Chapter 4

Ellen and I were sitting in that restaurant over near Mystic, enjoying a meal of delicious thick pork chops, served with potatoes with brown mushroom gravy, a small side plate of french cut green beans in a nice creamy onion sauce, and with all of that, we were presented with a complimentary large glass of a heavy, fruity flavored red wine. I don't remember the name of the place, but the menu said something about Basque cooking. The food was excellent, and I left there as full as I could possibly be. As she had warned or promised, I'm not sure which it was, Ellen went through a loud and pithy harangue berating me for not treating her as well as her two other gentlemen friends did. She was going on and on about this genuine rabbit fur coat she'd put on layaway over in New London, and telling me, and everyone else who was listening, about all the things she had done and would do again for me, if I'd just be a sport and pony up my fair one third share like her other friends had.

"Baby do you know how embarrassing it is for me to be the only woman at work still wearing a cloth coat? Do you even care? Is $75.00 so important to you that you'd let me be the laughingstock of the typing pool? It would be different if we were married or something, then everyone wouldn't be surprised that I was dressed in a cheap cloth coat like I'm wearing. Freddie, does your wife wear cloth or fur in the winter? Now be honest with me, cloth or fur?"

"How many times do I have to tell you Mabel, don't be comparing yourself to my wife. It isn't decent, I've told you that before. You just leave my wife out of these conversations."

"If your wife is so special Freddie, then why are you out here with me right now? You know why and so do I. The reason you're here with me instead of home with her and the kiddies is because I do something special for you that she won't do. I don't mind doing that for you either Freddie, really I don't. You men all seem to appreciate it, and I've been told that I have a certain knack when it comes to doing that. But I'm warning you right now that when it starts getting colder, I'm going to be wearing that beautiful rabbit coat one way or another. If I don't get that $75.00 from you, I'll just bet you that I can find someone else who isn't getting from his wife the same thing that you weren't getting from yours. And you know what else Mr. Cheapskate, he will be getting it after that and you won't be. What do you have to say about that?" As she was talking, Ellen was using her fingers, picking at this huge gob of chewing gum that she'd stuffed into her mouth one stick at a time after we'd finally finished our dinner. She'd pull out a long string of gum and then suck it back in with a slurping sound as if to draw attention to her words. She really could play a cheap floozie all the way to the hilt. I could see in her eyes that she was going to take this little role playing of hers all the way this time and I had a different plan for her, a tiny little surprise.

"I'll tell you what I have to say Mabel, and it's this. I hope you brought some money in that damn big purse you're always dragging along with you, because if you didn't you're gonna be washing a whole hell of a lot of dirty dishes, 'cause I'm done taking all this nagging about your precious coat, and so I'm leaving and you can go ahead and pay the damn food bill yourself this time." Then, I just stood up and left. Two men sitting at the booth nearest the cash register actually applauded me when I walked out the door. I jumped into my car, after checking and making sure that Ray was parked alongside the restaurant just like we'd agreed. I'd also taken all of Ellen's cash and credit cards out of her purse beforehand. I drove down the road about a mile and then parked my car. Twenty minutes later, Ray showed up and a very upset Ellen jumped out of his car and slammed the door really hard.

"Jackie, that's the meanest thing you've ever done to me! I couldn't believe it when you just left me like that, and when I saw that you'd emptied out my purse I was so embarrassed. Did you know that those people were going to call the police after I told them I didn't have any money to pay with? I'm just glad that Ray came by looking for you. Oh, you set that up too, didn't you? Well then that's different I guess, if I was never in any danger. That's a good one Jackie, you sure got me this time." Ellen and I both knew that whatever she was planning for revenge would be far more than what I'd just put her through.

That night Ellen was beyond her usual ardor after a role playing evening. She slipped back into her Mabel character and wouldn't stop trying to wheedle money out of me until, finally, she got me to agree to give her that damn $75.00 for her rabbit fur coat. She sure did know how to immerse herself into a role. I'd have held out longer if I hadn't been afraid she might kill me by trying to get it up for one more time.

Ray came by to see me early the next morning and asked me how I'd made out with Ellen. He'd known about me planning what we had just done for a long time, but Ellen and I hadn't been going out to dinner in ages, and so we had been forced to wait for the next opportunity to spring it on her. Ray had been out to dinner with us several times in the past when Ellen had performed her little vignettes. I told him that Ellen had said it was a good one, and he told me that she was going to make me pay for doing that to her. I just nodded in agreement. He told me that he'd paid out the option money, and handed me the signed option agreements, all signed and notarized. Later that day I went and filed them with the Recorder's office. I had debated telling Ray about the check from Billy and Theresa, but I was torn between the positive effects of easing his worries, and the negative effect of it acting as a stimulus for more spending from him. In the end, I decided not to tell him.

Within three weeks he had opened a double escrow on the two pieces over by Billy. We came out of that with a net profit of almost seventeen thousand dollars. As soon as we got the money from that deal, Ray bought the large lot in Poquonnock and did a minor lot split that cost us twelve hundred dollars. We got the five lots just like Ray had said we would, and then he sold them off, one at a time, over the next month to speculative lot builders. By the time he got all that done, we had five or six options on various parcels that Ray was confident that he could sell for a profit. whatever we made in the way of profits, Ray just plowed back into the partnership, except for money that he and I needed to live on. From that time on, Ray was always wheeling and dealing. Sometimes it was with options, but usually, when we could afford to do it, he just bought the land outright and then sold it very quickly. It certainly didn't hurt us that inflation was driving up the prices on everything, and that people were doing all that they could to hedge their savings with something other than cash. I never cashed that check from Billy and Theresa, but Billy told me to keep it just in case it was needed.

In spite of all that the inflated economy had done to drive up prices and spur development, that big investment of ours stood unsold and undeveloped for years. In 1979, when the note on the property became all due and payable, Ray and I somehow managed to raise enough money that we were able to pay the note down to one hundred thousand dollars, and then we financed the rest through a savings and loan where Ray had a very friendly loan officer approving the loan. With the financial pressure a thing of the past, Ray and I were both determined that we'd keep that property as long as it took us to realize a huge profit. Late in 1980, the building boom finally came to the area where our land was located. When that happened, things took off very quickly. In a matter of weeks, builders saw all the money spigots get turned on at once. Any building project, no matter how weak it might look to most of us, was getting loan approval and construction funding provided. We started getting several joint venture proposals per week. Ray turned all of them down, saying only that he was waiting for the right deal to come along. We re-filed our limited partnership articles, allowing us another seven years of partnership life. Ray told me of offers he'd gotten on one part or another of the property. He called them teasers, just people trying to find out if we were weak owners desperate to sell. They were three or four years too late for that to have worked. Finally, after seven long and trying years, we were approached by a large real estate investment trust, one that was traded on a stock exchange.

They set up a meeting in New York City, at their plush offices in Manhatten. Ray and I got dressed in our best country boy outfits, and drove up with our wives the night before. The hotel we stayed at charged us fifteen dollars a day just to let us park our car there. The four of us went out to a nice restaurant and went sightseeing afterwards, riding on the subway, and having a ball. Ray had done a lot of research about these people who ran the trust, and he told me pretty much what to expect in the meeting. We had both agreed beforehand that I'd leave all the talking to Ray, since he was the land expert, and I was just coming along to lend him moral support. The figure that we'd both agreed on before we left home, was two million dollars. We weren't going to move off of that figure no matter what they said. Ray said it for both of us when he said that we'd sweated too much blood and spent too many sleepless nights not to get paid good when the land finally sold.We also decided that we only wanted money, not stock or the carry back notes that we figured they'd offer us. By the time the elevator stopped at their floor, we'd psyched each other up to fight for what we believed we were entitled to. I doubt that either of us really thought they'd ever agree to giving us as much as we wanted. We were prepared to just go back to our homes and wait for someone who would.

The receptionist that greeted us got up from behind her desk and escorted us into a large conference room where five men, all in stylish business suits, stood up and introduced themselves to us. We all sat down and the head guy started talking to us. He told us that they had taken an interest in the area where our land was located, and they were in the process of trying to acquire a large amount of acreage so that they could sell it to a developer for a large planned community project involving several thousand houses and a large shopping center complex. The developer, they claimed, had an ironclad funding guarantee from a large life insurance company. He named the company and Ray and I smiled, because it was the same company that my father had his own policy with. The head guy went on to say that with the acquisition of our three parcels, they had enough land to fulfill their agreement with the developer. He then handed us two thirty page documents that were rivetted into their logo embossed binders, one for each of us, telling us as he did so, that it was their formal proposal document, and that it constituted their first and final offer to us. One of the other guys, who up until then had been silent, handed Ray and I one of his business cards and asked us to call him if we had any questions or needed clarification on some point contained in the offer dociments. One by one they all filed past us, shaking our hands and telling us how much pleasure it had been for them to finally meet us. The head guy was the last one to shake our hands and unlike the others, he stayed behind to speak with us. He told us that a good friend of his had first tipped him off to our little area of interest several years before, and had told him then that our three parcels were the key parcels in that area. He admitted that he'd had us investigated, and knew that we weren't going to just let the property go to anybody on the cheap. He said that the offer had been crafted solely by him, and he thought that we'd think it was a fair offer after we'd read it. Of course, Ray wanted to know the name of his friend.