Chapter 15

Friday, January 14th, 2022
Boston, Massachusetts

As I landed in Boston, while we were taxiing to the gate, I took the time to review the information that Jan had given me about the hotel and car rental. Apparently I was staying in a hotel attached to the airport, the Hilton, and was renting from Hertz. I’m sure the Hilton room wouldn’t be available until this afternoon so I’d be getting back to it later.

Directly across the aisle from me was an Army Captain traveling in uniform. He looked like he might be in the Military Police, but I didn’t know enough about Army insignia to tell if that was the case or not. Overall his presence just said “Cop” to me for some reason, but I could easily have been mistaken. I knew I still needed a persona to use for dealing with Paul V, and I thought this guy would work fine. Carl got a good look at him and I knew that we could recreate it easily enough.

After deplaning, I headed to the baggage claim area and got my suitcase, then made my way to the Rental Car Center. Jan had reserved a town car for me, but considering where I was headed I opted to switch to a Jeep Cherokee with 4-wheel drive as an option instead.

The drive was simply beautiful more or less right after clearing the Boston Metro area. Almost two hours of driving through winter in New England later I pulled into a rest area that was about 10 miles from Thetford. There had been recent snow, but the roads were plowed and salted so driving conditions were fine. Simply gorgeous countryside, even when viewed from largely Interstate roads.

Grabbing my backpack I headed into the men’s room and used the large handicaped stall to change into Daniel’s body and clothes. I worked with Carl to put the Army guy’s head on Daniel’s body. In review it worked well, but I thought we should make a few minor changes to it. The man was in his mid-to-late 30’s and I liked that, but thought his Dark black hair would look better going gray. We gave him a lot of white in the very short hair at his temples and salt and pepper over the rest. I thickened his jaw and slightly brought his eyes closer together. Combined with the tight flat-top hairstyle, I thought it all gave him an even more stern look. The man’s name tag had said Jacobs on it, but the name didn’t work for me. Carl agreed, and we settled on calling him Capp, short for Captain.

Back in the car, I soon arrived in Thetford and made my way to the Pompanoosuc Mills factory and showroom. It wasn’t hard to find. I expected Paul V would be here on a Friday morning, and I figured I might be able to talk my way into a tour.

The road the factory was on was well plowed, but the driveway into the place looked like it was made of gravel and hadn’t been plowed if the dirty tracks were any indication. Lots of traffic in and out had packed things down pretty well though so I didn’t have any real trouble with it. I just took it slowly. There had been some traffic in what looked like the guest parking area, but nobody was there currently besides me.

When I entered the showroom I was approached and welcomed by a nice looking woman who asked me if I wanted some coffee.

I said, “That sounds just about perfect Ma’am. I’d appreciate a cup.”

She smiled and said, “Not from around here then?”

I hadn’t intended to do it, the “Ma’am” to my mind was just kind of a polite way of speaking to a woman, no doubt an unconscious carry-over from the mental image of Capp being in the military. But since I’d already started, I went with it and decided Capp was gonna be southern.

I leaned into a bit of a drawl and said, “No Ma’am, I hail from Virginia. I happened to be in this neck of the woods on business and I have been a fan of your fine furniture for a while. I noticed from your website that there was a showroom here and just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to stop by.”

She reached out her hand and said, “I’m glad you did. I’m Caroline, and I’d be happy to show you around.”

I took her hand and thought, [What the hell, why not? Carl, medium pull please.]

I saw her needle spike from a little over a one to a four as I shook her hand and said, “It’s nice to meet you Caroline, people call me Capp. I’d love to take you up on that.” She led me over to a coffee pot and we fixed our drinks. She apparently wanted one too.

She asked, “Were you in the service?”

I said, “Yes Ma’am, for quite a few years. The haircut kinda stuck, if you know what I mean. Some old habits die hard.”

She replied, “I understand. My father was in the Army, he still wears his hair the same way. By the way, thank you for your service.”

I nodded, “Thank you, but since your father was a soldier, I’d wager he would tell you that he was only doing his job. Most soldiers I’ve known feel the same anyway. I know I certainly got paid for my time, so we all were just doing what had to be done.”

She agreed and we started looking at furniture as we chatted. After we had been through more than half of the showroom I asked, “Hey, is there any chance I could get a tour of the factory area?”

She said, “Let me call a friend of mine back there and see if he’s busy.” She stepped into an office and picked up a phone while I hung out by a really nice roll-top desk on display.

Caroline returned and gestured for me to follow her. We made our way through the door in the back and into some offices overlooking a huge warehouse and shop area. I was introduced to a large bearded man who looked to be in his early 50s with a lot of laugh lines around his eyes.

Caroline said, “Capp, I want you to meet Gary Martin. Gary is the head forman around here and he told me he’d be happy to show you around.”

I shook Gary’s hand and said, “Hi Gary, I really appreciate this.”

He replied, “I’m glad to do it. We’re justifiably proud of the work we do here at Pompy. Let’s get you some safety gear and I’ll walk you through.”

Caroline said, “I’ll leave you in his capable hands. Stop by and see me before you leave Capp, I want to make sure you got everything you need.”

Gary had me put on ear plugs, safety glasses, and a hard hat before we started our tour. There was a lot of noise to talk over as saws and planers and sanding machines were in constant operation around us. Carl pointed out Paul about halfway down the work area, he looked like he was assembling a dresser, if I had to guess.

Gary had been talking about the history of the company and how long they had been in business, as well as the wide range of wood they used. When we got to Paul’s area I asked Gary, “So do your craftsmen go through an apprenticeship process?”

He replied, “They do, Paul here is just about to finish a four year apprenticeship from a master craftsman. He’ll be a journeyman in his own right and we’ll move him on to bigger and better things here in the shop.”

I shook Paul’s hand as he came over to join the conversation when his name was mentioned. I said, “Nice to meet you Paul, how long have you been working here?”

He said, “Since I got out of High School. This was my first job, if you don’t count working at McDonalds for gas money while still in school, and I don’t.”

I laughed and said, “Hey, I did that myself. You know, I’ve got a son about your age and I know he would love to turn his woodworking hobby into a career. Can I pick your brain some? I’m staying in a hotel near here for a few days and I’ve got nothing better planned this evening. Maybe I can buy you a beer or two and pass on some useful info to him.”

Paul looked at Gary and said, “Tonights no good for me. I have a date with a certain young lady that I would hate to disappoint.”

Gary said, “You better not. I’ll never hear the end of it. Paul happens to be dating my niece. My wife would make my life miserable if she got wind that you left Marjorie hanging just so you could go out drinking.”

I laughed and said, “Well I can certainly understand that.”

Gary continued, “Capp do you have lunch plans?”

I said, “No sir, I was just going to stop at the first place that looked good.”

He turned to Paul and said, “Paul why don’t you take an extended lunch and show Capp the Latham House Tavern. He can pick your brain and you can keep my wife off my ass.”

We both chuckled and agreed. I asked, “What time is your lunch, Paul?”

He said, “I usually take it around noon, but I can be flexible.”

I replied, “I’m sure I can find the Tavern easy enough, and I have a few things I’d like to handle first. Can I meet you there a little after 12? It’s only around 10 o’clock now and that will give me plenty of time.”

Paul said, “You’re on. I’m driving a dark green Dodge Ram.”

I told him, “I’m in a gray Jeep Cherokee. See you there.”

Gary and I finished up the tour in short order and I thanked him for the time. I made my way back to the showroom and Caroline found me looking at the last couple rows.

She asked about the tour and I said, “It was great, I appreciate you setting that up.”

Carl sent me an image of her and her gauge showed an arousal level of 3 still. Carl had been taking advantage of the draw since we got in range of her and we were nearly topped off from our change into Capp earlier.

We flirted lightly some more as we finished the showroom and I thanked her for her time. She handed me her card and told me to call her if I had any other questions. I glimpsed at the back and saw that she had written “Call me.” and her phone number on the back of the card. I smiled and kissed her cheek as I left, thanking her for all of her help.

I headed to the Tavern to make sure that I knew where it was and I found a grocery store parking lot nearby that I pulled into. I had to do some further thinking about how I wanted to approach this.

I could try to buy it from him, but I had no reason to believe he might be prone to doing something like that. In fact I didn’t get that vibe at all from him. He seemed to be a likable, straight shooting person. I put the success rate of that plan as a low chance of success.

I could steal his wallet. I had no skill in doing something like that in an undetectable manner. So the best way to directly make that happen would be to mug him. I could probably beat the tar out of him if I used a shock and awe approach, but I didn’t want to hurt him. Actually, I kind of liked the guy already.

Thinking of mugging him got me to consider the idea of separation between my personas a little more closely. This vehicle was rented by Roman, and paid for by Jan. I needed to keep it well away from anything I did. Thinking back there was probably some video footage somewhere of Roman walking into the rest area bathroom and Capp walking out too. That was too sloppy. Very low chance of it ever being noticed, but it was still too sloppy. I would have to do better in the future. Capp would need to be squeaky clean in the meantime too.

I could follow him and try to steal his wallet when he was sleeping. Potentially risky, but it seemed like that would have a higher chance of success than the other approaches. I wished we had more success with the mind skills yesterday. I got out of the car and entered the store, grabbing a cart to push as I went. I stopped in front of a small reading section where there were a lot of magazines and a few books. Well within Carl’s range there was a bored looking teenager at one of the registers, waiting for someone to be processed.

I asked Carl, [What happens if you drive the camera into someone’s head?]

He said, [I’ve tried that, it’s just dark until I come out the other side, sometimes there is a red tint if I’m near the surface.]

I sent, [Okay, but how about if once you are in there, you try to imagine hearing what the person is thinking. Or maybe get the camera inside and then try expanding to fill his skull. Hell, maybe picture a new kind of connection jacking into their head like Neo in the Matrix. Try some variants of those kinds of things.]

Carl sent, [I’ve tried the first two before, but I like the Matrix idea, let me try that.]

I reached for a copy of Field and Stream that had a nice Bass boat on the cover and started flipping through it. I glanced over at the cashier and he wasn’t moving. Like not moving at all.