Chapter 59

Before she left the line Marge wanted to arrange a Saturday morning meeting with Lucinda, Gerome, and me. She wanted to discuss her new place in the company.

“Your place in the company is simple, you are going to help Lucinda and Gerome with the baking for now. We may choose to add more duties for you if you are willing. This is a part time gig for all of us. It’s not a job, it’s more a community service,” I explained.

“I get all that, but I want to be more involved,” she tried to explain.

“The day to day distribution is going to be handled by Lucinda and Gerome,” I further explained. I suddenly got a really bad feeling. The feeling had a name, paranoia. When Marge broke the connection, I was glad for the chance to process what had just occurred.

I waited until the next morning to begin a reasonable analysis. Since I hadn’t heard from island boy, I re-examined my options. I could continue looking for land, or I could fold my tents and move on to something else. I still considered this a charitable endeavor, even if we had designed it to be a break even business. We even had a few bucks to split at the end of the last month.

I called Tommy. “Tommy you and I need to talk,” I suggested.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Not on the phone,” I said ominously.

“Okay meet me at the store,” he suggested.

“Will thirty minutes work for you?” I asked.

“I’m here now,” he said.

When I got to the show I filled him in on what had happened. After I finished he spoke.

“Have you been smoking the left over stuff?” he asked almost seriously. “I think you are seeing things. Marge might see a chance to build a criminal enterprise here. Which is the most likely scenario. There would be no reason to squeeze her. She is not involved in anything, but baking regular cookies now. Until she actually handles the stuff, there is nothing she can testify about.

Even that redneck Sheriff knows that,” Tommy said.

“Yeah that makes sense. She has no reason to flip and nothing to tell them if she did,” I agreed. “You are always the voice of reason.”

“So let her bake the damn cookies again. If she needs money let her put the oil in them as well. When the pot grown in a pot comes in we are probably going to need her and Lucinda both baking just to keep up,” Tommy said. “So what happened with the Island purchase.”

“My offer was good until midnight, and he didn’t call. I’m figuring it is DOA.”

“Too bad it sounded like you were onto something,” Tommy agreed.

“Yeah something will come along.” I said knowing we had the lease for the habitat one last time, if we needed it.

Tommy and I were still talking about the new customers who were coming into the fold when my regular phone rang. “Rollins,” I said into it.

“Ed, this is Ray Ogden the man with the river island for sale,” the voice said.

“Sure Ray. I was expecting you to call last night,” I said.

“Yeah something came up. Ed I really need a thousand dollars right now. So if you will make me an advance of a thousand dollars now, I will sell you the island for ten grand when you have the paperwork read,” he said.

“Sorry, my lawyer wouldn’t approve of that,” I said. “I will make you a thirty day personal loan for the grand. We will make it re payable from the proceeds of the land sale or thirty days from today which ever comes first.”