Chapter 7

For the next week or so, Delilah and Bridget got settled in at my house. The two of them did a top to bottom thorough cleaning of the place. They both worked much harder than I'd thought they would, and I became more and more pleased as my house started looking well cared for again.

The sex kept getting better too, as we three learned new ways to bring greater pleasure to each other. Delilah was a master at subtle techniques to enhance and intensify our sensual responses.

To express my satisfaction with the way our little arrangement was working out, I went to a friend who dealt in wholesale autos and purchased a pair of used Mustangs. They were both three years old, and had less than twenty thousand miles on each odometer. The cars had been part of a corporate executive lease return that my friend had purchased at a deep discount from the wholesale Kelly Bluebook price.

I ended up paying three thousand in cash for the two cars, in addition to trading him a nearly new living, dining, and bedroom set of furniture that I'd picked up fairly cheaply at a bankruptcy auction down in Palm Springs. The furniture looked brand new, and probably cost at least fifteen thousand when first purchased. I'd paid a little more than eleven hundred for it. Basically, I'd gotten both cars for less outlay than either one had been worth by itself.

The girls loved my surprise. Having their own means of transportation allowed them to start looking for jobs so that they could begin to start saving the money they'd need for when they went out on their own in the near future.

Delilah was the first to find work, over in Victorville, for a small, independent, escrow company. A week later, Bridget started a trainee program for a well known stock brokerage firm.

All wasn't sweetness and light though. It seemed like Kaitlyn and Danny were both envious of any expenditures I made on the girls. It got so every time I came into contact with either my brother or his wife, I had to listen to their complaints about how unfair it was that I kept throwing my money away on Delilah and Bridget when they had to make do with the bare subsistence wages I was paying my brother. I took it in the beginning, figuring that they would have their say and it would then blow over. It didn't work out that way though.

"Jimmy, Katie and I have been talking, and we both think you need to start paying me more money for the work I've been doing. Katie thinks you should give me part ownership in the company too. Part of the reason you've been so successful is because I've always been willing to do anything you've needed to get done. We both think I should get a bigger slice of the pie."

"What company are you talking about, Danny? I wasn't aware that I even had a company. I have two warehouses where I store some things, but I just rent them on a month to month basis. I don't even have a business license, so I'm not sure what you mean by this company you want me to give you a part of. What I do have is a little bit of money that I've saved up. I invest it in whatever I can buy that I think I can sell for a profit. I think of it as one of those hobby things that kind of grew to be bigger than I first thought it would."

"It doesn't matter what you call it, it's still a company. We don't think you're being fair to just pay me whatever you think you want to. I've worked for you for four years now, and I think you owe me more than what I've been getting."

"Danny, this conversation isn't really going anywhere. I've already been paying you more than I'd pay anyone else for doing the same job. I told you back when you first came to me that I'd try to find some things for you to do until you could find other work to replace that job you lost when to box factory went bust. As far as I know, you haven't even been looking for any other job. That wasn't what we agreed on. All this time I've been thinking I was bending over backwards to make sure you and your family had enough dough to keep a roof over your heads, food on the table, and some clothes on your back."

"I'm not getting ahead any on what you've been paying me, Jimmy. My truck is ten years old, and that piece of crap Chevy we got for Katie barely runs at all. We drive around in vehicles that could quit running at any time, and you give both those girls of yours almost new Mustangs. You hardly even know those girls, especially Dee, but you've already spent more on each of them this month than you've paid me for working my ass off for you for the past six months."

"We didn't get that car for Kaitlyn, Danny, I bought it and gave it to her. As for your truck, didn't I just sign the pink slip over to you when I bought my other truck four years ago? I don't remember charging you a penny for that truck. In fact, it seems to me that I paid to get it smogged and to transfer ownership over into your name. I don't think you have a real complaint about that truck. It isn't my fault that she never even gets her oil changed or checks the air in her tires. If you two took care of normal maintenance on your vehicles, they probably would be in a lot better shape than they are."

"We would take better care of them, if we had any extra money to pay for it with."

"If you want to make more money, Danny, then get a real job. I certainly won't do anything to stand in your way if you do that."

"Is that your final answer?"

"I didn't have many other choices, Danny. The girls needed some transportation to go get jobs. I made a good deal on those two cars. It was my money that I spent, not yours, and not your wife's. What I decide to do with my own money isn't a legitimate concern for either of you."

"Katie told me I'd have to quit working for you if you don't do something to help us get out of the hole we're in financially."

I looked at my brother, trying to decide if his threat was a serious one or not. As far as I could determine, I was the only one standing between him and an almost immediate loss of a place to live for his whole family. They were always teetering on the edge of financial disaster anyway. They were confusing their wanting with their deserving.

"Danny, you can go ahead and quit if it will make you feel any better. We both know that the space rent for the trailer is coming due next week. If you don't work this week, how do you expect to come up with that money when the rent is due?"

"I'll find a way. You'll see when the time comes. Don't call me when you need someone to drive loads for you. I'll be looking for that real job you told me to get. I won't be coming back to work for you after this time, so don't even bother asking me to."

I watched him as he turned away and walked back to his pick up. I knew he was convinced, in his own mind, that I was shortchanging him for all the work he did for me. He didn't know or care that half the work he did for me was really jobs I'd created to keep him working in order to give him a full week's paycheck. I didn't know how many deals I'd made with that in my mind. Deals where all, or almost all, of the profit went towards taking care of Danny's paycheck. I knew that Danny quitting would have a positive impact on my overall profitability.

I went down to both storage places and put new padlocks on the doors. Danny had been known to rip me off in the past, and I couldn't be sure that he wasn't planning to do something similar in the near future, as a way to get the rent and food money he'd soon be needing.

After I was done with making the storage sheds harder for him to break into, I called Hector, a guy I sometimes used to make deliveries for me when Danny was already on the road somewhere else. I asked him if he was free to make a three day delivery trip for me, and he jumped at the chance. I always paid Hector a hundred dollars a day when he delivered for me. His wife was on welfare, and Hector was drawing some type of disability payment, so any work he did for me was always paid in cash, under the table. He was reliable too, never asking for anything special, or trying to hold me up for more money if he knew I was in a bind.

After Hector and I loaded up the truck and I'd given him the manifest list, with all the delivery addresses, and instructions on the order which I wanted the deliveries to be made in, he drove off from the shed behind Izzy's, and I drove back to my house.

Danny's actions had caused me to be in a bad mood. It always troubled me to see him making decisions which I knew were going to come back and cause me future grief. I already had a pretty good idea about how this situation would eventually play itself out. Somehow, I'd be on the hook to rescue him once again, putting up the money to keep them from being evicted from the trailer park.

I stewed about this for an hour or so and then decided that the smart thing for me to do was to go down to the trailer park office and pay their space rent in order to save myself the forty dollar late charge. I told Mr. Jenkins, the park manager, to not tell either Danny or Kaitlyn that their rent had been paid. If they somehow came up with the money, I told him to hold on to what I'd given him, and to then use it the first time they didn't pay their rent on time.

I'd heard that Danny had taken a job driving a tow truck for one of the services that did County contract work on the Interstate. He was supposedly working six twelve hour shifts, and being paid about five hundred dollars a week. This was the same as I'd been paying him for working around forty hours a week for me, and that didn't take into account all the money I'd had to spend to make sure there was food in their house and gas in their vehicles. It also didn't count the three hundred a month I'd been paying for their family health insurance coverage. I had paid the health insurance for the current month before Danny quit. I told myself it would be easier, and cheaper in the long run, to keep up with taking care of the health insurance premiums.

It was another month before I heard another word from either my brother or his wife. This time it was Kaitlyn who came to my house, with her kids, to let me know that her car had a blown engine. She was driving her mom's car she said, but her mother needed her car back at the end of the week. Danny's pickup, which he seldom used with his new job, wasn't big enough to fit her and the three kids in the cab she said.

I didn't say anything when she'd finally finished with her explanation about what had happened to her car.

"I want you to make Bridget let me borrow her car until I can afford to get another one. She can ride to work with Delilah, and you can pick her up after work if she needs a ride home."

"What did Bridget say when you asked her to loan you her car?"

"She didn't say anything, because I knew it wouldn't do any good to ask her. She's always been selfish, so she'd say no because she doesn't care if your niece and nephews have transportation in case they need to go to the hospital, or if there's some other type of emergency. You bought the cars, so you can do what's right and let me borrow her car until I have another one of my own. You could buy me one of those cars too, if you don't want to let me have hers."

"The car is Bridget's, not mine. If you want to ask her to loan it to you, then go ahead. Don't try to get me caught up in the middle of this. As for me buying you a car, I think I already did that, and I don't remember you even bothering to thank me for doing it."