Chapter 24

I was listening to the weather all the way past Winnemucca, and realized Uncle Dave was right. I grabbed a large cup of coffee and kept going, as the snow was falling in Donner Pass. There was about four inches on the road and ruts were obvious as I started down the other side. And chain advisories were already being reported on the radio as I pulled into Sacramento. I had just beaten the storm, another few hours and I would have been stuck in Reno. Maybe for a day or more.

I pulled into a motel for the night at around 2 in the morning in South Sacramento, and at 10 I was back on the road. It was raining all the way to LA, and the radio was reporting that all the passes were closed. I realized I had dodged a bullet, and pulled into LA tired but glad to be home.

I checked in at work on Monday, and we all talked about how our holiday had been. It was a slow day, however, so at 6 everybody left and I packed it all in. I decided to take a drive to North Hollywood, as I had an urge for a beef bowl. And as I sat there enjoying it, I saw the mall across the street. I remembered something I needed and drove on over and into a sporting goods shop.

I walked over to the ski area and started looking through their selection. A gal came up and asked if I wanted help, and I said I needed to replace my equipment. I selected a pair of K2 skis, and when she took me to the bindings, I looked and asked if they carried Spademan. “Oh wow, you have been out of it a while. They shut down about 6 years ago. We have some Look bindings that are similar, but Spademan is long gone.” I sighed and I asked about Scott boots. She again shook her head. “Oh, they are out of the boot business. We have their poles and goggles, but not their boots.” So I got a pair of conventional boots.

I noticed she was still there as I was telling the tech mounting them my weight and style, which was “former racer, returning to skiing after eight years”, and she laughed. “This guy asked for Spademan bindings and Scott boots.” He laughed and said at least I had good taste in equipment. “If you ever do find some boots in good shape, feel free to grab them. I still have inserts and the shaving machine back there. And the canting tools. But Spademan, you can’t mount those on these new boots even if you get a set.” He then showed the underside of the new boots, and indeed it was no longer the flat base that I remembered. “But if you get those boots and bindings, grab them. I still work on them, and I see a lot of people still using them at Mountain High.”

He finished his marks and said they would be ready on Friday, and I thanked them both for their time. Then I grabbed the rest of the things I would need and headed on home. Once there I did some updates to the BBS, as some new door games had been released. One of them I installed was a newer version of TradeWars. I also answered a bunch of messages, and into my public area I posted a question. At that time I was spending about $50 a month on phone bills, and I was considering adding more lines. Would anybody be interested in paying a monthly fee if I added more lines, and how much would they be willing to spend.

I then did some digging through the Star Trek: The Next Generation thread on FidoNet, and once again they were going back and forth on the rank of Chief O’Brien. And I did my usual post, that he was obviously a Chief Petty Officer, as nobody else was ever called “Chief”, but that is the common appellation used for a CPO.

“Sorry, the ‘Transporter Chief’ or ‘Chief Engineer’ does not fly, because they never called Scotty ‘Chief’. Nor anybody else. I just wish they would actually acknowledge that there are Enlisted in Star Fleet, and that not everybody has to be an Officer.”

I then popped into the networking echos and added to one of them that I was not willing to do more than sell LANtastic at that time. “I love the idea of peer-to-peer networking for small offices and homes. I run a network at my own home with Novell 86, because I can. But until Artisoft can do it with standard ETHERNET cards, I have absolutely no interest in promoting their product. But if they ever do drop the demand that I buy their cards which are not industry standard and allow me to use standard ETHERNET or ARCNET cards, I will likely be the first in my area to suggest it.”

I shook my head, then closed it with “Although I did have their product in stock, I had only sold two 2-node kits in the last month and a half. Meanwhile, I have sold 6 Novell installations. Very few had any interest in home networking at this time, as few had more than 1 computer.”

I posted an inquiry to somebody who was reporting a virus that demands money, and asking if there was any hash to detect it yet, then wrapped it up for the night.

The rest of the week was routine, but I made sure the computers, server, desk, printers, and other equipment was ready to go by Friday. I had two techs come in that day and paid them for two hours to help me load everything into the back of the truck, and unload it at the other end. I knocked on the door to the cluster, and Kelly opened the door for me. She unlocked the office, and soon the guys had brought in the desk and put it where I wanted it. Abe got to work installing the server as Sue got the secretary workstation set up, then the printers. I had Kelly check off each of the computers as they were brought in, and she confirmed twenty computers, twenty monitors, keyboards, cables, and all the rest of the things needed were indeed present.

I let the other techs go, and as Sue and Abe were testing everything and making sure it was working, I asked Kelly why she was there that morning. She smiled and said that they were hiring the secretary for this site this next week, and apparently she had been assigned as my liaison for doing work. “Not that I mind, I’m getting time and a half for a couple of hours of easy work.”

Less than an hour later everything was up and running, and I handed Kelly the bill. She already had a check from Pavel, so I thanked her and said I would see her in two weeks for the next one. I shrugged as I walked back to the ambulance, as she had not even tried to flirt with me that time, so it was pretty much done as far as I was concerned. It was a fun few weeks however while it lasted.

That weekend I picked up my skis and watched more of the news from Europe. It seemed like the “Domino Theory” was indeed being proven true but in reverse. As one Marxist dictatorship after another in Europe collapsed. Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, it seemed like in three months the Cold War might actually be ending. And not in World War III, but by the collapse of Communism.

I saw that several people were loving the updated games on my BBS, and the biggest surprise was that at least ten people were saying they would pay up to $10 a month for extended access to my BBS. Not bad, that $100 could let me add two more lines, giving me three total. I responded by saying that if I got twenty people willing to subscribe, I would add four lines, bringing my total to five, and guarantee that at least two would be only for paying members.

I also had somebody asking if I would be willing to make a BBS for his pawnshop in Reseda. I smiled, and asked him some questions, and asked what kind of budget he was looking at, and if he was willing to administer it, or if he would want me to do that for him.

Then at just after noon on Saturday, I decided I had to take care of something I had put off for long enough. I took the adventure I had bought from Kent and drove over to see Becky. Both Mike and Jean smiled when I came in and greeted me warmly, and asked how I had been. I said I had been doing good, but busy. I then asked if I could see Becky. Jean went to make the call on the intercom as I looked around the shop. She had really expanded her inventory in the last six months, and I sighed internally at the computers.

Beige boxes. And the prices, ouch! They were about $200 more than the ones she was selling before we split, and the same specs. Mike nodded and said that their computer sales had taken a real dive in the last few months. But they had forty of them to sell before they could bring in new ones. Looked at him hard, and he nodded. “We bought fifty of them, Art said it was a good deal.”

At that time I heard Becky calling my name, and I smiled to see her at the bottom of the stairs. I went up to her and asked her how she was doing. But I notice she did not really smile, and not even offer a handshake. She looked at me almost coldly and asked what I wanted.

We talked for a few minutes on generalities, then she asked again why I had decided to drop by. I said it was something we should probably discuss in private, and after looking at me for almost 30 seconds, Becky nodded and asked me to follow her upstairs. I noticed she left the door to her office open and sat down behind her desk. I sat in the chair in front and I simply laid the adventure on the desk, and with a smile asked her if that was what I thought it was. She picked it up and looked puzzled, and said it was. “Why, is there a problem with it Pete?”

“Well, other than I have not had any to sell for months, it kind of is. When were you going to tell me you were still printing these Becky? I see all the others in the back, and I have absolutely no problem with those. But unless you added in the amount for this into the checks you sent me we may have a bit of a problem here.”

I saw her brows furrow, and she said she was sure that she had a contract I had signed and could find the checks for the royalty payments. She went across the room and spent a few minutes going through a filing cabinet, and came back with a folder. “Here we go. ‘Kaos Adventures’, we got this back in July. You agreed to a higher royalty split of all the other people I have been publishing for. But I thought you were worth it. Here, take a look.”

She handed me a three page contract, and I looked through it. Indeed, it listed the creator as “Kaos Adventures”, and gave New Dawn the right to publish and sell my adventures as already published for a period of five years, until 1994. And even provided a PO Box to send the checks to. But looking at the last page, I shook my head.

“We have a problem Becky, a big one. First, I have never heard of this ‘Kaos Adventures’. Second, this is not my PO Box, why would I get a PO Box in Encino? And thirdly, this is not my signature.”

She looked at me, and I pulled out my military ID card and set it next to the last page. And it was immediately obvious that was not my signature. “That son of a bitch, that fucking son of a bitch!” She immediately got on the intercom and told Mike to come up to her office. When he came in, she told him to close the door and simply handed my ID card and the last page of the contract to him and asked him what he thought. He also looked at them both and shook his head.

“I told you something was shady, Becky. Some of the things simply made no sense.”

Becky was actually crying and was apologizing to me. “I’m sorry Peter, I honestly had no idea. And I guess I should have suspected something when I got that last letter. Mike, go pull it please, I feel sick.” She then quickly left the office, and Mike laid a letter in front of me.

“She wanted to have you in last month for a special event, sign some copies, maybe run a game. She sent you a letter, and this is what she got back.”

I read it, and it was a rather cold and impersonal refusal. Stating that I was so busy I would not do small “dog and pony” shows like that. But thanking her for her interest. I looked at Mike and said I had never seen that, and I would never have responded that way.

“I know, that was a red flag to me. It sounds so unlike you, not to mention I have a hard time imagining you this cold to her. I have seen you go out of your way to greet people at conventions and sign almost anything. Sure you guys are no longer together, but I could not imagine you refusing her like that.”

“Mike, I would not have done that! If she had asked me to be here at midnight wearing tap shoes in a Speedo in a rainstorm, I would be here. It’s over, yes. But that does NOT mean I do not care about her or love her, and would not do anything I could to help her out.”

As I finished saying that Becky came in and slid behind me, hugging me tightly from behind. “I’m sorry Pete, I should have listened to Mike earlier. We have not talked much, but I should have realized something was wrong when you refused like that. Not even calling or coming by, just sending a letter. I was an idiot, and some heads are going to roll.”

“Well, make no decisions yet, do you have any idea who this might be?” She nodded her head, and I could see she was still crying. “I think the ones who did this could only...” I cut her off right there, telling her not to tell me anything.

“Becky, right now I know nothing and can swear to that in a court of law. Let me ask a question, you can just nod yes or no. Are you still living alone?” She nodded yes, thank god! “OK, when you close up shop, can I have you and Mike come over to my place? Get together any correspondence with this ‘Kaos Adventures’ together, and bring it along. Canceled checks, letters, everything. In fact, bring me a copy of it all. I have an idea, but I need to think about it first and make some notes and do a little checking. Can you both do that?”

They both agreed, and Becky said she would start looking immediately and asked Mike to grab a copy of each of the adventures they were still printing under my name. I thanked her, and she said she would be there with dinner at 6:30. I smiled, and she hugged me again tight, resting her head on my chest for a moment. “I’m sorry I misjudged you, Pete. I promise it won’t ever happen again.” I kissed the top of her head and hugged her back.

“Oh, it will happen again I’m sure, but that is just life. See you after 6? Oh, and tell nobody else about this except Peggy. No more than we three or four should know about this until we make some decisions.” They both agreed, and I soon left and went home.

Thankfully I caught George Flushing in the office. I gave him the information as I had it, and he sighed. “Pete, do you believe Becky?”

“Actually George, I do. If she had asked me to take 25 cents a copy I would not have blinked. If she had offered me lunch in exchange for my showing up and signing a hundred copies, I would have done it with a smile. But that contract, it stated I wanted a royalty of $2 for every adventure sold, at $5 each. That’s a freaking 40% royalty! That’s fucking insane, I never even demanded that when we were doing it together! After overhead, she is barely making anything on that.”

“That’s what I thought. Well, you have several serious felonies here. Just at a guess, embezzlement, fraud, forgery, and several others, and those are just the state charges. But the worst one by far is Mail Fraud, that’s a Federal Offense and can get the people who did this a long term in a Federal Penitentiary. How many know about this?”

“Right now, Becky, her assistant Mike who is an old friend of mine, and myself. And now you. A few others now know about my questions about this, including Kim and Kent there in Idaho.”

“OK, good. With something this serious, I suggest you go straight to the top. Barbara! Get the address for the main LA Postmaster General office please. OK, what I want you two to do is gather together all the evidence. You said she has checks she has sent to that address?”

“Yep, and the contract, and other letters. They are signed, but I never saw or signed those. And I have no idea what this ‘Kaos Adventures’ company is. I can only imagine they thought I would name a company after my most famous creation.”

“OK, I will start digging on Monday. But Monday morning, I want the two of you, oh thanks, Barbara. I want both of you to go to the main post office, here is the address.” I wrote it down, it was just south of Downtown LA. “Go there, and go to the Postal Inspector. Let them know that you have a case of fraud, including postal fraud involving the sending of checks. If they do not take it seriously or give you the runaround, then give me a call. Discuss this with nobody else, just keep it as small of a group as possible that knows.”

I thanked him, and I said I would fax him everything tomorrow when Becky gave me a copy. We wished each other well and hung up. I sat there thinking, and agreed that this had to be kept small. I had a suspicion who might be involved but did not want to say anything. But I was betting it was somebody inside her organization.

At 6:30 Becky and Mike both showed up, and after giving me another hug she set the beef bowls on the table and pulled out a bottle of wine. I kissed her cheek and said she knew me so well as I grabbed glasses and the corkscrew. I opened the bottle and poured us each a glass.

“OK, first of all, my attorney agrees with me. Do not even mention to me who you think it might be. He already suspects it is insider fraud and embezzlement. And the less I know at this point, the better. So just nod, do you each think you might know who is involved?” They both nodded. “OK, fine. Here is what my lawyer suggested, and I agree. Mike, you continue on at work, pretend nothing is happening. Becky, you and me both on Monday are going to the Postal Inspector, this is a Federal Offense, with a capital F for felony. There are actually five or six felonies involved, but that is the worst.” They both nodded, and Becky looked a little scared. “Becky, relax. I believe you are 100% innocent here and do not blame you at all. For all you know, I was only giving a fake smile when we met and might have been that cold when we did not meet face to face. You could not have known otherwise.”

“But I should have known better. That’s the problem, Pete.”

“OK, hand me what you have, let me look through it.” Well, it was considerable. Several correspondences, including the first one in early July that claimed to be from me and giving my new address and business name. Five checks, for amounts up to $850, all made to “Kaos Adventures”, a business name. And signed on the back, it was a scrawl and not my signature. And best of all, a DBA from Encino! “Bingo!” I said. “This is my copy, right?” Becky nodded, and I excused myself to go and fax it all to George.

I sat back down and smiled. “OK, this also adds bank fraud, and while I am not an expert, conspiracy. I am going to lay out what I think happened. I will just say ‘somebody’, knew we had a strained relationship and split up, so proposed you send me a letter asking to reprint the adventures. Or you got a letter stating I wanted them reprinted. Either way, all interaction was by letter, right?”

“No, not always. At least three times...”

“Stop, no names to me of anybody. OK, this only confirms the insider angle. OK, somebody set up a DBA, then used that to get a bank account. You send in the checks, they cash them, then the money is theirs without having to mess with forged signatures and ID at a bank. Clean and easy, they probably never thought I would actually discover these were being sold.”

“How did you find out Pete?”

“Well Mike, I was in Idaho last week and visited Kent. He’s a friend that owns a game store up there. I apologized for the adventures I was printing before not being available anymore, and he was puzzled and said he was still getting them. That is where I got that one, and it got me wondering. Now I admit, my first thought was that you were just adding more money to those checks you sent me for my share of the first year and you had just never said so. I admit, I never really looked at those statements. I just put them away and put the checks in the bank.”

They both nodded, and we moved to the living room and I poured each of us another glass. “And I was wondering when I got there today because you had never been that cold in seeing me Becky. But now that makes sense, you thought I was snubbing you for some reason, and that would have hurt. As I told Mike earlier, I would have shown up in a swimsuit in the middle of winter if you had asked me to be there. We are not together anymore, but know that I would still do anything I could to help you, Becky. I sure as hell am not so petty as to ignore your asking me to come by if you wanted to arrange something like that. I guess the only thing I would ask is that I would be allowed to sell some of my other adventures also.”

She moved from my recliner and sat next to me and put her hand on my knee. “You’re right, and I should have known better. But when I was told...”

“Stop, I mean it, tell me nothing more. Tell me, this person or persons, do they know where you live Becky?” She looked at me and slowly nodded. “OK, do not go home. Go somewhere else until we talk to some people on Monday. Do you have somewhere you can go until then?”