Chapter 31

That night Gidget got a call from her mother, who playfully accused her of hogging Bob.

"I know why you want him at your house." grumped Gidget. "He hasn't even been here a whole week."

In the end, she agreed to send Bob to June's house the next day. That night she was especially ardent in her lovemaking with Bob. She thought it was because she would have to do without him for a while. That wasn't the real reason she felt the way she did, though. It had been too many years for her to remember she got especially horny when she was ovulating.

The next day Bob went back to the winery by himself. He found Annie in one of the barns, trying to get a big barrel up onto a rack. As he helped her move it into place she snarled about how machinery that was properly maintained would have done the job in less than a minute. That machinery was down at the moment and the owner wouldn't spend any money on it since he was selling the place.

"If you treat all potential buyers like you treated me yesterday," Bob said, dusting off his hands, "it probably won't sell right away."

Annie shot him a look, but just said "Thanks." for his help.

"Do you have time to talk?" he asked.

"No." she said bluntly.

"Look, I like this place." said Bob. "I don't know anything about wine, but you do, right?" he asked.

She nodded, fiddling with some tubes of some kind. "Yes."

"Then why can't I buy the winery, and you run it, and I'll build my house and we'll both be happy?"

"I told you, it's not a good investment right now." she said, looking up at him from her bent over position. "It will be at least two years and probably three before we get a money making crop in the bottle and ready to sell."

"I'm not looking for an investment." said Bob.

Annie stood up and turned to face him, her hands on her hips.

"You're willing to borrow seven point five mil ... just to have a place to build your house?" she was obviously skeptical. "And that's if you can find a bank that will go for it."

"I don't need a bank." said Bob. "I have the cash."

Annie rocked back on her heels. This guy was just full of surprises. "And you'd trust me to run the operation ... hands off?"

"I'm willing to gamble with that." said Bob.

"Without even knowing me?" she asked, incredulous.

"With your attitude, you wouldn't have a job if you didn't know what you were doing." said Bob.

Annie smiled for the first time since Bob had met her. She had a nice smile. "You call them pretty plainly too, don't you mister..."

"Winkle." said Bob.

"Mr. Winkle." she repeated. Her eyes narrowed. "If you're playing with me I'm gonna make it real uncomfortable for you." she warned.

Bob leaned forward. "Do you want to run a world class winery ... or not?" he asked.

Annie felt a glimmer of hope for the first time in three years. "Yes, I do." she said finally.

"Then do you have time to talk?" asked Bob.

"I guess I do at that, Mr. Winkle." she said.

"Bob." he said.

"Okay, Bob. You aren't the boss yet, but let's just sit a spell and see if maybe you have what it takes to be one." Annie led him to the porch of the big stone house and indicated a chair.

They talked for three hours. Two employees came to ask her questions, which she dealt with rapidly and then returned to listing the needs of the business and peppering Bob with questions about what he'd be willing to spend to get the place back on its feet. Along the way he mentioned that just his name might have quite a bit of marketing value to their future product.

"Why's that?" asked Annie. "I've never heard of you before."

Bob laughed. "You have to be the only person in California who hasn't heard of me then." He chuckled. "It's kind of nice, actually. But don't worry about that. That's years in the future anyway, according to you. Maybe by then people will have forgotten who I am. So what do you think? Can we do this together?"

That got her back on the subject she loved most - growing good grapes and making better wine. It wasn't until he was driving off down the lane that she remembered he hadn't said anything about why he was famous. That seemed odd. Most famous people wouldn't shut up about how important they were. She had seen hundreds of them come and go from the tasting rooms of the winery. Most of them felt like they deserved a discount on wine, since they would, naturally, mention it to their friends, or serve it at their fancy parties.

Curious now, she turned and went into the house. She lived on the upper floor. The owner hadn't wanted to live on site. That was the only good thing about him. She sat down at the computer in her office and Googled "Bob Winkle"

Five minutes later she gasped. "Well color me brown and call me shit faced!"

It took another five minutes for her to remember that she hadn't gotten the phone number of her knight in shining armor. She cursed for another five minutes and, sighing, went back to work. She had some things to do to make sure nobody else bought the winery.

Bob waited until he got to June's house and then called Gus Gunderson. He got a recorded message that the phone number had changed and directing him to a web site for more information.

Gus' part of the insurance company settlement, twenty percent of fifty million dollars, had changed his whole life, making him an instant millionaire. Most people would have chucked everything except spending money. But Gus was a lawyer and he knew he could be a good one. He loved justice as a concept and now that he didn't have to take anything that came his way just to pay rent, he was able to take on cases wherein he saw the actual possibility that he could help justice get done.

Never having had much money, and being married to Margie, who was even more fiscally conservative, he banked his windfall and then made a few changes that he knew he could justify. He relocated his office to a new building, got new furniture and hired a researcher. He had given two interviews to the media and they had generated more work for him in a week than he'd had in the previous six months. He didn't know if it was going to last, but if it did he'd need a partner pretty soon. He'd offered to let Margie stay home if she wanted, but she didn't. She was used to being his secretary and liked being able to be with him most of the time. He was as busy as a one-legged man in a jump rope contest, but he liked it that way. He'd lost six pounds, partially because he was on the go a lot more, but also because there was no Dippy Doo Donut shop right next door. There was a Starbucks, and what passed for a bakery, but you couldn't go in either place with a ten dollar bill and come out with enough to call a cab. He had money ... but he didn't spend it wastefully.

He found out that having money meant you had lots of new best friends, or at least people who told you you were their best friend. Suddenly all manner of hoity toity organizations, some based in the legal profession, but most not, invited him to be a member. He must have thrown out ten or fifteen people who had the secret stock tip that would turn his ten million into a hundred and ten million overnight. He was suddenly a lot more attractive to women too, mostly good looking high maintenance women who came in with some trifling legal problem and tried to seduce him right in front of his wife. They got told he was just too busy to take their case.

He looked up from a brief he was preparing to see Margie signaling him frantically. She still wasn't used to an actual intercom. The phone she had looked like one of those remote controls that handled the TV, VCR, DVD player, Stereo and probably the electric can opener too for all he knew.

"It's Bob." she mouthed in an exaggerated and silent over-pronunciation.

Gus looked at his phone, which was simpler than Margie's, but still lit up like a Christmas tree from time to time. Thankfully only one line was lit. He picked up the phone.

"Bob!" he said jovially. He listened for a second. "Bob? Can you hear me Bob?" He remembered that Margie had to put a caller on hold before he could answer. He started to yell at her, but then thought she might hang up on Bob in the process of transferring the call. It had happened before. He got up and went to her, taking the phone from her and scowling. Margie shrugged and stuck out her tongue at him.

"Bob!" he said into the phone. "How's my favorite client?" He listened for a few minutes and then signaled for paper and pen. He scribbled on the paper. Even Margie couldn't read it. "What's the address? ... Who's the broker? ... No problem Bob. I've got your back ... okay ... And Bob? Thanks." He handed the phone back to his wife. He looked at her.

"Is your Real Estate license still current?" he asked.

She blinked and nodded. "I think so." she said. Margie had gone to night school while Gus was still working his former job, to get her Realtor's license. It had been something she liked, but actually getting into an agency without most of your commission going to the broker was difficult, especially in California. The field was overstocked with eager young people who would do anything to make a sale, including cheat, lie and steal if that helped. She had given it up after six months, disgusted with the morals of the people she had to work with. Her one sale had netted her a whopping $350.00 after the broker took out his commission and "employment costs" since she was a new hire. The overall commission had been over eight grand.

"Bob wants to buy a vineyard." said Gus. "He wants us to represent him and make sure he's not doing anything stupid."

Gus gave Margie the information and told her to go do her thing. She'd only been gone ten minutes before he was pulling his hair out due to the phone and a walk-in who wanted to know if Gus could catch a wife having adultery. He called a temp service, who sent over a bright young college girl. She played the phone like it was a concert piano. Within an hour he had decided to hire her permanently. Margie would just have to get used to being the Real Estate branch of Gus Gunderson, Attorney At Law.

Margie knew all the steps to take to evaluate and appraise the property in question. It took her four hours, but she got all the information she felt was needed. The property was overpriced, based on the quantity of wine it was permitted to produce, the acres of planted land and their comparison to other vineyards in the area. Public records didn't have actual numbers on the profits being generated by a private business, but there were lots of indicators, and this outfit didn't look like it was making much money. Two of the licenses needed had expired, and had not been renewed since. Technically, they shouldn't be doing any business at all. The last fire inspection had been passed, but was marginal with "concern with reference to inoperable electric equipment and questionable maintenance on electrical systems" being noted in the explanation block. The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms inspection, which included comments by a health inspector, was pristine with all blocks marked "exceeds standards". She closed the book she was examining in the county tax office and checked her notes. Next would be a site visit.

When she got back to the office there was a marital tiff, as some people call it. Margie didn't much care to see a sweet young thing sitting in her chair, hands flashing, cheery voice talking to people on the phone and electronic messages being routed all over the place.

When Gus explained his plan to have her more or less establish a Real Estate law arm in the company, she felt better, and then felt panic. She knew Gus didn't understand much about real estate law, and she had only the most basic of grasps. She could do the paperwork for transactions, but there was much more to doing real estate law than just transactions. Gus agreed to make some calls and see if there was a promising young real estate attorney coming out of any of the law schools in the area.

The next morning Margie drove up to the winery. She met Annie, who was ecstatic to find out she represented Bob. They sat on the porch and without any shame whatsoever, Annie detailed the minor sabotage she had performed on the property. She didn't admit that she had done the things that had been done. She just listed the reasons that the business wasn't worth the money being asked. Then Margie got the tour.