“See what I mean?” Uncle Homer snorted as Ann left the room. “She even knows more about me than I do and doesn’t pass up a chance to remind me of it. But getting back to what I was talking about, it really is too damn big of a house for me and it always has been, but there’s no point in trying to do anything else at this point in my life. Besides, I’ve always been leery about having neighbors living too close. I didn’t want them messing in my affairs, if you know what I mean, and there were times when I was younger that there were things I’d rather they didn’t know. I suppose it’s become habit now.”

“I’ve always lived with neighbors pretty close,” Steve nodded, trying to show understanding, “but I usually haven’t had much to do with them.”

“That’s good. Some people are just too damn nosy for their own damn good, and the reputation this place has sometimes helps to keep the curious out. We do have some guys who come in and do the yard work and some of the other outside maintenance, but we hardly ever see them. Mostly it’s just Ann and me, and I think we both prefer it that way. I suppose being a crotchety old coot with a ghostly maid might have something to do with keeping the haunted reputation alive.”

Steve stifled a laugh. Uncle Homer seemed anything but crotchety; maybe a little odd, but at ninety-one – was that what Ann had said? At his age, he’d earned the right to be a little odd. On top of that, he could see how the blonde with the very light skin and her eerie ability to see in the dark could set off a ghost story or two. “Could be,” he grinned.

“It could be worse,” Uncle Homer smiled, and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Did Ann tell you how she came to be here?”

“Not a thing,” Steve replied quietly. “Other than to mind my own damn business, although not in those words.”

“Not surprising,” Uncle Homer replied conspiratorially. “That’s a story for another time, I guess.” He raised his voice back to its normal level and went on. “I suppose it doesn’t help that I had something of a reputation for being a loner most of my life. I learned a hell of a long time ago that the best way to keep someone else from knowing what you’re up to is to not tell anyone a damn thing they don’t need to know.” He nodded his head toward the back of the house, which seemed to indicate that Ann had much the same policy, not that Steve hadn’t figured out that much about her already.

“I’ve always thought that was a pretty good policy,” Steve agreed.

“I suppose you could say that learning to keep my mouth shut about some things has led me to have a pretty good life,” Uncle Homer agreed. “All I’m going to say right now is that there were some times in my past where it contributed to my good fortune. And in case you’re wondering, Ann has been a part of that good fortune. But to get back to what I was talking about, there’s probably a good reason why this place has a reputation for being haunted. Back in the twenties a mobster from over around Chicago, Stinky Antonelli, owned this place. Well, it seems Stinky got his from a Chicago piano – you know, what they used to call a Tommy Gun? Anyway, he was killed back in one of the mob wars they had back in those days, and the place sat empty for a while before it got picked up for taxes. A weird religious group bought it, called The Sons of the Father. They wanted to set up some kind of a monastery or commune or something, I’m not sure of the details. Anyway, they were poking around outside one day and discovered an unmarked grave, so they called in the cops, who found a bunch more graves. Nobody’s sure yet if they were all ever found. There are stories that he buried a bunch of loot out here, too.”

“That could set off some stories,” Steve agreed.

“No fooling,” Uncle Homer said. “Every now and then I get contacted by someone who would like to look around for more, or by someone who wants to see if it really is haunted. I’ve kept them the hell out. After this much time, it doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t believe in ghosts or that kind of stuff, and to be honest, in all the years I’ve lived here I haven’t seen anything that would cause me to change my mind. But anyway, that isn’t all the stupid stuff that’s happened here, but you get the idea. Let’s just say that they all contributed to getting a good price on this place, hell, over fifty years ago now. It’s been a nice and quiet place to live. I could head out of here and do what needed to be done, and then have a good place to return to so I could be myself. I never had a housekeeper or anything like that until Ann came along, and by then I was starting to need someone.”

Steve sat back and reflected for a moment. What little he remembered from his father about Uncle Homer came from a good twenty years before, and most people back then seemed to think that he was a little on the weird side. There might have been some truth to that, at least from what he’d heard. Uncle Homer may have been something of a hermit, but he seemed like a good-natured one. That might not have been the case twenty years ago, Steve realized; old age could have mellowed the man. In any case, Steve was enjoying his company, something he really hadn’t expected. “Sounds like a pretty good life,” he replied neutrally.

“For the most part it has been,” Uncle Homer agreed. “Oh, I’ve had a few adventures over the years, and some of them haven’t been as pretty as they might have been.” He waved his head toward the back of the house again, seeming to indicate that Ann had been involved in one of those less-than-pretty episodes. “But for the most part, I haven’t had much reason to complain. In spite of everything, life in general has worked out reasonably well. There were a few things I might have done differently if I’d had the chance, but for the most part they don’t matter much now.”

“I suppose if you can say that at this point in your life you have to be pretty well satisfied,” Steve observed.

“Well, more or less,” Uncle Homer nodded, “but that doesn’t extend to everything. I’ll bet you’re just about dying of curiosity, wondering what this is all about.”

“Well, pretty curious,” Steve admitted. “So far, what’s happened wasn’t what I was expecting when I started out this morning.”

“I can imagine,” Uncle Homer grinned. “This is both simple and complicated, and since you’re tired we probably shouldn’t get into the details just now. But what it comes down to is that I need your help.”

“My help?”

“Well, someone’s help,” Uncle Homer replied, “and someone besides Ann. She’s a very nice woman, but I suspect you’ve already seen she has her limits, what with having to take care of me along with everything else. For a couple reasons, that person I need really ought to be someone who’s a fairly close relative. Also, at least for the short run it ought to be someone who’s without a job or a family tying them down. That limits the pool of candidates considerably before we even get into the other qualifications.”

“I suppose it would,” Steve replied, barely less confused than before. “What is it you need me to do?”

“Things,” Uncle Homer replied. “Let’s face it, Steve. I’m an old man. In fact, I’m a hell of an old man, and logically I can’t expect to last too much longer. I have a few loose ends I need to have tied up before I die. Some are, well, debts of honor for lack of a better term. Some are just things that need to be put in order. I can’t do much about any of them from this chair, other than to give someone else direction and guidance. I’ve done what I can, but there are a few things outstanding that are going to need someone to be out and about. I can’t tell you how long it’s going to take to do some of those things, or how difficult they might be. Some look to be fairly easy from this chair, and others, well, it may not be possible to accomplish them at all. But they’re important enough to me that you’d be amply rewarded for your efforts. Do you think you might be interested?”

“I’m not ruling it out,” Steve replied. “I hope you’re not asking me to kill someone for you, or anything like that.”

“No,” the old man grinned. “Nothing like that, mostly because the grim reaper has already taken care of most of the people I wouldn’t mind wishing that on. He is the most reliable assassin of all, as long as you have the patience to wait him out. There will probably be the odd illegality or two, but most of those would be more like doing seventy-five in a fifty-five-mile-an-hour zone. Realistically, if we’re careful, there shouldn’t even be many of those.”

“Well, I suppose I can help out,” Steve nodded, surprising himself a little. “It’s as I told Ann earlier today, it’s not like I have anything better to do. I’ve been thinking about wrapping up my MBA, but it’s five months before the term starts, and I’m not sure I want to bother with it, anyway.”

“Very understandable,” Uncle Homer said. “There are times in your life when you need to do things, rather than just think about them. I’ve reached one of those points in my life, and I feel I dare not put it off much longer.”

“I can understand that part,” Steve yawned. “Ever since my job went belly up, I’ve been thinking the time has come to do something different with my life. Something interesting.”

“Then you’ve come to the right place,” he grinned. “I think with Ann’s help, I can arrange that for you.”

“Just so long as it’s better than getting up in the morning and watching the Today show.”

“That shouldn’t be any trick. Steve, I have to admit that there will be times there will be some risks involved. Risk is a funny thing, Steve. Are you aware of that?”

“I remember the old saying that a turtle wouldn’t get anywhere without sticking his neck out.”

“Very true,” Uncle Homer smiled, his eyes lighting up a little. “The thing is that when a turtle sticks his neck out he’s likely to find things that he wouldn’t have seen if he kept his head tucked safely in his shell. You can often learn something by taking a risk. Sometimes it’s interesting, and admittedly sometimes it’s exciting. Of course, sometimes, maybe even often, the reward isn’t worth the risk. There’s something to be said for playing it safe, but even then it can bite you. Have you ever played poker, Steve?”

“Once in a while, not since college, and then it was mostly penny-ante stuff. Just something to kill time.”

“That is a pity. Poker can teach you a great deal about taking risks, so long as you’re willing to learn from it. Some poker players never do. Steve, when I was a young man I had occasion to while away a couple of evenings playing poker with a gentleman by the name of Richard Milhaus Nixon. I’m sure you’ve heard the name.”

“President Nixon?”

“The very same, although it was nearly a quarter of a century before he became president. He was a lieutenant in the Navy at the time. I think I took him for a dollar, perhaps two. I don’t recall now, and it never was important anyway. It was a low-stakes game to kill time in a place that was hot, uncomfortable and boring. And in fact it was so forgettable that I’d all but forgotten about it until he became important on the national scene. That’s not important, but what is, is that my impression was that he wasn’t a very good poker player.”

“How do you mean that?”

“He was a very conservative player, not willing to take a risk unless he had what he considered to be a pretty sure thing. He struck me as the kind of player who was unwilling to take much of a risk on a hand that was good, but less than excellent. So, while he never won very much, he never lost very much either. But every now and then someone can hold an excellent hand and lose their shirt, as he was to ultimately learn. The point I’m making is that he lost a very good chance to learn something about risk and reward by playing it safe in those poker games back in the South Pacific. Sometimes a pretty good hand can be made much worse when trying to make it an excellent hand, and one loses more than they bargained for.”

“Ummmm, I think I’m seeing what you’re trying to say, but I’m afraid I’m missing the point.”

“Did you ever hear the song that says, ‘You gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, know when to run?’”

“Yeah, of course.”

“That’s the point I’m trying to make. There will be an element of risk in most of what I’m going to have you do. Sometimes the risks will be worth the possible reward, and sometimes they won’t be. I’ll try to help you understand where the breaking point is, but you’re almost always going to be the one on the spot, not me. Ann may or may not be with you at some of those times, but calculating risk is not her strong suit, either. That means the decision is going to be in your hands at times.”

“I can see I’m going to have to depend on your advice,” Steve shook his head. “I mean, not knowing what you’re going to have me doing.”

“Ann and I will try to make you aware of the factors involved, but there will be times that we will not be available for consultation. We’re not going to start you out on some of the harder items on my list of things that need to be done. That will give you a chance to learn about what you’re doing.”

Steve was still pretty confused about what Uncle Homer was saying and still didn’t have a clue about what he wanted him to do. But he figured that Uncle Homer would get around to explaining it in his own good time. “You’re saying you want me to stick my neck out at times, but not too far, and it’s going to be up to me to decide how far that is?”

“That’s a good summation. Look, let me tell you a story. I don’t know if you know it, but I was a pilot back in World War II. I flew a P-47 Thunderbolt, which we called a ‘Jug,’ mostly in New Guinea and the Philippines. I had some times in them that could be considered interesting, perhaps even exciting.

“Now, the early Jugs had some reliability issues, and one time I was flying one inland near the coast of New Guinea when the engine blew. I still don’t know what happened, and don’t really care. The point is that I was near the coast, and I didn’t want to go down in the jungle, which was a nasty place. I turned the bird toward the coast and rode it down as far as I dared before I bailed out. I wound up, oh, a mile or so from the coast. I landed almost on top of a wrecked Japanese airplane, just a little puddle-jumper.

“It was getting toward dark and I didn’t want to travel in the dark, so I holed up there for the night and wound up investigating the wreck a little. There was a body in the wreckage, and a very heavy satchel, which I discovered was full of bars of gold.”

“Enough to make you rich?” Steve asked.

“Not really, although it was worth more than I’d ever had in my hands at the time,” Uncle Homer continued. “At that point, it would have been nice if it had been something to eat, but there was nothing I could buy with it. Anyway, I carried the satchel out to the beach, along with a diary I took off the dead Japanese, and was eventually able to make it to an American base, with the gold of course. There was a little less than fifty pounds of it. At the time, it was worth a little over twenty thousand dollars, if Americans had been allowed to own bulk gold, which they weren’t at that time. Today, that gold would be worth around six hundred thousand dollars, just to give you an idea of proportion. I won’t go into the ins and outs of it, but while the gold may have been worth that much, there was almost nothing I could do with it.”

“Nothing?”

“Just about. You see, at that time New Guinea was half Dutch and half Australian. From what I was able to find out later, the gold came from an illegal mine run by Australians, on the Dutch side of the line. It had been seized by this Japanese officer who was trying to get it back to Japan to line his own pockets. Now, to add to that, we were on the Dutch side of the border. Now, who owned the gold?”

“Good question. The Dutch, maybe?”

“Might be, although they had little to do with it, and certainly weren’t aware of its existence. There was little if any Dutch presence in the area at the time. American and Australian, yes. Now, I was an American officer, and if I’d tried to dispose of it legally I doubt the Dutch or the Australians would have even been consulted. My feeling was ‘finders, keepers.’ The Japanese and the Australian miners stole it, and the American government would have stolen it from me if they were given the chance. So my attitude was the hell with all of them.”

“Understandable. So what did you wind up doing with the gold?”

“What you have to understand is that in those days it was very difficult for an individual to transfer money internationally, especially an individual in that part of the world. Moving the gold back to the States in that amount would have been almost impossible for me. I gave some thought to just burying it with the idea of coming back for it after the war, but I didn’t think it would be a damn bit easier then. So I sold it. I sold part of it in poker games against cash, at well under its market value, and eventually found a guy who wondered where I came up with all the gold. Eventually we worked out a deal where I sold him about seventeen thousand dollars worth of gold for ten thousand dollars of Military Payment Certificates. I was eventually able to convert that to greenbacks on the strength of being a well-known poker player.”

“Did you sell any of it to Nixon?” Steve smirked.

“No, I met him before all this happened. The point I’m trying to make is that I came out of it making about twelve thousand dollars on an investment of nearly nothing, as long as I kept quiet about where the gold came from in the first place. The guy I was able to sell the bulk of it to was willing to risk ten thousand dollars to get a profit of about seven thousand. He said he had the connections to get the gold to the States, and I guess he did. I made a nice profit out of it at a relatively small risk. He made a smaller profit on what I considered would have been a much larger risk if I’d tried to do it myself. Sometimes you have to get what you can out of a deal and call it good enough. The fifteen grand or so between the gold and poker winnings I brought back to the States after the war was enough to grubstake me for greater things, so I consider myself amply rewarded. At the price of gold today, that was the equivalent of a little under half a million dollars. That’s where my fortune really started.”

“So you’re saying you went for the smaller, safer pot, rather than going for everything you could get?” Steve replied, thinking of the story about playing poker with Richard Nixon.

“Well, yes and no. I had to consider what I could accomplish, rather than what would have been nice to achieve. It was a calculated risk. As it was I got something out of it, actually quite a bit for those days, with what I considered to be a reasonable amount of risk. If I’d gone for the whole pot, I stood a much greater chance of losing it all.”

“All right, I see your point on that.”

“Yes, but there are several other lessons in it. One of them is that luck counts. But patience counts too, waiting for the right time to come along, and sometimes we have to help it come.”

“I think I see what you’re saying there too.”

“Maybe, but you have to think of it from my perspective. I have several, well, deals for the want of a better word, waiting for the right time to come along to harvest them. The problem is that they’re not all ready to harvest yet, but I’m well past the point where I can wait them out any longer. In general those deals are legal, although some people might question the legality of some, and maybe the morality of most, as in some cases harvesting them will take a chunk out of the hide of the other guy, usually someone who I think deserves it.”

“Uncle Homer, I hate to say it, but I have to wonder what you mean by questionable legality or morality.”

“Good. I was hoping you’d say that. It makes me think you’re about as good a man as your father was. All I think I really need to do is to ask you who really owned that gold I was talking about? I guarantee you, if I’d turned it in like some people would think I should have done, the American, Australians, Japanese, Dutch, and now probably the Indonesians would still be arguing about it, and the only ones making anything off of it would be lawyers. Well, maybe not. Considering the administration we have now, the Indonesians would probably have it, even though I don’t see where they would have any claim to it.”

“Yeah,” Steve replied thoughtfully. “But let’s not get into politics.”

“I have no desire to, either. Steve, you may come to think I’m a greedy bastard, but I have nothing on the average politician, at least those on the national level. I like relieving greedy bastards of their ill-gotten gains when I can, and sometimes I’ve been lucky. But it’s like the motto of the British Special Air Service, ‘Who dares, wins.’”

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