Chuck
This morning was going to be a normal morning. That is, if there is such a thing as a normal morning in the zoo I call home. After I woke up, I slipped on my peg, drained my accumulated overnight bloat, and went outside to form and relax.
While I was moving to each new position this morning, instead of music, I was putting together a plan. I wanted to gather all of the IDs with safe deposit keys and visit each location to move the assets to a single location. I already had begun using the local bank, so that should be okay.
I had another idea as to how to handle the gold. If I were to change the gold into the currency of a South American country, then slowly transfer funds back to the U.S., it wouldn't be terribly suspicious. I could transfer the funds directly into one of Ben Phillips' accounts. For that matter, he may have accounts in banks in South America. He does have a home in Costa Rica. He is someone I needed to talk to right away.
My plan was to gather the assets, transfer account funds from each account into Ben's accounts and pay taxes as if it were income. That would eliminate all of the miscellaneous accounts and Ben could work on disposing of the houses.
At breakfast, I asked Wanda, "I have a bunch of running around to do. Do you think I could get a leave of absence or another vacation?"
Wanda asked, "Could you combine your personal business with visits to offices? If you could, you could travel all you wanted and no one would question you. You might get interrupted with an emergency somewhere, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem."
"Okay, sounds good, we'll handle it that way," I said. "I'll try to get together an itinerary and you can alert the offices."
The first thing I did was to run to the bank at eight thirty and get into the safe deposit box. I pulled out a bar of gold, a bundle of money, the IDs I had left in there, and the envelopes that I had gathered from the other boxes. From the office, I brought home all the correspondence that I had gathered so I could work on it.
Once home, I called Ben and asked him if he could come see me. He asked, "Can't you come to the office? I have a busy day today."
"Okay, I don't want to, but I'll be there in a half hour. I need you as an attorney as well as financial advisor today."
A half-hour later, I was sitting in Ben's conference room. While I waited for Ben, I looked over the room and discovered two cameras, so I'm sure the room had recording capabilities as well. When Ben came in and greeted me I said, "Can we go get a cup of coffee together?"
"I'll have a secretary get us some," as he reached for a phone.
I put my hand on his arm and said, "Please, let's go out for some."
Ben's sharp and he understood. We walked out through the office where he advised his staff he would be out for a while.
As soon as we were alone in a descending elevator, I asked, "Are the cameras and recording devices always on in your conference room?"
Ben looked shocked, but then thought about it and said, "You may be right. They may be on all the time."
"Ben," I said firmly, making sure to get his attention, "What I need to talk to you about is very confidential, and for this part of our conversation no one, and I mean no one, should be told any part of it."
Ben said, "If you're in trouble I can get you good representation."
"I'm not in trouble. As a matter of fact, I've discussed this with my immediate supervisor. That's why I'm going to do what I'm going to do."
"Then what's so confidential?"
"Let's sit so you can listen for a little bit."
We went to a coffee shop and found a place in the corner that was empty and away from windows. With our coffee on the table, I began. "Ben, I must have your absolute assurance that everything I tell you will remain between you and me."
Ben nodded and said, "You've been a good client for a while now, and I'm proud to manage your assets. Anything you want to have remain confidential will be so."
I sighed, then said, "To begin with, sometimes my job requires me to do some strange things. Sometimes bad people are eliminated, but their elimination goes unheard of because these people have spent years assuming multiple identities. Their true identity can't even be traced. They could be a foreign agent, or just someone that became one of the people out there that perform dirty deeds, but not dirt cheap."
"This just happened. The person that is no longer around had multiple identities, and everywhere he established an identity, he owned a house and had a bank account with a safe deposit box."
I opened my briefcase and showed him a rubber banded set of IDs for Key West. Also in the case was a banded bundle of hundreds. I lifted out the bar of gold and said, "Each of the safe deposit boxes has lots of this in them. At least, I suspect the ones I haven't visited yet do also."
Ben handled the bar of gold gently then placed it back in my briefcase. He took the ID set, looked through it, and said, "If you had a big beard like the picture, this could be you."
"Ben, I've already been to a bank, used the IDs, gained access to the accounts, and removed the cash and gold from a safe deposit box. The lady at the bank thinks I look much better without the beard. As you can see, the signature isn't scribbled, but is in legible script. I was able to copy the signature and sign it easily. It was accepted."
Ben was squirming, "What do you want me to do for you?"
"I want to have the house in Key West transferred into my name or to a holding company. You said you already set up a holding company for some of my investments. In some cases, I want you to sell the house to the family who lives in it now. After that, I want you to help me transfer money from the checking and savings accounts into my investment account. I will gladly pay taxes on these new assets. Can you do that?"
Ben nodded and asked, "What are you going to do with the cash and gold?"
"You can probably help there. I was thinking of possibly setting up accounts in a South American country and putting the gold there. I could do the cash too, but I think I might be able to make a lot of the cash from gambling proceeds. Again, your advice would be appreciated."
"You're as bad as those sports people. They get all kinds of offshore money that they don't want to report. They finally do report it and pay taxes on it, but they cry. At least you're willing to pay taxes. Actually, if you can get the cash and gold to Costa Rica, I'll set up multiple bank accounts and we can transfer money back to your accounts here. Since the deposits will be going into investment accounts, you'll have to pay taxes on it as income from a foreign source, and of course, taxes on any gains."
Ben asked, "Is this more than a million?"
I nodded, "Lots more."
Ben smiled, "You're like Steve. He can't pick up a penny without it turning into a gold coin. I can do this, so tell me about the Key West house."
"The place is just a three bedroom ranch style about two blocks from the water. It's nothing spectacular but it would be a great place for you to use for a weekend or a week. Let me know and I'll make sure the place is ready for you. I have a housekeeper/manager watching the place for me. It has a pool and a very nice open yard that's landscaped without grass. I advised the housekeeper of my name yesterday, telling her that I had previously used a fictitious name. I want to open a checking account down there so she can have money for property upkeep and to pay for landscaping, pool care, and any service man needed. I'll probably set her up with a checking account so she can pay the household utilities. That way, I won't have to worry about the place. We'll just go down and use it when we want."
"I'll get a power of attorney for you to sign for this property. I'll contact an attorney in Key West. You'll have to give him a power of attorney, and I won't see you sign it, or know you did that. I'll just handle the transaction by sending money to the attorney who will put it into the new account that we will transfer from your investment account. You can do the transfer online. I see on this card a couple of passwords. I'm sure this one is the banking password. This short one here is for the ATM. Have you tried it?"
I said, "I did and it worked."
Sitting back I asked, "If there are houses in other states, can you handle those? I would probably just sell them real cheap to whoever is in them now. To help with the purchase, I could carry the mortgage."
"Sure, Chuck, the same as the Key West place. You'll have to go to the city where the house is and sign a power of attorney to get rid of property."
"Good deal, Ben. Let's work on the Key West account while I try to find out what's really out there. Tell me when you will be in Costa Rica and I'll bring you some of these assets."
Ben said, "Bring as much as you can. The bankers down there love to deal with liquid assets. They'll make a bunch off your deposits until they are all transferred. You'll be popular. Perhaps you could buy the condo next to mine. It's pretty big, bigger than mine by a lot, but you could take Steve and his family down sometimes. You have quite a group at your place too, right? At least you've set up trusts for children yet to be born."
"I do have a lot of people at home, Ben. They are planning on a new place in the back part of Steve's property. It should be something spectacular. It should be complete by this summer."
Ben said, "Okay, now I see why you wanted me to come to your place. Tell you what. Next time you have something like this to discuss, just tell me that you're the client and you want me to come to you. I'll get your drift. I have to do that with Steve and Sue all the time."
We shook hands and we went up to his offices where I signed a few power of attorney forms. Ben said he would talk to me more about our plan soon.
Back home, I began going through the mail. Everything that was this guy's responsibility was on direct payment. There was a tax bill for the Las Vegas property that was easy to handle. I called the county and used the debit card to make the taxes current. Almost everything else was bank statements and a couple of real credit card statements that showed the balances as having been paid.
I made up an Excel spreadsheet for each ID, entering the money that was in each checking and savings account. If all the bank statements from everywhere were correct, the guy had about eight million, under different names, spread all over the country. I counted a total of twenty-one different names and locations. All of them appeared to have a house or condo, since the statements had been mailed to a local address before being forwarded to Key West.
After getting out a map of the U.S. and marking each city that I needed to get to, I made an itinerary to go to at least two cities a day over a two week period. I marked the cities where I thought I should stop in at the Marshal's office and allowed a full day at those locations. It would take a little over two full weeks.
Now, I needed transportation. I would have loved to use my Lear, but I needed to use an aircraft that wasn't marked up so much. The Embraer had been easy to fly, so I thought I might just use that. It was painted with a single stripe down its side. I made a note to make sure we had it registered and went on from there.
I called the charter service and DeDe answered, I asked, "How's the convalescing going. Getting tired of the wheelchair yet?"
DeDe said, "That's right, I'll bet you spent a lot of time in a wheelchair."
"Off and on for about a year; you get used to it and it can get you into some places faster."
I paused then said, "DeDe, I want to use one of the new jets for a couple of weeks. Have you applied for registration?"
She answered, "John's already got all of the paperwork in. We're using the same N numbers unless they change them on us. Do you want to use one of those? They don't carry many people."
I said, "I'll be going alone, and I don't need the communications setups, so I don't need one of the Lears. I flew the Embraer back from Orlando to get checked out in it and it wasn't bad at all. How about I use that for a week and see how it does?"
"No problem, Chuck. Jimmy said it was a pretty neat aircraft. As a matter of fact, he took it up for a checkout this morning for about an hour. He said we all need to get checked out in both that and the Eclipse."
"The Eclipse is really a short range aircraft," I said. "It doesn't have a very good range at all. I'll fly the Embraer, and I'll beg if I need something more."
DeDe said, "You shouldn't have to beg to fly your own aircraft. If you need either one of the Lears, let me know. Here's Jimmy, let him tell you about the plane you want to fly."
Jimmy picked up a phone and said, "That's a fast little plane. It does over point eight mach and gets to altitude pretty fast. It seems to be fairly efficient too. I nosed around in the cabin and found a pull down screen that can be used for movies or as a PC screen. There is a full communications network on board. The other seats have plug in network connections. Are you going to make that your favorite toy?"
"No, I know the Lears are booked and folks like to fly on them. I'll take the Embraer, or should we just call it the Phenom or P-100?"
Jimmy said, "Any of those names will do. Do you want me to get it painted real quick?"
"I think for what I'm going to be doing for the next couple of weeks, a plain Jane bird would be best. Did you see anything that needs to be worked on?"
"Not really, the navigation system is pretty standard and everything works. Pay attention to everything and if you get antsy about anything, have it looked at or have me look at it if you're here. Maintenance also has a learning curve on the aircraft. The little Eclipse is pretty standard. I've been to school on both planes and worked on a lot of them. So, Chuck, when are you going to start rotary wing training?"
"Soon, I guess. I might be able to work it in between some of the visits I need to make. Thanks, Jimmy, I'll begin my journeys tomorrow morning."
I spoke to DeDe again to confirm tomorrow morning and hung up. I was ready, except that I needed to buy more of the cheap luggage. I went up to Wal-Mart and bought four of the same pieces of luggage I bought before, and four gym bags. I stopped at a Verizon store on the way back and picked up a dozen phone books. That should work."
My cell phone was going off. It was Ben Phillips, "Chuck, I have an attorney in Key West that will handle the transaction. All you have to do is walk in, show your identification, and sign the transfers. He'll call me with an appointment time after he does the title search. You'll have to pay him about two grand for everything. Don't forget to buy insurance down there. It may be difficult, but do it however you have to. I'll call you when he's ready."
"Thanks, Ben. I'll be out of town on and off, but I'll be near my cell."
I figured that I should have a change of clothes and toiletries in case I decided to stay over anywhere. My first stop was going to be St. Louis, and then on to Chicago. I would dress nicely, but not up, perhaps in a simple suit, with a white shirt and tie. Total non-descript.
All the IDs were now separated, so I practiced the two signatures needed for St. Louis and Chicago, and felt ready for the trip.
I went into the office and cleaned up a few pieces of correspondence, then gave Wanda my itinerary. She asked why I wouldn't visit with the St. Louis office and I said, "I can get there anytime. Chicago is in too much of a mess for me to wander into right now. I'm going to get my business done in both places and get home."
"What do you have to do?"
"Wanda," I said, with a very sober expression, "I'm still cleaning up from John's and my excursion. It's going to take me a couple of weeks, but it should be done by then. You know the drill."
She said, "You two must have been on something really cloaked. Not one word from anyone. The Marshal asked how you were doing a couple of days after you got back, but that's all. You be careful if you are still in danger on this."
"No danger, just investigating and cleaning up loose ends. It's all good."
I left the station and headed to the airpark. I found the bunch of new pilots and mechanics talking to Jimmy. He introduced me as one of the owners of the business, and one of the pilots said, "Yeah, you're the one that put all these aircraft on your credit card."
I said, "Something like that, but what I want to know, can I have an intro lesson on one of these aircraft that don't have wings?"
One of the pilots said, "Let me, and they do have wings. They just rotate. Do you want to go up in one of the toys or a real helicopter?"
"Whatever I should learn in," I said.
"Let's use the short Bell 206. You need to look for an old Hiller like an H-23 (civilian model was UH-12). Those were great trainers, hard to keep flying, but good trainers."
The guy was an experienced instructor. He got out the aircraft's logbook and a formal group of checklists. He said, "These are for memorization. You can't fly a helicopter and read a checklist at the same time. Both hands are busy. Now, when you begin flying, you'll probably want to fly from the right seat if you're right handed. Most of us can fly from either seat."
The man went through the preflight inspection in a very detailed manner. When we buckled up, he had me sit in the right seat, as he wanted me to become acclimated to sitting there.
He used a formal checklist and pointed out each step. The engine spool up was about the same as a Learjet, so that wasn't a big deal, except that I had to be careful to keep motoring the starter until the exhaust temperature stabilized. He did explain each control and each gauge. He said, "I know you fly the big birds, so I know you have experience flying. Some of the dumb flying stuff I'll just mention, but I will drill into you everything having to do with this type of aircraft. Again, you can't pick up a manual or checklist when you're busy or have even a minor emergency. Both hands are busy. The most useful piece of advice I can give you is to avoid overcontrolling — handle the stick as if it were your pecker, and stabilize your right hand by resting that forearm on your right leg, while holding the stick with just a couple of fingers. Just think about moving the stick, and it'll move."
I ended up flying with, and working with, the man for almost three hours. By the time we were back on the rolling stand, the aircraft was flashing a low fuel warning and I was worn out. I found I could hover in place, slide from side to side, spin around in place, and go straight up and down. The guy slapped me on the back and said, "You did great for your first day. Give me a month of days like that and you'll be a helicopter pilot. You'll need a lot of hours and practice, but you will be able to fly them. Get some hours in the toy birds, but get your real training hours in one of these. If you want to fly the Huey, they're actually easier to fly than this one, but they are noisier. This one gave me a chance to teach you while we were working."
Because it was about five thirty, I suggested, "Let's close this up and go have a beer on the patio. You know you're always welcome over there."
"That's what the owner, Steve Sharp said, I guess it must be true. Even Jimmy told us a couple times today. Let's get Joy out of the hangar. She'll work all night if you don't take her away. We've had to do that since she was hired."
We pried Joy away from the evening mechanics. She said she was having fun working on stuff. She pulled off her coveralls and cap, shook out her hair, and said, "Okay boys, buy me a beer."
Back on the patio, the other new pilots and mechanics were integrating into the group. The entire patio wanted to hear about the gangsters they used to work for. The two families' children were having fun with the kids that were abundant around Steve's house. Both sets of parents were impressed with the home schooling the kids were getting.
My group beat me to the patio. They had come straight from work. Wanda, Marie, Angie, and Jan, said they convoyed out and were going to have to carpool as there wasn't that much parking out here. The girls, including Lisa, were happily going through catalogs looking at decorating ideas.
Little Tiani came over and had me make her a Mojito, then sat with me. She said, "You know that if you build us this home, you're committing to us and we're committing to you in a way, too. We were talking about it today and decided that we want to do something with you that's formal, that'll tell you that we are serious, and that we're going to be around. We're also going to tell you that once we all agree and do this, we're not splitting up, ever."
Tiani smiled, gave me a sweet kiss, and whispered, "I love you and want to be with you forever. I want to be with all the others forever too, but I want you."
That was sweet. Actually that was the most any of them had ever said about absolute permanency. I liked that. This relationship was really unconventional, but I did like or actually love all of them. We would have to get together to set some rules of the road.
Brandy soon came over and sat on my lap. She said, "I suppose blabbermouth told you we wanted to so something to formalize our relationship. I think we need that. I want it too, as we are all about to move in together to never be separated again. It's a really big deal for all of us. Let's go home early. We can even pick up steaks and just hash it out at home. I think we should have Lisa and Tina in on this. We'll talk about Lena, but we shouldn't include her. Wanda is going to stay with John so it's just us seven, at least for right now. Can we do that?"
"Sure," I said, "Anytime you guys are ready. Let's get some steaks, potatoes, lettuce for salads, and whatever the pregnant moms need to eat. We'll have a quiet dinner together and talk."
Brandy and Tiani hopped up and talked to the other girls. They told Lena something and she apparently was going to stay and talk to Barb and Ben. I said goodnight to all, explaining the family was looking for some quiet time.
When we were all home preparing supper, Frieda wanted to start. She said, "This is our plan, Chuck. If you could, please wait until we're done describing everything to you. It isn't much, but we think it's workable."
"We, and first, I mean the five of us who started out together, want both Lisa and Tina to be a part of everything we do. Tina, we know you have a long way to go in school to worry about domestic issues, so please just ride along with us for now. You can make a permanent decision later."
"Chuck, we plan on becoming a fixed unit. That means or includes you and all of us girls when we reach the new home. We're already there mentally, as we all prefer to stay here with you. The new house will make it permanent. We may or may not sell our place. We were thinking about keeping it, but we're now leaning toward selling. The new house will be our home, all of our home."
"I think the way the place is planned will give us ladies a private place when we need it, just like you will have your office to hide out in. We didn't give you a private bedroom since you have the big bedroom, and if you want to sleep alone, all you would have to do is tell us to go to our rooms. None of us see that happening though."
"We want to make our mutual commitments formal in some way. Perhaps a ceremony that says we will all treat each other as husband and wife. Those of us with parents and family will probably want them to witness this, so if you agree, we'll work on it. We'll want to do this soon though, as we want the children that will be born to have a dad who is our spouse."
"Here's the tricky part. We want you to marry one of us. We five want you to marry Lisa, but she may not be ready for a permanent commitment. It could even be Tina, but we all think Lisa and you are a perfect fit. You two have to work that out."
"Another subject that has been pushed aside is Lena, and potentially, big Tina. We really like both of them and would enjoy having them with us. You think that would cause problems even though we don't think so. We want you to keep an open mind about them and let them be a part of our household for a long time."
"Now the worst or hardest part. You know all of us, and that includes Lisa and Tina, are a little nuts over other females. We enjoy them. We also know that strange females could give us diseases that would harm us all. We all agree that we won't go around hooking up with other women and, of course, men. We want it to just be our family. The girls think we should include the folks from the park as part of our family too, but you might want to have a say on that. We definitely don't want you shacking up or hooking up with some strange girl in another city when you travel. I'm sure we can keep you happy and supplied with all the loving you could want."
Frieda looked around at the other girls and asked, "Who wants to add to that?"
Judy said, "I think Frieda said everything I wanted to say. I would like us to go out more. You know like out to eat, dancing, or even to a movie, sometime."
"Yeah, that's what we don't do," Nancy exclaimed. "I want to go out together more often. When we get the kids, it's going to be more difficult to get out."
Little Tiani just smiled at me and said, "I'm with them. I wantcha permanently."
Brandy got up, gave me a hug and kissed me. "You are my kind of guy and I want us to be together. The house thing has made it for me. I feel as if we're all committing to each other. I'm the chaser around here since Frieda quit going to the P-club all the time. I won't do that anymore either. There's plenty of entertainment just within our family. If we include the folks in the park, then we'll really have plenty of choices."
I looked at Lisa and she smiled back at me. She said, "Not that long ago, I had a talk with myself about you guys and Chuck. I love all of you girls a great deal. Since I've been with you guys, I haven't wanted, or been with, anyone else. And Chuck, you are my one and only guy. You and me, Buddy, we're together, forever."
Lisa looked at the other ladies and said, "I do want Lena and Tina to be a part of the family too. If Chuck eventually agrees to it, I think we should become the Fine Nine for our man. It would also give us all more choices as well. Yes sir, Buddy, I'm ready to commit."
Seven women looked at me expectantly. "Okay, you've told me what you want. I suppose it's my turn. I'm agreeable with everything you've described, Frieda. I do want a commitment and to be committed. I suppose there's no little house with a white picket fence in our future, is there? I do agree with us being more monogamous. I have you all, and love you all very much. You are all I would ever need or want. I agree that we may need to leave our relationship with the folks at the park more open, but I want you to know that you all, right here, are what is important to me."
"Please, all of you, let's have a happy life."
By the time supper was finished and we all had full bellies, I was ready to put my office in order and get ready for bed. I was planning on getting an early start.
In bed later, Brandy said, "You know, this bed is just about the right size. We all seem to be able to be comfortable together and there's still room for big Tina.
Lena, who had come home, asked, "You guys were talking about me tonight, I could feel it. Like they say, my ears were ringing. Am I going to become a full partner?"
I laughed, "Perhaps one of these days, Lena. For now, just enjoy life and take it as it comes."
Little Tina was lying next to Lena, and asked, "So just what's the matter with loving it up with me and the other girls?"
Lena answered, "Nothing really, I just wanted to get my two cents in."
This night was a cuddle night. I went to sleep with Lisa and Brandy on a shoulder, and Tiani lying on my chest.
Primary editing by Pepere
Proofing by Sagacious
Additional Helicopter Knowledge by Rotorhead
Last one through — Deenara2000