Chapter 18

Monday, January 17th, 2022
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Fred was thinking furiously. He turned from looking at Emma to me then back again.

He asked, “If you can make her do or think anything, how do I know you didn’t plant all of that crap she was saying?”

I said, “It’s kind of hard to prove a negative Fred. I know that I didn’t, but I don’t know how to back that up. Let me ask you this instead, how hard is it for you to believe? Really.”

He didn’t reply.

I continued, “You’ve lived with her for a long time. I can’t believe she’s all that good of an actress 24/7. You ought to know how she feels about men in general at least. That bit about how she feels about you? Yeah, I can see her hiding that. But you can’t be too surprised about the rest.”

He sank back in his chair and said, “No, I guess I’m not.”

I asked, “How did it get like this? Things couldn’t have been this way in the beginning. What was she like when you met?”

Fred said, “In High School I was not one of the popular kids. I’ve always been an outsider really. Believe it or not, I’ve lost a lot of weight since then, relatively speaking. I’ve always been a big kid, and not very tall. All the walking routes actually trimmed me down quite a bit.”

“Emma was kind of popular, or at least she hung around with the popular crowd. Maybe she was on the outskirts of those groups, but she was certainly out of my league. She was kinda cute and now that I look back on it, I think she just sort of picked me one day.”

“Suddenly I had a girlfriend for the first time, about halfway through our Senior year. Anything she wanted to do was fine with me. We got married about a year after High School and I got a job with the post office right around then too. I guess it just sort of slowly morphed into this over time.”

“A little bit of ‘you’re not working hard enough’ here, and a ‘why can’t you just do this for me’ there, and eventually you just find it easier to get along than to complain about things. I always felt lucky to have her. Though again, looking back on it now, I have to wonder. She sure told me that I should feel that way often enough. I guess I just started believing it.”

We both sat lost in thought for a bit. I was reviewing my own unsuccessful marriage, and was thinking uncharitable thoughts about her. Best to leave that alone for now, I didn’t think dwelling on it would help me.

I said, “I would like to help you out Fred, and I think I really can. What do you think of the idea that we get to work on getting my gear ordered in the short term, while our bodies are still the same size. You can hold on to it all until you feel comfortable trusting my abilities, and that I can hold up my side of the bargain. Then we start working on both you and Emma.”

“We can change both of your bodies into something you can be proud of. I can make it so both of you crave healthy food and exercise. In a bit of time, you will both be among the beautiful people. Fit healthy people are attractive, even if their facial features aren’t all that great, and neither of you have problems in that area to begin with. What do you say?”

He said, “What about her attitude?”

I replied, “We’ll do that too. Talk to me about how your dream wife would act. I know what I would want, but I don’t know what your interests are in that department. Actually, wait. You should take your time to really think about that. Messing with someone’s personality ought to be taken seriously. How about I make it so she doesn’t remember any of this and you just put some thought into what you want to do. I’ll get back with you in a day or two and we can talk about it then. Okay?”

He said, “That sounds good.”

I got up, looked around the room, and said, “Shit, hold on. Emma, help us put the clothes on your bed back on the couch.”

Fred looked at me funny, and I said, “I told her to clear a spot for me to sit and if we don’t put it back she’ll probably have questions about it. Let’s give her a hand and get this done.”

We made short work of it. I had Emma get back in her recliner, and had Fred stand with me by the front door. I told him to act like he just came home when I left. I asked Carl to make her forget everything about my visit and take a quick nap. When he confirmed it was done I left, and as I shut the door behind me I heard Fred say, “Honey, I’m home.”

I started up the car and drove away.

I was driving around the area, just killing time and hoping one of the girls would call me. Damn it, why the hell did I have to open that can of worms this morning. Should have just kept my stupid mouth shut. Things were going fine, actually, they were going great. Dumb ass.

I noticed an RV center up ahead and decided to pull in and look around. I might be needing a new place to live soon. I began walking around the lot, looking at fifth wheel trailers and a few cab over converted vans. When I was checking out a model based on a sprinter van, a sales woman came over to help.

Carl flashed me an image of her being mentally jacked in, which we had worked out would mean that they were actively connected and that he had already sent the commands to be friendly and helpful.

She said, “Hi, I’m Jane. Can I show you some of the favorite features of this model?”

I said, “That would be great. Thanks, I’m Max.”

She showed me around that model and a few comparable ones based on the same platform. I really like them. At one point she asked if I was looking to finance one of the models.

I said, “Actually, I’m just looking at the moment. I appreciate the tours, but I’m afraid I’m not an active buyer for you today.”

She smiled and said, “That’s okay, I’d rather be out here showing the models than sitting in the office trying to look busy or working on back paperwork.”

I asked, “Do you guys move a lot of product? If it’s not a secret I’d be curious what average weekly sales for a place like this looks like. I mean in units not dollars.”

She said, “I would guess we move 8 to 10 units a week on average, off season. Almost double that in the spring and summer.”

I replied, “I bet a lot of them sit unused after the first year or so too.”

Jane said, “Oh yeah, we hear about that, but you also hear a lot of people going full time in them too. I would think the ‘normal’ usage is a month, two tops, of actual use per year on average. But like I said, a lot of people aren’t your average people. It keeps us in business.”

I asked, “Can I talk you into introducing me to the boss? The owner or top manager on site today? I’d like to talk to him or her about something.”

She said, “Sure, let’s go see Greg. He should be in his office, he’s the sales manager.”

We headed inside and Jane handed me off to Greg and left to do other things. I told Carl to be ready to shift to Orders mode when I tugged on my ear.

Greg asked, “So what can I do for you sir?”

I said, “Frankly, I think I would make a great salesman and I wanted to investigate how your sales are structured.”

Greg said, “Salesmen here work on a straight 20% of profits commission. So if we owe $100K to the manufacturer for a unit, and sell it for $120K then profit is $20K and the salesman gets 20% of that, which would be $4K.”

I asked, “Okay, and how about some realistic numbers? I don’t remember seeing a lot of units out there going for $120K”

Greg grinned and said, “Oh there are plenty of units that go for a lot higher than that. I’ve seen them go for over $500K, but you’re not wrong either. Most of our units go for sales prices in the $65K to the $110K range, but we do have a bunch of higher end models too. The highest on the lot at the moment is around $250K I think. Profit margins might not be as good as I suggested.”

I tugged on my ear and Carl flashed me another image of Greg with a jack in the back of his head. Maybe we were taking the Matrix thing too far, but I would let him have his fun.

I said, “I need a report on all units purchased in the year 2000. It needs to include make, model, price, and then names and address of the buyers.”

Greg said, “I can pull that up from here,” and he started to do so.

When it was printed on the device behind him, he handed it to me and I put it in my backpack. I told him to get his computer to go back to where he was before pulling up that report. He did. Then I asked Carl to make him forget everything that happened after talking about profit margins with me.”

When Carl told me he was done I said, “Okay, so what would you guess your average salesman is pulling in monthly?”

Greg replied, “Average is probably 5 thousand a month. Though the better guys do a lot better.”

I said, “I’ll have to give it some thought. Thanks for the info.” I stood and shook his hand. Greg wished me a good day.

I got in the car and as I was pulling onto the street I almost got into an accident with a car that started to merge into my lane. Apparently black Cadillacs are invisible sometimes. I avoided it, barely, but it got me thinking about the fact that if there had been an accident then Max could be in hot water not having any ID.

Seeing a gas station right up the road, and noticing that the Caddy only had a quarter tank left, I decided to fix both issues at the same time. I pumped the gas and opted to pay inside. When I finished pumping I paid for it at the cashier and then went into the mens room with my backpack on my shoulder. There were a few other customers so I wasn’t too worried about being noticed.

I changed into Paul because I didn’t have Roman’s clothes handy and I headed back out to the car. I pulled out of the gas pumping lane and into a spot near the store. I grabbed the report from my bag and started reviewing it for possible visits. I used my pencil to circle the models I liked from my earlier tour.

When I was about half way through the report, my phone rang.

I put it on speaker phone and said “Hello,” as I set it on the arm rest.

Jan said, “Hi Paul.”

I said, “Hi Jan, I hope I didn’t ruin your first day of class. How did it go for you guys?”

She replied, “It went really well. Meghan and I are both looking forward to learning all about it and the instructor seems very down to earth. I think it will be a lot of fun.”

I said, “That’s great. I’m very happy for you both, but I’ve got to say, I have this feeling that an axe is about to fall on our relationship.”

She sounded a little choked up when she said, “I don’t know what to do, Paul. We both really care about you, okay me slightly more than Meghan perhaps, but we both really do. It’s just that we can’t see how we will ever know that you aren’t messing with our heads. The powers were really cool in the beginning, but we hadn’t made that leap of understanding until you mentioned it this morning. I don’t know how we move forward on this now.”

I sighed in resignation, and said, “I get it. It sucks, and I’ve been kicking my ass all day for bringing it up, but you guys would have realized it on your own soon enough I suppose.”

Jan said, “We’ll start disbanding the business and getting you your money back right away.”

I told her, “No, I don’t want that. You girls quit your jobs and tried to help me. We started on the journey with good intentions and I want you two to continue to follow that path to see where it goes. I think it is entirely possible to make a real go of the business. I’ll be happy to act as your anonymous angel investor for real. I want you guys to succeed.”

Jan said, “Paul, that’s crazy, we can’t ask that of you.”

I said, “You’re not asking. I’m offering. I only ask two things of you girls. One, I want you both to try your best. If you try your best to make it a success, I promise I won’t be disappointed no matter what happens with the business. Two, you are going to have to play it straight for the most part. I’m going to need the $100K that we put into the deposit box the first time, but you guys can have the extra $40k from the second deposit to use as a fall back. You should leave it in the box for as long as you can. Preferably for a couple years.”

She said, “Why’s that?”

I replied, “The IRS is already going to be giving you a hard look about the initial deposit. Trying to do another large deposit, or even trying to break it up into smaller chunks isn’t going to fool them. You can’t afford to look suspicious. After a while you can probably start slowly padding the books with extra cash sales, but I would recommend keeping it under 25% of your revenue and evenly spread among your venues. You are going to need plenty of legitimate sales to prove your viability. Get receipts and account for everything, and make them for the padding too.”

Jan said, “Okay, we can do that. I’ll get the deposit for you, what do you want me to do with it?”

I said, “If you wouldn’t mind, please pack up all my stuff into the bags and just have them sitting by the kitchen table or something. You can just pack the money in the bag too and it will be fine. I’ll come by and drop off the key some time we can agree on. When is your next class? I could do it then.”

Jan said, “Wednesday morning. We’ll plan on being out of the house before 8 am and gone until after lunch, so sometime in that window would work. Are you sure you are going to be okay?”

I said, “Crazy assed super powers remember? I’ll be just fine. I want you both to know that you are very special to me, and while I understand that you can’t trust it, I swear that I would never have hurt either one of you for the world. Goodbye Jan.”

I ended the call and turned off the phone.

I felt the need to get out of town. I figured Wednesday I could come back, hit Jan’s place in the morning. I could visit Fred in the afternoon, and check in with Carol Wednesday night. I should discreetly check in with my Mom, maybe now was the best time for it.

She lived in Woodland Park, just a ways up the mountains from here. I got on Highway 24 and followed the winding road up to town.

When I got to her place, Carl agreed to jack her for orders as soon as she opened the door. I was planning on making her forget the visit as soon as I was done, so there was no need to come up with a story for why I was there.