The next day Marcela fed us a breakfast big enough for twice as many people as we had. I asked her about the leftovers, and she said that the grounds workers and others in the estate would make sure that there were none. She said that her husband took meals over to the apartments after the family was done.
This didn't set too well with me, so after breakfast I got together with George; he was my overall supervisor for the estate. I asked him if it would be possible to get a cook for the apartments, and have Marcela cook a little less for the house. I told him that the workers who lived in the apartments should not be made to feel like second-class people and get leftovers. I wanted everyone who worked for me to be glad to work here, I wanted them to do their best for me, and so I had to do my best for them. George said that he would take care of it. He told me that there were a number of people in town that could use work. He would have the contractor who had done a lot of the interior work on the house make one of the apartments into a cafeteria for the workers. He agreed that Marcela's talents were being wasted making mass quantities of food; she needed to concentrate on making food for the house.
I took the ladies downstairs on the elevator and as we walked around the garage I was pleased to see that the whole place was pristine. The floors were coated in a light green plastic looking surface that would show spills and stains easily, but it was all clean. All tools had specific places to be, labeled and diagrammed.
Paul had driven us from the executive airport the day before, but the girls didn't know at the time that he was a permanent employee, not just a temporary hire. He and Bill were not shy at all about their relationship; they hugged and touched each other at every opportunity. When he wasn't driving, Paul was Bill's helper in the garage. He did most of the cleaning and polishing on the cars; he was the only one who could meet Bill's standards.
"Alex, what are all these cars here for? Whose are they?"
Inez was asking about the cars I had bought at an auction in Palm Beach this spring. There was a 1963 Thunderbird convertible, a 1964 Corvette coupe, a 1965 Buick Skylark convertible, and a 1967 Plymouth Barracuda fastback. These cars were all restored to better than new, but the other 2 cars were called rest-o-mods. These cars had the bodies and interiors of a 1955 Dodge Royal Lancer convertible and a 1958 Chevrolet Brookwood Station Wagon; but the mechanical workings were all new. They drove like a brand new car, with 4 wheel disc brakes and air conditioning, plus some extra power. The Brookwood had a 500 horsepower Chevy crate engine, and the Dodge packed a brand new Hemi. The most expensive car was the Corvette, it cost $47,000; the others were all between that and the lowest, which was the Dodge for $23,500.
Also in the garage were the Lincoln Limo, a John Deere Gator, and several golf carts. Bill had assured me that he would have more than enough time to take care of all the estate vehicles. If he got overloaded at some point there was a rollback truck that could be used to take vehicles to garages in town for work.
"They are ours, Inez. When you want to go out on your own, you can drive any of them you wish. Do you know how to drive a stick shift?"
"No, I don't; but I would be afraid to damage one of these. Can I just get a Honda Accord or something to drive?"
Bill spoke up then, "Paul here would be glad to teach you how to use a clutch, and if you damage a car, it will just give me something to do. Don't worry about it, Madam; besides, the Thunderbird, the Chevy wagon, and the Dodge convertible all have automatic transmissions. Of course the Dodge tranny is a push button."
"Thank you Bill. I'll keep that in mind. I am very impressed by the way this place looks and how clean it is. My father worked in a gas station, and the washroom wasn't this clean."
"Thank you Madam; Mr. Andrews was nice enough to let me design the space I would work in. Not many employers are that thoughtful. I love working here and I am very happy to be able to be with Paul without having to hide it. Mr. Andrews told me when we were hired that it was actually a plus, not a negative like at most places."
I didn't want to mention that the plus for me was that my wife wouldn't be cuckolding me with the chauffeur; I wanted to be sure that the children were mine. With Inez I hoped that I did not have that problem. I had expected to have a woman that I had hired to bear me children and have to watch all the time. I had not planned to have a woman who really seemed to care for me. I hoped that I wasn't being set up for disaster. Inez truly had my heart in her hand; she could easily break it.
I put my new family into a four place golf cart and we went out to explore the property. I started out on the south side of the reservoir. There were houses on the north side along the water but nothing but a few nice beaches along the south side. The far end of the property was all wooded land that had been landscaped with the undergrowth trimmed back and trails put in for mountain bikes and running. The main area near the house was mostly open with small hills and valleys. George and his helpers kept the grass from getting out of hand without making it look manicured. The pond on the south side of the property had a dock and paddle boats. There was a large building just inside the trees where the tractors and lawn machines were kept. The whole place looked like a city park. Behind the house, in view of the balconies, was a play land for the kids I hoped to have. We ended up there with Jessica having a grand time. I had a lot of fun trying to catch her in the climbing complex. Her laughter made my heart sing.
After a great lunch by Marcela, I took Inez to the factory to meet Crom. I wanted to see what kind of progress he had made on the other patents. We had to put all of the patents forward at the same time. As soon as we sent one in the power companies would be warned, and unless our promotions were ready as well we would be shut down immediately.
"Crom my friend, how are you?"
"Well hello Alex, I heard that you had come back. I assume by the lovely lady on your arm that you were successful in your plan?"
"Not completely Crom, at least not in the way I had intended. This is Inez, she married me last week, but she refused to sign the contract I had made up. She thinks that she likes me and wanted to be my wife in deed as well as word."
"Damn it, Alex, I love you but I'm going to have to do something about your attitude. What do you think, Crom; is it so hard to believe that I might care for him?"
"No, not at all, Inez. Alex is a very good man and I am very pleased to have met him. If I may say so, you are very lovely and you two should make beautiful children."
"Why thank you Crom, I am pleased to meet you and I hope to get to know you much better. Alex has told me how brilliant you are, but he didn't mention how handsome you were. Do you have a girlfriend?"
"What? No, no, I don't have one; I don't have time for that, besides I wouldn't know how to get one."
"Well, you could do what Alex did. He seems to think that you will be very wealthy in the near future. But if you will allow me, I have some friends that I would like you to meet."
Jealousy had gripped me as soon as she said how handsome Crom was. When she mentioned her friends, I knew that Crom was doomed. Any of the dancers at Jewels would wrap him around their fingers. The poor man didn't even know how much of his future was already planned out for him.
I needed to get out of the personal part of the discussion. "Enough of this, how are you doing with the other patents? How soon can we start the campaign?"
"About that; what made you think of other methods of getting my results? I have found four other methods that could have been used without infringing on our original patent. We would have been screwed. None of them are as good for the wind generator we are making, but a couple of them will be useful for water turbines and gas powered emergency generators. It will only take a little alteration on the assembly line to make the changes necessary. We should be ready to submit the patents within a day or two. I don't think that there are any other methods that I haven't found; at least I don't think I can find any more. Am I really going to be wealthy?"
"Of course you are, you are going to be the patent holder and I will be paying you a massive amount in royalties. You should make your first million within three months of rollout, as long as the power companies don't have us killed. That reminds me, Inez; you and Jessica and Norma will all have guards whenever you are off the estate. I am vulnerable where you are concerned. Crom here will have one away from the factory as well. I forgot to ask before, Crom, where are you living?"
"I have an apartment over the barbershop in town. It's small and old, but cheap."
Inez jumped in then, "That will not do at all. You have to move in with us. We have plenty of room, don't we, Alex?"
If that ain't a kick in the pants. Here I had taken so much trouble to keep my new wife away from other men, and then she went and invited one she admitted that she found attractive into our house to live.
"Hanna told me that there were a couple of guest suites on the second floor near the nannies' quarters. Call the house when you get done tonight and someone will come to get you and your stuff and help you move."
I had to get this back around to something I could control. "Crom, there is something that has been bothering me. I always understood that a generator was just an electric motor reversed. If your process makes generators so much better, then why aren't we making motors as well?"
"As to that Alex, that was what my initial discovery was. All generators had ever been was reversed electric motors. They had done some alterations of course to make them better, but essentially that is what they were. What I did was to look at current generation from a different direction. My generators work on a slightly different principle and the goal is electricity. One of the other methods you had me research might be able to work with an engine, but it would be expensive and no better that what is already out there. Since my units use less mechanical force to produce electricity, when electricity is fed to them, they also produce less mechanical force. They can work as motors, but not very well."
"I guess that makes sense."
"Okay, Alex. I'll call Paul when I get ready to leave. Right now I've got work to do, so I guess that I'll see you two tonight."
In the limo I was looking over at Inez wondering what was going through her mind.
Some of my unease must have transmitted itself to her, because she suddenly stopped jabbering away, about what I have no idea, and looked over at me.
"What's wrong Alex? You haven't heard a thing I've said."
I looked at her seriously, "Why are you so gung ho about having Crom move in with us? He could live in the workers' apartments just as easily."
"Alex, he is your partner. You can't house him with the hired help; it wouldn't look right. And if he lives with us, then he is available when the girls come down from Vegas. He won't be able to avoid them while they visit.
"We're going to have the girls from Jewels visit soon, and they are going to go nuts over your genius. All of them were disappointed that they didn't win you, they understand, but they were down about it. Then you gave them all a new future and made them love you even more. There is no way they are going to find a man like you in Vegas, and that is what they all want now. At least one of them is going to turn Crom's head around, and I want to give them the chance to do it before some little chica down here beats them to the punch. How long do you think Sophia will need to work in Vegas?"
"She should have Brenda and Diane trained to take care of the place in a couple of months, Inez. At that point I expect her to branch out on her own. What do you have in mind, Honey?"
"Sophia was devastated when that disease showed up and she didn't have a chance to try to win you, Alex. She is very smart and would have been tough competition. I think that she would be a very good fit with Crom. Is there any way that you could offer her a job here when she is done in Vegas?"
"I could offer her a job, Inez, but I am sure that she would see through it. You are right in saying that she is smart. How do you know that Crom might not prefer a shy beauty like Janice, or maybe a dynamic jewel like Julie or her sister? You need to give the boy some variety for him to choose from, Dear. That is what I did, and it worked pretty well, I think."
"I think it did too Alex. You are right of course. We need to give him a chance to find someone he can love as much as I love you. Brenda and Diane told me what they offered you, Alex. I can't believe that you turned them down to pick me. You had the chance to have two women in your bed and still you chose me. I don't know what to say."
"Well ... don't put too much into it. I was intimidated at the idea of having one woman to please; the idea of having two scared the shit out of me. Your closest competition was Janice; I almost picked her."
"Brenda said something about that. She said that you weren't going to pick me because you were already falling in love with me. I still don't understand that Alex; if you were falling for me and not Janice, then why would you pick her?"
"It came down to who could absorb the loss the easiest. With Janice I would have the situation that I had in mind when I came up with this idea. She would live in the apartment and would only come to me when she was fertile. I would have guards around her to keep other men away and make sure that the babies would be mine. At the end of the contract though, I don't think that she would want to leave. She said that she could leave the children, but I doubt that she could. I would almost have to drive her away, and her pain would be intense. I probably couldn't do it."
"I have to agree with your conclusions, Alex. And what about me?"
"With you, if you left at the end of the contract, I would be crushed. I chose you knowing that I was putting myself in for a lot of pain, but I could handle it better than Janice could. The abuse she got when she was young has made her too fragile for this situation. I couldn't do that to her."
"I love you more each day, Alex dear. But you think that she would be okay with Crom?"
"Dearest, Crom would shoot himself in the foot before he would hurt a woman like Janice. He is a gentle soul and that is why I think Janice would be better for him than Sophia, she is a little too brash for him."
"You may be right, the only way to find out is to invite all of them down here to visit as soon as they can. I've only been gone a few days, and I miss them already. That couple of months when we were living in the hotel we all got close. They are the best friends I have ever had, thanks to you."
Just as she said this, my cell announced a text message. It was from Steve, my security chief. "we hav prblm, must meet" I called him right back.
"Hey Steve, I would like you to meet my bride. Would you be willing to come to dinner tonight?"
"I'd be glad to get another chance at Marcela's cooking. She used me as a guinea pig while we waited for you to come back. What time?"
"Make it at seven, Crom is supposed to be here too. See you then, Steve."
Marcela made a delightful Spanish lasagna with a fruit and lettuce salad. I was going to have to start swimming every day to keep from getting fat. Steve, Crom, and I all ate too much, while Inez visibly restrained herself from doing the same thing. Jessica adopted Crom as her uncle 'Crumb', to everyone's amusement.
After dinner Norma took Jessica up to prepare her for bed, and the rest of us retired to the library to talk. I had told Norma that she did not have to take care of Jess, there were nannies hired for that purpose but she insisted that she had a lot of lost time to make up for and wanted to be with her.
"Okay Steve, what is the problem?" I asked as I handed Steve a drink. Steve Grant had been medically retired from the Marines when an IED blew and gave him a permanent limp. The fact that he had then killed 5 men in the attacking force before getting attention for his injury didn't sway the evaluation board at all.
Steve looked over at Inez before answering. At my nod he said, "We have a spy trying to leak information, he works in final assembly, and his girlfriend works in the coil room. (The coil room is where the special design of windings is done on the core of the generators.) He compared notes with her and thinks that he knows enough to recreate our design. He used to work in the alternator plant and may be able to do us some damage. We have to get the patents in quickly, or stop him from getting his info out."
"I don't want to get into spy vs. spy, if we send the patents in and go ahead and announce there won't be anything to sell. Do you think we should fire this guy?"
"A spy I know is easy to watch. Keep him on, just don't promote him. Are we ready to go public?"
Crom spoke up then. "As ready as we can be. I was going to suggest Friday as the blast off day, but tomorrow is just as good."
"Okay Crom, you will need to have everything for the patent office ready by five a.m. Steve, have the courier ready to take the paperwork to DC then. He is to be standing in front of the patent office door when it opens for business tomorrow. I'll call the publicity agency later and get the announcements out before anyone can block them. I'm amazed that we had this much time." I suddenly realized what something I had seen on my computer last night meant. "I bet I know who was buying the information. Last night I saw that G.E. had bought a small electric motor shop in Pennsylvania. I thought that it was weird at the time because G.E. has been selling everything involving manufacturing for the last few years. There was no logical reason to buy that plant unless they were going to try to make something new. I hope that we can throw a massive monkey wrench into their plans."
Inez came up with a jewel then, "I disagree about what to do with the spy. Someone who is able to put together bits of information like that needs to be encouraged, not slapped down. We just have to make it so that his self-interest coincides with ours. Unless this person is amoral, we can use him to our benefit. I would like to meet his girlfriend."
"Damn, Alex, beauty and brains, you lucky son-of-a-bitch. I can do that, Mrs. Andrews. Do you have an older sister?"
"Please call me Inez, Steve. Do you like redheads?"
"Yeah, I do. I like for a woman to have a little spark to her soul. A lot of women have been broken down or think they deserve to be waited on. Do you think that Sophia would be interested in a beat up old soldier like me? I'm never going to be rich, Inez, I can't offer her anything like you got."
"You can offer her a lot more than money, Steve. Wait a minute! How do you know Sophia?"
"I am in charge of security, Inez, I had to clear all possible visitors. Miss Morgan is an interesting young woman, but not a security risk at this time. I am more concerned about Miss Atwaller. A new man in her life could influence her badly. She is sweet enough, but very weak."
"Hopefully you don't have to worry about Janice; but would you be interested in Sophia?"
"She certainly is beautiful enough, actually too beautiful. I would rather have a woman I don't need to worry about as much."
There was a knock at the door.
"Enter," I said.
Camille came in. "Momma sent me to ask if anyone wanted coffee and desert. Can I get anything for you?"
"Coffee sounds good, Camille, thank you."
"Hey Camille," Steve said, "Mrs. Andrews is trying to set me up with Sophia Morgan, what would you think about that?"
The tall black girl looked at the rest of us with a frightened expression.
"Now, now honey, what did I tell you about secrets?"
Camille looked at him, "Secrets are weaknesses. If you don't want anyone to know what you are doing, don't do it. Okay Steve, if you connect with Miss Morgan, I hope she is willing to share. Teresa and I would be very unhappy if she tried to keep you to herself, but based upon your report on her, I doubt that she would be interested in you. No offense Mrs. Andrews, but Sophia wants more than Steve here can give her. Not that she is mercenary, but she has high expectations, and a security chief would not be her idea of moving up in the world."
"I'm sorry Camille, I didn't know that you and-- Teresa was it?"
"Yes ma'am, Teresa. She does most of the baking for her sister Marcela."
"I didn't know that you and Teresa were involved with our Mr. Grant. I'm sorry if I stepped on anyone's toes."
"No problem ma'am, we don't have any kind of a claim on Steve. He is free to do as he wishes. We kinda like it the way it is, though."
"So you share him, right?"
Camille looked at Steve again, "No secrets, right Steve?" At his nod she continued, "Actually we kinda all share each other. Teresa and I were a couple before we met Steve, then Terry tripped him so that he fell right on me. Now it just feels natural to be all three of us together ma'am."
"I'm not a ma'am Camille, I'm just Inez. Hell, a couple of months ago I was a stripper in a shitty Vegas club."
"And then you married the man who pays us all, if I were to call you by your name my momma would paddle my behind. What you were doesn't matter, what you are, is the lady of the house, and you must be addressed as such. We are happy to have you here Ma'am."
"Okay, thank you Camille. I'll keep that in mind."
"You're welcome Ma'am. I'll go and get the coffee now." Saying this she stepped out of the room.
"Well, I guess she told me. It's going to take a while for that to sink in though."
Camille came back in with a coffee service cart and a pretty Latino who was quite a bit shorter than her. Steve laughed and said, "I might have known, folks, I would like you all to meet Teresa, my other girlfriend. Teresa, this is Inez Andrews, Ingmar Cromberg, and you know Alex of course. Why are you still here this late, Honey?"
"I was waiting for my lovers to come and ravish me, but no one came to me, so I decided to see why."
"I'm sorry Dear, but we have to make a few plans before tomorrow. We should be done soon, and I will be sure to ravish you completely. Camille can go with you and you can get each other warm for me."
"Okay, but don't take too long, or we may be done by time you get there. Come with me Camille, you have other duties to attend to." And with that both ladies trooped out of the room.
"I guess I've been given my marching orders. What else do we need to go over here? As soon as we are done I'll get in touch with my courier and have him at Crom's office by 5 AM. Alex, you are going to contact the Ad agency to begin the campaign at 9 AM when they open shop. Anything else?"
"Actually, I would like to go to Shreveport and talk to the folks in person. I can do a couple of interviews that they can put on the news channels. They wanted me to do them before, but I didn't want to give them the full story until I had to. There is no way that they could have kept it secret. I can take the Dodge, I haven't had a chance to drive it yet."
"I don't like the idea of that in so many ways. The only way you can do that is if there are at least two teams with you. I have had two way communications installed in all of your cars. If you say "Security" or my name you will be connected with the head of your team. Don't use it without a good reason. The teams will also have code words so that you can be sure you have the right people. "Calico, or bossinova", will identify the security people. I would rather that you rode in the limo. It is hardened and Paul was trained at the Bondurant School, but I'll let it go this time. They shouldn't be trying to get to you yet. After tomorrow, no more driving on your own till the dust settles. Now if that is all, I have a couple of lovely ladies awaiting me."