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<1st attachment, "Tom's_Diary_4-10-02.doc" begin>

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	The following is fiction of an adult nature.  If I believed in
setting age limits for things, you'd have to be eighteen to read
this and I'd never have bothered to write it.  IMHO, if you can
read and enjoy, then you're old enough to read and enjoy.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	All persons here depicted are figments of my imagination and any
resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly a blunder on my
part.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	Official stuff:  Story codes: teen, con.

	If stories like this offend you, you will offend ME if you read
further and complain. Copyright 2003, by Gina Marie Wylie.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	I can be reached at gmwylie98260@hothothotmail.com, at least if
you remove some of the hots.  All comments and reasoned
discussion welcome.

Below is my site on ASSTR:
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Gina_Marie_Wylie/www/

My stories are also posted on StoriesOnline:
http://Storiesonline.net/

And on Electronic Wilderness Publishing:
http:// www.ewpub.org/

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++	

Tom's Diary

Wednesday, April 10, 2002

	She came up next to me and slid her arm around me.  "Love you,
Tom," she murmured, leaning close and kissing me on my cheek.

	I waved at the view in front of me.  "This, dearest, is as
beautiful as it gets."
	
	A short distance in front of my eyes was a lightly tinted pane
of glass; a very large pane, a window that gave a completely
unobstructed view of the open space before us.  Across a gap of a
hundred feet or more another tinted pane of glass looked back at
me.  There was a matching one off to my left, another to the
right.  Light shone into the space in front of us, streaming in
from skylights in the ceiling.

	It was thirty feet or more to the ground.  There were trees and
green growing things in planters dotted around the open space on
the ground level, mixed with small fountains and tumbling
freshets of water that ran over rocks.  It was breathtakingly
pretty.

	"My first project," she said, slightly apologetic.  "I was still
learning."

	I looked closer at her.  She was my age, maybe a little older. 
A mop of blonde curls for hair; flyaway hair, I thought.  Esmay
Souza had hair like that in Elizabeth Moon's stories.  Eyes that
were pale gray, not nearly the depth of color that Mary or
Elizabeth had.  Paler than Shannon's eyes, too.

	I was dreaming, I realized.  And that realization helped me
recognize her; we'd stood together on the top of a huge hotel,
watching a spaceship rise in the distance.  Elizabeth had been on
the roof with us; I'd dreamed it.  Except this girl was younger
than the one I'd seen before.  I was sure it was the same person,
though.

	"You have that look again," she said, half laughing and shaking
her head.

	"Sorry," I apologized.

	"And we all tell you not to apologize and you do it anyway.  The
weird thing is you wonder why we love you.  None of us have
doubts, Tom."

	"Doubts are good, God told me that himself," I told her.

	"It was a dream, Tom.  Just like this one."  She started
laughing, a little hysterical.  "Sorry, I promise I won't lose
it.  Haven't, since the first night."

	"That night was the night you did the smartest you could."

	"I've moved on, Tom.  I'm not a girl, lost and alone sitting in
a doorway and an ounce away from eternity.  Let's move the
conversation on again, Tom."

	"Sorry,"

	"I'm not," she replied firmly.  "It's just that I want to move
on."

	I sat up in bed.  Actually, I shot upright like someone had hit
me with a jolt of electricity.
	
	Elizabeth opened an eye, smiled.  "A dream, Tom.  You have a lot
of them.  Come lay back down."

	"Who is she?" I asked, "Short, curly blonde hair.  Her eyes are
paler than Shannon's.  She's my height."

	"Someone you've seen in a dream," Elizabeth explained.

	"That's not exactly what I meant."

	"But it's enough.  Tom, I talk too much; please."

	I felt like I'd had a six-pack of coke in the last hour.  My
nerves were jumpy, my mind was bouncing around like a mountain
goat pronging off mountain peaks in a cartoon.  Was seeing the
future a disease you could catch?

Tony was a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.  He'd
explained the plots to me; I'd watched a few episodes of both. 
Buffy was okay.  I liked the dialog; it was clever and witty. 
Angel was darker, much too dark for my taste.  But there weren't
enough hours in the week for all the things I did; TV was
something I watched maybe an hour or two a week, most weeks. 
Sometimes in the summer I watched more, but not often.  Sometimes
during the school year I'd go days and days without watching it.

But Angel reminded me of Cordelia, who had caught the ability to
see visions from an Irish demon.  Those visions didn't look like
much fun, and from everything Tony said about how the story was
going, I was glad I didn't watch.  My mind is weird, sometimes. 
This wasn't a TV show; I'd just had a vivid dream, that was all.

Elizabeth pulled my arm around her, leading it to a bare breast.

"Do you wear anything at night when you sleep?"  I asked,
curious.  At least it was a completely different topic.

"No, I never have.  I thought I was terribly wicked; then your
mom wanted us all to do it, walking around and awake."  She
squeezed my fingers down against her breast.  "I like it, Mom
likes it; Shannon is grossed out."

"Her choice," I whispered, settling down.  Elizabeth's nipples
weren't taut, just normal.  I contemplated trying to change that,
but even as I did, Elizabeth's hand fell away.  Now and then I
could fall asleep like that, but not often.  Lately, more than
usual, though.  I grinned at my memories of the reasons why I'd
had little trouble sleeping lately.

As jazzed as I was, it didn't take long to return to the land of
Nod, but I don't remember any dreams.

I felt Elizabeth move.  She was positioning herself to go down on
me, I thought.  I opened my eyes, and saw it was starting to get
light outside.  Four thirty or so, I thought.  Elizabeth did just
like I thought she was going to do.

She didn't have to do much to get me hard; I lay back, enjoying
the pleasure she was giving me.  Her tongue was running over the
head of my cock, her mouth was wrapped around me, and she was
lightly sucking.

"Mmmm," I whispered.  "I'm awake," I told her.

She didn't say anything, just kept working my erection, using her
hand now as well as her mouth and tongue.  I jerked and came,
spilling my seed into her waiting and willing mouth.

She did a fair job of cleaning me up, then did a Sue Ellen: she
hopped quickly out of bed.  "Come along, Tom," Elizabeth
requested.  She beckoned to me, turned and walked out of the
room.

Okay, I was a little disappointed.

It didn't last long, because a second later Mary came in the
door.  "My daughter informs me that we need a shower," she said.
The beautiful grin, the laughing eyes.

"Okay..." I laughed.

We'd been in the shower about two seconds before we were making
love, standing up.  I remembered as Mary came the first time what
I'd said to Fleur at the orgy.  Sex after sex beat the heck out
of cigarettes.  Or a shower.  But a shower and sex after sex, is
a delicious variation on a theme.

Again, I can't describe the feeling that ran through my mind and
body as I made love to Mary.  A warm, living breathing person,
whose interest and hormones quickened under my touch.  I ran my
hands over her bottom, pulling me to her, kissing her like I'd
done the last few times we'd done nothing but kiss.  Telling her
I remembered and had been saving up.

Finally we were both replete, content.  We dried each other off,
smiling like giddy school kids having the time of their lives at
Disneyland.

Mary finally spoke, as we were about leave.  "I'm going to my
room.  I know Ellen is a fan of minimal makeup, but I'm going to
have to do something so it doesn't look so obvious that someone
made my day this morning."

That thought led me to think about Mary going to work, then why
Mary had to go to work.  She leaned close, kissed me lightly. 
"No, I don't feel guilty; I just don't want to advertise that I'm
not a devastated new widow whose husband was brutally murdered a
few days ago."

I reached out and took her hand, squeezing it lightly.  "And I've
never felt guilty making love to you; not the first time, not the
times in-between and not now."

She smiled back.  "You go get ready for school, I will go get
ready for work," she paused and laughed.  "Oh, did I mention that
we all usually skip breakfast?"

My stomach took that moment to growl; both of us laughed.  "I
didn't do that on purpose," I told her.

"I have no idea how one could do that on purpose.  I trust you in
the kitchen, Tom.  Fix yourself something."

I got dressed, asking Elizabeth if she wanted breakfast.  She
actually made a face.  "Your family is crazy, Tom.  If I ate
breakfasts and lunches and dinners like you guys, I'd look like a
blimp."

I looked at her blandly, "Well, I hope you watch your weight,
because I plan on doing my part to help you work off those excess
calories."

She smiled at me, and I went and found Shannon still snoozing. 
"I hate getting up," she told me.  "Usually around six, Mom drags
me out of bed."

"Breakfast?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"I hate eating by myself," I said with a sigh.

"I have a glass of juice before I go to school," Shannon told me.
 She looked at the door to her room, and I realized that she
wanted to snooze some more.

I laughed and went into the kitchen.  How simple it is, to assume
that everyone does everything the same way as you do... even the
simplest things.  And it just wasn't the case.

Around seven my cell phone went off, and I picked up.  Everyone
was out and about by then.  Although Elizabeth's nose was in a
book, and Mary was talking to Shannon about a shopping list.

"Tom," I said.

"Miriam," she said on the other end.  "I haven't forgotten you. 
I just got distracted."

"That's okay," I told her, "you're not my personal servant."

"Four o'clock at the site, is that okay?"

"That's fine.  I've been working on a list of questions," I told
her.  "I hope you can help shed a little light, too."

"As I said, property isn't my specialty.  I could get someone to
come along who is, if you'd like."

"No.  Later, probably, if it looks good.  I really appreciate
this Miriam."

"Your uncle said you were going to write a proposal memo from
this visit."

I would have flipped my uncle off, if he'd been present.  A
couple of times I'd flapped my own mouth; I was learning to put a
stop to that.  I wished I could tell an adult to put a sock in
it, too.

"There will be quite a bit of research first before there is a
memo.  If there is a memo."

"You're paying the bank for my advice; they pay me to make it. 
I'd like to make a suggestion."

"That's what you're here for," I agreed.

"Write a memo, even if five seconds after you get there you get
disgusted and call it off.  Explain why you decided the way you
did.  Explain it to yourself, to anyone else."

I almost mentioned my diary, what else is my diary for, but for
explaining me to myself?  Sure, there are lots of times I just
sit down and write, but there are other times where I spend a
little while organizing my thoughts first.

"Thanks, Miriam, I'll do that.  You're right."

"I'm going to call Mrs. Leary's real estate agent later this
morning with an offer.  I talked to her Monday afternoon and
we've worked out a plan for the escrow and all of that.  Please,
don't mention to anyone that I talked directly to her; that's a
big no-no in real estate.

"Not against the law, but against good practice," she concluded.

Which explained, at least in part, why Mary was in such a chipper
good mood.  What would Miriam think of Mary and I if she found
out that not only had we showered together this morning, but got
very, very friendly as well?  There wasn't the least spark of
interest on my part towards Miriam; I was sure there was even
less interest on Miriam's part towards me.  Well, it wasn't
exactly lying, not telling her about it.  Sensible, though.

It was an odd chauffeur route; first Penny, then JR and Jenny,
with Elizabeth and Shannon already in the van.  Dad was due a few
minutes after I left to pick up Mary, as they were now
occasionally car-pooling.

Mr. Miller called me up at the end of homeroom; I was concerned
this time.

He handed me a folded piece of paper; this time it was a sheet of
regular paper, though.

I read it.  Then reread it, shaking my head in disbelief.  It was
titled 'Confidential memo to all teachers' and explained my
financial status, and that of my parents and mentioned Uncle
Craig, but without the numbers, just a 'safely can be assumed to
be in 9 figures,' notification.  Teachers were alerted to
possible kidnapping attempts, and perhaps even terrorist threats
against my family and me.

I folded the letter back up, creased it with a great deal of
firmness.  "I wonder," I said under my breath, "what part of
'leave me alone' they didn't understand?"

"You can keep it, if you want," he told me.  "That was in
everyone's box this morning."

It's funny; I'd already noticed it this week, where it hadn't
been something I'd ever paid attention to before.  Mr. Miller was
no fool; he knew exactly what the memo meant to me and my family,
how quickly it would be a matter of common knowledge at school,
and then who knew all where?

"Thanks," I told him.  Instead of leaving, I went back to my
assigned seat and sat down.

This time I called my dad first, and explained.  He had just
gotten to work, and was settling into his desk.  Two seconds
later, he was well on his way to low earth orbit.

"Let me call Craig, your mom, Bill Carstairs.  Stay handy."

"I have a copy of the memo," I told him.

"Take care of it," Dad told me.  "One day you'll be able to gold
plate it and stick it on the wall."

"Right next the quarter from under the fridge," I told him.

He grunted, "I'll get back to you in a few minutes."

I hung up and then sat thinking for a few minutes; people started
coming in for the first period class; the First Bell went off,
the start of the passing period.

I got up and went up to the front, to Mr. Miller.  I stuck out my
hand, "Thanks, sir."

He took my hand and shook it.

I held up the piece of paper.  "I'd have learned about this
eventually, but I really appreciate the heads up.  I really
appreciate how you run home room."

He chuckled, "First time anyone ever said that, usually I'm an
ogre."

"You are an ogre," I told him.  "But you get the job done, and
everyone knows it.  Lately I've noticed that when people don't do
their job well, life isn't as good as it could be.  Even if it's
a little thing like taking home room attendance."

"Rudi Guiliani and his police commissioner did that in New York a
few years ago.  They policed even the little things; the crime
rate plummeted across the board.  I'm from Brooklyn, but I moved
my family away a long time ago; I didn't think anyone could fix
things back there.  But, I saw how they did it.  So I copied
their methods."

"Good job," I told him, and then went out into the hall.

My phone rang; this time it was Uncle Craig.  "Go to the office,
tell them you are leaving school for a family emergency," he told
me.  "Then be in front of the school in fifteen minutes, we'll
meet you."

"Yes, sir."

So I headed for the office, went to the secretary's desk and told
one of them that I was leaving.  She wanted a note, and I told
her I'd come back with one.  She took my name, and when she heard
it, she looked at me curiously.

I found my fingernails were biting into my palm; I forced myself
to relax.  "I may be back, but I don't know when," I told her.

"Just a minute, let me tell Mr. Jones."

She left, but so did I.

Uncle Craig was quicker than he'd anticipated; he was already
there when I walked out front.  Aunt Shirley was driving, and I
nodded to both of them as I got into the back seat of the Lexus.

I handed Uncle Craig the memo, and he read it.  Then he handed it
to Aunt Shirley, who read it as well.

He handed the memo back.  "Downtown, Shirley.  I'll give you the
directions," he told her.

He turned to me.  "What do you think we should do?"

If I was a betting person, I'd have bet Uncle Craig was beyond
furious right then.  There was a muscle that kept jumping at the
corner of his mouth; I could see the tendons in his neck.  What
he said didn't sound like he was that angry.

I'd been that angry, too.  And I hadn't given any thought about
what to do, except to call Dad, who I knew would call Craig. 
Well, I'd demanded more say in things.

"I haven't thought about it," I told him.  "Right now I'm too
angry to think straight."

He nodded, but it was Aunt Shirley who spoke.  "That's a good
idea, Craig.  Give it a few minutes."

He nodded.  "I don't know who said it, but you're right.  Revenge
is sweeter, cold."

"Just be sure to start with the finger pointing in the right
direction when you begin assigning blame," she told her husband.

"There's that, too."

"I should have been a little less arrogant," I told them.

"Tom, you'll always lag behind Craig in that department," my aunt
laughed as she said that.

"Tom," Craig interjected, "I spent more than a decade working on
ways to keep anyone from noticing how many eggs we have in our
basket.  I went to elaborate lengths to keep the numbers secure.

"Fifteen years ago, more or less, the space shuttle Challenger
blew up.  They'd skimped a few bucks on rubber o-rings; they
couldn't handle a frosty morning.  They were thinking space
pickup truck; forgetting that what it actually is, is an
engineering nightmare with a half million moving parts, all
supplied by the lowest bidders.

"There are all kinds of arrogance, Tom.  All kinds.  Mine, sure
that I could deal with letting you have control of your share.  I
simply forgot the most important part of the equation: anyone who
could do what I expected you to do, wasn't about to let someone
else control them, not at all.  And I was sure that I could deal
with some moron dumping the numbers out to the public, because
I'd simply lie about the decimal place, and then get the bank to
lie as well, and start over.

"However, with it all here in the memo, pretty much, lying isn't
the option it once was."

"Is there really a danger?" I asked, but I knew the answer.  I
wasn't ignorant, after all.

"The Unabomber, among others," Craig replied, "a lot more. 
Luddites, anarchists, Mafia, Tongs, Yakusa, drug kingpins; yeah
that's something we now get to live with.  Unless we can somehow
keep this quiet, and stuff the genie back in the bottle."

"When I told the school secretary I was leaving, she ran off to
get the Vice Principal."  I sighed.  "You can't keep it quiet. 
Last year, my friend Tony was a lab assistant for biology, first
period.  Miss Parks had him pick up the stuff in her box almost
every day.  She's not the only one that has a student do it.  The
teachers know, some of the kids know today, tomorrow... most of
them."

If nothing else, the day was an exercise in the use of financial
clout.  We reached the law offices shortly after nine.  Mom and
Dad were already there, plus two lawyers and Bill Carstairs got
there a little later.

Dad read the memo, Mom read it, and the lawyers read it.

"An example of the Peter Principle at work," Dad said with a
laugh.

I don't think any of the lawyers got it; Mom punched Dad on the
arm, and Craig glowered, while Shirley laughed.

By ten in the morning, we'd added Miriam's banker boss and
another lawyer from another firm, specializing in something I
wasn't very clear about.

About eleven, I got up and went outside when I'd seen Bill
Carstairs go out; I think he was headed for the rest room, but I
got to him first.  "Is there a computer I could use here to
connect with the Internet?" I asked.

A minute later I was sitting at a table in what they called the
law library, and logged on.  I called up Google and put in my
name.  It took a couple of tries before I could focus on myself,
but there it was.

When Uncle Craig had moved the money into my name, the bank had
reported to the transaction to the government; that in turn had
alerted the Drug Enforcement Agency, who had looked at Uncle
Craig's holdings and mine.  They had agreements with all sorts of
offshore financial institutions, and they'd unraveled all of his
financial machinations, and my trivial purchase of a van.

Then, since his holdings looked similar to what someone doing
money laundering for the drug cartels or organized crime, they'd
dug further into the holding companies, tracing transactions. 
Early yesterday, some agent at the DEA filed a report saying that
while the first examination showed everything looked okay, there
were still a few strings left to be pulled.  Should he go ahead
and pull them?

I had no idea what the agent's boss had replied; but someone had
hacked the DEA's computer Monday afternoon and the report was
handed to a website that specialized in exotic stuff, stolen from
the government.  Now the DEA report was on about ten different
websites.

I'd made notes, so I logged off and went back to the meeting. 
Sure enough, they were eating deli sandwiches; Mom had ordered me
a roast beef.  I like roast beef sandwiches.  I can't stand
sprouts.  Not only were the roast beef sandwiches stuffed with
sprouts, but so was everything else, including the egg salad
sandwiches.  Ick!

So, I settled for munching some chips and a cookie, drinking a
soda pop, my stomach protesting its second missed meal of the
day.

I laid out my research.

Talk about bombshells!

About an hour later two representatives from the DEA were there,
and very quickly sweating profusely, as they simply had no good
explanation for how the report had been leaked to the Internet.

At two, Dr. Stone arrived, along with two lawyers and someone
else from the high school district administration.

I was starting to get nervous; as far as I could tell, aside from
suing everyone on the far side of the table I couldn't see any
real solution.  Since there wasn't anything worthwhile being
proposed, my thoughts had gone to Miriam and the tour of the
property.  I didn't want to mess that up; worse, the van was
still parked at school.  Who was going to do the chauffeuring?

I asked Mom and she told me that she'd picked up Dad, that he'd
left his car and Mary was going to do the after school driving. 
Mentally, I winced.  Mary did not need to miss more work, but
what could we do?

That worry more or less resolved, that still left Miriam.  I
wrote a quick note to the banker, having pulled his name from my
memory.  Gavin Henderson it was.  I need to learn how to remember
names better.

Anyway, I simply wrote that I had an appointment with Miriam at
four in the afternoon, and could he ask her to meet me at the law
offices and give me a ride?

He nodded, got up and went outside, cell phone in hand.

"Your project?" Uncle Craig asked, and I nodded.

By then it was nearly three, and Uncle Craig seemed to wake up
from his nap; or something.  He'd been pretty much silent, while
the lawyers and everyone else discussed things.

"Let me sum things up right now from my perspective; we can go
into torts and all of that at a later time.

"The bank made a legally required notification to the government
about a certain private financial transaction of a corporation
that I am the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial
Officer.  The DEA investigated not only the particular
transaction, but in just a few days, did a rather thorough
dissection of our family's financial affairs over the last twelve
years, and found nothing amiss.  A DEA employee wrote a report to
that effect and emailed it to his boss; somewhere in that
process, the report was hacked by person or persons unknown.

"These persons released the report to at least one site on the
Internet; more sites have since posted the report now as well.

"Monday afternoon, the administrators at North High school
started examining Tom's personal information; something they had
not done adequately prior to that.  They found the DEA report,
and that administration then made a number of determinations of
risk and thought it incumbent upon themselves to warn the faculty
and staff at Tom's school as to perceived threats.

"Does anyone here wish to dispute this outline?"

The DEA people said they would launch an internal investigation
into how the report was hacked, plus how much other material had
been released as well.

The school district was a horse of a different color.  "We
neither confirm nor deny the facts as stated.  We will conduct
our own internal investigation," their lawyer said.  "Until that
is complete, we can not speak to the matter."

Uncle Craig waved the 'confidential memo'.  "Is that your final
offer?"

The lawyer shrugged.  "We need to do due diligence here, Mr.
Summers.  I'm sure you understand."

"Let me phrase this another way, then," Uncle Craig.  "I haven't
polled my corporate Board, but there is quorum present in the
room in case you doubt my authority."

He turned to Bill Carstairs.  "I want you to draw up a general
release of liability for the bank, insofar as the events as I
stated.  I will sign it, my wife Shirley Summers will sign, as
well as David and Ellen Ferguson.  I'm sure Mr. Henderson will
want to get a legal opinion from his own legal staff before
signing, but considering what else is going to come out of this
meeting, I think they will agree."

He turned to the DEA people.  "I am not a litigious person, nor
are any of the others in my family.  You have, through
carelessness and negligence, placed my family at some risk, not
to mention rather thoroughly violated our privacy by making
public our most intimate financial details.

"You may make an offer of settlement at any time, but in this
matter we have no choice but to litigate without a substantial
settlement.  Seven figures, at the least."

"We can't begin to speak to that," the DEA lead agent told us.

"I know; I just wanted you to know what to expect.  Your agent
did his job, but somewhere along the line, someone screwed up. 
You can settle or we'll litigate."

The DEA people nodded, stood up and left.

"The high school district administration has failed to adequately
supervise the administrative staff at North Phoenix High School.
First, they wanted to suspend Tom Ferguson for reasons that are
beyond ludicrous."

"That decision has been rescinded," the school district lawyer
said.  "It was never made public."

"Which is why at lunch that day, half the people I eat lunch with
knew about it," I interjected.

I learned about what 'looking daggers' at someone really means. 
If that lawyer had had knives in his eyes, I'd have been a
pincushion.

"I am willing to settle with the district, here and now," Uncle
Craig went on.

"That man," he pointed at Dr. Stone, "is put on immediate
suspension and put in charge of the paper shredder or something.
He has no business running anything more complicated than that. 
You will issue another memo, by 8 AM tomorrow morning, saying
that the original memo was in error, the decimal places were
missing when amounts were reported in dollars and your people
misread them.  You will deliver to my attorneys here, by close of
business tomorrow, the fee for their services, plus the sum of
one dollar, payable to David and Ellen Ferguson for damages.

"Do that, and we'll sign a release of all claims against the
district."

Ah!  Uncle Craig's plan was clear.  Offer a carrot, threaten a
huge stick and hope that the correction would be accepted. 
Probably not, I thought.  On the other hand, there was nothing
else I could see that offered anything like a chance.

"We'll need to consult," the lawyer for the district said.  "We
need a few days."

"You can make a few phone calls, and insure that the memo was
actually put in all of the staff mail boxes this morning.  You
will probably also be able to determine that the contents are now
generally known.

"Frankly, if you were to take a couple of days, a week, to make
up your minds, a 'correction' would be viewed as bogus.  No, to
your request for more time.  Tomorrow morning the corrected memo
is in the mailboxes; Dr. Stone is to be put to some more
appropriate task in view of his obvious incapacity.  By close of
business tomorrow the attorney fees have been paid.

"That, or we will file a suit first thing Friday morning.  Since
our family's obscurity will not be possible any further, we would
seek maximum publicity on what has been done and not done by the
district.  I do believe everyone on the school board will be
standing for reelection in the fall.  I'm new to the area, but
David or Ellen would stand for the board, plus others.  Trust me,
the dollar figure on the legal action will be millions of times
greater what it will cost you to settle tomorrow.  Maybe a
billion times."

They left, and Craig kicked everyone out except the five of us. 
"I know I didn't ask, and if anyone has a better idea, I'd be
glad to hear it."

"No, Craig, that was okay," Mom told her brother.

"Ditto," Dad added, "not that I think you have a chance in hell
of bringing it off."

"Ditto that," I said.

Aunt Shirley nodded, "I go with the consensus, dear.  It's a
fig-leaf, but it's our only fig-leaf."

I thought for a second, glanced at my watch.  Odds were, Miriam
was someplace outside, waiting for me.  "Craig, there is a
teacher at my school.  I do not make this recommendation lightly,
but he'd make a good principal, I think.  Mike Miller, he's the
shop teacher."

"I think that would be pushing our luck," Uncle Craig said.

I waved at the door.  "Don't push our luck.  Have Bill Carstairs
or Gavin Henderson or someone else make the recommendation.  Now,
I have another engagement."

I turned to my parents.  "I'm really sorry about this."

"Not your fault, Tom," Dad said.  Mom hugged me.

I zipped out the door, and sure enough, Miriam was there.  "You
don't mind chauffeuring me around again?" I asked.

She waved, "Gavin told me a little about what was going on.  We
have a staff meeting first thing in the morning."  She shook her
head.  "I can hardly wait."

We walked down to where she had her car parked and got in.  As we
drove, I sat thinking; Miriam, it seemed, had things to think
about as well, as she didn't speak either.

The leasing agent's name was Howard Greeley; I had a notepad I'd
pilfered at the lawyer's office and I wrote it down.  We stood
outside the place, and he gave us the basic statistics.

"The building is three hundred feet long, one hundred and fifty
wide; there are three floors.  Because of the design, you enter
by walking up a broad set of steps to what would be the second
floor.  There is another floor above that, and one below.
 
"The current lease holder occupies the first floor, while a
variety of tenants have subleases for space on the second and
third floors.  The building typically runs about 66 per cent
occupancy."

"Why such a occupancy rate?" I asked.

The agent looked at me, then at Miriam.  "The original
congregation still owns the property.  They have attached a
number of codicils to the trust deed for the property concerning
what can and cannot be done within the confines of the building.
That is not negotiable; those codicils will remain as part of the
deed until the end of time.  No buyer has been willing to agree
to them, not all tenants qualify.  Further, the owners feel that
the property, because of location, demands a premium."

He looked me right in the eye.  "So, the market speaks.  There
are not as many tenants as there would be, if the lease costs
were lower."

He waved at the building again.  "Each floor has about 40,000
square feet of leaseable space, 45,000 each, total.  The current
sublease rate is a dollar twenty a square foot.  The main lease
is a dollar ten."

Miriam spoke up.  "The going rate for commercial space like this
in this area is less than a dollar a square foot."

"A premium is a premium," he told us.

"And if someone was willing to agree to all of codicils, how much
would they want for the property?" I asked, more formal than I'd
ever spoken in my life.  I was entirely sure the price was going
to be in the millions of dollars.

"Six and a half million," he replied.

I did my math.  "Something like four years at a 100% occupancy of
all three floors."

He shook his head.  "I can't let you use that number, young man.
Two thirds is the most common occupancy percentage.  Eighty
thousand times two thirds times a dollar twenty."

He was going to speak the number, so I gave it to him.  "Sixty
four thousand against a lease of one hundred and forty-eight
thousand per month.  Surprise, they are out of business," I
said.

"The latest in a string of failures that go back thirty years,"
Miriam added.

"I think," Miriam rejoined, "that the rate of return the owners
expect is out of line with market conditions, Mr. Greeley."

I started on my own list of questions.  "How is the building
heated and cooled?"

"HVAC," he told me.  I had no idea what that was, so I just noted
it down.

"And what does it cost per month?"

"The electric bill averages about six thousand a month; the water
bill is a thousand one hundred, gas is about three hundred a
month, trash and sewer runs about the same as gas."

Eight thousand a month for utilities; my plan was nuts; simply
nuts.

"Property taxes?" Miriam asked.

He grinned, "The congregation got a 99-year exemption on them
when they built the original building.  That exemption has nearly
forty years left to run.  It was granted right after the Second
World War; the City Council didn't make it a revocable exemption.
 Who ever owns the building, gets the exemption on property
taxes."

"And if there were no exemption?" I asked.

"About a hundred thousand a year," he told us.

For another hour I asked questions, Miriam asked questions, and
Howard replied; he volunteered a lot of numbers too, when it
looked like we were headed that way.  While we asked questions,
we walked through the building.

Finally I realized it was getting on towards seven pm.  I was
late for dinner, I suspected Miriam and Howard were as well.

I thanked him for his help; ignoring his pained look.  Somewhere
along the line, he'd figured out it was me that was interested in
the property, not Miriam.

Miriam drove me the couple of miles home.  "Thanks, Miriam."

She looked me square in the eye and rendered her verdict.  "I
don't think I could recommend that property as in investment,
even in the way you wanted to use it."  She grimaced.  "You can
get a decent apartment in most of Phoenix at 75 cents a square
foot, you can get the same apartment in Scottsdale for 90 cents,
and you could lease the Taj Mahal for two dollars."

"I need to think about it," I told her; no matter how much I
agreed with her I didn't want to close out options.  Nothing to
hurry about, I thought.  I would wager there was no herd of
likely tenants rushing to their door.

Dinner turned out to be at Kim and Penny's house, with them, my
aunt and uncle and my family.  I made a mental note; I wanted to
talk to Mom, Kim and Shirley as soon as possible about Mary,
Elizabeth and Shannon.

Kim bluntly told us that there would be no talking about finances
at the dinner table.

What Kim fixed for dinner was an interesting change of pace.  She
grilled a dozen steaks, she and the girls had worked on potato
salad, there was corn on the cob and three chocolate pies that we
put whipped cream on, in lieu of meringue.  It wasn't bad at all;
I set an all time personal best, demolishing more than a pound of
steak, four pieces of corn and two pieces of pie.

Afterwards, of course, I suffered from a bloated stomach, but
hey, I'd missed two meals!  A boy's got to eat!

After dinner we did have the discussion.  Kim and Penny hadn't
been mentioned; Penny clearly didn't understand the fuss.  They
were probably okay.

"At least for now," Craig told everyone, "we'll just say that the
numbers were wrong.  Just that; I'll talk decimal points and all
of that.  The rest of you just shake your heads and say the
numbers are wrong.  In truth, they aren't exactly right, so its
not a complete lie.  We will go with that for the time being."

That finished, I asked the women if I could speak with them.  It
certainly got their curiosity up; more so when I made a point of
excluding my dad and Craig.

"I want you to think about something," I asked them.  "We are a
family, so I've been told.  It's been less than a month since I
learned Penny and I are cousins, that I have not only cousins I
didn't know about in LA, but half sisters as well.

"Dad's parents had some money, but the bulk of everything we have
came from Mom and Craig's father.  Craig and Dad have done what I
consider to be a good thing: they've taken care of the kids. 
This is kind of like the Heinlein novel, 'The Moon is a Harsh
Mistress.'  A big marriage, sort of.  Except it's not formalized
as such."

Aunt Shirley shook her head, "It is formalized to a large part by
the contracts Craig wrote, spelling out just what everyone's
share is, and putting Keisha on the Board of the corporation as
well.  Just no formal wedding vows, except those society wouldn't
have kittens about."

"I want to include Mary and her daughters in the family," I said
boldly.  "At some point in time, that would include financial
provision for them."

They were silent for a second, and then Mom touched my hand. 
"And why aren't Dave and Craig here, Tom?"

I met her eye.  "Because you three are in the same boat as Mary.
Mom didn't inherit anything from her father, he cut her out of
the will; everything she has, Craig and Dad gave her.  The same
with you and Aunt Shirley, Kim."

"That's true," Aunt Shirley said.  "But I don't understand what
you want from us."

"Understanding, that's first," I told her.  "Also, if you agree,
then Craig and Dad are more likely to agree as well.  I'd also
like to ask all of my generation what their thoughts are; because
I might be the first to ask this, but I seriously doubt I'll be
the last."

Aunt Shirley stared at me for a second, then smiled.  "Had I been
asked a few weeks ago about my opinion of you, Tom, I'd have said
you were an amiable, polite young man.  A child of your times,
though, singularly without ambition or direction.  I'm not sure
about the ambition, but you do seem to have found a direction."

"And he's really, really, good in bed," Kim piped up.

"I'll take your word on that," Aunt Shirley said, "at least for
the time being."  She smiled at me.

I remembered the comments about Aunt Shirley being very fond of
young people.  I flushed a little, but quickly recovered.

"It's just something to think about for now," I told them. 
"That's all."

"And if Craig or Dave ask what we talked about?"  My aunt asked.

"I wanted your opinions, that's all.  I want you to think about
them for a while.  At some point, obviously, I'll need to explain
myself to Craig and Dad.  In the meantime, it wouldn't hurt
anyone to be thinking about it.  I certainly am going to be."

A bit later, I was dropped off at the high school to pick up my
van, and I told Dad, who was driving, that I was going to try and
stop and visit Tony on the way home.

I sat in the van and called Tony at Sue Ellen's; it was close to
nine, but he didn't have a problem if I stopped over for a bit.

He and Sue Ellen had been watching a DVD; they sat on the couch
in the home theater room, arms wrapped around each other.

"Have you heard any good rumors lately?"  I asked them.

Tony chuckled.  "Oh yeah!"

Sue Ellen shook her head.  "Stupid is what they are.  I've been
to your house.  You're not the Waltons or Bill Gates."

"Waltons?" I asked, surprised.  Hadn't that been a TV show a long
time ago?

"Wal-Mart Waltons," Sue Ellen told me.

"Oh, no, we're not like that.  There is money in the family, but
it's not that big of a deal.  The school panicked.  I don't know
for sure what's going to happen; my parents and my Aunt and Uncle
were really pissed, they are probably going to sue.  Of course,
if we win the law suit, we will be billionaires," I joked.

"That would be cool," Tony said.  "You can get Sue Ellen's mom to
come over and help design your home theater.  This is so cool...
my dad never knew what hit him.  He's back; I'm back and all of
that.  Now he's planning on getting an even bigger screen than
what Sue Ellen's parents have."  He waved at the TV; that was
going to take some doing, because Sue Ellen's TV was mammoth.

"Well, I'd like to ask a favor," I told them.  "When people tell
you about all that money, could you just laugh and tell them
you've been to my house?"

"Sure," they chorused.

I thanked them, and drove the rest of the way home.

I was tired; Jenny seemed to be more tired, and had crashed on my
bed before I even got there.  I would have gone down to the
family room, but she told me to stay.

So, I sat down at my desk, and looked at the numbers from the
building.

A hundred and fifty thousand dollars was a lot to spend a month
on rent.  Offsetting that with sub-lease income that was less
than half of that made it no less brain dead stupid.

I decided that I'd write it all out, and I started typing away on
my computer, trying to put my thoughts in order.

I fell asleep again, sitting in my chair.

It was a very scary dream.  It was like when the accident
happened.  I opened my eyes, and I was upside down.  Except this
time I wasn't in the old Camry, this time I was balancing,
standing on my head, trying to read a right-side up copy of my
own memo.

It was hard, it was confusing, and I surely hoped that nothing
like this was really ahead for me in the future, because my head
hurt and I couldn't read what I'd written.

I woke up then, and my head did hurt.  I'd leaned over and laid
my head down on the desk; I was staring at the monitor from an
angle, and instead of upside down, it was just on its side.

I still don't understand dreams, there's something more going on
in dreams than just sleep and random synapses firing.  You can
have your nose rubbed into the obvious for just so long, before
you realize what the real message is.

Spend the six and a half million; maybe we could get them to come
down on the price, but I didn't think so.  I had a sneaking
suspicion that the price had once been much higher.

Lower the lease rate to $1.10 a square foot; that should bring in
more business.  That would be an income of about $60,000 a month,
with an 66% occupancy.  That was about 11% a year, return on
investment.  I hadn't been completely asleep when Uncle Craig had
been talking to the bankers; I'd paid attention to Miriam when
we'd been talking about investments.  Eleven percent was nothing
to sneeze at these days.  Get the lease rate up to 80% and the
return would be 13%.

I redid the numbers in my memo, they looked much better.  Around
midnight I went to bed, feeling much better.

Jenny made me feel much better too, when she wrapped her arm
around me and whispered sleepily, "Tomorrow night, Tom.  Back in
commission!"

Ah yes, life was good!  I slept.

<1st attachment end>


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