Chapter 81

Waking up holding a small person with a big belly was enjoyable and let me know how much I was looking forward to more babies from Willy and Sumi. My mind thought of Danni and Chica, giving me a bigger smile. I was looking forward to the time when a bunch of crawlers was swarming me on the floor.

I was energized this morning and wanted some physical activity. The first thing was some vigorous forms, so I quickly got out of bed and put some workout clothes on. The three sisters followed me and lined up with me outside. Conner, Maggie, and Marsha joined us as I began with some preliminary stretches that became more strenuous and at a faster tempo. My followers seemed to want more when I brought my last form to a close. I wanted the physical strain of the free weights and headed to the gym. Amazingly, all of them followed and began their regimens. We were all heavily sweating from the exercises before we quit to go shower. I asked Kini if anyone was going to play golf this morning when I came back down. He was telling me no when my dad came to the bar for a cup of coffee. Dad had heard what I asked and said that he would join me since he didn’t have any appointments this morning.

Dad said, “This is Thursday, and there is very little traffic on the courses Thursday and Friday mornings. There are hardly ever any early people on the courses for whatever reason.” He asked if I wanted a difficult or cream puff course.

“The tougher the better, Dad, but get what you can. Walking would be good and caddies would be even better.”

Dad was grinning when he said, “I have the perfect course for us. I’ve never shot better than six over, so today is going to be good for a wager. How about five bucks to the winner.” I loved how Dad enjoyed playing for a couple of dollars, but never for a ridiculous amount. He made the call to the course and said that we would quickly be there.

The kitchen people put three breakfast sandwiches and three travel cups of coffee together. June was going to be chauffeur and nanny for us and could carry my gun in a clip-on holster for me. She would need a belt to hold her heavily-weighted pants up.

Dad and I were lucky and were able to drive and chip a few balls, plus use the practice green for a few strokes. We were about to go to the first tee when the club pro asked if he could play along with us. I told him, “You can play with us, but you have to give me constant instruction so that I can get better at this game.”

Dad laughed and told the pro that I was an amazing player for only playing a couple of times a month. The pro said that this should be fun. Dad advised the pro that we were playing for a heavy wager, five bucks. The pro laughed and said that he was in.

The pro brought his favorite three caddies out for us. The man was impressed that I had clubs in his storage room. I had to admit that my wife wanted me to have the same clubs wherever I played.

We did rock-paper-scissors for the first tee. Dad went first and drove straight down the fairway for a little over two hundred yards on this par four. The pro drove three hundred yards but barely kept his drive in the fairway short grass.

I approached my ball and talked my way through my shot. I didn’t try to kill it but the ball seemed to carry forever. My ball had flown, bounced, and rolled up on the green within a foot of the hole almost three hundred and ninety feet. Dad chuckled at the pro and said, “Told ya.”

Dad made an iron shot to ten feet of the cup and the pro chipped high to try to get as close to the cup as possible and was within fifteen feet. The pro sunk his putt for a birdie. Dad missed his birdie putt but made par. My putt was an easy eagle.

The second hole was a ho-hum long par five that all three of us birdied. The third hole was a par three of easy driving distance but had a long narrow rolling, undulating green almost surrounded by sand. The hole was right in the middle of the green.

I stared at the hole and thought of how my instructors had taught me. Use a club that you can loft the ball with but not have a lot of backspin. I used my five iron and focused on not killing the ball. My shot seemed like it was going to hook a little but the ball dove for the green and came back about two feet into the cup. The pro said, “Holy shit, a hole in one the first time you’ve played this course. You need to consider trying to go pro if you can finish this round as you’ve played so far.”

My eye must have been in good shape for finishing the first nine holes five under. I was even par up to seventeen on the back nine. The pro said seventeen was the toughest hole on the island. My hand chart didn’t make it out as that bad, but it was a long par five with a lot of sand and water on very narrow fairways before and after a sharp dogleg. The pro shot first and drove straight, but laid up before the water and dogleg. Dad was paying attention and followed the pro to almost the same location.

I kept looking at the chart and the actual fairway. The dogleg was sharp enough that the fairway approach to the green was just over the trees. I knew that my driver would never get my ball high enough to clear the trees. None of the landscaping was that tall, so all I needed was to loft the drive over the trees onto the fairway. Why not, I was six undergoing into seventeen where the pro was three over and Dad was six over. It was difficult to decide what club would loft the ball enough to clear the trees, but not be too much to carry over the far side’s narrow approach. I looked at my four iron and visualized how it would send the ball. It should loft enough to clear the trees and I should be close to the green if I didn’t overpower the ball. I kept visualizing the flight of the ball and getting my practice swing to the firmness necessary, but not too hard.

My shot went up high enough to clear the trees then fell out of sight on the other side. The pro gasped and said, “I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. I wonder how close you are to the green. You might be long and in the sand off the fairway. We’ll see when we catch up.” I just want to shoot par on this hole. My caddy told me, “Take me with you if you decide to go pro. You haven’t needed me, but I read greens very well. You don’t need much help since you’re a gifted player.” That made me smile.

I was on the green when we approached, and I had about a thirty-foot putt. I thought that I would hit my ball just hard enough to shoot for an eagle.

Dad even looked like he was going to shoot par on this hole. The pro said par was probably as good as any pro who had played in the previous week’s tournament.

I was intending to get my ball close to the hole for an eagle when it was my turn to play. I read the green and kept looking at some flattened grass. My caddy said, “Use that slight roll of the green to get around the flat grass. Just don’t hit it so hard that you go over the berm or way past the hole.”

I didn’t fret over it any longer, measured my swing, and pushed through the stroke. The ball went up the berm and then gathered some speed on the way down curving, heading straight for the cup. All three caddies whooped and hollered. A double eagle on seventeen was unheard of.

Eighteen was almost anti-climactic. It was a par four that the pro and I shot par on and that Dad birdied.

The man at the counter wouldn’t have believed that I shot nine under par for the best score ever recorded on that course if the pro hadn’t confirmed it when we went into the pro shop to register our scores. The pro shot what he said was his best score on that course at three over. Dad’s five over was worth putting his name in the players’ book. This had been fun. Dad was going to give me his five when the pro handed me his. I told both of them, “I won a lot more than five today. Now I’m ready for next week.”

We rode home thanking June for walking with us for the length of time it took to play eighteen holes. She said this was the first time she had accompanied us when we walked the course. She thought it was a great exercise.

June and I showered and had some fun playing that ended with something drooling down her legs. This made her happy. Jules told me that my phone had only rung once. I checked the missed calls to see who it might be. There was a voicemail from Fred giving me his flight’s arrival time on Sunday night. I checked my e-mail and found a dozen welcome back notes, a time for when Harriet was to arrive, and confirmation for Hanna, her engineer, and a person from their legal department to solidify any deal we might make.

I thought it strange that no one from the home office had called or e-mailed. I kept thinking that they were all ashamed of how they had acted. I may have made it clear that I was going to keep my activities within the West Coast region. They might want to leave us alone to make them money since it was the company’s most prolific revenue source. I checked Connie’s app that gives the running totals and saw that we were going to have close to a thousand sales this week even with the burp in employee relations. What was startling was the average sale size had a total that would approach three billion. That is so unbelievable. I wonder what those numbers will be like with the Civic Center turned loose along with the two new offices. The revenue from just the LA area will be more than three times more than the rest of Mooney collectively.

Jules, Katie, and I sat on some stuffed chairs in a conversation group. My two loves were curious as to all that I was going to do with what I thought of as loose ends. I told them about what I thought Fred could do to keep the Civic Center on track. While thinking about Fred, I asked the two women what they thought about putting Fred, his wife, and child in a condo instead of a house in one of our developments. Both ladies said that was going to be Fred’s choice. I thought that the company could afford to create a really special place for the Regional Manager for probably eight sales offices and thousands of units, plus a major retail center. The more you considered the Civic Center complex and the high rise buildings, the more excited you became. I was now hoping that Fred would choose a high rise condo. The advantages were immense because the company could make his unit a bonus and wouldn’t cost him anything except taxes. We would have to work out his maintenance fees and any other costs he might have. One thing that his wife would get is free decorators who could probably get most of the furniture they would need as donations.

The three of us discussed the new East and South offices. One of the things that I needed to do with Kelly was to look at the properties that had been purchased for developments and begin to get permitting for infrastructure preparation, plus plan for models and inventory homes.

Jules said, “You have a hell of a lot more than one week of activity right now. Considering that you’re going to be looking for people for the two new offices and key people for Fred, we need to schedule how you can manage the challenges there and still get to bond with your children. How about taking Fridays off and flying back Thursday night. That will give you Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights with us. You can fly back to California Sunday night and kick-ass early Monday. A couple of months of that and you should be on top of everything. You can decide what you want to do when you get all this settled and have developed more people to handle all the business that you are creating. Your biggest problem will be other trouble spots that the other partners can’t handle.”

Katie had an opinion, “I’m not an expert on how to handle so many people and projects, but I’ve learned a lot about business while working with Jules. You, my sweet Brad, are going to be trying to do three and four people’s work by yourself. Find a person to act as your personal secretary and let that person keep track of the various projects, as well as your appointments. I’ll come and interview for you if you want, and find a homely babe who will take care of you. June and or Mitsi won’t have to work hard to keep you protected.”

“Well, you two ladies have figured out my schedule so that I can kick back on the weekends. I think this might work, at least for a while.”

I went into my office and sat down to list the questions for the activities I had next week. The app for the feed from accounting and finance that constantly kept track of how each of the offices on the west side of the country was showing some amazing numbers. Sales records all over my former regions would be broken by the close of business tomorrow. Knowing how proud a manager is to have a new record to exceed, I was smiling as broad as they were.

My questions for Monday and Tuesday began with Julio. How many men does he think it will take to build out twenty to thirty condos a week? It could be up to forty to fifty depending on size. I needed to remind him that he would need a lot of people who were qualified, licensed, and experienced handymen to handle the constant modifications.

I hate having frequent meetings, so I told myself to bring my small spiral notebook to continuously jot notes down. I would compile them all and work through them when we took a break.

I wanted to ask Kelly for her opinion of a secretary for me tomorrow. She would know not only who was available, but who would also be knowledgeable enough to help me. This was going to be similar to when I first came to California, except that there wouldn’t be a criminal standing in our way to success. I needed to ask Danni if she thought that Sheila might be the person to take her place if she goes to Hawaii. That would work, and some new assistants could be in training while the Civic Center is still being built. It could be possible to have office staff ready when buildings were completed. Fred was like me, constantly evaluating potential assistants to train for office positions.

I needed to find out if the home office folks finished purchasing the condo project that was in bankruptcy and the land next door for a golf country club and recreation area. I should probably ask Mika or Ken. Forest would have been involved, but this answer should come from a partner. They may work with me easier if I begin communicating with them more often. I’ll also get a chance to get the feel of what they think of Harriet and her coming to LA to learn how a Mooney office works.

I had to talk to the guys about their Wednesday double jeopardy team. I would be in LA on Wednesday for the next couple of months. I wanted to encourage them to get a player to fill the slot. I could still play on their Masters’ team if they played early enough on Sunday. The good news would be that I could continue to be on the Monday 9-ball team and I could play on the 8-ball team too if I could play early on Thursday.

I played with the babies when they were awake after supper. Katie had confidence in me to watch Cindy while she shot a couple of games. I wish that there was a way for Katie to come to LA for a weekend tournament, but an infant can limit travel. Bedtime was fun because I could play with the new moms with their inflated breasts, but no intercourse. We all enjoyed some decent orgasms and gentle cuddling before we drifted off to sleep.

Fridays are supposed to be the day that you breathe a sigh of relief and join the chorus of working people muttering ‘TGIF’. I had a bunch of questions for various people and wanted my mind tuned up for a high powered and high-speed week. I only spent a half-hour doing forms this morning before showering and dressing in some good Florida clothes which would be shorts, T-shirt, and sandals. Dad wanted to play another round on the same course, but I told him that I had work to do today.

I took my coffee into my office and called Dot at the home office. She was still a little stiff when I told her that I would like a conference call with Ken and Mika, Her attitude was probably over some residual hard feelings. She asked me to hold while she set it up. Mika was the first to join the call and asked how the west coast was doing. I told her that I would give them all the news when Ken joined us. Ken answered and said, “Good morning, Brad. Are we going to have our Friday partner meeting early?”

“Not really, Ken, but it can be. I want to tell you all that the LA offices will have more than a thousand sales this week. The real good news is the gross on our sales will be way over three billion. That will put some coin in the company’s coffers.” I paused for a few seconds, then continued. “I have some questions about some possibly unfinished business. Were you guys able to finish the transaction for the unfinished bankrupt condo complex?”

Ken spoke up and said, “Forest made all the offers to the bankruptcy court along with earnest money. The court will probably grant our offer that was about twenty-five percent under the supposed value. We included the very negative evaluation of the property as it stands, with a note that it was devaluing as it deteriorated. We made contact with the owner of the adjoining property, but didn’t negotiate with him and don’t want to until the court accepts our offer. We’ll keep you posted on that.”

“Good, Ken, I was concerned about that property. The next thing is about the City Center project. We have first responders moving into apartments in the first two small buildings. There will be apartments left open for domestics in those buildings, as well. The first high rise is complete and realistically ready for sales. We’re almost three months ahead of schedule. We still need to have some snack bars, coffee houses, and a good private restaurant with a lounge to make the place very attractive to buyers. I’m meeting with Westfield property management people Tuesday to begin a relationship and to begin getting our retail space leased. We actually will have more space than many malls. It will just be around the outside of the complex.”

Ken asked, “Do you want some home office assistance with this meeting? Mika and I could come and we might be able to shake Forest loose.”

“That would be great and appreciated, Ken. I’m out of my knowledge realm with this. Maybe a collective approach would be best. Did you join the call, Forest?”