Chapter 29: Home Again

October 27, 1996, Chicago, Illinois

“Dad!” seven screaming voices exclaimed.

I dropped my bags and crouched down and was rushed by three little girls, while their brothers more nonchalantly walked towards me. Everyone got hugs, and the girls got kisses on their foreheads. When they’d all had their turn I stood up.

“Hi, Tiger!”

“Hi, Snuggle Bear!”

“Hello, lovely wives!”

I took them both in my arms and we held a three-way hug, each of us kissing the other two once, and then doing our three-way kiss.

I released them and held my arms out for Maria Cristina who came over and melted against me.

“I missed you,” she said, and we exchanged a soft kiss.

Elyse, Jennifer, Josie, Samantha, and Stephanie all got hugs, and I shook hands with Brian, Eduardo, and Ed.

“I want to take a quick shower,” I said. “And start some laundry. And then I need a few minutes with Samantha, if my lovely wives and her handsome husband don’t mind.”

Everyone laughed.

“I’ll start your laundry, Dad,” Birgit said. “Ashley will help.”

“OK, Pumpkin.”

“Jesse!” Birgit ordered. “Carry the big bag, please!”

I chuckled, “Now I KNOW I’m home.”

Jesse rolled his eyes and followed orders, helping his two sisters take my bags to the washer while my wives followed me upstairs. I quickly stripped off my clothes and got into the warm shower while my wives leaned against the sink and watched.

“Are your batteries recharged?” Jessica asked.

“Absolutely. I’ll give you all the details later. Maria Cristina is going to have to forgo her night tonight. I’ll talk to her about it.”

“You have that much to tell?”

I nodded, “It was a wonderful two weeks, I had some very good talks with the counselor and met a lot of really nice people. I basically forgot what ‘small-town’ America was like, and it gave me some serious insights into the culture wars that are starting in earnest.”

“And?” Kara asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Later!” I chuckled. “I need to talk with Samantha and we’ll be here forever if I start the story now! I want to give you my full, undivided attention.”

“Ooh!” Kara squealed. “I love it when you do that!”

“She’s been impossible this whole week, Tiger. She’s suffering withdrawal symptoms!”

“You have no room to talk, Miss ‘God do I need to be fucked hard’!” Kara said primly.

I chuckled, “I promise to fulfill my husbandly duties to the utmost! But AFTER I talk with Samantha and spend some time with the Munchkins.”

I quickly finished my shower, dried off, and dressed. We went downstairs, I got myself a San Pellegrino from the fridge, added some lime juice, then went to find Samantha. With Brian’s agreement, she and I went into my office and sat side by side in two leather chairs.

“So?” I asked.

“Between us, the FBI, and Treasury, we’ve found most of the money. They were smart, but not smart enough. I think they got cocky and that made them a bit careless.”

“How much?”

“Just north of $150 million between them. There’s probably another $50 million in the Gulf States which we can’t touch so far.”

“And your dad?”

“He’s there, for sure, along with Matheson. But Dad apparently befriended one of the sheiks when they met in London in the 80s, so at the moment he has governmental protection.”

“Foulkes and Monroe?”

“Under surveillance. They surfaced in Istanbul. The FBI asked the Turkish police to just track them, not pick them up. They’re in Abu Dhabi at the moment. The FBI is hoping they lead them to where my dad and Matheson are hiding out. Right now, the sheiks have ‘plausible deniability’ because the FBI can’t say ‘Noel Spurgeon is at the Grand Hotel’ or whatever.”

“But they have to know the Feds have the money.”

“It wasn’t seized. Treasury put traps on all the accounts with the banks. They’re allowing nominal transfers but won’t allow large ones. Nobody has tried to make a large one, yet. When they do, then Treasury and the FBI have to decide if it’s better to stop it or let it go through. Honestly, they should have done what I’m sure you planned - Russia. They’d never cooperate with us.”

“No comment,” I grinned.

“Even with the anti-surveillance stuff here?”

“Even with. I have no idea what you might be talking about.”

“Uh-huh,” she laughed. “Anyway, they have all the warrants and everything they need to get Foulkes, Monroe, and Foulkes’ wife. And they seized Monroe’s unmonitored account. He was sneakier. He used a complete fake identity. He got a birth certificate of a kid who was born the same year but died at age five.”

“The perfect ploy if you parlay that to a driver’s license.”

“Exactly. And then a passport. That’s ultimately how they got him. When they found his offshore account, they traced the transfers through several hops and landed on a large private trading account in another name. It took some legwork, but given Treasury is expecting to pull in around $200 million, they aren’t sparing any expenses. Not to mention whatever huge fine we negotiate to make this all go away.”

“Blame Matheson?”

“And Foulkes and Monroe. We’re negotiating now, but they’re being pricks about no guilty plea from the firm and no admission of firm liability. I’m fine with hanging the assholes out to dry, but they did this on their own hook. The thing is, we’ll win, because they know they can’t get us on anything as a firm, and the last thing they want to do is lose a case in court. And you know I have the money to fight them.”

“I think you have more disposable cash on hand than they do, but sadly, they have printing presses and the right to print more fiat currency.”

“Tell me about it,” she said, shaking her head. “Cowry shells were better because they were rare and you had to expend significant effort to get them, just like gold. That prevents an insane expansion of the money supply. Now? Fuckin-A, just turn on the printing presses and watch a pound of butter go from its historic price of a nickel to $3.00!”

“You’re preaching to the hard money choir,” I grinned. “How long before you settle?”

“I figure I’ll win the staring contest in a week or so.”

“How is Keri working out?”

“It’s only been a week, but Stephanie is happy. I know you trained Keri well, so I’m quite sure things will work out fine. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have hired her! How did your sessions with the coach go?”

“He’s an ex-Marine. His basic refrain was ‘suck it up and deal with it’!”

Samantha laughed, “I know the type. Brian has some Marine officer friends. To them, any solution that doesn’t involve fully-automatic weapons, grenades, artillery, and close air support isn’t worth considering.”

“They are ‘shock troops’ when used properly,” I chuckled. “Anyway, he turned my words around on me and told me to ‘manage my team’ and let my subordinates do the same.”

“Wait! You do that!”

“With one notable exception,” I replied.

“Your veto! That is kind of an anomaly. I only talk to the most senior people we hire, not the assistants, secretaries, mail room guys, or whatever. But then again, we have something like eight times your staff.”

“He was pretty adamant that my problem was trying to be best friends with everyone, or at least close cousins, and my veto reinforced that in MY mind, but didn’t do anything for those new hires and their view of me. It’s basically the first change I need to make.”

“And then?”

“Mostly changing attitudes. I’m not going to destroy my relationships with people like Penny or John in Pittsburgh, but I can’t count on having many of those, if any, except in the executive suite.”

“It was different for me because I had NO friends when I took over, so I had to build the relationships I needed, and do so carefully. Who is that going to affect?”

“In the end? Me. Obviously Mario, Barbara, and Zeke are executives in the sense the coach meant it, along with Charlie, Kimmy, Deborah, Julia, Cindi, and Elyse. There are a few others, too, like Eve and Terry. And Dave when he comes back. But ultimately, some of those will diminish when Stephanie comes on board. I have to truly cede power to her, or we’ll both be frustrated.”

“And you’ll be dead and I can have her back!” Samantha smirked.

“You just focus on Keri, my young mentee!”

“Somebody got their brains fucked out by nubile young women during his two weeks away!”

“Is it that obvious?” I grinned.

“You haven’t been this loose and relaxed since Saint Martin!”

“I did have an enjoyable time there!”

“I invited several of them to the Halloween Party next Friday.”

“Cool.”

“You’ll think it’s more than cool, I’m sure.”

“Oh?”

“Liz and her boyfriend broke up. She said she would LOVE to ‘adult’ with you, if you’re interested.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“He wanted to get married as soon as she finished her undergrad degree and have some kids. She wants to go to law school first. They’d discussed it, and she made that clear. A few weeks later he showed up with a ring. She refused because she knew clearly what he wanted, and she only saw it turning into a disaster.”

“That’s actually very mature,” I said.

“I think the problem, really, was that he doesn’t want a wife who makes more than he does. Remember, he’s a state employee and if she signs on with any decently-sized firm, she’ll make double what he does as a first-year associate. And she’s smart enough that you know she’ll get several good offers. After that, the sky is the limit.”

I nodded, “She’s an extremely intelligent young woman. You know my rule about committing to something like that, but I promise I’ll dance with her and we’ll take it from there.”

Samantha laughed, “The one woman with big tits that you truly loved!”

“Nah, there was one other. A girl named Debbie when I was in High School. And you know Cindi and I love each other!”

“Yeah, but you two never quite got there!”

“True. I forgot how much you and I talked about stuff like that.”

“Those were good talks. They gave me a lot of insight into you, and a lot of insight into other people as well. I don’t think I’d be the woman I am today without that evening in the barn and everything that came after it.”

“I could have done without the jailbreak.”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t your fault nor was it my fault. You gave the fucking Feds everything on a platter and they fucked it up worse than if I’d given it to a security guard on his first day at Spurgeon and let him deal with it!”

“There is that,” I said. “Did you hear anything more about Stone and O’Toole?”

“Gone.”

“Fired?”

“Reassigned. Stone to Reno and O’Toole to, get this, Anchorage.”

I chuckled, “The desert and Alaska. Somebody was VERY unhappy.”

“I talked to the Deputy AG and ‘unhappy’ is not the word I would use. ‘Pissed’ is more like it, but even that’s not strong enough. They literally KNEW what my dad was going to pull and let him do it. Honestly, they’re lucky the AG thinks they’re just incompetent.”

“Payoff?”

“Think about it.”

“Yeah, that would make sense. I guess there’s no evidence of that?”

“Neither of them is horribly in debt, nor do they gamble, their kids are in good colleges, but not outrageously expensive ones. They both drive midrange Fords. Their wives have good jobs. No evidence of any kind of payoff or anything out of the ordinary in their lifestyles.”

“The Feds told you that?”

“No, your friends Patrick and Katya. I did my OWN investigation because ‘incompetence’ just smelled like ‘cover-up’ to me. It was, but not the way I thought.”

“Hide them in plain sight but don’t make a big deal about it because it would besmirch the DOJ.”

“Bingo. That’s why I was suspicious, but honestly, there is less than nothing. Those two FBI guys have lives as boring as watching paint dry! I think I’d kill myself if my life were that boring!”

“And yet, for some people, that’s just how they like it.”

“Not us, Steve. That’s not who we are.”

“No, it’s not.”

We got up, hugged, and rejoined the rest of the family. I spent time with the kids before they had to go to bed, then had a quiet talk with Maria Cristina, promising her Monday night, then went upstairs with my wives.

“Sex or story first?” I asked.

“Tiger, if I’m not half unconscious in the next thirty minutes, YOU will be unconscious!”

“And to think you were saying it was Kara who needed it badly.”

“I don’t EVER do this, but I’m claiming state authority to go first!”

I chuckled, “And you know MY take on state authority!”

“Just shut up and fuck me, Tiger!”

I did. And then Kara. And then the three of us fucked each other. We took a shower, changed the sheets, and climbed back into bed.

“I have a proposal,” I said.

“We’re already married, you oaf!” Kara said with a soft laugh.

“What would you say if we had a live-in housekeeper? Someone to clean, cook, do laundry, and handle the kids in the afternoon? Not as a nanny, but just as an adult in the house, so to speak.”

“Where did you get that idea?” Jessica asked.

“If you think about how much juggling we do around trying to have dinner on the table at a reasonable hour, and do all the stuff around the house, I think it makes sense. Honestly, wouldn’t you rather spend time on your days off doing stuff OTHER than cleaning or laundry or whatever?”

“He does make a good point,” Kara replied. “Let me guess, you have someone in mind.”

“Indeed I do. And unless you object, she’ll visit in about three weeks to meet you two and the other moms, and be interviewed by the people who actually run this house.”

“Jesse and Birgit!” Jessica responded.

“Exactly!”

“And this young woman?” Kara asked. “Another satisfied customer?”

“I’m making a unilateral decree,” I replied. “You BOTH have wifely privileges, with the exception of Maria Cristina, whom we need to talk about. BUT, you have to tell me you want the gory details!”

“I do! I do!” Kara exclaimed happily.

“You hussy!” Jessica retorted, but then she laughed. “Me too!”

“So, for my trip, the ‘body count’ was three, two of whom were virgins. And, Kara, you’ll love this, one was the eighteen-year-old daughter of the local Baptist pastor!”

“No way!” Kara laughed.

“Oh, yes way. And in true Kent van der Meer fashion, he suspected something and confronted me about it. That led to a very interesting afternoon and evening with a cute, thirty-one-year-old Sheriff’s deputy and her handcuffs! She was the non-virgin.”

“And the housekeeper, or whatever you want to call her, is the pastor’s daughter?”

“No, her friend, Winter, who, by the way, has sisters named Summer and Autumn.”

“Seriously?” Jessica replied.

“Seriously! And the sisters’ housemate is named Brooke. Which, spelled without the ‘e’ is another word for a ‘spring’. I met them and they made quattro stagioni pizza. I’m sure you can imagine the jokes I made about sampling all four seasons!”

“You’re SO bad, Tiger!”

“None of them had their tests, so it ended up as a lot of fun teasing and innuendo. Anyway, I met Winter the first night I was there, and after a talk with Abbie and one with Bethany, I decided to take Elyse’s advice. Winter got the entire round-the-world treatment, plus a very rare thing for me.”

“What?” Jessica asked.

Kara laughed, “The thing he can do with me but not you! The thing Cindi always teases him about!”

“Yes,” I grinned. “After that, she stayed with me for the entire two weeks. Towards the end of the first week, her friend Vickie, the pastor’s daughter, came to the door of the motel and asked if that was where the sex lessons were given.”

“I swear, Tiger, if you wrote to Penthouse, NOBODY would believe your TRUE stories!”

“Tell me about it! Anyway, she got her lessons, though she declined the around-the-world tour and she was smaller than you, Jess.”

“At least SOMEBODY is,” Jessica growled.

“Oh, PULEEEZE!” Kara snorted. “You know darned well he prefers yours to mine. And even Loki doesn’t know why!”

“She came back for seconds the following Wednesday, which led to the Saturday encounter with the Deputy. I was questioned, but Vickie denied straight up that I’d raped her, and since she was eighteen, that was the end of it. Deputy Nelson, Emmy is her given name, and I flirted and I invited her to stop by when her shift was over. We had a glass of bourbon, she confirmed she’d had her test...”

“Of COURSE she did,” Kara said, barely able to say the words because she was laughing. “That ALWAYS works out for you!”

“It turns out her best friend’s older brother is an ER doc and he was also Emmy’s first. He insisted everyone get tested starting around 1986, shortly after he began his second year of medical school. He was insistent with Emmy because she’s been scratched and cut and had people puke in her cruiser and spit on her and bleed all over.”

“That’s the same thing Bethany tells the cops and firefighters,” Jessica replied. “It’s just safer to get tested than find out too late you were infected by some perp or patient and passed it on to a loved one.”

“The other two had theirs, too, of course,” Kara replied.

“Of course. Winter when she went to get birth control pills before her wedding and Vickie because the lab offered when she was there with Winter.”

“Wedding?”

“It never happened,” I replied. “She was engaged to her High School sweetheart who enlisted in the Marines right out of High School. He was supposed to come home after Parris Island for the wedding. He didn’t, got orders to Japan, and wrote her what I guess you would call a ‘Dear Jane’ letter. I jokingly offered to have JAG court-martial the guy, but she declined. Later on, I found out he was the grandson of Bill Ivarstad, the coach I was meeting. Bill is a retired Marine as is his son. And his son works for Patrick.”