I got careless. It wasn't until the end of the second week when I followed her from her office to a client's office that I realized my mistake.
I got a good close-up look at the woman who had gone from Priscilla's office to what I assumed was a client's office. While she was virtually the same size and shape as Priscilla -- although not as well-endowed in the chest area -- and with exactly the same clothes on it wasn't Priscilla. That meant that the last two weeks' work was virtually worthless since we had followed her body double rather than her several times.
If Priscilla employed a body double that made her activities very suspicious. Although we noticed nothing untoward the first two weeks that was now meaningless -- she could have been fucking an entire football team for all that we knew.
Once we caught on to Priscilla's body double scheme we tried to penetrate her office environment. We bribed the guy who serviced the plants and bribed the woman who serviced the enormous fish tank in the reception area to wear and plant cameras; I had employees dress as messengers, and tried every other thing that we could think of.
I know, the cameras -- at least the planted ones -- aren't legal but I made sure that I had supported deniability. Actually, the cameras didn't help much, and in one way hurt.
They didn't help much because I didn't see anything going on in Priscilla's office area that was obviously suspect, although she was visited in her personal office by several men that were distinguished looking and handsome; however, they had every indication of actual clients of her company, especially the way they were treated by the staff. The plant guy was able to get a look into her personal office once, and it was just what you would expect of a high class office -- except for a solid side door that wasn't accounted for on the floor plan we received (purloined) from the workplace of the architect that designed it.
Priscilla was always prim and proper. After a while, though, it seemed that the only chance she had for shenanigans was either when she was travelling, in her personal office itself (unlikely), or at the health club on the first floor of her office building that she went to every day that her body double left the building at the same time that she went to the health club.
The bad thing that the cameras did was to give me the reaction that I had to seeing Priscilla all of the time. She may have been a prim and proper bitch -- but she had a sultriness about her that was overpowering, at least to me. It's not good when you dream about fucking (in a sexual way, not "fucking over") a target of a cheating spouse investigation.
A got a membership in the swanky health club that Priscilla went to and with what I thought was a good disguise -- it had always worked for me before -- went there to observe her about a third of the time that she patronized the health club. I also had to get memberships for my operatives Cheryl and William who worked with me on the "Priscilla Project" since even with my disguise I didn't want to go every day, and each of us observing a third of the time should allow us to witness almost everything.
Half of the time that Priscilla went to her health club she had a vigorous workout for about 45 minutes -- it was easy to see how she kept a hard body considering how hard she worked -- but then seemed to disappear for another hour and ten minutes; then, having showered, she returned to her office. Despite our best efforts all that the three of us could determine was that there likely was a private normally inaccessible area of the health club that she disappeared into.
