A Treasure of Their Own

  ***************

  While they were eating breakfast, Diego outlined their plans for the day. He was going to meet with the other three martial arts studios that would be involved in the tournament. Each studio would send two trainees. The tournament would be single elimination. Each contestant was allowed only one loss. Tomorrow there would be four matches, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. The next day, the four winners would face off, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The two final contestants would meet the third day at noon to determine the winner of the tournament.

  Diego didn’t schedule any sparring for Arthur. He wanted him to rest. That gave the gang plenty of time to take a lot of pictures of Arthur and whomever, mostly Mayumi. Hopefully, when Arthur, Pedro, Diego and company went up to the mountain village to check on them, Mayumi could send a couple of pictures at a time and describe the activities to Marci and Olivia. If the terrorists were intercepting their e-mails, the hope was that it would throw them off as to his whereabouts. Of course to make the ruse more effective, they each took five different colored shirts along.

  The morning was spent goofing off around the house. They took pictures of Arthur and everybody doing the stuff you would normally think guys, and a gal, would be doing. They got shots of everybody playing basketball, chess, pool, and of course, riding the bikes.

  Around 11 a.m., Diego called them inside for an early lunch before sending them into the city of Manila with orders to take about two months of pictures in one afternoon. As the youngsters began clambering into Diego’s van, Terri Givens was watching from her living room window. She called to her husband, “Steve, if you’re going to take that banana pudding over to Diego, you’d better hurry. They’re all outside at the moment.”

  “OK,” Steve replied. He had just taken two steaks off the grill and he gingerly put them onto two awaiting plates on the patio table. He quickly turned the grill off and stepped into the kitchen and got out the banana pudding he had made the night before. “Boy, howdy, that sure looks good.” He stepped to the front door and opened it just in time to see the van coming out of the driveway. With an overblown wave of his hand, he tried to show the van load of hooligans the present he had for them. In their haste to get away from the house, they just thought he was waiving ‘goodbye’ to them. So they blew the horn and went on.

  He looked toward their house and Diego and his wife were still on the front steps watching the kids drive off. He whistled and got Diego’s attention. “Diego,” he yelled, “meet me half-way. I’ve got a present for you.”

  When Diego turned around, he saw Steve waving the banana pudding in the air. “Bless his heart, liver and soul,” he said as he rubbed his hands together. “My good neighbor, Steve, has made another banana pudding for us. And, the guys just passed him as he was bringing it to us. God has smiled upon us again, my Dear.” He leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

  “And I’ll get out the bowls,” she added. “If we’re going to have any of it at all, we’d better get some of it now while those vultures are gone.”

  As the neighbors walked toward each other, Diego called to him, “Steve, you are the best neighbor in this hood, man.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere, my brother,” he shot back. As they got closer, he continued in a lower tone of voice, “This one has got a little surprise in the middle.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, sir,” Steve said as he placed the dish in Diego’s waiting hands. “There’s a dvd wrapped in a sandwich Ziploc baggie in the middle of it. I set up my own surveillance camera and got some great stills and videos of the vacant house next door that seems to be being renovated. You need to see this.”

  Diego was about to question Steve, when they heard Terri yelling at their dog, “Emma! Emma! Stop that! Don’t you…….”

  Steve watched in disbelief as Terri’s cute little beagle headed towards the woods with a juicy steak flopping in her mouth. Steve hung his head and sighed. After ten agonizing seconds of silence, he finally asked in flat even tones, “Diego, do you happen to have an extra bowl at your house and would you mind inviting me over?”

  Diego chuckled within himself and said, “Sure I do, my friend. C’mon, let’s share some while the kids aren’t here to hog it all. That way we can discuss the prize in the middle.”

  Steve walked with Diego to his house without looking back while Terri looked on and just giggled.

  Chapter Sixteen