Chapter 2

Later Sal and I walked back to the city complex to sort out the mess Pop had gotten me into. The first thing Sal did was to dig out the records of the drug bust and the DEA inventory. It matched my contract records perfectly. The plats matched, and it named all the out buildings but had a note that some of the structures needed some maintenance. Well they sure didn't make that up.

I noticed two things as Sal and I worked on the records. She had three buttons unbuttoned on her shirt instead of the one undone when I first met her in the records room. I was distracted somewhat. Well, I was maybe distracted more that somewhat. Oh, fuck it. I was fighting to keep my tongue in my mouth. This cleavage was magnificent.

The other thing was that she brushed that significant area of interest against my arm, my back, or anywhere else she could touch me. Now don't get me wrong. This way of expressing friendship and interest in expanding it was not unwelcome. I just couldn't put more than two syllables together at a time.

"JD, we may get lucky here."

"I ... Well ... Ah ... I'd be happy to ... I mean damn, you are really good looking and nice. Sure, I'd like that."

She looked at me and smiled. After a little giggle she kissed me on the cheek and said, "That's sweet honey, but let's talk about that after work hours."

I turned every shade in the red color spectrum. Boy had my mind taken the wrong road.

"Well, JD, we may get the Feds to rebuild some of your outbuildings. We should get some mileage out of that maintenance comment. A least they owe you a new pole building. That's a good sized building, and would make a very good starting point for rebuilding.

You seem to be the owner of about fifty head of prime rib on the hoof and thirty quarter horses. One of which is a grand champion stud worth very close to a million dollars. I think I know where some of the most expensive of your horses are.

Tomorrow's Saturday. Why don't you and I borrow a couple of horses from Mary's ranch and ride around your little homestead and see what we can find. It should be interesting. If we find anything wrong we can get the sheriff's lazy ass out there to earn his keep. Good Lord knows he's got to be good for something other than fishing over at Gentleman Jim's Ranch."

"Is that where the fishing is out here? I haven't drowned any worms for a long time. Maybe I should check it out"

"No, that's just where he dips his pole."

"What?"

"Honey, that's a bordello."

"A bordello ... Oh, never mind."

Suddenly Sal was not so cheerful. She turned on me and pushed me back against the table we were working on.

She angrily ask me, "You got a problem with that?"

I took a deep breath and slowly answered, "Uh ... Let me ask you a couple of questions before I answer that."

I got a tight, "Go ahead," in return.

"Are the women all of legal age?"

"Yeah."

"Is anyone forced to be there?"

"Nope."

Do the clients get roughed up or threatened?

"Never."

"Does anyone get ripped off there?"

"Hell no!"

"Do they have medical check ups?"

"Of course."

"They follow all the laws?"

"Without a doubt!"

"Then I don't see that it's any of my business what adults do in their spare time. I actually think if prostitution were legal and controlled everywhere like it is here we'd all be better off. I do have one question though."

"What's that?"

"How in the hell does a local sheriff afford to go to a whorehouse? From what I understand bottom price in those places is in the hundreds of dollars."

The old happy Sal was back. "The mayor and the sheriff are brothers. They got a little money when they hit one of those big jackpots in Vegas. They took what was left after Uncle Sugar finished screwing them for taxes and made some investments. One of those investments was in a little enterprise run by a guy by the name of James Brown."

She stopped my next question before I could ask it. "No, he's another James Brown.

"Anyway, Gentleman Jim got himself into a little gambling bind and needed money to pay off some less than intelligent horse racing bets. You see, Jim knew this guy who claimed to be a horse whisperer and was dumb enough to make bets based on his discussions with the animals. The legitimate gaming houses wouldn't take any of his bets because he's on some kind of do not touch list for known compulsive gamblers. The people he found to place the bets with were not quit so civic minded.

"To make a long story short, in order to keep Jimmy from floating face down in Lake Mead, Bob and Don and an unknown buyer each bought a fourth of the ranch on the condition it was made into a corporation and that Jimmy go into counseling for his gambling.

The boys then talked the working girls on the ranch into helping keep an eye on Jimmy if they made some improvements to the ranch and offered them a bigger cut. Now they'll kick his ass if he so much as flips a coin. It's worked for a year now. Everyone comes out a winner."

"I guess that explains that. It's good to have public officials who are comfortable financially. It eliminates a lot of temptation."

"That wasn't the case right away. The ranch almost put everyone in the poorhouse. It seems that Jimmy learned the business as a bouncer at the Mustang Ranch. (JD's note: I know that very few of you morally upstanding readers have heard of the Mustang Ranch. It was the definitive Nevada bordello before the owner skedaddled out of town one step ahead of an IRS tax audit. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying anything about him breaking the law, but... )

When the boys started digging under the reports they based the decision to buy the business on, they found a house of cards. Their cousin Larry, a lawyer in LA, convinced them to call in the IRS and ask for a plan to help in paying the missing taxes. Larry negotiated with the IRS, and they ended up dropping all interest and penalties and giving them a ten year plan to pay back the rest without putting Jimmy in jail."

"I hope their cousin didn't get his law degree from Harvard."

Sal gave me a funny look. "Larry went to UNLV. If he had gone to those big eastern schools, he wouldn't have the sense to carry water in a bucket much less put a muzzle on the IRS."

"I think Pop just proved that you leave common sense at home in the Ivy League when he bought this ranch. I swear when he took that job at Yale he left his brains in Texas."

"Don't be too hard on the man, JD. Based on what I just saw on the portfolio and maps, with a lot of work and I mean a lot of work, that place could generate a positive cash flow. The ROI is just gonna feel like pissing on an electric fence for a while. Your daddy just paid too much. That's understandable because the auction was by sealed bid. He was only a thousand dollars more than that consortium out of Vegas who should have known better."

"So what makes you so optimistic about my graduation present?"

"Let's break it down. First, it's good sized. A square mile, or a section, is 640 acres. The 8000 acres of your ranch is twelve and a half sections.

"Next, this is not all wastelands. There's a high water table in the valley, and you have the ability to make stock tanks on much of the place. Again, it's going to take a lot of work, but there's hope. Remember if there was enough water to grow 'Mary Jane' grass, there's enough to grow pasture grass. You'll see that when we go to Mary's ranch.

"You also have a grand champion stallion and other livestock worth almost a quarter of what you paid for the whole ranch. We should be able to find your stock tomorrow. If we can't find it, you can always go back to the DEA and demand part of your money back."

I thought about it for a minute and replied, "Then I guess I might as well stop at a lumber yard and pick up something to close up what's left of the ranch house, so I have a place to stay while I do all that work."

"Sam had just bought a new Jayco fifth wheel before he took that bull by the nose. It's still out at Mary's place. I think we can run the rats and spiders out of it and move it over to your place. It's got to be better than what's left there."

"Good, I can sleep in the truck for one night. I don't think I can get my motel room back."

"You certainly will not! You'll stay in my guest room for a few days until we get the camper set up for you out at your place."

"Are you sure? It's mighty nice of you, but would your neighbors mind?"

"Who cares?"

"I sure don't if you don't."

"Good, it's done. Now we don't have to look for you to take you dancing tonight. I'm done for the day. Let me transfer the phones to the county call center, and we can go home."

I followed Sal's Hummer on a gravel road for about three miles. The road ended in a large circle in front of Sal's home. To one side was a large covered concrete slab with open sides and no walls on three sides and a five door garage connected to the fourth.

I parked next to Sal as she got out of her Hummer. Before she turned and waved for me to follow her, I noticed the rest of her shirt buttons were undone. The tongue came back out as I started drooling like a rabid dog as I followed her.

Sal's house was, well, interesting. Hell, it was a log cabin, kind of a log cabin, I mean it had logs, well shit, it was just interesting. The front looked like a giant, rambling, two-story Lincoln Log setup. The back corners met stone fences that ran all the way back to a cliff forming a huge backside enclosed open space.

The entry was a huge two story atrium completely covered by a photosensitive skylight that automatically darkened as the ambient light increased. During the night, the glass would be clear. When the sun was out, it would block much of the light from the interior.

The best part, though, was what was under the skylight.

Sitting in rocking chairs before a huge unlit fireplace were two beautiful woman

dressed only in their birthday suits. Hell, they weren't even wearing hair. The only difference I could see between them was a scar on the ebony shoulder of the closest woman. The two women ran their eyes over me like foxes looking at the occupants of a chicken house.

"What's this, Sal, fresh meat?" one of them asked.

The one with the scar continued, "Shit, Polly, that's not just meat. That's USDA Prime. Sal, you're not going to keep him all to yourself are you?"

Sal chuckled, "You bald headed heifers back off. He's mine."

Polly cried out, "Oh please tell me that I still have a chance!"

I decided to join the fun and put an arm around Sal. "Sorry ladies, I'm a one woman man, and my woman is more than enough for any man."

I had just farted in the crowded elevator. The smiles and laughs were gone and Sal stiffened like concrete. I looked around and saw three very upset women. I pulled my arm from around Sal's shoulder and asked, "What'd I say?"

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH, Tonto, not knowing the Lone Ranger was disguised as a pool table, racked his balls. - Woops, wrong story -

Dewey was fighting a loosing battle with his six foot three inch frame to keep from laughing at his sister. "You know you weren't all that nice, don't you?"

The young blond looked at her older brother. "Dewey, you have no idea what you're talking about!"

"Samantha, think about what you just said. Would you be happy with someone who had just called you stupid? On top of that you called him a liar. If it had been the other way around you would have shot him instead of the snake."

"That's different. I have an advanced education. He went to, of all places, Texas. I was just introducing myself and he threw me off his ranch. I know what it was. I told him that I had put in a bid on the place. He's afraid I'm going to try to steal his worthless ranch."

"Mamtha, why did you go over there?"

"To tell him where his stock was."

"Did you tell him?"

"The son of a bitch threw me off before I had a chance."

"Okay. By the way, what horse were you ridding?"

"Connie."

"As I remember, didn't the Feds pay us to board and care for her, Gentleman Jim, and the others until the new buyer got here?"

"So what, you ride Jimmy."

"Nothing wrong with giving horses exercise they need. That's not my point. You were riding a horse you didn't know, you lost control of it, and your young Texas red neck most likely saved your pretty little ass."

"It wasn't that way!"

"Sure sounds like it to me. Unless we're recognizing you ass isn't all that little or pretty."

"Oh fuck you!"

"Sorry kid, not into incest. It's your loss, by the way. I'm goooooood. Are we still going out to The Dance Hall tonight?"

"What about incest?"