Steve and Ann worked until well after midnight getting the desk and other furniture cleaned up. Everything was just as dirty as Steve had expected, but rather surprisingly it cleaned up fairly easily, although Ann had to dump the muddy water several times and refill the bucket with clean soapy water. The obvious quality of the desk soon emerged, and liberal applications of furniture polish made it shine. The two of them went through all the drawers and shelves and cubbyholes, finding nothing more than a few dead flies. Steve wondered what he was going to do with all of the empty space in it; people didn’t use desks in quite the same way they once had, before computers came along.

As had become usual, there was little small talk as the two of them worked – there just wasn’t much to talk about without getting into things Steve thought Ann might consider personal and therefore off-limits. She did explain some of what she knew about the house, which helped break the silence. For example, since Stinky Antonelli had owned the house, he had presumably owned the desk, but neither she nor Uncle Homer knew if he’d actually used it.

The third floor had not been used for anything much, even storage, ever since Uncle Homer had picked the place up in the tax sale following the collapse of the Sons of the Father. Ann didn’t know much about the cult, other than it had been some kind of weird Christian monastery, which had collapsed financially. “Mr. Taylor said one time that they must have gotten along by having their members take vows of poverty and donate their belongings to the group,” she explained. “He said that staying financially viable would have required new members coming aboard, and apparently they weren’t successful at recruiting anyone with money, hence the demise.”

She also explained that the second floor hadn’t been used much either, at least until Steve came along; just a couple rooms were used occasionally. “There is another room that can be set up as a guest room if we need it,” she explained, “but since you’re the first guest we’ve had here in years, there isn’t much need.”

Their conversation meandered along sporadically for some time; often the only thing that was said for minutes was something to the effect of, “Hand me that rag.”

Once the desk was done, they turned to the other furniture. The table, though dirty, was good solid oak and cleaned up well. The swivel chair also responded to the same treatment, but it was clear that it was going to need some oiling. Ann took off for a few minutes and came back from the garage with an oil can. After some time, the chair was working, it didn’t feel to be too uncomfortable to Steve, but he made a mental note to buy some sort of a pad for it the next time he was out of the house.

While he was oiling the chair, she vacuumed the room, and soon they moved the furniture into it. It was clearly going to make an adequate office; there was a large window that overlooked the lawn in the direction of the pond, which was lost in the darkness. Of course the shade was drawn, as was every other one in the house, but Steve reasoned that since he was going to be working here in the daylight when Ann was asleep he would be able to enjoy a little bit of light.

By the time everything was done and the mess in the hall cleaned up, it was late enough that Steve was ready for some sleep. “It’s good to have that job completed, sir,” she said. “I think I’ll go down, take a shower, and get into some clean clothes, and get a few other chores done.”

“Enjoy yourself,” he yawned. “I’m going to take a shower and get some sack time.”

“I expect to see you briefly in the morning, sir,” she told him. “We really should get into town and get the minivan, but I suspect I shall go to bed shortly after that. Tomorrow you might as well get the computer set up. I’ll leave you the instructions on how to log onto the wireless network in the house and a list of some software you might as well download and set up.”

“I find computers usually need a little tweaking to get running right. That’ll probably eat up most of the day.”

“I suspect you will find something to keep you busy, sir. Have a good night.”

“Have a good day, and sweet dreams when you get around to them, Ann.”

Steve was grateful to take a shower and go to bed. It had been a long day, although not a particularly stressful one. He was still getting used to the weird hours, and that might take a while with Uncle Homer and Ann on such a different schedule. He still wasn’t exactly clear what it was he was supposed to be doing for Uncle Homer, but knew he was marking time. Even with his revelation about Ann that morning, she seemed to be more of a mystery than ever. Once again the thought crossed his mind that she had to be worth quite a bit of money, but she’d just spent hours working on a rather dirty job with him, and she had seemed to enjoy it. Something just didn’t add up.

Well, maybe someday he’d figure it out, he thought.

As expected, Ann was up when he came down the stairs the next morning. “I trust you had a good night, sir?” she asked when she saw him.

“I’m starting to get used to that bed a little,” he told her. “It’s softer than I’m used to.”

“Perhaps I should ask Mr. Taylor if we should get a stiffer mattress, sir.”

“I’d say not now. I ought to be used to it in a few days.”

“Very well, sir. Would you care for breakfast?”

“How about not?” he suggested. “I know we’ve got to go to town and pick up the minivan. I could stop off and have breakfast in town. That would get you to sleep that much sooner.”

“Thank you sir. I’d appreciate that. I’m afraid you’re going to be on your own for lunch. Just make a list of what you use so I can replace it.”

“So long as there’s bread and lunch meat I can get along, Ann.”

“Very good, sir. I won’t worry about it, then. If you’re ready, we might as well be off.”

Steve offered to drive her to town in the Caliber, mostly because he was still a little scared of the size of the Lincoln, and she was willing to ride along. It proved that there was a small Chrysler dealership in town, and the minivan was there. It only took Ann a few minutes to make whatever arrangements were needed to pick it up, and soon she was headed back up the road to Uncle Homer’s.

There wasn’t a great deal for him to do in town. He stopped by a dollar store to get a pad for the swivel chair; he couldn’t think of anything else to do except to swing by Becky’s for breakfast again.

The place was as empty as it had been the day before. Becky was there, as was the same fiftyish couple who had been there the day before too. “So what can I get you for breakfast today?” the white-clad Becky asked.

“Got a question. I know it’s a little early, but can we maybe do something besides a typical breakfast? I’m a little breakfasted-out right now.”

“It would take a few minutes longer than normal,” she replied. “But I can give you anything on the lunch and dinner menu if you’re willing to wait for it. How about the hot meatloaf sandwich, swimming in brown gravy? It’s going to be the special today and it doesn’t seem very breakfasty to me.”

“Sounds like a winner. Do it.”

While he waited for Becky to do whatever it was she had to do, he spent most of his time talking with the older couple about their adventures. It seemed they spent a lot of their time traveling from one Habitat for Humanity building project to another, working on new homes for people who needed them; it sounded like a very productive and rewarding retirement to him.

It took close to half an hour for his food to come but it was worth the wait – nice, unhealthy, salty, fatty food! Ann may have been a great cook, but her meals were a little too healthy to suit him. He could see that he was going to need a respite once in a while, and this seemed like a great place to get it.

Feeling somewhat better, he drove back out to Uncle Homer’s and went inside; for once Ann wasn’t there to greet him. He went upstairs as quietly as he could, and started setting up the computer. It took him longer than he anticipated; it was a Windows 8 machine and he was used to Windows 7, so there were a number of things that were downright maddening to him – and of course, the manual and the help files were no help at all. It took him several hours to get it set up as he wanted it and to get the programs he needed downloaded and running. Sometime in the middle he went downstairs and put together a sandwich and a glass of milk, but went right back up to the office and spent the time cursing Bill Gates’ bones.

By the middle of the afternoon he had the computer running without swearing at it under his breath very much. Now that he had that under control, he needed to think of something else to do, and the most obvious thing he could think of was a little investigation of Shawtex Industries. He remembered Uncle Homer telling Ann to investigate them, but he hadn’t heard any report back on it. Besides, it probably wouldn’t hurt to show a little initiative, and with him nearly having an MBA he might pick up something Ann would miss, although with her perceived experience that hardly seemed possible.

He really didn’t have much of an idea where to start, except that after the hassle he’d had with Microsoft products all afternoon he didn’t have much use for Bing. Google gave him more than enough hits, and soon he was looking at balance sheets and company information. Several interesting things jumped out at him, but nothing that really was very helpful, especially in getting a handle on them.

Presently Ann came up to his office. “Mr. Taylor, sir?” she said through the partially opened door. “I don’t have my sunglasses with me. Do you think you could draw the drapes?”

“Oh, of course Ann,” he replied, getting up to do it. “I thought you were still asleep.”

“No, not for a while now, sir, but I’ve had some things to do. Is your office adequate? I see you have your computer running.”

“Not without a few problems caused by Microsoft,” he told her, “but it seems to be holding for now. I’ve been taking a quick look at Shawtex Industries.”

“I’ve spent a little time at it myself, but I haven’t really had a chance to dig into it. Have you discovered anything, sir?”

“Probably nothing you haven’t seen already, but I can tell they’re not going to be easy to crack.”

“I feel much the same way, sir, but perhaps we should discuss it with Mr. Taylor after we eat. I haven’t yet been able to talk with him about it myself.”

A few minutes later Steve was downstairs, being served yet another breakfast – ham and eggs, this time, which made him a little thankful that he’d had the foresight to have a real meal at Becky’s hours before. That might have to turn into a regular occurrence, he thought.

As always, after they ate they got down to business over coffee in the living room. “So Steve,” Uncle Homer said. “Are you getting settled in up in your office?”

“Pretty much,” Steve told him, “other than my ever-increasing desire to organize a lynch mob to go after Bill Gates.”

“Be nice to Bill,” Uncle Homer smiled. “I agree he’s done some stupid things, but I was smart enough to get in on Microsoft early with a nice little chunk of stock that has paid off very, very well over the years.”

I should have known, Steve thought. Uncle Homer is not the kind of guy who misses many tricks. “How did you manage that?”

“Good guesswork in this case. I had a big block of IBM and wasn’t very happy about the way it was performing. It seemed to me that they weren’t keeping up with the way the world was moving toward PCs back in the early eighties. Then they made that deal with Microsoft for the original DOS operating system, and it seemed to me that Microsoft was going to have IBM by the short hairs sooner or later, so I threw some spare change at it.”

Steve could only sigh. Getting in on Microsoft early was just about the best possible stock deal that could be made in the early eighties. Even though he wasn’t a stock market specialist by any means, any idiot who had ever sat in an MBA class knew that. “How much spare change, just out of curiosity?”

“About four million worth,” Uncle Homer smiled. “I still had some change left over from selling short early when Nelson Bunker Hunt’s attempt at a silver corner collapsed.”

Holy crap! Hunt had lost his shirt big time, although he’d had it to lose back there in the seventies – but a number of people had made out very well in the fallout, Uncle Homer obviously included. “How do you hear about those kinds of things?”

“Mostly by keeping my ear to the ground and watching for trends. You have to be aware of a little guy with a big idea. Of course, you can lose your shirt if you bet the wrong way. I don’t often take risks like that any more. I’m just too old to keep up with everything. Anyway, that brings me to the question of your friend Crocker.”

“You’ve thought about that, I take it?”

“Quite a bit. Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, Steve. He isn’t going to be any Microsoft, but if it works out it might provide a solid return for you, if nothing spectacular. What it comes down to is if you trust the guy and think he can make a go of it.”

“I agree, it’s not going to be a Microsoft, but I don’t think he’s going to lose his shirt, either, at least assuming nothing terribly unexpected happens.”

“The unexpected can always happen. What I’m saying, Steve, is that if you trust him, you ought to back him.”

“I can’t back him with the kind of money he needs. I just don’t have that much right now. If what you’ve hinted at is correct I might have it in, oh, a few months, but I don’t have it now.”

“You’re not thinking big enough, Steve. Ann and I are going to have to cure you of that. One of the best ways to make money is to use other people’s money. Say, suppose you could get a half-million-dollar loan for ten years at five percent. What’s to keep you from loaning that money to this Crocker for ten years at six percent? One percent compounded annually over ten years adds up to a nice chunk of change.”

“You mean you’re willing to loan that to me?”

“Indirectly, Steve. Keeping the government’s fingerprints off the deal is important, and there are some other fingers around that probably ought to be kept out, too. Since you only want to appear to be the facilitator in this deal, and not the source of the money, well, we’ll have to be just a little cute. That’s not an issue, just the normal sleight of hand for this kind of thing. The question is, are you willing to risk a half million on this guy? If you lose it, well, you lose it, but in a few months you ought to be able to pay it off. Besides, if it falls on its ass, you get a nice business loss to present to the IRS, which can take some of the sting out.”

“Like I said, I think he’s good for it. I mean, it sounds like something of a long shot, but if he actually has the contracts in his hand and is otherwise set up enough that it looks like he can deliver, it sounds like a reasonable amount of risk to me, and as you say, the compounded interest looks like a nice reward.”

“Good enough. Ann, I know we have several shadow corporations that haven’t had any activity in a while. Let’s wake one of them up and use it, just to keep Steve from being the obvious source of the money.”

“How about Macomber-Calligan Ventures, sir?” she suggested. “It’s just sitting there not doing anything.”

“That would work just fine,” Uncle Homer said. “Steve, it’s usually easier to re-purpose an existing corporation in things like this than it is to file papers on a new one, and this is an excellent example, especially since the corporation right now is only worth the paper it’s printed on. Ann, you can set that in motion tonight. I don’t remember for sure, but I probably own a big majority of it. Let’s get that transferred to Steve for, oh, a dollar and other valuable considerations. You have a share of that, don’t you?”

“Twenty percent of the stock, sir.”

“Why don’t you just leave it there?” Uncle Homer said, then turned to Steve. “Unless you object, of course. It’s generally useful to not be the sole owner of a corporation, for tax purposes if nothing else. Ann participates in several of my holdings, and I’d strongly suggest that she participate in yours. She can be useful to you in a number of ways.”

“I see nothing wrong with it. But are you sure you don’t want any part of it?”

“As far as I’m concerned it’s just one more damn thing that the executor of my estate will have to deal with. I’m trying to simplify things for me, not make them more complicated. But to get back to this project, tomorrow you can go ahead and contact Crocker and tell him you have a tentative deal. Make clear to him that he will have to have solid contracts in his hands pending financing and be willing to offer a lien on the machinery. If he bites on it, and from what you tell me there’s no doubt he will, you can have Ann front for you as a representative of Macomber-Calligan, while you just act like you’re greasing the skids. That ought to keep you out of his line of sight.”

“Ann,” Steve spoke up, “are you comfortable doing that?”

“Certainly, sir,” she replied confidently, “it won’t be anything I haven’t done before. We’re just going to have to work out how we present things to Mr. Crocker.”

“Steve,” Uncle Homer went on. “This is really kind of a small-potatoes deal, but it’ll be a good one for you to get a feeling of how this end of the business works. Once you have some idea of what you’re doing we can go looking for bigger game. This is a very common practice, although we’re being a little cute about it. But like in all things it’s always possible to go a bit too far. You remember how, oh, a few years ago, there were all sorts of little companies refinancing home mortgages?”

“Yeah, they seem to have disappeared when the housing market crashed.”

“That they did. They were working a bubble and it bit them in the butt. The trick is always to be ahead of the trend, rather than behind it. But even though it didn’t work for them, this is a valid way of doing business and there is nothing unethical about it. You’re not going into home mortgages looking into foreclosing on someone. You’re trying to create wealth, create capital, which is a totally different thing. As I said, it takes money to make money and this way you’re using other people’s money to do it.”

A lot went by Steve there in a rush, and while it sounded like a good idea, he wasn’t quite sure whether he’d be getting the money from Uncle Homer, or from Ann. But did it matter? Wherever the money came from, it would probably be from another shadow corporation the two of them owned. Good god, how did they ever keep everything straight? But that wasn’t what he said. Instead he replied, “All I can say is that if it works for you, it works for me.”

“Good enough, I think we have the ball rolling on that one. You and Ann know what to do. Now, while we’re on the subject of Mr. Crocker, let’s go to a related subject, Shawtex Industries. Ann, have you had a chance to look at it?”

“Only slightly, sir. I’ve been busy with other things, but I know the young Mr. Taylor was looking at it this afternoon.”

“I knew you had something on the ball, Steve. Did you find anything interesting?”

“I don’t know about interesting,” Steve sighed. “But there’s nothing obvious that jumps out on me, except that as a corporation they’re about as real as Macomber-Calligan.”

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.