Chapter 3

I got in my truck and headed home, making sure to drive very carefully. I was beat! During the ride back to my place, I mulled over the question in my mind: what on earth was I going to do with the houseboat I’d just won? As for living conditions, I have what I consider the most perfect place to live, anywhere. A few years back, I was having a drink downtown one evening with a fellow who turned out to be a federal undercover narcotics officer. During our conversation he mentioned he knew of a house that was going to be seized because they now had proof it was being used as a drug house.

Describing the location of the house, I thought it sounded like something I needed to check out. When I looked up the address, I knew I wanted to buy it, and I set my “wolves” to do their legal tasks. My “wolves” found the company shell behind the owners, who specialize in these rundown places. Places that are just waiting. Pieces of property people were hanging on to just to see what profitable thing they could do with them later on. While they held on to these places, they - the unknown face of some corporation that didn’t care who they rented these dumps to. They set them up just so the properties would bring in a little extra bread and then they could take a write off with the taxman.

Luckily for me it turned out my wolves were better at their job than their wolves. Suddenly that empty company shell found they owned a condemned house the city was going to seize as well as a lot of trouble from the federal legal system. This meant trouble for everyone involved with the entire arrangement. As if by magic, it was suddenly in the best interest of everyone to sell at once a piece of very undesirable property. My wolves were prepared to snap it up for peanuts. Because the house was worthless, the fire department had a delightful time practicing on it and burned it to the ground for me.

The reason I was so intent on buying the old house was the lot it was sitting on had an incredible view. It sits three quarters of the way up a hill facing the west and south, thus giving me a commanding view of downtown Seattle plus a view out over most of Lake Union. I had a fantastic multi-level complex built on my new vacant lot and I kept the top unit for myself. Since the units were built stacked on top of each other, it gave my place an even more unbelievable view.

The northwest end of Lake Union leads to a ship canal, which in turn leads towards the Ballard Locks. On warm summer nights as the sun settles down in the water and shimmers down the canal, it looks like a ribbon of gold. I can sit on my balcony, drink in hand, and I think I’ve died and gone straight to heaven. Believe me, the last thing I felt I needed, or wanted was a houseboat.