Copyright © 1997  Master Wade.  ALL Rights Reserved.

This story may not be reproduced in any form for profit without
the written permission of the author.  This story may be freely
distributed with this notice attached.  The author may be contacted
through mrdouble@ix.netcom.com.







MRWADE.190                                           By Master Wade



                   The Whores of Weddle Manor

                           Chapter One



     16 S. Main Street was a three-story brick building which had
been built in 1906 by the board of directors of Haden County
National Bank.  The building had served as the bank's offices until
its failure in late August of 1929.  A local businessman purchased
the property as an investment when it was auctioned, but it was
used only for miscellaneous storage for the next twenty years.
     The new owner of the property was a young lumberman named
Theodore Decatur Weddle.  Weddle, known by others as T.D., or more
affectionately, "Grease", spent those twenty years parlaying the
small inheritance his father had left him into a lumber company
which concentrated in the manufacture of hardwood flooring.
     By the time Grease Weddle moved his corporate offices into the
Haden Bank building in 1949 few people could remember the source of
his unusual nickname.  Those who did remember could still picture
the struggling young lumberman in his overalls, almost always
covered with grease from working with the heavy equipment used in
his business.
     By 1949, however, overalls and mechanical repairs were only a
memory to Grease Weddle.  His lumber company now employed over two
hundred people, and Weddle flooring was transported all over the
eastern seaboard by Weddle trucks.
     Over the next forty years, Grease expanded his business
interests, and his family, until he became Haden County's largest
landholder and the patriarch of a family composed of eleven sons
and two daughters.  By 1989 the Weddle business interests included
three funeral homes, a cement plant, a string of convenience
stores, apartment buildings, and a controlling interest in a large
furniture manufacturing company in a nearby city.  All but two of
the Weddle sons and one of the daughters were involved in the
various businesses owned by the family.
     Eighty years old in 1989, Grease was still a daily participant
in the management of his enterprise, and it would have been no
surprise to any locals who might have been watching to have seen
the black Lincoln that Grease still drove pull up in front of the
Haden Bank building on this September morning.

     "You're on the sidewalk again," his eldest son, Myron, said,
as Grease turned off the engine.
     "I poured the damn sidewalk, didn't I?", he replied, opening
the door and fighting his way out of the car.
     Myron shook his head.  Every morning he tried to get his
father to let him drive, and every morning he was rebuffed, just as
he had been when he had suggested that it would be quite easy to
hire a driver for him.
     "What the hell do I need a damn driver for?  I was drivin
semi's with ten tons of logs behind 'em when you were still suckin
your thumb," had been the comment.  That was nearly five years ago,
and Myron had finally given up and, instead, had made it his
practice to try to ride with the old man wherever he went.  Just in
case. 

     Four of the Weddle brothers were waiting for them in Grease's
first floor office.  These six men made up the board of directors
of the closely held corporation that was Weddle Enterprises, Inc.
In 1983 Grease had made equal gifts of stock in the corporation to
all the children, instantly making them all millionaires.
     Paul, who was in charge of the funeral homes, stood at the
window, watching the traffic along the quiet street.  He had always
wanted to be an artist, but had felt bound to the family business. 
He often wished that he had been courageous enough to follow his
own course in life, but at 53 it was far too late for that now.
     Richard, seated along one side of the huge table that filled
the center of the room, was two years younger than Paul.  He was
quite happy with his role in the company which was that of
overseeing the management of the apartments.  With some minor
exceptions everything was handled by people in his employ.  His
greatest aggravation was these morning meetings that they all had
to attend at Grease's insistence, but it was a small price to pay,
especially in light of the gift of stock.
     On the other side of the table across from Richard, Jimmy
Weddle was reading the morning paper.  As far as anyone could tell,
Jimmy loved the cement plant and his role in it.  He wasn't the
brightest of the Weddle brothers, but he was, perhaps, the most
content.  At 48 years of age, Jimmy had the money to buy most
anything he wanted.  What was there to be unhappy about?
     The last of the five brothers on the board was Sal, a sandy-
haired young man of twenty-nine years.  He was the convenience
store division head and was about to lose nearly half of his stock
in a nasty divorce settlement.  He was anything but happy, but his
lack of happiness had little to do with his job.

     "Alright, let's hear it," Grease said gruffly, as he took his
seat at the head of the table.  One by one the men gave their
reports.  It bored them all to tears.  At a monthly meeting, or
even a weekly meeting, there might have been something to say.  But
even in the most dynamic businesses the day to day minutae was
seldom exciting.  The upside was that the meetings were usually
brief. This morning, however, there was an additional bit of
business that had to be attended to.
     "Jake wants to sell his shares," Myron said, referring to the
45 year old brother who had never been involved in the family
business.  Jake had always been something of a loner, perhaps
taking after his mother to a greater degree than any of the other
sons.  After twenty years in the Marine's Jake had moved back to
Haden County and had begun raising horses on a large tract of land
he purchased from the corporation.
     "Why the hell does he want to do that?", Grease asked,
obviously hearing this bit of news for the first time.
     "He says he has some things he wants to do and he needs the
cash," Myron answered.
     "He wants to sell all 100,000 shares?", asked Richard.
     "That's what he says.  I told him I was sure we'd be happy to
buy a portion of them, but that it was a bit much to ask us to take
the whole lot," Myron explained, tamping his pipe.  "He said he
could sell them outside the family if it would be a problem."
     "The hell he can," Grease said.  "We don't need a bunch of
outsiders owning stock in Weddle.  It's bad enough that we can't
keep Sally from walking off with 50,000 shares," he said, referring
to Sal's wife, "we don't want Jake's shares winding up outside the
family too."
     "Jake needs nearly two million dollars in cash?", Paul asked,
increduously.  "That's enough to buy every damn horse in the state!
What the fuck is he up to?"
     "He wouldn't say what he wanted the money for," Myron said,
"but he said he had a buyer for all of the shares if we didn't want
them."
     "If the six of us bought him out together," Sal said, doing
some quick figuring, "that would be over 300,000 a piece.  I sure
as hell don't have that kind of money, not without selling some of
my own shares, and that wouldn't make much sense."
     "He's crazy for wanting to sell in the first place," Myron
said. "We had our best year ever last year.  He can't get a better
return anywhere else, and he sure as shit can't get it by putting
it all in horseflesh.  I told him all that, but he just smiled at
me. You know how he is."
     "Who is this buyer he's talking about?", Paul asked.
     "I don't know for sure, but unless it's someone from out of
town it would have to be Jingo.  Don't you think?"
     "Shit, I bet it is Jingo or Paulie, one of the two," Grease
cursed.  "Hell, I'll buy him out before I'll let them get in.
Fuckin bastards."
     Jingo and Paulie were the Miller brother's, the second largest
landholders in Haden county.  The Weddle's and the Miller's bumped
up against each other every where they turned, and had for the last
forty years.  There was no love lost between the two families.
     "Well, it doesn't really make much difference who it is,"
Myron said.  "Either we buy him out or someone else will.  And
since we don't want anyone outside the family having his
shares...well, we've got to figure something out."
     Eventually an agreement was reached, with Grease agreeing to
buy half the shares, and four of the brothers agreeing to buy the
remainder.  No one was particularly happy about the arrangement,
especially Grease, who felt betrayed by his son's desire to sell
his stock.  The meeting broke up, and Myron called Jake to give him
the news.
     "The old man is pissed, but he's taking half.  Sal is out and
the rest of us are taking equal lots for the rest," Myron said.
     "Thanks, Myron.  Can you call and get the funds transfered?
I'll stick the certificates in the mail," Jake replied.
     "Yeah, that's no problem.  The biggest problem is Grease. You
may want to stop by here and talk to him."
     "I will, but I think I'll let him chew on it a bit first.
How's he doing these days anyway?"  Grease wasn't in the best of
health, in spite of his actions to the contrary.
     "Doctor Willis says he's pushing it, but can't do any more
with him than we can.  As long as he takes his medicine he seems to
feel pretty good.  I figure he'll kill himself driving before his
heart goes."
     "Well, listen, Myron, thank the boys for me.  I'll be talking
to you."
     Jake hung up the phone and smiled.  He'd never have sold his
shares to Jingo and Paulie, even if they had wanted to buy them,
but no one needed to know he hadn't offered them to anyone.  And he
didn't really have to have the whole two million in cash, but he
was glad it was working out that way.  What he most wanted was to
disassociate himself from the family business as totally as
possible and to be free to live his life out of the shadow of the
Weddle Corporation.  Now he'd have that chance.
     Jake was doing very well in the horse business, much better
than his brothers realized.  He had learned a lot about horses
while stationed in Austria, and upon his release from the service
he had carefully selected the animals that made up his herd.  The
money from the sale of stock in Weddle would provide him with the
funds he needed to buy one more good stallion and to build the home
he'd looked forward to for years.  The rest would take care of
itself.

     Only three years after selling his stock, Jake Weddle had
become the fourth wealthiest Haden county resident, behind the
Miller brothers and his own father.  Horses from his ranch were
showing up regularly on tracks around the country, and his
reputation as a breeder was secure.
     The farm had been turned into a showplace.  There were over
two hundred acres of rolling pasture land, all of it fenced and
carefully maintained.  Stables unmatched by anything found in
Kentucky or Tennessee were carefully and spotlessly maintained. A
staff of over one hundred employees carried out their duties with
pride and skill, many of them living in homes which Jake had
allowed them to build along the west side of his property.
     Jake's own home was the most imposing building in all of Haden
county.  Even though he had never married, Jake had always been
fascinated by the old plantation homes of the south, and owning
something similar had been a life-long dream.  Weddle Manor, as he
called his new dwelling, was everything he had dreamed of.  After
studying many of the surviving plantation homes of Virginia and
South Carolina, Jake had brought in a world famous architect who
had combined many of the features of these homes, adding modern
conveniences and features in ways that made them almost un-
noticable.
     The manor had cost nearly a million dollars to construct, and
was the talk of the county for many months.  It was unthinkable to
most Haden county residents that a single man with no family would
build himself a home with twelve bedrooms.  While the other Weddle
family members lived in homes which were far above average, not
even Grease himself owned a palace such as this, and if anyone had
ever needed twelve bedrooms, it had been Grease and his wife with
all their children.  It was the worst kind of financial
irresponsibility, and the only friends that it made Jake were those
people who profited somehow from its construction.
     None of this mattered to Jake.  He was quite happy living in
his own little world, and had no interest at all in being a part of
the social life of the surrounding area.  The truth was that he was
isolated enough that the jealous gossip of others seldom reached
him, and that he would have shrugged it off as meaningless even if
it had.
     Having secured himself financially, and having seen to the
building of his dream home, what remained now for Jake was to add
the ammenities that would make life truly pleasurable for him.
Chief among these was the satisfaction of another life-long dream,
the filling of his home with beautiful women.

Continued in MRWADE.191....








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