Chapter 64: Busting It

Late Sept-Early Oct, 1986

Charlie POV:

When we returned things began happening quickly.

Bob and I popped to Dad’s cabin and found our two pallets of cash just like we left them. We ‘relocated’ them to Dad’s garage before contemplating whether to bring the three girls’ bikes and our two ATVs.

We decided to leave them in the cabin’s garage for now, so as not to unnecessarily clutter Dad’s.

On Monday, Ed, Bill, Gracie, Rex and Jeremy all helped go through the rest of their condemned houses, recovering much more than we originally thought they could safely get to. That was all stored at Rex and Jeremy’s place and now their living room is just barely usable.

Dad wanted the spa and they teleported that directly to Dad’s basement. Having uncovered our gold stash, they teleported the 40 or so large ammo-boxes to another stall in Dad’s garage.

They considered trying to move the massive gun safe in our garage but decided it was too heavily buried. It still holds nearly two million in cash so, we were going to coordinate with the demolition crews to get it the second they uncovered it.

(Yeah, we could have ‘excavated’ it ourselves, but that would have raised too many questions.)

As much as I was chomping the bit to go to Arizona again, on Tuesday, I got a call from one Barry Manley, IRS supervisory Agent. He was coming by on Wednesday morning with a Treasury Department supervisor to get our ‘cash problem’ squared away.

This HAD to be taken care of and I HAD to be here. And so did Bob.

Sooo, I spent much of Tuesday on the phone with Charlene, getting as many of the things I needed either handled, or set up, for when I went out there either Wed. night (hopefully) or Thurs. morning (at the latest).

Charlene was my ‘calm in the storm’, promising me she had things under control and reminding me it wouldn’t be until Friday at the earliest before the Title Report came in.

She had the surveyors doing my topographical survey and was told that would be completed by Friday, also. She had appointments set for Thursday with Robertson Builders and Excelsior Builders who specialized in multi-million dollar homes.

She also told me Al Jeffries had an engineer he wanted me to see who knew about many of the special and peculiar building characteristics that were essential for building in the desert. (The kind of guy I felt I really needed to consult with!)

Things were just crazy and I was busting ass to keep up.

So much so that I barely noticed Sarah being gone nearly the entire time. Mary had Jamie helping take care of Abby (Sissy), so Sarah would have some ‘extra time’ with Darren.

When I asked what she thought about Sarah’s pursuit of Darren, Mary just giggled, “It’s no worse than you getting interested in Charlene, Sugar Bear!”

“Aaaarggh! Charlene is JUST our realtor and friend. I’m not pursuing her!”

Giggle, “Then you better start running faster or she’s going to catch you. I’m telling you, that lady has the hots for you like you wouldn’t believe!”

I kept trying to think of ways Charlene wouldn’t be attractive to me.

After several minutes, I couldn’t find even one. She’s smart, good looking, insightful, accommodating and very sweet.

It’s just that, she’s become so instrumental in everything I needed to get done, I didn’t want to screw that up!

Bill came by and asked if I needed him tomorrow.

I told him I really did since he knew more about handling money and transactions like this than I did. He suggested we have a couple of the girls, like Mary and Linda, to help us keep track of any numbers and account information they might provide.

Wednesday morning a large armored truck pulled up followed by a Chevy Suburban.

Bob, Bill, Mary, Linda and I walked out to meet them.

A guy, who looked more like a body-builder than an IRS agent, introduced himself as IRS Sr Agent Barry Manley. I always pictured someone from the IRS looking nerdy. This guy looked like he spent more time carrying around a desk than working behind one!

He introduced Treasury Dept. Sr Agent Jeff Haskell and he looked nerdy enough, but stood over 6½ feet tall. They both showed us their IDs and asked where they should park the truck.

We opened the garage door and told them to back it in as close as they felt comfortable.

We’d left the shrink-wrap on the pallets of money so they could see we hadn’t messed with it.

Agent Manley chuckled, “Just how in the heck did you guys get these pallets in here?” He was looking around for a forklift.

“Ummm, well, I guess you could say ‘Jonah’ put these here for us?”

Both Agents began looking all around to see if Jonah was here now.

I asked, “Did you want to try and put these pallets into the truck? I don’t think the door opening is wide enough.”

Agent Manley shook his head, “No, that’s okay. We wanted to do a preliminary count with you guys watching, anyway. We’re under strict orders to, and I quote, ‘Treat you like we would the President’s Family’ oh, and not to ask you any questions that you don’t want to answer!” He chuckled, “I wouldn’t mind meeting Jonah sometime, though.”

“Well, let’s just say he’s keeping an eye on us so nobody tries to steal our money. Maybe after we finish he may appear and say ‘Hi’?”

Agent Haskell grinned, pointed at us then looked up,” Don’t worry, Jonah. We’re on THEIR side, okay!?”

Haskell’s eyes lit up when I gave him a mental pat on the shoulder.

Agent Manley asked, “Mister Swenson, you wouldn’t happen to have a box cutter or a razor knife handy would you?”

Bob pulled out his Stanley razor-knife and handed it to Agent Manley. I said, “You can call me Charlie and that’s my brother, Bob giving you the knife. The other gentleman is Bill Davis, our investment expert and these two ladies are my wife, Mary and Bob’s wife, Linda.”

Agent Manley said, “I’ll do that Charlie, and you can just call me Barry and my friend’s first name is Jeff. Now, let’s see what’s behind all this plastic.”

After pulling away the shrink-wrap and the cardboard that was laying across the top of the pallet, Barry grabbed a bundle of cash.

Suddenly his eyes grew wide and he exclaimed, “HOLY SHIT! Oh, sorry ladies, Jeff, come here and look at this!”

Bob was peering over his shoulder and now his eyes were popping out of his head.

He immediately flashed, “SHIT Charlie I think this pallet is full of counterfeit money! I’ve never seen that many zeros on a dollar bill before.”

While Barry and Jeff were fanning through the bundle and grabbing two more bundles, fanning through those also, I had to ask, “It scares me when somebody in your position says ‘holy shit’, is this pallet all counterfeit?”

Jeff took the lead, “No! This is as real as it gets. It’s just that, $100,000 bills have only ever been used within the Treasury Department and between Federal banks. I know we’re not supposed to ask, but I have to know. Where did this pallet of money come from?”

I was still thinking of what to tell him when I felt Alex Logan in my head, “Charlie, Lenny just told me what happened. Jeff Haskell is in charge of the Treasury Department’s oversight and investigations branch. He is a good guy, since you’ve already told me where you got it, you can safely tell him too.”

I thanked him then said, “Jonah got it from a warehouse on Rafael Garbanzo’s compound on an island just north of Haiti. You know who Rafael was, don’t you?”

Jeff nodded his head, “Yes, I’ve heard of him. My good friend Alex Logan, the director of the CIA, has kept me up-to-date over the years about all of Rafael’s exploits. We often wondered what foreign countries he’d been laundering his money through. The presence of these bills may answer some of those questions.

“You see, the Fed keeps close track of the serial numbers of the straps and bundles of all these bills. Take a close look and notice, as I fan through them, that the serial numbers are all consecutive. That’s because it’s exceedingly rare that single bills are ever used since their purpose is to transfer large sums between Federal Reserve banks. I’ll bet they were using banks in Puerto Rico and possibly two other American possessions. Do you realize, that this one strap that I’m holding is worth $10 million? And so far, we’ve found two more.”

Barry and Jeff began carefully going through the top layers of bundles or ‘straps’ as they called them. There were some large bundles that they actually called ‘bundles’ that they explained consisted of 10 straps. There were many more surprises in the top six or seven layers of this pallet.

They found six bundles of $500 bills that had William McKinley’s picture on them. They told us each of these was worth $500,000! They found 10 bundles of $1000 bills that had Grover Cleveland’s picture on them, worth $1 million each. Then five bundles of $5000 bills that had James Madison’s picture on them, worth $5 million each. Then they started to run into bundles of hundred dollar bills which they told us were worth $100,000 each.

Jeff chuckled, “The only thing we haven’t found yet are $10,000 bills. They would have Salmon P Chase’s picture on them.”

Bob asked, “Are all these real money?”

Jeff nodded, “Absolutely, they’re all still legal tender and will be till probably well after the turn-of-the-century. Starting in 1969, we began taking these out of circulation since they were never really used that much. None of these bills have been minted since 1945. Even then, if you look at these bills, most were minted in like 1934 through 1939.”

Barry asked Mary if she had an adding machine and would help keep track of all the different amounts of straps and bundles for them. They pulled out two large tables from the back of the armored car and set them up just inside the garage forming a regular assembly-line of sorts.

Two other Agents, who’d been in the suburban with Barry and Jeff, were also assisting checking the bills and recording different serial numbers. We were almost through with the first pallet when they discovered the first bundle that they felt was counterfeit.

Jeff handed me that bundle along with a bundle of real hundred dollar bills. The difference in weight was noticeable. Then he got out this brownish colored felt tip pen and swiped it across a real bill, then a counterfeit one.

I’d seen tellers do that in the bank sometimes and discovered the reason why. When he swiped it across the counterfeit bill, it turned purple! He explained that was because only ‘rag paper’ wouldn’t cause the chemical in the pen to do that.

The bottom two layers we discovered was all counterfeit. Much as I had feared.

Jeff also showed us, as he fanned through the counterfeit bills, that many of them had the same serial numbers.

I didn’t tell them that this wasn’t the only two pallets of money that we found and that we had suspected something like that before.

Bob was wondering if we should tell them about all the money we had in the Cayman accounts. I told him I’d think about that.

Then the fucker gave me a look that made me start laughing.

When I asked him what was up, he chuckled, “I’ll bet you forgot all about Tsau Ni’s ‘Cookbook’, haven’t you?”

I was glad he flashed that, since now my mouth was open and catching flies.

“Oh, FAWWWCK! Where the hell is THAT hiding?”

“Under my mattress, safe and sound. You DO realize that between the 10 accounts in that book there’s almost 5 times as much is we’re probably going to get out of these two pallets!?”

I felt my heart flutter and my breath quickened, “Let’s keep THAT a secret. I think I’ll tell them about our Cayman account as that may be an indication what we should do about this other shit load of money we have. Dammit! Just when I thought everything was being taken care of, you throw a huge monkey wrench into the works!”

I was fighting back a chuckle when Bob responded, “Okay then, I’ll just keep it all to myself! I certainly don’t want to cause you any sleepless nights, Big Brother.” Now he was laughing which made Barry and Jeff look at us like we were strange.

Mary and Linda didn’t miss a trick, and were now also giggling.

“Barry, I just remembered something I need to ask you before you leave. Do you want take a break after we finish this pallet?”

Barry nodded, “That sounds like a winner. Mary my dear, if you wouldn’t mind totaling everything up for me I would appreciate it. Just, don’t show me the tape until after I add everything up myself, okay?”

Mary had a brand-new adding machine made by Canon. She was in the process of dazzling us with how fast she could add up the long columns of numbers.

When she finished Barry grinned at her, “That was mighty impressive, ma’am, I mean, Mary. Do you mind?” He said as he turned the adding machine and he commenced to adding up the numbers even faster than Mary did.

When he finished, Mary was just grinning at him, “So, you actually do work behind a desk once in a while, eh?”

Barry winked at her, “Oh yeah, it’s not every day I get to come out in the field and have fun like this with such beautiful assistants! Now, let’s see if our numbers match?”

I saw them compare their totals and grin back at each other. Our total credit for the first pallet was $1,435,575,000! And their two tapes matched exactly. They gave each other a high five then Mary and Linda went inside to get us all some iced tea and lemonade.

Bob found some lawn chairs so we could all sit and relax for a few minutes. This first pallet alone had taken over an hour and a half to get through.

While we were relaxing with our iced tea, I asked Barry, “Earlier, Bob reminded me that on a different escapade, Jonah had given us a much smaller pallet with money. Since we were in the Cayman Islands at the time, we just put it all in four different numbered accounts. I was wondering what we should do about those?”

Barry laughed and shook his head, “I take it you didn’t find any counterfeit money in that bunch?”

I shook my head, “No, and they checked pretty close. That pallet only had straps of hundred dollar bills, 50s and 20s. It came out to about $475 million.”

Barry was still shaking his head, “Well, if you want to include it under your tax amnesty, then I suggest you have it transferred up here. Just know, that you’ll end up paying Cayman Island taxes on it when you withdraw it. I probably shouldn’t say this, but if it were me, I’d just leave it there and let it accrue interest. If you spend it in the Caymans, you won’t end up paying hardly any taxes on it. You should probably just save that for a rainy day.”

I was surprised at the candidness of his answer.

He chuckled then said, “Oh, before I forget, Director Logan wanted me to give you this.” He handed me a couple business cards. “Jake Manley is my uncle. He’s probably one of the best tax attorneys in the country.”

He laughed, “When it comes to his clients having to pay taxes, he makes Ebenezer Scrooge look like a philanthropist. Some of his clients include the Rockefellers, T Boone Pickens and many others. When it comes to taking money out of any offshore accounts, you should get a hold of him and he’ll give you advice on how to make it happen. I’ve already told him about you, so he’ll be expecting your call.”

As they say in the business, this was as good as gold to me.

Bill was grinning at me and flashed that he knew who Jake Manley was and, while he wasn’t cheap, would be worth every penny we ever paid him. I asked Barry for a third card and handed it to Bill.

We finished our beverages, then attacked the second pallet which turned out to be all bundles of $100 bills. They were counting and stuffing these into the giant moneybags as fast as Jeff and Barry could fan through them. The total for the second pallet came out to $970,580,000. For a grand total of $2,406,155,000!

Mary smirked, “Sooo, Agent Haskell ... are we going to get credit for the $30 Million in those $100,000 bills? Hmmm?” And she batted her eyes at him.

Jeff chuckled then took a deep breath, “Well,” he grinned at Agent Manley, “We were supposed to treat you like the President’s Family ... I don’t believe we should try and short you a tiny amount like $30 Million just because some unknown miscreant misappropriated some Federal bills. Should we?”

Mary kissed both of them on the cheek, “I was just teasing. You’ve both been very nice and fun to work with as well as informative. I never knew there was any such thing as bills over $100 before.”

Jeff smiled and touched her hand, “This has been informative for us as well. Not to mention, you’ve been a pleasure to work with, too. We’ll make that new total $2,436,155,000.00, okay?”

My sweet wife grinned at me, winked, then flashed, “That 30 Mil should just about cover our new house, right?”

“I haven’t done all the calcs yet, but, it should be close! I love you Baby.”

Giggle, “Now ... do I need to go with you to make sure you properly reward and seduce Charlene?”

“Do I need to spank you? Right here in front of everybody?”

Giggle, giggle, “That sounds like fun, but, let’s wrap this up first?”

We were brought back to reality with Jeff asking, “So, how would you like the funds disbursed to you?”

When I said, tongue in cheek, “A check?” Bill and both Agents laughed. Bill grinned, “Uh, what’s the current rate of one-month and three-month T-Bills?”

Jeff grinned, “7% annual or 0.58% for a 30-day T-Bill. The three-month rate is about $1.8%. The 12-month T-Note currently pays 7.15%. They’re all as good as cash and completely safe. Unless you have specific investments you want to get into immediately. Then, yes, we could cut you a check, or a series of checks.”

Bill smirked at Barry, “And what would your uncle say we should do?”

Barry chuckled, “Touche! Truthfully? He’d say that while T-Bills and Notes may not pay as good as other investments, the upside is, you also won’t get hit with taxes on the interest you’ll earn on the T-Bills either. Since you have tax amnesty for almost two more years, it’s almost a moot decision. Let’s just say, that Jeff’s bosses would be ecstatic if you would let the Treasury Department ‘use’ some of your money for a while.”

Bill told me what he wanted to do and I was in agreement. “I hear ya! Let’s put $2 Billion in 20, one-year Notes, $400 Million in 20, 90-day T-Bills and the rest in a check? Would that make everyone happy?”

Barry and Jeff were both nodding and smiling. Jeff said, “Absolutely! And Barry’s Uncle Jake would agree.” He looked around the sky and sighed, “I was hoping to meet Jonah. That would have really made my day.”

I flashed Dad, who immediately made his appearance just like at the press conference; as the ‘old wise man’, “Would you two gentlemen like a ‘lift’ back to your offices?” He said grinning at Barry and Jeff.

Their eyes lit up as they handed their assistants their briefcases, “Oh, YEAH. You guys take these back for us and don’t forget ... we’ll be watching you!”

Dad picked up a giddy Jeff and Barry, then took off.

Bill got in the Suburban with the other agents who were following the armored truck. (Yeah, he could have flown, but, why push the issue?)

Bill returned about two hours later via ‘teleport’ with his briefcase containing papers worth $2,436,155,000! He was going to get with Jake Manley to get him on retainer as the Family’s new Tax man. Mary was going with him as our accountant, and Bob and Ed were going, just to make sure they didn’t run into any ‘problems’ with somebody trying to forcibly relieve Bill of our fortune before getting most of the papers into our safe-deposit box.

Linda and I put some clothes into a suitcase along with our checkbook and about $600K in cash. We were going to open an account in a Chandler area bank. We could transfer more funds later but we wanted enough to show we could afford all the plans we were going to be making.

We also grabbed our portfolio which contained Stan’s Dream House and the one we’d designed for Sarah’s boss, Harry Schofield. (It also had the conceptual design of the footprint and general overall design for our new estate. We’d talked and I revised the overall size from 500’ x 500’ to 400’ x 300’, with the outer 75’ still the house/garage part. This was still subject to change, depending upon what we discovered from the engineer we were going to talk to.)

We went in to kiss our kids goodbye then popped to Sky Harbor Airport. I wanted to rent a car so things wouldn’t be so awkward.

When we showed up at Charlene’s office, she seemed bummed that we didn’t call her for a ride.

She looked crestfallen when we said we could just follow her or try and find the places ourselves, since we knew she was busy. We explained that we didn’t want to take up her whole day since she’d done so much for us already.

Mary flashed, harshly, “Charlie, don’t be a blockhead! Can’t you see? Charlene WANTS to help you. LET her!”

I know I was blushing and now Charlene was looking at me strangely. I felt frustrated that I’d misread the situation ... or had I?

I needed to be sure, “Um Charlene? Did you really want to help us, like, all day? Linda and I had a couple other things we needed to do like open a bank account and possibly look into buying a few RVs to live in temporarily. I just didn’t want to impose on you.”

“Yes! I cleared my schedule for the next couple days so I could be with you and show you around. It wasn’t just to introduce you to the two builders. It really is no bother. I’d like to help you with anything you need, please?”

I knew there was more she wanted to say, but, I didn’t want to press. She was going way ‘above and beyond’ anything I’d expect a realtor to do for us. I was very tempted to ‘check’ her real reasons, but, I knew Mary would have my ass!

Since it was only noon here, I suggested we get some lunch and devise a plan. She recommended the little café where we met the last time I came out. I mentioned that we should call Al Jeffries so he could join us if he was available.

It turned out he was and was happy to have lunch with us. I told Charlene that the reason I wanted to drive was so that I could get familiar with the area. I told her I was one of those people that needed to drive in order to remember where I was going. That calmed her down, especially when I suggested that she ride with us so we wouldn’t get lost.

I really did want to get familiar with the area.

Since our rental car was a Chevy Caprice Classic, Linda didn’t mind riding in the backseat. We found a parking spot right in front and waited just outside the café for Al to join us.

When Al arrived, we all went inside and sat at a table for four.

Charlene was still acting nervous. It was driving me crazy so I put my hand on hers, “What’s on your mind, Charlene?”

She looked at Al before taking a deep breath and she tensed up even more.

Al chuckled, “I fear my friend, that Charlene’s gotten herself into a bit of a trick bag. I tried telling her to just explain to you what it is she wants. She’s afraid that you might say no or that you’d want to pay her too much. I told her you are one of the most reasonable people I’ve ever met and to just come out and ask you for your help.”

Okay, so now I’m really confused. I looked at Charlene and smiled warmly, “Charlene, any kind of relationship needs to start out with trust. To gain someone’s trust, you have to be open and honest with them. I appreciate all the help that you’ve given me so far, especially all the help you’ve given me this week. If there’s something you’d like me to help you with, all you have to do is ask.”

I don’t know how long Charlene had been holding her breath, but she exhaled intensely, “Well, it’s like this. As I was doing all the things you asked me to do, I had this scathingly brilliant idea. Or at least I thought it was.

“I wondered if there would be a market for someone like me to be like a ‘full-service realtor/advisor/coordinator’. I realized that I know quite a few people in the architectural and building professions and wondered if someone, like you, would be willing to pay for a service such as I was thinking of. The thing is, there’s still a lot that I don’t know. It’s obvious to me, that you do and I was hoping to help you all that I could, while learning and asking you questions. I don’t want to charge you anything, since it wouldn’t be right that I would be learning on the fly. What I was hoping, was, that after everything was finished you’d be willing to tell me what you felt a service like I had been to you would be worth.”

I saw a tear come to her eye, “That’s why I was so upset looking when it seemed like you didn’t really want my help. Now I feel like ... I really screwed this all up and that I would be in effect, using you for my own gain. I can understand if you never want to see me again.”

Then she began crying.

I put my arm around her, “Charlene, the only thing I’m upset about, at all, is that you didn’t trust me enough to just come out and ask me. Now that you’ve explained yourself, I believe I understand what you were thinking.”

I was grinning, “Let’s start this over, okay? I wasn’t completely honest with you from the start, either. I should’ve told you, first thing this morning, that I felt I was using you. As a realtor, you had gone way above and beyond anything a client like me could have asked for.”

I chuckled, “My wife was teasing me, thinking that you were falling in love with me. I love it when, once in a great while, she’s wrong. I told her you were just being professional and very friendly.

“Now that we got that out of the way, I think your idea of expanding your business is brilliant. I would love to help you in any way I can. The idea that we’re both helping each other towards establishing our two goals is a win-win for both of us. And I would absolutely enjoy sharing ideas and information with you.”

I was mentally snickering at Mary and could almost see her exhaling deeply, admitting that I was right.

Then, Charlene leaned her head on my shoulder and whispered, “Your wife was right, Charlie. That’s part of what I was struggling with. How could I ever charge you when I’m falling in love with you?”

I could almost hear Mary squealing from here.

I certainly felt her smirking at me, “I told you so, sweetheart. You know I’m never wrong! I’m falling in love with this woman already. Maybe I’ll have to come out tonight, after all.”

“Ughh, yeah, you might want to do that. It would be much better if we were up front about EVERYTHING right from the start. I think we should stay here until after we close on Friday. Do we want to have everybody come out for that?”

“Giggle, At least Bob, Bill and Emmy. And I don’t want to forget about Jamie either. I’ll work on getting things set up with the parents to watch the kiddos. YOU get us somewhere to stay! Okay Sugar Bear?”

“Will do. Charlene’s looking at me like I just zoned out, so, I gotta go! Love you, Sweetie!”

Charlene was looking at me questioningly when I whispered, “And I’m going to reward you, regardless.”

Now she looked even more befuddled, so I added, “And yes, my feelings for you are much more than purely professional! Let’s talk later. Mary may be flying out tonight to join us... she has feelings for you too!”

Charlene’s face lit up like a Roman Candle! She sucked in a lot of air, “Really!? So we’re good?”

“Will you be my partner, Charlene? In everything!?”

“I do! I mean,” giggle, “I will! Yes, thank you.”

Linda had managed to distract Al while Charlene and I were whispering. Al saw us separate after I kissed Charlene on the cheek.

He grinned at Charlene, “Sooo, Charlene, I take it Charlie still wants to talk to Mark Steiner?”

Charlene giggled cutely while nodding, “Yes. Charlie, Mark is that Structural Engineer that knows all about the quirks of building out here in the desert. He also works for Al, right next door. We should probably start with him so you’ll know what’s going on when we talk to the builders, later.”

I smiled, “Sounds like a winner. Al, how much should we plan on paying for Mark’s time?”

Al grinned back while shaking his head, “Charlie, there’s no way I could ever charge you. But, for future reference, I would charge him out at about $100 per hour for consultation.”

I looked at Charlene, “You might want to write that down. These are things you’re going to need to take into consideration for the future.”

She was scrambling to open her briefcase when Linda smirked, “The Boss can be a real slave driver sometimes! You sure you’re up for this?”

While Charlene nodded, I chuckled, “Hush, Tinkerbell, let Charlene get her feet wet before you scare her!

Charlene was grinning while writing in a brand new notebook, “Tinkerbell?”

Linda giggled, “That’s an inside joke that I THOUGHT had run its course! In case you didn’t notice, he gets embarrassed when we call him ‘Boss’.”