Chapter 69

Chuck

Monday began beautifully. I was still groggy and dizzy when I first sat up after being in bed, but that was already getting better. After a shower and shave, I was feeling pretty good. I looked into the mirror and thought about using my clippers on my head real quick. I have kept the top and back of my head in a real short buzz cut and whitewalls on the sides and neck. A real jarhead haircut. It was easy and made me look like me, or at least that's what I thought I should look like.

This time, even though my hair was getting long and had grown out on the sides and neck, I thought I might wait to see what the scar on the side of my head was going to look like. I might let my hair grow. That would be a first as I have had really short hair all my life. I thought of Steve and his longer hair that always looked good. He kept his hairline on his neck clean and straight all the time and I could do that too.

John Scott had a little longer hair, but had whitewalls from years and years as a Marine. I'll just change my style and still be me; I don't have to look like anyone else, just me.

When I walked out into the kitchen, Taiying came to me and hugged me, "I'm glad you are alright. When I saw how close we were to losing you, I was very sad. Please be careful." The little girl hugged me again and looked up at me. "Kiss me please; I want to feel you are with me, ah us."

I kissed her on the forehead. I think she wanted the lips but she got a kiss my way. She went to the counter and poured me a mug of coffee as Sing and Maria came into the kitchen and family room area.

Both came to me and hugged me tightly. Maria looked up at me and said, "You have lost a leg already, please don't let us lose you. We all worry about you. You even have Lisa hurt, too. You must learn to stay away from trouble."

Lisa came out of the bedroom in a long T-shirt and said, "How about forming a few minutes this morning to keep your strength up. Stretching will help your muscles stay in shape. It's not strenuous, so it should be the perfect exercise to help you get over a concussion by helping you focus."

I followed Lisa out to the grassy area on the side of the pool cage. We went through our forms as I focused on each stance to stretch a muscle group. As I was finishing, I felt my head flooding with visions of Lisa smiling at me. When I bowed and raised my head, Lisa was standing in front of me smiling. She held out her hand and said, "Come, let's get dressed and have some breakfast. The girls should be about dressed and should eat too."

Our kitchen was getting busy with people having a cup of coffee before leaving for the patio. When Lisa and I came back from the busy bedroom area, Tina was just coming in the door after her twelve hour shift. She came to me for a hug and said, "I know you are going to Costa Rica this weekend, can I go with you and whoever else is going?"

I held her to me and said, "I would love that, Tina. It's been a while since we had any time together."

Lisa came and hugged Tina. She said, "That will really be nice, Tina. You and I can have Chuck all to ourselves if we can fight off the condo and boat girls. We might have to share him a little, but we will have a great time."

I said, "Sure wish you could come on our sailing trip or at least come over for some of the sightseeing."

Tina said, "Me too, but I'm learning so much right now. Every day that I learn more, I know it will make me a better doctor when the time comes. One of these days, I'll have time to luxuriate in all of your arms. But right now, I'm fulfilling a dream that I've had since I was a little girl. But this weekend, I'm going to fulfill some dreams I've had lately."

Taiying asked, "Do you want to eat here before you go to bed or will you go to the patio with the others?"

Tina said, "I'll go over to visit a little with everyone. I've missed everyone over there, and want to see mom and dad and all the rest of the people."

That meant the rest of my household was leaving at the same time to join the patio crowd for breakfast. We loaded up into multiple big carts and arrived at the patio amidst the rest of the folks coming for the breakfast fellowship.

While eating a breakfast sandwich, Steve asked me, "So what are you up to this week. Are you going to get ready to go sailing or are you ready now."

I said, "I think I'm ready, Steve. I need to go down to the warehouse and get a tux, but other than that, I'm ready."

Steve said, "I tried the tux on that Sue and Mercy had made for me over there the last time, and it still fits great. I'm ready too. What else are you going to do this week?"

Looking at Steve I said, "Just some office work, but do I hear a question as in 'do I want to do something else'?"

Steve grinned, "Yeah, I would like you to go up to Anchorage with me real quick to see the property that Dewey found for us. Tiny and Abe need to come along and we'll stop by Friday Harbor to pick up Dewey. We'll run up there, check out the property, sign a contractor and head back the next morning. Just two days, think you're up for it?"

Thinking I had heard of some other plans, I asked, "I thought Tiny and Abe were going to Hawaii to handle a problem over there?"

Steve answered, "They're not going until next week. They have too much going on this week. They'll take off after we sail. What do you say, will you go up with me?"

I said, "I'll just take my personal pilot along to make sure my head's screwed on right. I'm still having a little dizziness in the morning. When do you want to go?"

Steve said, "How about this morning. If you want to wait and go earlier tomorrow, we can do that, but if we do it today, we can get it done today and tomorrow. If we have to stay over a day, it won't put you late for your weekend trip."

I looked at Lisa and she just shrugged her shoulders. She said, "Sure, why not. I will enjoy seeing Alaska."

Steve said, "Get your warm clothes together as there is still snow on the ground up there. It's been pretty cold up there this winter and that place doesn't warm up yet this time of year."

I took a few minutes to advise my family that I was going up to Alaska overnight and would be back tomorrow night. They were so used to me leaving constantly they all just gave me hugs and kisses. Taiying, Sing, and Maria said they would help Lisa and me get a bag together and went home with us to get ready.

Knowing how Steve dressed, I pulled out some jeans and a couple heavy flannel shirts that were hanging in the closet. Along with a set of longjohns, a couple of sweaters, and my heavy coat and boots, that should be all that I would need to look at property up there. Taiying and Maria were fussing over me like I was going to be gone for a week.

I thought about grabbing my special equipment case, but I wasn't going to be doing anything for anyone this trip. No fooling around with bad guys, no danger, no way. From force of habit, I did throw a couple of extra Glock magazines into my duffel bag pocket along with my vest, but that is from habit, nothing else.

As I wheeled my duffel out to the kitchen, Lisa was coming out of her personal closet/room. She had the same type of small duffel, smiling that we were equipped the same. I called out to the airpark and asked them to get the Citation ready as Steve, Tiny, Abe, Lisa, and I were going to Alaska.

We went by the patio to find that Steve, Tiny, and Abe had already left for the airpark. Lisa and I drove out to the airpark and parked by the charter office. The other three men had already put their bags into the luggage compartment and were standing by the stairs, watching Jimmy go over the aircraft.

Jimmy said, "Everything looks good. Make sure you pay attention to your time on fuel. I'm told there is one hell of a headwind going west. See you tomorrow or Wednesday."

I put Lisa in the left seat, and using the checklist, talked her through the preflight and spool up. While we were coming up to power, Lisa called in a flight plan using just our aircraft number with no federal security number. How nice, a regular flight with no overtones or being anxious of what may await us.

The trip out west was without incident. I spent some time talking with Steve, Tiny, and Abe in the back, but made sure Lisa had coffee and was comfortable flying the neat Citation. It was a little bumpy sometimes because of the heavy headwind, but we were able to get above the jetstream in order to save some fuel.

We got bumped around quite a bit on our descent into Friday Harbor, but we were fine once we got down to five thousand feet. It was drizzling with an overcast, but the ceiling was above five thousand feet, making it easy to get in.

Dewey was waiting for us, and we quickly loaded him and his bag while I watched the refueling. Lisa filed to Anchorage and we were off. This time I took the bird up to give Lisa a break and to see how it was to fly the Citation from the right seat.

This trip was longer than I thought. We left before nine this morning, and didn't get to Friday Harbor until almost two. By the time we were parked near the private aircraft operations building in Anchorage, it was already after five, east coast time. It was only one in the afternoon in Alaska, so we did have time to conduct some business.

Dewey had a big chauffeur driven SUV waiting for us that drove us across the city to an industrial area. There, we met a group of people that represented a realtor and a couple of building contractors.

We walked over the property and I made the comment, "Aren't there any buildings that you might assume, Steve? If you were to find a decent building for this project, you could save a lot of time by just refitting an existing structure."

Steve said, "That's what I would like to do, but these folks are pushing to build out here." Steve turned to the realtor and said, "Do you mean that in this economy that there are no buildings that can be bought or leased cheap?"

The guy looked nervous and said, "There really isn't a good selection to choose from right now. We haven't been hit hard by the recession like you have in the lower forty eight."

Tiny looked at the guy like he had two heads, "What do you mean? I talked to our accounting firm and they told me there has been a mass of bigger businesses go under up here. According to your state report, there is as much unemployment here as anywhere. Let us make the decision of what we do. Can you show us some other properties?"

The realtor was really getting anxious, and one of the men I assumed was a contractor, pushed the guy forward, toward us, so the realtor said, "I'm sorry, I don't have any listings for you anywhere else."

Tiny said, "We'll just have to get someone else to show us some property."

As one of the big guys behind the realtor was moving up to us, Dewey said, "George, you and I have done business for a lot of years. When do you not have a half dozen pieces of property for me to look at?"

The big guy behind George pushed the realtor aside and confronted Dewey face to face. "I'm going to let you in on a secret. If you want to do business up here, you'll do it the way I want you to. If you want to get a building permit, you have to go through me or my people. You will do as I say, and as the other men of my group up here say."

With that, the large man reached out with his big fist, grabbed Dewey by his coat, and almost lifted him off the ground, "Now you will do business the way I tell you, understood?"

I was moving toward the big man and Dewey as he put Dewey down. The other guy I thought was another contractor was unzipping his coat. When the big guy that had hold of Dewey took his hand away and began stepping back, I pushed him at the other guy and watched as they both fell to the ground.

"Gentlemen, you need to learn to have better manners when you deal with other businessmen," I said, as I too had unzipped my coat, ready if something stupid happened. "How in the world do you get investors up here if you act like that?"

The big guy rolled onto his knees in preparation to standing up, but I put my prosthesis foot on his back and pushed down. He sprawled with his face in the snow.

The other guy was reaching into his coat when Lisa put her magically appearing Glock to his head, and said, "I think you should probably take your hand away from your coat. This is not the time or place to have to get rid of a body. The ground is too hard to dig and we're not far enough out for the scavengers to take care of you quickly."

I told the man under my foot, "I'm going to let you up. I expect you to get up slowly and be nice when you get to your feet."

Lisa said to the two men, "You know there's nothing meaner than a woman on the rag. I'd just love to shoot someone today."

You could see both of the men wrinkle their brow as they began standing. Lisa stripped both of the men of sidearms, then pulled the biggest guy's wallet. She said to me, "Do you remember your station's telephone number? Why don't you call them to come get these guys and take them out a ways and just shoot them? I've always heard Alaska is sort of like the old wild west. No one should miss a couple of nasty guys like this."

I was almost laughing at Lisa. She had always been so laid back and quiet, but now she was being a pushy, nasty, female that was acting like a pissed off black widow.

I did get hold of the station and gave them the big guy's name. The Deputy told me to hold on and then came back on and said, "Where are you? There's a federal warrant on that guy. I'm not sure why he's still free, but we'll be glad to come pick him up."

I punched up my GPS on my phone and gave him the numbers. I told him, "I have another guy that is with him, so you need to find a warrant on him too. If you can't, you know how far out of town you have to take him. I'm just up here visiting."

The big guy began to plead, "You don't want to turn me in. I've been influential in these parts for years and years. I'm sorry to be so pushy, but we do business like that up here. If you don't push, you get pushed. I push and get paid for it. Come on, we'll get out of your hair and leave you alone. I promise."

I pulled my Deputy Marshal badge from my pocket and flipped the case open. I tucked the open badge case into my breast pocket and said, "I'm a law officer and this is what I do for a living. You Sir, will remain in custody until you resolve the warrant or you obtain bail. That's the law, and that's the way it will be."

The two men were shaking their head as I watched another SUV come up to us. I put the two men between the SUV and myself with Lisa behind me and watched as three men got out of the car.

I recognized the Anchorage Station Chief and said, "Hey, Don, glad to see you."

He came up to me with his hand out and asked, "Hey, how come they're not cuffed?"

"I'm on recovery leave. See this bandage? I was in that Detroit mess."

The other two deputies cuffed the two men and began shaking them down. The other big guy that was with the mouthy one gave the Deputies a surprise. He had a pretty good sized baggy of what looked like rock cocaine in his pocket. I gave the deputies the two guns we had taken from them and one of the deputies said, "That's nice. Both of these guys are convicted felons. These firearms will mean at least ten years, and since they were threatening a federal officer, that should be worth a few more."

The big guy was trying to negotiate, "Come on, guys, you know I'll take care of you. What'll it take; a couple of hundred grand for each of you? Come on, how about it? Don't hold me up, but my group can go as high as a mil each. Come on, how about it? How about a mil just to forget this ever happened?"

Don said, "Boys, you might want to gag them if you're tempted. Just remember that they would probably just turn around and kill you to get their million back."

Don turned to me, "Glad you weren't hurt bad in Detroit. We haven't had anymore trouble from any terrorists since you helped us out up here. I think the problem is cured for a while. Thanks for these two, it'll make our pick up sheet look good. Get out of the cold, Man, this is no place to stand around shooting the shit."

As they left, I noticed that Steve, Tiny, and Abe were talking to the realtor. When Lisa and I went over to them, the realtor said, "I hope you don't get any reprisals for what you did. Those guys are just part of the political bad guys up here that run the area. I'll show you a couple of great buildings that you should be able to buy cheap. Have your driver follow me and we'll go just a little ways to where they are."

We all got in the car to follow the realtor. Dewey said to me, "Thanks for watching out for me, Chuck. You surprised the hell of me and that guy with the way you just pushed him over. How did you do that?"

"He was off balance when he was stepping back from you, Dewey. All I did was push him back into his buddy and watch them both go down. Thank Lisa, she was the one who saw the guy reaching for something and stopped him."

Steve said, "I've never heard you talk rough to anyone before, Lisa. What's with that?"

Lisa smiled, "Well, let's see, Steve, in the last week, I've been in multiple bad situations and have even been shot for my trouble. I've met people that are now dead by bad guys, and I am just not going to take that shit from anyone anymore."

Tiny laughed, "And I thought you were tough, Steve. We'll have to tell Shawna to look out, that she has competition in being the toughest babe on the block."

Abe laughed, but didn't say anything. Tiny said to Lisa, "A long time ago, Steve and Shawna were in a couple of gunfights out at the trailer park. There wasn't any security back then, and it got a little hairy a couple of times. Get Shawna a little tipsy sometime and she'll tell you all about it."

We went to a big building and entered through a door near a loading dock. A guard was inside and the realtor talked to him a minute before showing us through the building. The main, wide-open, manufacturing floor was huge. This building could house more than just a showroom and sales area. The place could house a major factory.

Tiny was talking rapidly to the realtor and the realtor went off to the side using his cell phone. Tiny came back to us and said, "I just offered him what I think is about twenty-five percent of what I think this building is worth. Let's see what the counteroffer is. If we get this building, we can divide it up and lease out some of the space. If we can't find anyone to lease some space, we'll just close off some of it until we want to do more up here. I really like the building."

Abe said, "Yeah, this place would be great for rebuilding and maintenance. There's plenty of room up front for a showroom and lots of office space. For the right price, this place would work out nicely."

Dewey wasn't very optimistic, but said, "There are probably offers on this building. Tiny's lowball might make the owners jump at a higher offer."

Tiny said, "If someone else gets the building, it wasn't meant to be and we'll go look at another one. Upkeep on a building this size is going to have an impact too. Let's see what George comes back with."

The realtor had been on the phone for an extended period of time, finally folded his phone, and looked at the five of us. He walked over to us and acted as if he was bewildered. "They said that if you can come up with a cash payment, the building is yours. They are strapped for cash and this will not only help with their cash situation, it will rid them of the upkeep."

I watched as Tiny, Abe, and Steve high-fived each other, and then Steve and Dewey gave each other the same salute. Steve turned to me and said, "That's why you're along for the ride. You bring me luck every time we do business. Damn, this is a great building and Tiny has stolen it. Can you get them the cash, Tiny?"

Tiny smiled, "We can handle it. Come on, George, let's go to your office, or Dewey's lawyer's office, and get some money in escrow."

And just like that Lisa and I were witnesses of Steve and company getting started up in Alaska.

After all of the business had been transacted, Dewey had our driver take us to one of the hotels we three men had invested in. Dewey said, "Now that the remodeling is complete here, this place rivals any hotel in Anchorage. It's close to the airport and convenient to all major roads and is doing a very decent business. Come on, let's get our rooms and have supper. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I'm ready for a drink."