Chapter 13

The meeting had ended and I saw my father walking over with Nick, Uncle Steve, Mr. Richards and of all people, Edgar Blanton. “So what’s this business you want to discuss? To me, it just looks like you want to gloat in front of your kid.”

I wasn’t really surprised to see who chimed in next. “More likely to gloat in front of his old man than his son, but that’s neither here nor there,” Granddad chuckled.

“Now, we have the CoC Boardroom’s use for one hour for these gentlemen to address you and make an offer,” said Mr. Richards solemnly.

Blanton sneered. “I don’t know of any offer I’d accept from you, Matthews. It’s likely that your kid here is going to Juvie, from what I hear.

I cringed. Kids are not the only ones to spread false gossip so it appears.

“Edgar, I’d hear them out if I were you,” said Richards.

“Considering the situation, our offer is a very handsome one,” stated my father.

“Well, I’ll listen, Stan but you’ll ensure that they won’t try to jump me.”

“I assure you nothing like that will happen,” said Uncle Steve.

We entered the boardroom and it was equipped to seat twelve people around a good-sized table. There were also a dozen or so additional chairs against the walls to support even more people. Since there were only eight of us, we easily fit. We all sat around the table.

“So gentlemen, how much are you offering for me not to prosecute this young man?”

Everybody smiled at me so I answered the question that everyone assumed that Edgar Blanton would ask. “Absolutely nothing.”

Blanton frowned, “Then why am I here?”

“Because I, through my designated trustee, my father, am calling in all of your outstanding debt for Blanton Auto Body Company, Blanton Commercial Auto Parts, Inc., and Blanton Laudromat Services, Inc.”

“What?”

My granddad chimed in. “All of your outstanding debt for your three legal entities has been acquired by the Pennsylvania Automotive Surety Company, or PASCO, as I like to call it. A company solely owned by Thomas Steven Matthews. All shares are in a trust, with my son, John Everett Matthews acting as trustee until Thomas comes of age.” he handed a collection of papers to Blanton.

“Who the fuck are you, old man and what the hell are you talking about?” said Blanton, staring my grandfather in the eye and ignoring the papers.

“Me? I’m just the instrument of your destruction or just maybe, the instrument of your salvation. By your actions, you will get to decide which,” he grinned.

I saw Mr. Richards go pale. I’m guessing that he knew who Granddad was and was mighty happy not to be in his crosshairs.

“Fuck you, old man. I have all my loans through the Commercial Loan Division at First Bank of Pennsylvania.”

“You mean, you had all your loans through the Commercial Loan Division at First Bank of Pennsylvania. You utilized Brian Pelly as your personal banker, correct?”

I saw what I thought was a scared look come into Edgar Blanton’s eyes. He did not seem so combative now. “So?”

“Well, I’ll have you know that on behalf of PASCO, I bought up a large block of commercial loans that were deemed either too risky or poorly drafted. I made this the principal asset in PASCO and now my grandson owns all of your debt.”

“And I’m calling it all in,” I added.

“He can’t do that,” complained Blanton.

“Actually, he can,” said my father. “According to reports, each of your companies have been in arrears at least once and in some cases multiple times over the course of the last eighteen months. For this reason and according to the loan agreements, the lender has the right, as your debt holder to call in all outstanding debt, negotiate a new repayment schedule, or force all of your entities into receivership to pay back your debt.”

“I’ll negotiate a new payment schedule.” barked Blanton.

“You won’t like the new interest rates, late payment penalties, or the other terms of the new agreement,” I parroted back the words Granddad gave me when we rehearsed this scenario over the phone.

“Fine, I’ll come up with the money.”

“No you won’t,” grinned my father.

Granddad gave a shark-like smile worthy of my father. “Remember when I used the words, ‘legal entities... ‘“

Mr. Richards stood up as if on cue and interrupted. “Excuse me, gentlemen, I do not want to hear anymore.”

When he left, Blanton looked really vulnerable.

“Anyway,” continued Granddad. “We discovered that you, your friend Pelly and some others are in a partnership with James Williams, a notorious pimp in Pittsburgh.”

“That’s a lie!” exclaimed Blanton.

“You bring the girls in from Steel City. Then you set them up as strippers at the strip joint off of Route 28. Johns get to see the girl they want, and you pimp them out of the back of the club as hookers, by direct request or as ‘call girls’ by using a phone bank system. They all live in a fleabag apartment that you own near the club,” said Nick.

Granddad made a sour face at Nick’s description but nodded and took over the explanation. “Pelly confirmed that you and he were involved, in exchange that I would not prosecute him for the bank malfeasance and for him making full restitution for the kickbacks for the sweetheart loans he gave you and others, which he has. Of course, he has been terminated from his position at the bank.”

Blanton looked pale, as Nick took over the next part. “We know how the scam works. You funnel your proceeds from the hooker/’call girl’ racket through the legitimate laundromat to launder them. You keep your old machines in service to support the business, but you don’t even use those new machines you got with the loans. You claim they are in heavy use so you can account for the boost of illegal cash that comes into the store. You probably even wrote the cost of the new machines off as a business expense on your taxes.”

“It was pretty stupid to figuratively try to launder your money through the laundromat,” added my dad. “It is one of the oldest dodges in the book. Sooner or later the IRS would have noticed.”

Blanton sighed. “Okay, what do you want?”

Granddad smiled. “We want you to sell Tommy your three legitimate businesses at a heavy discount.”

“And we want you to get out of town ... far out of town,” I sneered.

“How heavy a discount?”

“In exchange for forgiving your existing debt and the body shop, parts store and laundromat, we will give you two hundred thousand dollars for all three businesses,” stated Grandddad.

“Those businesses are easily worth more than three-quarters of a million dollars!”

“And your debt, with the existing penalties you owe is more than three-hundred-fifty thousand dollars,” clarified Granddad.

“If I renegotiated your loans, so they would be in good standing, it would be even more than that,” I spat.

“Half a million!” barked Blanton.

“This is not a negotiation,” said my father. “The existing and impending increase in your debt has greatly reduced the value of those businesses. As far as your ‘other’ revenue stream, we probably have enough information to go to the police. While there isn’t enough existing evidence for a conviction, they will start digging until they find it. Either way, you would be ruined.”

“And as your primary creditor, Tommy could gobble up your businesses for pennies on the dollar,” grinned Granddad.

Blanton then glared at Uncle Steve. “And you could get your auto parts directly from your nephew.”

“Actually, Tommy, Lars and I will probably go into business together,” grinned Uncle Steve.

Blanton lowered his head. We had beaten him. He signed the bill of sale for all three companies and my father signed on my behalf. Nick and Uncle Steve signed as witnesses and we brought Mr. Richards back into the room to stamp his notary seal and signed it. Then Granddad handed Edgar Blanton a check for two-hundred thousand dollars.

“How far do I have to go away?” he asked.

“If I were you, as far from this jurisdiction as I could,” reminded my dad, not so subtly referring to Blanton’s potential legal jeopardy.

I looked at the pervert with contempt. “Blanton?”

“What, kid?”

“I have just taught you a lesson in the use of real power. The other lesson is never mess with the son of John Matthews or the grandson of Everett Matthews.”

Blanton looked shocked and then scared. “You’re Everett Matthews?!” he asked Granddad.

“That’s right and at the moment, I’m not half as scary as my grandson after what you did to his friend,” spat Granddad.

On the way back to the Bridges, Granddad explained how PASCO was set up and what my obligations were. Before the purchase of the companies, PASCO had taken a loan from my own trust fund that my Philly grandparents had set up for me to purchase the debt and an additional extra quarter of a million dollars in cash, which was used to purchase the companies from Blanton.

The debt portfolio cost another quarter of a million dollars, but before I bought the companies, it could have been worth six times more than that. Among the debt PASCO purchased were Uncle Steve’s mortgage on the garage (his father-in-law had helped to to actually purchase the property, rather than rent it) and the additional loan he took out on new equipment. The bad news was that between my new companies’ and Uncle Steve’s debt, that accounted for almost half of the remaining debt portfolio assets. That would lower the value of the overall debt investment for me.

Granddad included Uncle Steve’s debt in the hopes that he could benefit from either debt forgiveness or reduction, but also in the hopes that Uncle Steve and Lars might consider rolling Johansson Automotive Garage into PASCO. Granddad said that there could be huge tax savings for him by doing this. Also, he could receive discounts on auto parts through the commercial parts store that I own. Finally, we could ultimately fold the body shop into the car restoration company that Uncle Steve wanted Lars to run, as there was a natural fit there.

Uncle Steve was concerned because he did not want to give up the family name in the garage’s title, but both my father and Granddad assured him that we could use the legal modifier ‘dba’ (‘doing business as’) to keep the sign over the building unchanged.

As far as the expense to my trust fund (that I didn’t even know I had), I didn’t really care, but Granddad reminded me that there could be tax implications if the money was gifted to PASCO instead of being loaned. One way around this was for PASCO to sell off as much of the debt portfolio as possible and to sell the laundromat. Granddad assured me that I could probably get as much as two hundred thousand for it (maybe more because of the new and virtually unused equipment). He also suggested that before I sold the laundromat, I should sell off the old equipment first. At any rate, he felt that PASCO could greatly reduce its debt and my trust fund would actually receive a boost from the investment.

It was almost ten when we dropped off Nick and I ran to Janie and Jen.

“I got him! I got that fat bastard!” I shouted in glee as I squeezed the girls in an embrace.