Chapter 1

I married out of my class, I know that. I’m average in everything except brains. Average height and weight, brown hair and eyes, the sort of man that Hollywood uses as an extra. You know what I mean, the guy in the restaurant who is sitting at the table behind the show’s stars and is pretending to talk to the equally average woman across from him.

My wife Barb on the other hand was just a point or two short of beautiful; she was an eight or a nine. She was, and probable still is, the sort of woman that men take a second look at when she enters a room, and she knows it.

We knew each other in high school but moved in different circles. She was one of the in crowd, and for four years I was a ghost. You know, one of those kids who were never noticed.

Since my cheating mother, and dad’s cheating second wife, both took him to the cleaners and raped him financially, he was lucky to just hold on to the farm that had been in his family for over 100 years. As a result, he and Betty, his third wife, (he finally got it right, and as far as I was concerned, Betty was my mom) explained to me that they were just getting out of debt so there was no money for college.

“No problem folks, I said, “I expected this, and the navy, thanks to my grades and the testing they gave me, have offered me a place in an electronics class dealing with some very high level stuff that will put me in the brig if I describe it. After my hitch I’ll have the money to get the electronic engineering degree that I want.”

And that’s how it happened. After four years in the navy, I lived at home while I went to school, and set up a small electronics lab in the back of the barn. Thanks to getting credit for some of my navy education. I got my degree in three years. During those years I came up with, a few devices, that I’m not allowed to talk about, that both the navy and the air force wanted. They wanted them a lot. We made a deal that got me millions, lots of millions. I built a lab behind the barn that I jokingly called The Factory, and started producing the unmentionable items and researching to develop even more.

Prior to my windfall, I talked things over with Betty and my dad. Betty, God bless her, said, “Your dad won’t say this because he doesn’t want to hurt my feelings, but it has to be said. You’re going to be rich, very rich, and I’m sure that at some point, you hope to marry. Learn from your father’s experience, no woman is worth half your stuff. Half of what she helped you earn sure that’s ok, but half of what you created on your own, no way.”

“She’s right, I’m glad she said it so I didn’t have to,” dad said. “You need to talk to your uncle Sal.”

Uncle Sal was not my real uncle, but he was a close family friend since before my birth. Sal had degrees in both law and accounting, and was both the smartest and sneakiest man I knew. Prior to retiring, Sal had been the financial advisor to a group of Italian- American entrepreneurs who were involved in the import/export business with some Columbian entrepreneurs. He had been an expert in operating just on the legal side of financial manipulation. He found creative and mostly legal ways to get their money into the US with the absolute minimum in taxes.

Uncle Sal agreed to help me. He was a little put out that I insisted he avoid the gray areas of the law and do everything needed to keep me squeaky clean.

“You know that this will cost you a few hundred thousand a year doing it this way,” he said.

“Yeah I know, but it will keep the feds off my ass,” I replied.

“Ok, I’ll set it up your way, but it sure hurts my professional pride,” he complained.

Sal set up an overseas corporation in one country that was owned by another corporation in another country. He did this several times using countries that were reluctant to give out financial information. He arranged to have my payments from the navy and air force paid to the corporation and set me up as an employee of that corporation with a nice six figure income to report to the IRS and any future wife’s lawyer. The rest of my income went to an overseas account that I would only pay taxes on when brought into the US. The way Sal set it up it looked like the military was only paying me the amount that I reported to the IRS. It was all legal. I only had to pay taxes on money in the US. The IRS would get its taxes on the rest when it entered the US. The only ones, other than the IRS, navy and air force, who knew the truth, were Sal, me, Betty, and my dad. None of them would be telling any divorce lawyer anything. Betty and dad thought that the whole thing was a hoot.

“Dad said, with a sigh, “I wish I had talked to Sal before I married your mother.”

“If wishes were horses, we would all have beautiful roses,” Betty said with a chuckle.

When she saw the puzzled look on my face, she said, “Think about it genius.”