Flea Market Find

Financially, he had not had any serious cash flow issues since the kids had finished college, Brandon with a degree in Information Technology with a minor in Marketing, and Monica with one in Political Science and a minor in Mass Communication. But having to change his mindset from fighting to hang on to as much of what he already had as he could, to realizing that his personal net worth had just quadrupled, was just a little much to wrap his head around. Don could see that his friend had tripped his safeties and stepped in.

"I'll expect delivery of the checks for the partnership buyout, the pension plan, the investment account, and the insurance to my office by noon on Friday," he said to Shawcross. "Let's go, Don." He guided his client and friend out the door.

Friday at noon, Chuck went looking for his children. He found Brandon, whose wispy beard put him in mind not of Steve Jobs as was doubtless Brandon's intention but rather of Che Guevara, in the family room. He had a headset on, playing some online multiplayer shoot-'em-up game. He pulled the headset off Brandon's head, earning himself a "Hey!" from his son.

"Go upstairs, shave, shower, and put on a suit and shoes instead of those ratty sneakers you've been slouching around in. Be back down here in ten minutes. Move!" Brandon got up and trotted out of the room. He knew that you didn't screw around with Dad when he got that you-will-do-what-I-say tone in his voice.

Monica was in the kitchen, with her cell phone glued to her ear as usual, making a sandwich as she talked. She was in a cropped top that just barely covered her breasts, yoga pants, and bare feet.

"Look, the guy lives by himself. He's one of those self-sufficiency, live off the grid, solve your own problems, traditional virtues types, right? He has a small farm on the outskirts of town and he keeps some animals -- a steer, chickens, a couple of turkeys, a couple of pigs. Let's start a whispering campaign that the reason there's no woman on the place is that he likes to make it with the sows on the farm."

Even from three feet away, Chuck could hear the reply from the person on the other end of the call.

"My God, Monica, we can't call him a pigfucker!"

"No -- but let's make him deny it. We start the rumor going, let it gather steam, and then we plant some moronic college student at one of his rallies to ask the question. Even if he tries to laugh it off, some of the people are going to start wondering. We use different dupes at different rallies, all asking the same question, and the next thing you know everyone is going to wonder if there's anything to it -- oops, gotta go, 'bye." She hung up. Her father, arms crossed, was glaring at her with an expression she remembered all too well from her teenage years when he disapproved of something she was doing, wearing, or talking about.

"Go change into something fit to be seen in public and run a brush through your hair. We have an appointment downtown. Now."

Forty-five minutes later they were seated in front of Don Carcharo's Victorian desk. He had a bound book and a couple of envelopes on the otherwise bare leather top. He opened the book and flipped through the pages.

"Monica, Brandon, these are the documents that established the Emerson -- Scandian Family Trust. Let me explain to you what a family trust does.

"All of the family's assets, principally the real estate owned by your parents, which include the primary home, an oceanside cottage, a hunting cabin, and three townhouses but also includes bank accounts, mutual funds, stocks and bonds, and some other bits and pieces, are in the Family Trust. The purpose of the trust is to minimize the tax bite the government takes in estate taxes, to insure that as much money as possible comes to the heirs.

"Your mother's will specifies that upon her death, all of which she died possessed comes to your father via the Trust. When he passes on, all of the assets of which your father dies possessed go into the Trust, and they will be divided between you after estate tax is deducted according to a formula we need not get into at this time. The important point is that all of the family's assets now belong to him." The lawyer sat back and looked at the two adultescents, who were acting as if someone had just hit them in the back of the head with a two-by-four.

"But Mom wrote a new will!" sputtered Monica. "Grace, her personal assistant, told me so! She was the one who typed it up! According to her, apart from some personal bequests everything comes to Bran and me, fifty-fifty! Millions of dollars!"

"And so it might, if your mother had signed the will before she went to Chicago. But she didn't. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're going to hire some shark to try and break the will in return for 40% of the take. Let me tell you what will happen if you go down that road.

"We'll go into court. Your father and I will have the Family Trust documents, and you will have the will Grace over at Shawcross, Scandian & Shorr typed and printed out for your mother. The judge will ask to see your copy of your mother's will, and he will ask me for my copy of your mother's will. He will see that my copy of the will is signed, properly witnessed, and notarized; and yours is not. Right then and there, he will find for the respondent -- your dad -- and will direct that you two pay my legal fees and all court costs, and probably cuss out your lawyer for wasting the court's time with a groundless suit. Which means you two would wind up paying several thousand dollars for the privilege of having made fools of yourselves.

"Now, do you really want to do that?"

The expressions on the faces of the Emerson kids were a study in thwarted greed, and both Don and their father could see it. Chuck stood and picked up the two envelopes Don's staff had prepared for him. He handed one to his son.

"Since you graduated from college, Brandon, you haven't had a full time job. You haven't even made a serious effort to find one. You spend your time sitting around the coffee shop mooching their wi-fi and cultivating your facial hair while you supposedly try to perfect some cybersecurity program that will make everyone's computer invulnerable to hacking, even though I've never seen you writing code. Playing games, trying to hook up with somebody, buying tickets, making reservations to go somewhere on your mother's dime -- oh, you didn't know I knew she was sending you two $5,000 a month apiece to cover your living expenses? -- all that, but never actually working on this magical mystery program of yours.

"You seem to have the delusion that you're the next Mark Zuckerberg and by the time you're 30 you will be a billionaire. You need to face the fact that you aren't, and you won't be.

"That envelope contains a check for $500,000. If you are smart, which I doubt, you will spend the money to buy yourself a house in New Hampshire just over the Massachusetts border close enough to commute to Boston or one of the tech companies along Route 128, and get yourself a real job. Write your magical mystery program in your spare time and see if you can make it run, but stop trying to scam investors until you have a working prototype and the relevant patents and copyrights in hand. Grow up. Be a man, not an arrested adolescent who can't make it without Mommy's help."

He shifted his attention to his daughter. "Monica, I've been listening to you talking to people in person and on the phone since you got here. Now I understand why you majored in Political Science and minored in Mass Communication. I'm not sure if you want to hold office yourself, but you sure as hell want to be the next Joseph Goebbels, the ideologue who writes the platform and the speeches for the talking heads running for office. You want to be the puppet master, making the people dance to your tune. You have this unjustified belief that you are going to change the world with your socialist dreams, required conformity, and serious misunderstanding of what this country is really all about.

"You're everything that's wrong in American politics today. You're one of the jackasses who sincerely believes the American people can't take care of themselves without you to hold them by the hand and guide their every move, patting the widdle peepul on the head when they do what they are told, while real power is reserved exclusively unto the elite of your political party. You make me sick.

"Your envelope also contains a check for half a million bucks. My advice to you is the same as what I told your brother. Buy a house within commuting distance of Portland, find yourself a real job, and get connected with the real world instead of the delusional cloud-cuckoo-land you and your political junkies have created for yourselves. The best thing that could happen to you would be a hitch in the Marine Corps. That might straighten your head out."

He reached into his inside coat pocket and tossed plane tickets into his children's laps. "Those will get you back to Boston and Portland. Just go straight to the airport, don't go back to the house. Your things will be shipped to you. I don't want to see or hear from either of you until you get your heads out of your asses and back in contact with reality. Now, get out!"

The two adult children knew when to cut their losses and left the office. Don opened a drawer of his desk, took out two glasses and a bottle of scotch, poured two drinks, and handed Chuck one.

"That wasn't very pleasant, old friend."

"Necessary actions rarely are," agreed Chuck, "but it's the only thing I can think of that might make those two wake up and smell the coffee. Samantha has had them on an allowance ever since they graduated college with a pair of the most worthless degrees I can think of. She supported them in their Millennial belief that they are such special snowflakes, anything they want to do must be the best thing for themselves and everyone else; that they are better than everyone else. By locking up the piggy bank, I'm hoping it will force them to grow up. And if it doesn't ... well, at least I won't be responsible for whatever they do. I think I am going to have to write a couple of codicils to the family trust documents; I can always delete them later, no?"

"Yes." Don paused to take a sip of his whiskey. "But what are you going to do now that you have so much money you can do whatever you want?"

Chuck looked at his glass, and took a gulp of the good sippin' whiskey. "I don't know, Don. I just don't know."

Chapter 3

A few days after the confrontation with his children, most of which Chuck had spent in deep thought, serious consideration, and the weighing of options, he walked into Miguel Faro's office. Wednesday afternoon was Miguel's day for golf. A dedicated duffer, the barrel-chested, Zapata-mustached Faro was a fixture on the local course as part of an enthusiastic foursome nicknamed The Gardeners because of the divots they dug in the fairway when they weren't hacking their balls out of the rough or the bunkers. He had just changed into golfing duds when Chuck knocked on the doorjamb.

"Got a minute?"

"For you? Always. C'mon in." Chuck closed the door behind him and Miguel's expression turned serious. Chuck never closed the door to Miguel's office unless he had something important to discuss. The two old friends sat on the leather couch, as they often did.

"How are you getting along?" Miguel asked.

"That's what I need to talk to you about." Chuck looked away, his face drawn. "I've had it. I can't do this anymore. It all seems so ... pointless now. And The Faro Group is not going to prosper if its Executive Vice President for Sales and Marketing is not fully engaged with the business.

"I'm going to retire, Mike. It's time for me to move on to the next phase of my life, whatever that is. Who knows? I might even take up golf."

Miguel looked at him. He and Chuck had built The Faro Group up from nothing, putting all their eggs into that one basket and nurturing it into a powerhouse in the region's automobile industry, with new car dealerships, used car lots, and a couple of repair and paint shops not overtly connected to the main operation. They had earned their reputation for ironclad integrity, and much of the reason the car buying public saw them that way was due to Chuck and the way he trained and operated the sales force. One thing he and Faro had agreed about early on was to promote from within at all levels, in all aspects of their corporation. He, the sales managers he had brought up through the ranks to supervisory positions, and the vice presidents who ran each dealership, and especially the used car showrooms, were honest as the day was long. Chuck could wheel and deal with the best of them and did when negotiating with the carmakers, but he never engaged in dirty dealing. He had fired salesmen and once or twice sales managers who did. Miguel knew Chuck was being honest now, but he felt he had to try and change his mind.

"Look, you've had a bunch of the high stress emotional blows the psychology books say give people heart attacks, warp their minds, that sort of thing, one right after the other. Finding out your wife has been cheating on you for who knows how long, filing for divorce, living in the same house with a bitch who hates you because moving out would in effect cede your claim to ownership, having your not-yet-ex-wife die in a terrorist incident before anything got resolved, having to bury her, and then the reading of the will and all that goes with that -- it would hammer a saint into a coma. Right now, you think that Job in the Bible had it better than you. But that's no reason to walk away from a job you're great at, and a business you've built that's respected across the country.

"Take a leave of absence, a year maybe if you think you need that much time. Let yourself come back to an even keel. Life looks gloomy now, but it will get better.

"You remember when I lost Abuela. I thought the world had ended. You got me through that. Let me help you work through this, Chuck."

Chuck looked at his friend and smiled. "You were always better at the business side of things, Mike, but you still remember the sales skills I taught you. I've spent days thinking about this, examining options, looking at possible scenarios. Taking a leave of absence was one of the first ones. But it won't work, Mike.

"I need a challenge to get back in the game of life. You and I have done such a good job building The Faro Group that we could drop dead this very minute and your kids would take over and run the show without missing a beat. Minerva is your strong right hand on the operations side, and Mikey has worked his way up from a part time used car salesman on the cheapo lot to Sales Manager over at Faro Chrysler. I think he's ready to step up to senior management.

"Here's what I'm thinking. We name Mikey Director of Sales or something like that, and I spend a few months easing him in as my successor. By the time the new cars are unveiled, he'll be ready to take the reins and I just step out of the picture. You name me Vice Chairman of the Board or something because I am not about to sell my stock in the Faro Group; I get a higher return from the business than I do from my mutual funds. There's continuity, it keeps things in the family, the business doesn't suffer, and I can try to find some peace and balance."

Miguel was silent. He knew that Chuck had made up his mind to pack it in, and thought he knew why. He had happened to overhear a conversation at the country club between a couple of lawyers about how their firm was faced with buying back the shares of a partner who had died in that Chicago shoot-down, and it was costing them $15 million. He realized that all he could do was make lemonade out of this lemon he'd been handed.

"Your 'specials' are going to be seriously upset, Chuck. There must be two dozen customers of ours who won't buy a car from anyone but you. Whatever will we do about them?"

"They all have old school manners; they never come to buy without calling and talking and making an appointment. Just let me know when one of them calls, and I'll come in and take care of them for old times' sake. Mind you, I still expect to get the salesman's commission for any cars I sell."

Miguel laughed and embraced his old friend. "I think we can live with that. Okay. Call Mikey and have him come see you. I'll get Minerva to work on a new contract for him. I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for, mi amigo."

When Don got the phone call from Chuck, he hadn't seen him face to face in more than six months, and hadn't heard from him in more than three. The last time he had seen his friend, it was when a news camera had panned across the family members gathered for the dedication of the Flight 7908 Memorial in the corner of the Allstate Arena parking lot. He had noticed that Chuck seemed thinner, his middle-aged spread gone. His face had been carefully schooled into immobility, like most of the other adult males. However, he'd thought at the time in Chuck's case it was because people would not have understood his dancing a jig while singing, "Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead."

"Hey there! Long time no see. What's on your mind?"

"I have an idea and I want to talk to you about it. You doing anything tonight?"

"Astrid and I are going out for dinner, but I could stop by afterwards if you're going to be up for awhile."

"Fine. See you then."

Chuck answered the door at nine-thirty. He waved Don in with an expansive sweep of the arm worthy of Errol Flynn. They went into the study, where he fixed them drinks and they settled into the leather club chairs on opposite sides of the fireplace.

"So, Chuck, what have you been up to since you stepped down as EVP Sales over at Faro?"

Chuck took a sip of the single barrel rye that had lately become his tipple of choice. "Well, after Mikey Faro proved he could handle the job, I went up to the hunting cabin and just communed with nature for a couple of months, getting back in touch with myself. You know, sort of taking my soul out and looking at it, taking stock of things, figuring out what I need and how to go about getting it, then exploring the possibilities."

"You're not talking about sex, are you? Wall to wall horny bimbos?"

Chuck snickered. "No, although as I discovered when I moved into the cottage for awhile there are lots of twenty-something women with Electra Complex fantasies about seducing Daddy and fucking his brains out. There are some who prefer older men because although they may not always have the stamina of some college-age stud, they have better technique and are more likely to pleasure their partners. You can rest assured I did not lack for female companionship any time I was in the mood for it. But that's not why I asked you to come by tonight.

"While I was thinking about the future, I went back to my hometown. I don't know if I ever told you, but when I was in high school and in college, I worked part time for an estate sale company. Jeanine's still in the business even though she's pushing eighty, and we talked."

"You want to become an estate sale operator?" Don asked incredulously.

"Not exactly. Jeanine gave me an introduction to a friend who works with her. She sells things she buys out of storage lockers and Jeanine's estate sales at flea markets in a three county area, and does pretty well at it. I talked to Diana, and went to a few with her as unpaid hired help to see how things work from the seller's side of the table. Turns out I'm not bad at the flea market game.