Chapter 4

We walked into the truck stop restaurant and took a booth away from everyone. I booted up the laptop and turned it to Renee.

“You do what you have to do, and I am going to go to the restroom. If the waitress comes over get me some coffee and a meatloaf sandwich with fries.”

“What if they don’t have meatloaf?”

“Renee! It is a truck stop, it they didn’t have meatloaf I would really worry.”

She smiled, and I went to the bathroom. When I got done, I washed my hands and was on my way back to the table when my phone rang.

“Recon!”

“Wildman. I have some good news. The house is sold. I got you out with about $15 grand profit. I have to get some papers to you, so let me know when you get somewhere with a fax machine and a notary.”

“I might be there now, let me check. If not, we will be in a town tonight and I can find a realtor in the AM.”

“We? You still with that hot woman?”

“We are traveling together Recon. I don’t know if anything is going to come of it. I have a lot of trust issues to work through as you can imagine.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Hey, Bro? Who do we know that can do a financial analysis of a company?”

“JJ does some investing. He’s the only one I can think of. Tell me what you need, I’ll ask him if he is the guy or he knows who is.”

“I am looking to buy a private company from the owner. I may have some leverage to put him in a position to sell.”

“Ok. I’ll call after I talk to JJ.”

“Later, Bro.”

I went back to Renee to find her face buried in my laptop and two cups of coffee and two plates with open-face meatloaf sandwiches. When I sat down in the booth, I coughed to get her attention.

“Hey, nice menu selection.”

“Smart ass know it all!”

“I just got a call from Recon. The house is sold, and he needs to fax me some papers. I am gonna see if this place has a fax machine. I’ll be back. Don’t eat my meatloaf.”

“Smart ass!”

I walked up to the pay counter.

“Hi. I am in need of a fax machine. Do y’all have one here?”

“Yes, sir. It’s back in the drivers lounge.” The older lady said.

“Can I use it if I am not a driver?”

“Yeah, most of them don’t use it anyway.”

I walked into the drivers lounge and called Recon. I gave him the fax number taped to the machine. In a few minutes it was printing out a ton of forms.

“Damn, bro. It’s going to take some time to look all this over. Can I send these back later tonight?”

“Sure. And send me a bank account for the deposit.”

“Roger that.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

I walked back to the pay desk.

“How much do I owe you for the paper?”

The girl counted out the number of sheets.

“$1.40.”

“Can I add it to my lunch tab?”

“Sure, just pay for everything up here.”

I went back to the booth to find Renee buried in the laptop with a ton of napkins with notes written all over them.

“Did you find anything on your network.”

“Oh yeah. I’ve figured out what he is doing. He has been siphoning off profits from the LLC and setting them aside in foreign accounts. He has been parking the money in my account until he moves it out. I closed access to my account, now he can’t move anything in or out of my account without my permission.”

“Can we hurt him with this info?”

“Yes. Because of what he has been doing his company is really cash poor. He barely makes payroll each ½ month. The big thing is that he seems to be behind with the state and federal tax payments.”

“That is not going to end well. This will cost him the whole company and put everyone on the street.”

“I know, Mick. I think I can do something about it. If we can set up a company, we can put pressure on him and buy him out with his own money. I’ll find out how much he owes in tax payments and then give some info to the tax guys about him. When they get after him, we, our company, will buy him out for enough to cover the taxes and let him keep himself out of jail.”

“Well, I have a company.”

“What?”

“I have a company.”

“Explain please.”

“I have a company. Actually, I AM the company. I do programming and I do fixes for the software other people have messed up.”

“I guess I thought that you worked for a company as an employee.”

“I do! The company is incorporated, and I am it’s employee.”

“Then we can do this. Do you need a personal assistant?”

“Maybe.”

“I would like to buy into your company. I have close to $800,000 dollars to bring to the table.”

“Can you bring anything else?”

“I can think of a few things.”

We sat and talked over our plans as we ate. It is hard to mess up meatloaf, and these sandwiches did not disappoint. It seemed like everyone who walked in took a look at Renee. She is a stunning woman, in a girl next door kind of way. And now I find out that she is very intelligent. I learned a long time ago that the most important sex organ is the one between the ears, and I don’t mean the mouth.

“My turn to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back. Is there a dessert that is safe at all truck stops?”

“Nope.”

“Great. I’ll be right back.”

I watched her walk away. The outside and the inside were so attractive. Stan was a fucking moron! He was going to pay for it. After a fairly long time, Renee came back.

“You ok?”

“Yeah. Why do you ask?”

“You seemed to be gone a long time and since you look great without makeup...”

“Thanks for that and thanks for caring. Truthfully? I’m not pregnant. I’ll need to buy some girl stuff before we leave.”

“NOT pregnant. As in there is a chance you could have been?”

“Yeah. I quit taking the pill when I quick fucking Stan a few months ago.”

“Don’t you think that would be a nice thing to tell a guy?”

“Sorry. I figured that since you didn’t ask, and you and Helen never had kids that you had a vasectomy.”

“Oh no. I am shooting some very healthy little soldiers.”

“Then how come you and Helen don’t have kids?”

“Helen didn’t want any. I guess that was so she could stay on the pill and fuck around.”

“Sorry. It obviously bothers you.”

“Yeah, I want kids. Always have.”

“I want kids too. Lots of them!”

I looked at her and the realization came to me that she WAS the one. Now how to get us there.

“Renee, before we do anything else, I want you to know something. I do not intend to divorce Helen. I am not going to give her half of what I have and reward her for cheating. If we end up together, it will probably not be in a legal marriage. I intend to give Helen $1000 a week and that is it. Whatever she does after that is up to her.”

“Mick, Idaho has fault and no-fault divorces. You could sue her for adultery, but you don’t have hard proof.”

“If I walk away and pay her an allowance, then she can’t get me for desertion.”

“But she could get you for adultery.”

“When she has proof.”

“Ok, so we need to figure that one out after we take care of Stan.”

“We?”

“Mick, you know there is going to be a ‘we’ eventually, right? I do. So, what do we do with Stan?”

“First, my company approaches him to buy his company, he will say no. Second, we contact the tax folks through one of the employees, maybe Janey, and she makes a complaint.”

“She will do that gladly. He was always hitting on her in front of her husband. When the tax guys call him, he will be too cash poor to fix it.”

“That should force Stan to look for quick cash. He will have to turn to my company to do the buyout and bail him out because he can’t move the money back into the company with the taxmen watching and having to report it.”

“That is a lot of moving parts, Mick.”

“I know, but we can pull it off, especially with his $800K in our possession. Have you checked to see if he has parked anymore with you?”

“Yeah, he hasn’t. It looks like he only parks the money for a few minutes and then moves it. We got lucky because he was fucking Helen and he left it there for the weekend.”

My face must have hardened.

“I’m sorry Mick.”

“I don’t know how much you still feel for him, but before this is over, I am going to take my revenge out of his hide.”

“Honestly? I’ll hold him, and you hit him!”

Yeah, I was loving this woman. My phone rang. It was Helen.

“What?”

“I’m sorry. I threatened to sue Stan for alienation of affection if he didn’t let me move into his house. I’m staying in a guest room and there will be no sex.”

“So?”

“I wanted to tell you, so when you come back there won’t be any surprises.”

“Who the hell says I’m coming back.”

“You have to, Mick. I love you.”

“Too little too late. Good luck with mini-dick.”

There was silence on the line, so I disconnected the call without any more words.

“Stan won’t let her stay for long before he tries to get in her pants.”

“They’re her pants now, not mine, so it doesn’t matter. Call Janey and see if she would help and if she has heard any in house gossip. By the way, when we leave, we will be coming up on a fork in the road. One way is Salt Lake City and the other is Cheyenne, Wyoming. Got a preference?”

“What is after Salt Lake?”

“Denver.”

“And after Cheyenne?”

“Miles and miles, of miles and miles, then Lincoln, Nebraska.”

“Cheyenne.”

“You got it. Call Janey.”

Renee called her office and when Janey answered in a hushed voice, she put her on speaker.

“Hi Renee.”

“Hi Janey, what’s up?”

“Stan is losing his mind. Did you leave him?”

“Yes.”

“Did you take anything important with you?”

“I took the money you saw transferred. He is skimming profits for himself.”