Chapter 69: Searching for the Solution

Early August, 1985

[He was the one doing most of the peeking.]

Dad asked Greg to employ his ‘bubble’ and he began. “Okay, first off, I AM NOT going to try and impersonate Charlie. I WOULD like Gracie and Ed to be an integral part of the plan however. Johnny is definitely panicking and left 10 messages on Joshua’s answering machine to contact him ASAP.

“I’m pretty sure after talking to Johnny this afternoon that he really thinks I’m Jonah. He asked me point blank if I knew anyone named Charlie. I told him I wasn’t sure what he meant as there are many people with that name. He got annoyed that I didn’t seem to be taking him seriously. ‘Lenny, there’s someone out there named Charlie,’ He said in a huff, ‘who can communicate even better than you and I think he might be able to do some things YOU can’t do. You ARE the “Invisible Man” aren’t you?’ He said that more like a statement than a question. I told him I was and how I’d gotten careless and that was how he found me.”

“So he really wants to find me?” I asked.

“Yes,” Joshua said, “but I got the impression he wants to try and get you to work with him. He’s made some advances in the neuropathy of the brain as far as ESP is concerned. I think he wants to study you. You see I sort of trapped him by asking HOW he knew about this ‘Charlie’. He started hemming and hawing knowing he couldn’t tell me. I forced him into admitting that Sherman Leeman was indeed working with him and has been for some time. He bristled when I asked if he’d used any of his ‘chemical-therapy’ on him. He told us that he didn’t want to talk anymore about that on the phone. He told us that he would pay for two first class plane tickets to Tucson, if Lenny and I were to come and visit him. He promised us a fortune if it turns out Lenny is really a catalyst.”

Dad resumed, “so you see, the only way we’re going to find out anything is to go down there. My plan is to have Gracie and Ed come by the campus and volunteer to take an ESP aptitude test. The first thing I’m going to suggest is that Johnny and Joshua start doing that again. Ed, you and Grace need to really sandbag that test. Joshua will tell you how, so you just score high enough to get noticed. The test is very similar to the first one you gave Charlie and our family. You guys could obviously ace it, but that would send up red flags like crazy and we don’t want that. I want to be asked to ‘work’ with you to try and see if I’m a catalyst. I’ll then let you do markedly better and by the third time, you can smoke it big time!”

“What we really need,” Joshua explained, “is to find out just how much Sherman can do. Then we need to find out how many others there are. It’s not going to be easy. I have a feeling he doesn’t trust me any more than I trust him. There’s going to HAVE to be a ‘Come to Jesus’ moment to really get to the bottom of everything. It’s going to take some work for Lenny and me to find out what we can about him.”

“What do you want us to do?” I asked.

Dad started laughing, “You guys need to buy the biggest, best motorhome on the market. Get a trailer to put your bikes in, get down there and go looking for a job.”

“WHAT!??” We all shouted at the same time.

Dad was laughing even harder, “Oh, I forgot to mention, take your musical instruments with you! Get a top of the line B-3 Electric piano and a keyboard for Jamie and Mary and get gigs as a band! It IS a college town. There’s probably lots of bars that would let you at least play for free, just to have live entertainment!”

“Heck yeah!” Linda squealed, “That would be so cool!”

“Umm, not to be a buzz kill, but, we would need a LOT of practice to not make complete fools of ourselves,” I cautioned.

Greg clopped me on the shoulder, “We didn’t sound too bad the other night. It’s going to take us three days at least to get down there. Mary and Jamie will just have to practice while we drive. Besides, you wanted to buy an RV anyway.”

I chuckled, “The RV isn’t the problem, the PRACTICE is.”

Bob grinned, “Hey, we don’t have to be that good. Trust me, I’ve heard bands playing in bars that are nowhere near as good as we are. Greg is VERY good and we could do some stuff with just some of us playing. This could be great!”

Dad smiled, “Besides, even if you only play a couple of times, this would give you all a cover and explain why you’re all hanging out together. You might even get lucky and find a bar with a big enough parking lot they’d let you park there. If not, there are campgrounds just north of Tucson you could park in or even look into a mobile home park. You may want to rent a van like Mary’s to drive around in and to move your equipment. I’ll scope things out before you get there.”

Greg chuckled, “Yeah, driving a big RV around is a pain and the bikes are hard to fetch groceries with, although it can be done.”

Dad added, “This could take some time to figure out, so plan on being gone at least three weeks, maybe longer. Joshua and I are flying out tomorrow afternoon. Ed and Gracie don’t have to be down there until Monday or Tuesday at the earliest. If you find an RV big enough, they could even ride down with you.”

“What about TJ and Janet?” I asked.

TJ grinned, “We’re going to be like Grace and Ed. This way, we can hopefully ‘meet’ them at the college for testing and become close friends! We’re flying out tomorrow on our Lear. We’ll arrange for a place for Ed and Grace to stay. It won’t look good if we all stay too close together.”

Ed smiled at that idea, “Couldn’t Gracie and I just fly with you?”

I nodded, “That would be helpful. Even with the biggest RV, having 9 of us might get a little crowded. We CAN bring Ed’s bass guitar with us if he wants.”

TJ shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t see why not. We’re not flying into Tucson International, so nobody will know we’re together after we split up. As far as his bass, we have room for that too.” He winked at Gracie, “and your flute is no problem either.” Gracie smiled and giggled, giving TJ a hug.

We felt things were set and our gang was going out looking for RV’s first thing in the morning. Greg dropped the bubble and we headed inside to replenish our drinks.

TJ, Janet, Ed, Gracie, Dad and Joshua went home to pack for tomorrow.

Bill flashed, wondering why he couldn’t get through to us earlier. I explained that we were ‘incommunicado’ with making plans. He assumed it was about ‘Brad’ and let it go at that. He DID want to tell me his diamond guy was coming to his office tomorrow morning at 9:00 am. He wondered if I was still interested and ready to sell some diamonds. I told him I had two felt bags full and WAS interested. Greg planned on coming with me and we could go looking at RV’s right after that. Maybe we could get lucky and use some of that to buy the RV with. We DID have close to a million in cash, so it wouldn’t hurt us either way.

We could always stop in Iowa on our way to Arizona if we really had to.

The girls felt we needed to check out our new hot tub, so we all took our drinks downstairs to do just that. The spa installer left a nice set of laminated instructions for us right by the control pad. We saw the temp was set at 96, so we could stay in for quite a while. We hopped in, turned everything on and were soon relaxing to the humming of the jets. The girls were cooing happily while Bob, Greg and I were smiling contentedly.

Mary sighed, “and just think. We can do this all winter!”

Sarah swooned, “I could REALLY get used to this. This is even nicer than the pool.”

Jamie giggled, “and this jet between my legs is heavenly. It’s almost as nice as Greg’s tongue!” Linda was blushing and nodding in agreement, while hugging Bob closer.

Greg smiled at Jamie’s comment, then dulled into melancholy. “I just hope this isn’t the last time we’re down here.”

We all wanted to comment, but, sensing his meaning, remained silent.

The auto timer shut off after 45 minutes and the gentle dinging broke our silent contemplations. We got out then showered in silence before heading to our respective bedrooms.

Sleep came slowly as Mary, Sarah and I cuddled each other restlessly.

***

I was up early after not sleeping well, so I decided to go down and make coffee. While it was brewing, I looked around at our home. It was comfortable. I went outside and turned on the pump for the waterfall. The morning sun hadn’t risen past the trees, so it was nice outside on the patio. I was running through different scenarios in my head, just as Greg came out with two cups of coffee.

“Sorry for being a buzz-kill last night,” he said quietly, handing me a mug.

“It needed to be said. You noticed that nobody argued with you?”

I took a deep breath, “Was it a vision or just a feeling? Did you see anything in particular?”

He took a long slow sip of his coffee, “Not anything solid, but I couldn’t ‘see’ us down there again. It made me sad. This house has really become our home.”

Mary came out with her coffee. “This place feels IS home. Yet, we’re about to spend as much or more on a motorhome and go on this adventure that may color our entire outlook on where we might want to live. The only good thing is; we’re going to Arizona at the WORST time of the year to fall in love with the place.”

“Oh?” I questioned.

Jamie and Sarah came out with their coffee and Sarah said, “Oh yeah. You know, this time of year it will almost certainly be like 105 to 110 degrees during the day.”

“And we’re thinking about living in a metal can? Is there much shade we can park under?” I asked, having never actually seen Arizona before.

“No”, Sarah laughed, “It’s a desert! Other than some palm trees and scrub oaks, that’s about it. We’ll wanna make sure the RV has very good air conditioning. And riding our bikes while the sun is up is almost out of the question this time of year. The prime time for bikes out there is mid-September through mid-May.”

“Why the hell would anyone wanna live there?” I huffed.

Sarah giggled, “Because you CAN ride bikes for 12 months out of the year! During the summer, you just ride after dark or early in the morning! Can you do that here? Also, it only rains like 20 times a year. Picnics rarely get rained out. When everyone here is freezing in December, January and February, it’s in the upper 60’s and 70’s there during the day.”

“Ohhh, so, like the best time of the year here is the only really uncomfortable time there?” I was starting to get the picture.

“Yeah, like here you don’t really wanna be outside in the winter. Well in Tucson or Phoenix, you don’t really want to be outside during the day in the summer, at least from like 11 am till an hour after dark. But, unlike here, at night in the summer in Arizona it’s actually not bad and you COULD ride your bike at night or very early in the morning. It doesn’t get really hot until after 11 in the morning.”

“It sounds like you wouldn’t mind living there, Sarah.”

“Well, that would depend on whether or not we ALL wanted to live there. If we survive this trip, we may want to revisit the area in the late fall or early winter. THEN you could see what I’m talking about. Having an RV would be a nice way to do that, as long as we get there before winter sets in here. You DON’T want to drive an RV in the snow!”

I looked at my watch and noticed it was almost 8:00 am. I suggested that Greg and I should get ready to go to Bill’s office to see about selling some diamonds. Bob and Linda joined us and said they would scope out some RV dealers to get an idea where the best places were. Mary, Sarah and Jamie were going to start getting things packed and organized for us to leave whenever we were ready.

We entered Bills office and were shown in by his secretary, Martha, where we met a short, distinguished looking gentleman. Bill introduced Jerry Schwartz, an independent diamond merchant. He had a thick German accent and a sincere smile. I pulled one of the felt bags out of my pocket and carefully emptied it out on a black felt pad Jerry had in front of him.

“Oh, zees are very nice! I zee you have some uncut stones too. Give me a few minutes to weigh and separate these by color and clarity, then I’ll grade them out for you. May I ask if you have more of these?”

I glanced at Bill. After he nodded, I said, “yes, many more. We got them at an estate sale. We found them in the bottom of a trunk that we purchased for almost nothing.”

Jerry sighed, “Some people have all thee luck. I just want to make sure these aren’t blood diamonds. Zat is becoming a big deal now and some dealers are afraid of ruining their reputation by selling them.”

“Can you tell by looking at them if they’re blood diamonds?”

He chuckled, “No, not really. Usually though, they’re of lower quality and most are uncut. The shame is, sometimes the uncut diamonds can be worth more than poorly cut ones. If they are cut by a master diamond cutter, they could be worth much more. These don’t appear to be blood diamonds and since they were from an estate sale, they may have been there so long they couldn’t be blood diamonds.”

.

We sat for the next hour, mesmerized by the way he was putting all the diamonds in rows and columns on a very white sheet of plastic. When he finished, he took a small, intricate scale and began weighing them, further separating them into more rows and columns. When he finished he gave me a sheet of paper with columns and numbers at the bottom of each column. The numbers were staggering and I asked about the $100,000 he had in a circle. I wondered if that was the total for all the diamonds.

“Oh no, zat ees for these 8 uncut diamonds I’ve set over here on the corner. Zees are all 7 to 12 carat weights and are of zee highest quality, both in color and clarity. You must understand. Properly cut by an expert, these could be valued at over one million dollars! This 12 carat stone, if cut to be 7.5 to 9 carats, may be worth that all by itself.”

I added up the other numbers and it came to $575K. I had to clarify, “So, you’d give me $675K for this one bag of diamonds?”

“Yes, do we have a deal? If so, then if you’ll accompany me across the street to my bank, I will place these in my safe deposit box and give you a cashier’s check for $675,000.”

Greg’s eyes were popping out of his head, “Um, what about this other bag we have?”

“YOU HAVE ANOTHER BAG WITH YOU?” Jerry asked incredulously.

Jerry quickly began putting the first batch of diamonds in small bags, that he’d already sorted and graded. Once he had them placed inside the first felt bag, I opened the second and dumped it on his white plastic sheet. Jerry took one look and was amazed. He quickly took the one very large stone and weighed it, then looked it over with his eyepiece.

“Oh MY! I wish I knew who cut this. He must be one of the finest craftsmen in the world! I am afraid I will not have sufficient funds in my account to cover both bags. I will have to cash-in some bonds to cover this.”

He began sorting and weighing the other larger stones. He was shaking after looking at the five largest diamonds. One looked like a ruby to me, so I was wondering what the big deal was. He sat down and exhaled deeply. (He’d apparently been holding his breath.) “Oh My, well, I hope you will hang on to these for me. I am prepared to offer you $4,000,000 for this bag. This red diamond is one of the rarest I’ve ever seen. If it was say 10 carats instead of 4.75, it alone would be worth over $50 million dollars! I would strongly suggest putting this in a safe deposit box immediately. You shouldn’t just carry this around.”