Chapter 19: Bothered At Work

Monday, minutes after midnight at the office.

The first thing I did at work was look at the abstract of the will that controlled Gracie’s life. The relevant facts were available to our firm’s service. Clearly her Father trusted her mother too much. Gracie had title to the property and most of the portfolio, but she was treated as an incompetent child until she was 25. However, there was a fault I noticed, the lawyer who drew the document had cited an out-of-date law, the revision became law roughly 30 years ago - before Gracie was born, before they were married and before the will was signed. The old lawyer just had not kept up. The effect was the Gracie was entitled to partial control at 18 then got full control and freedom when she became 21. I also noted that the old lawyer’s license to practice had expired before the will was written. The will was clearly a favor to a friend rather than a professional service and could be eviscerated on that basis alone. I jotted down a number of relevant facts then got to work on my water rights case.

I was working effectively, but I could not get my mind off Gracie. I wanted to be with her. It wasn’t just a sex thing either. I mean, yes I wanted to use her body in every way. But I also wanted just to be with her while I was between sexings; that was a first. There were a bunch of other desires I had never had for any woman, I wanted to listen to her in the kitchen doing things. To drive her someplace nice. To walk through someplace a park made her happy. Of course I couldn’t do any of those things. Still it did not put me in a foul mood as denial usually would.

I did not call any of the office girls for sex, since I could not have Gracie I just was not really in the mood, not even for Li. If I could have Li and Gracie together that might be different. But that was not going to happen any time soon. So I worked.

At 2:10 Monday morning I got an email message: “My Prince,” followed by a code word. It meant my paternal grandfather, the Patron, had a use for my services. To be clear, serving him was my primary responsibility, the gang was a hobby and the law firm was recreation. At least, that was the Patron’s view.

It would not wait since it seemed I was going to kill a friend. It would also screw up my day. My friend’s day would be worse of course, but he had asked for it. I had to wonder at the irony, I was the Prince, but my day was going to be ruined. I guess that if I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all. There was a song about that.

In LA everybody notices your ride, even the little old nearsighted lady across the street; there was a song about that to. So one of my rules is that I never drive directly between the Fort and anyplace except the Batcave, which is a parking structure. (Actually, I don’t get to the Fort much at all unless I have company.) To or from work, or either home, I always stop to change vehicles. (I have 8 vehicles to rotate.) However, a quick vehicle change would not work today because time was tight, it was either give up a quick visit with Gracie or not change vehicles. Fortunately I had the Porsche, so I broke my own rule. I took a small detour at very high speed, one with hairpin turns and a few double-backs insuring that nobody was following. In the dead of night any following car would have been obvious. Plus, at the Fort nobody was likely to see me pull into the alley or the garage with my headlights turned off at that hour of the night.

At the Fort I had to wake Gracie to tell her that something had come up, a family matter, and I did not know how long I would be gone. I would make arrangements if it went beyond Wednesday morning. Until I got back she needed to cope by herself. I said she might as well use the sleeping pills, I gave her a pad to keep a log of what she took and when.

She was not happy, and the sleeping pill I gave her a few hours ago did not help her mood or her focus, but eventually she got the message. Then I had to go. I grabbed a pair of Glocks and was off to the airport, the private aviation section.