Chapter 25: Local Venture

“Dude, I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Alan exclaimed. “And you’re telling me that skinny black dude in the suave pimp suits did this?”

It was New Year’s Day, 1992. Peter had just faxed some sample pages from the ledger to the Korean supergeek. He was seated behind Sue’s desk in the run-down trading post. The small store had been filled with miscellaneous items before she hooked up with the trader. Now, there was barely room to move, with the addition of her wares from her Holbrook shop, where she processed and sold petrified wood. She had a computer with a modem to log onto the internet and a fax machine to send the pages to his childhood friend.

“Yep, blows my mind too,” he replied as he sat back in the squeaky swivel chair. “So, what can you make of it?” The phone was next to her keyboard, on speaker.

“Damn, Sonny, give me a sec,” the Asian sensation muttered. “One thing that stands out is those breaks you mentioned. Hold on, dude, let me study this...” After a long pause and a sigh. “I need a minute with this. Let me call you back in a few. That squeaking chair is riding on my nerves.” He hung up abruptly, and Peter ceased his impatient rocking with a guilty expression.

Sue reappeared and handed him coffee in a paper cup. “Did it go through?” she asked casually.

He nodded and sipped his drink. “He’s a bit sensitive sometimes,” he replied. “I made him mad with my squeaking.” He leaned back in the old wooden swivel chair, grinning as it squeaked.

“He’s gotta be pretty smart to make anything out of this,” she remarked, touching the open ledger.

“Calling Al ‘pretty smart’ is like comparing that Kachina doll to a live grizzly,” he smiled, recalling their debates and arguments over the years. “This guy’s brain works on a level utterly...” he stopped when his phone buzzed. He answered it, “Go for Shoe.”

“Dude, a couple of things right off the bat,” the Korean boy answered.

“Talk to me, Goose,” Peter replied, sitting forward carefully.

“First, your pimp-stylin friend was left-handed. He wrote each page from right to left, which is ... mind-boggling crazy when you think about it.”

He caught a faint whiff of Sue’s perfume as she leaned over the ledger beside him.

“Also ... even though he wrote right to left, the pages progress numerically from front to back.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Hell, if I know,” he heard. “But the text pattern gives us a clue, which raises my next question—was Jeremiah a polymath? Was he fluent in any other languages ... besides French? Like maybe Sanskrit?”

Peter furrowed his brow. “I don’t know. Maybe Maggy does. Let’s assume for now that he was and did,” he replied cautiously. “Where are you going with this? Why Sanskrit?”

“I think this is a fracture cipher.”

Peter and Sue exchanged bewildered looks.

“What ... the ... what?”

“You know ... when we were kids, we’d break the alphabet into pieces ... the letter K became a vertical line and a ‘less than’ sign. Except this isn’t English.”

Peter shook his head in amazement as he studied the characters in this new light.

“Take the first page you sent me and the first four characters in the upper right corner,” Alan stated. “When you link them together in the logical pattern as they appear, they become a totally different character.”

Peter grabbed a pen and quickly sketched the first character by placing the ‘fractures’ in place. “Holy shit! How’d you figure that out so fast?”

“Because I’m smarter than you,” came the confident response, making Sue giggle silently.

“Yeah, but I’ve never seen a character like that,” he responded dubiously.

“I have,” his friend replied smugly. “That’s why I asked if he knew Sanskrit or one of its derivatives.”

Peter grimaced and tilted his head sideways at Sue with a thin smile. “Okay, dude, you’ve proven you’re smarter. Now, can you dumb it down for a mere mortal?”

A snort came from the other end. “Look, I’ll be honest, Sonny. I may just be pulling this out of my butt right now. But so far, I’ve worked out ... one, two, three...” he paused for a second, “twelve characters unique to Urdu, or Devanagari, which both use Sanskrit-style lettering. And—from what I can see here—there are dozens more.”

Peter rolled his eyes and saw the woman beside him swipe her hand over her head with a bewildered shake. He covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “Oh, he’s just getting started. Now he wants me to work for it.” Into the phone, he replied, “But there are only twenty-six letters in the alphabet.”

“In the English alphabet,” the Korean boy stated smugly.

Peter sighed. “How many letters are there in Sanskrit?” He glanced at Sue and pointed at the phone, ‘wait for it... ‘ he mouthed.

“Fifty-four,” Alan replied quickly, “Ten vowels, or svaras, and forty-four consonants, called vyansas.”

He whistled. “Still, that doesn’t seem too bad,” he mused. “Only about twice as many letters to figure...”

“Four times,” he heard over the speaker.

“What? Why?” he demanded.

“Because each letter has a masculine and feminine variant in Hindi tradition, or Shiva and Shakti respectively.”

Sue put a comforting hand on his shoulder as he grabbed his face with his free hand. “Dude, you’re killing me here!”

“Hey, I gave you something to go on, didn’t I? I hope it leads somewhere.”

“You’ll help me with this, right?”

“Sonny, I can’t,” his friend replied apologetically. “Seriously, dude. I’m up to my ass in alligators right now. I already spent too much time away from my studying with this.”

“But how do I know if it’s Krav Maga or Urdu or...”

“Devanagari,” Al corrected. “I’d go with Urdu first.”

“Why?”

“Because he wrote it right to left, stupid!”

“What does that have to do with the price of rice in China?” Peter groaned, rubbing his temples.

“You’ll have to ask your friend,” he heard quietly. “But following the traditional Babylonian cuneiforms suggests Urdu instead of Devanagari.”

“Babylonian what?”

They heard a sigh. “Look, it’s not germane, okay? But, in ancient Babylon, scribes etched letters into stone tablets. Most scribes were right-handed ... dig?” They heard the impatience in his voice. “So, the scribe would hold the mallet in his right hand and the chisel in his left. The natural tendency, therefore, was to carve letters from right to left.”

“I ... see,” he replied.

“It’s worse for you because I don’t know of any programming language that translates from Urdu, so you’ll have to do it all with pen and paper until you figure it out.”

Peter buried his face in his hands and groaned.

Fifteen minutes later, he logged off her computer and rose to leave. “Do you mind if I have a few packages delivered here?” he asked as he gathered the ledger and his notes. “I need to build a new computer, and I don’t think UPS or FedEx will go to Len’s.”

“Of course, sweetheart,” Sue replied from the front counter where she was making sandwiches for herself and Bradly. “Why did he keep calling you Sonny?”

Peter smiled, “It’s a stupid thing he made up when Kathy and I started dating,” he explained. “I’m Sonny, and she’s Cher.”

She clapped her hands and giggled, “Oh, I totally see it!”

“You guys are gonna have to expand things a bit if you’re going into business together,” he remarked as he squeezed between two loaded shelving units.

“Actually,” she replied, suddenly reticent, “That was something we wanted to discuss with you.”

Standing at the counter, he could tell her husband didn’t share her enthusiasm. He looked down and appeared uncomfortable.

Peter took a stool across from them and set his ledger and notes aside. Sue handed him a baloney sandwich and pulled a Coke from the cooler. “What’s up?” he asked.

“You’re right,” she sighed as she made another sandwich and handed it to her husband. “About this shop.” She paused as she made and cut her sandwich. “It’s too old and beat up for our needs. There’s no way to upgrade or remodel without tearing it down, and—because of the Chamber of Elders next door—it’s a historic landmark.” She took a small bite and chewed thoughtfully. “We need a bigger place, closer to town.” Bradly remained conspicuously silent.

“What did you have in mind?” Peter asked.

She looked at her husband and sighed, resigned to going it alone. “Maybe leasing a bigger building near the river, on Potter.”

Peter envisioned the area and winced.

“What?” she asked.

“Not a very active area for tourist exposure,” he replied.

“Yeah, but it’s not too expensive to force us to put our stuff in storage,” she replied.

“How much traffic passes your shop in Holbrook?”

She shrugged. “It’s constant. I’m on the main thoroughfare.”

“That’s my point,” he replied. “Down by the fishery, you might see a dozen cars a day.”

“What do you propose?” she asked, setting her food aside. Bradly gazed at him quietly.

“Do you have a map?” he asked, clearing space on the counter. Sue grabbed one and placed it before him. He pointed to an intersection half a mile north of their current location.

“There’s nothing there,” Bradly finally spoke up.

“Exactly,” Peter replied. “That would be a perfect spot for you to build your new Trading Post.”

“Build?” Sue gasped. “Honey, we can’t afford to build anything—”

He smiled as he bit into his sandwich. “You wanted my help, right?” he asked while chewing.

“Yeah, but with a lease,” she exclaimed.

“Look, guys,” he said confidently. “Think bigger. Imagine that intersection and its potential.” He tore a sheet from his notebook and sketched a four-way crossroad. “What could you put here if you had the means?” he asked. “Think big. A gas station? Maybe a Maverik franchise across from it,” he drew squares for buildings. “Can you see that?”

Both nodded dubiously.

“Across from Maverik would be a great location for your rock shop and trading post,” he added the building to the paper. “What else would fit around here?” He quizzed them as he continued sketching rapidly. “A carwash? Tourists love clean cars after driving around a dusty Rez. Where’s the closest laundromat? That would fit perfectly next to the carwash, don’t you think?” He chewed his lip as he continued sketching. “Now think bigger. How about a restaurant or a bar and grill? Call it ‘Scalps,’” he grinned as he added the bigger building in the only remaining corner.

Brad snorted, earning a giggle from his fiancée.

He spun the paper around and set the pencil atop it. “Think big.”

Sue gazed at her husband and sighed with a defeated expression. “It sounds wonderful,” she said softly. “But you are talking about tens of thousands of dollars—”

Peter pursed his lip, “Probably hundreds of thousands, maybe a million or more.” He snapped his fingers and snatched the paper back. “Every time I come into town, I see a handful of folks selling their wares on the roadside.” He drew a big circle behind the trading post. “Wouldn’t it be great to offer them a free venue ... an open market, where they could set up tables and not lay their pots and jewelry on towels in the dirt?”

Brad nodded, “My brother Zeb sells blankets and belts by the airport.”

Sue held her head with both hands, shaking it side to side. “But? How?” she exclaimed. “Where do you even begin?”

Peter pointed to the building next door. “We start by purchasing that entire lot. Every bit of it. That goes through them. Maybe tribal law prevents the sale of the land if it’s zoned for something like agriculture or housing. So, we’d have to petition to rezone it for commercial use. Maybe they will give it to us on condition that a percentage of the proceeds go to the tribal council.

“I won’t lie—I don’t know much about that. But we can hire those who do. But it comes down to one thing: they have something we want, so we have to offer them something they want. Maybe it’s money, a newer contemporary Chamber of Elders overlooking the river, or an expanded Native cultural center at the high school,” he shrugged. “It all comes down to communication and negotiation.” He tapped his eyebrow. “But always with your eye on the prize.”

Sue blew out her air in frustration and slumped back in her seat. “Now you are talking millions,” she sighed.

“Yes, probably,” he replied casually. They both stared at him incredulously.

“Jesus, Pete,” Bradly quipped in his deep voice. “What are you trying to say?”

Peter leaned forward and looked at them directly. “Guys, I’m with you. I’m one hundred percent behind you on this.”

“How can you come up with that kind of money?” Sue asked incredulously.

He smiled. “You already know the answer to that.”

Her cheeks turned red as she looked down. “I ... there has been talk. After you bought Lenna’s home, the truck, and everything, we figured you were—”

“Filthy stinkin’ rich?” he smirked.

Bradly stared at him suspiciously. “Brother, are you really buying a castle in Europe?”

Peter pursed his lips and nodded. “Not exactly,” he replied. “I’m a venture capitalist working with a couple of partners. We pool our resources to invest in real estate, develop it, and make a profit.”

“How do you make money off a castle?” Sue asked, gawking at him.

“We’re buying an island,” he replied casually. “There just happens to be a castle on it, along with a couple thousand sheep and some fishermen who need help marketing a particular brand of kippers,” he made a face and shuddered.

“An ... island,” Brad stated.

“So, this,” she pointed at the paper. “You’re serious about this.”

He nodded. “As an investor, I seek ventures with high growth potential and community benefit.” He tapped the sketch, “This could help a lot of people in many different ways.”

She nodded at the drawing wistfully. “I know you’re right, Peter. It just seems so ... unbelievable.”

“Look,” he replied. “I don’t have a crystal ball, but I can offer you a sure bet. Look ahead a decade.” He tapped the sketched intersection. “Someone will buy and develop that land and make a ton of money leasing the houses, buildings, shops, or whatever they put there. Can you see that?”

They nodded.

“So why can’t it be the two of you?”

They stared at each other in disbelief.

“But how would it work?” she asked, struggling with his proposal. “You would pay for this upfront in exchange for what? How much of a percentage would you need to justify your ... capital venturing?”

He pondered her question for a moment while they gazed at him uncertainly. They saw the phenomenon Kathy and Lenna had mentioned: He appeared to age before their eyes.

“All I ask in return is three things,” he replied firmly. “First, call the development ‘Kathy’s Corner.’”

Sue gasped and covered her mouth.

“Second, everything you develop benefits the Whiteriver community. Like that open market.”

He could see she struggled to maintain her composure as tears filled her eyes. Bradly had become still as a statue as he listened.

“Third, I want a lifetime supply of frybread.”