Chapter 16

I carried the remains of my coffee pot from home to the office. I sipped on that while the office Mr. Coffee worked its magic. Ed brought his fancy coffee in the designer label cup through the door just before 9 AM. I had already been doing research for the sign project. I had even left a message for Jen asking what I had to do to be legal. The sign was subterfuge, but I didn't want the county tax people to have their noses out of joint.

I had no idea when I might hear from her, so I moved on to considering a sign painter. I actually looked in the yellow pages and on line for a contact number. There were two in Aster, so I had a local choice. Nothing about either made a big impression on me. That being the case, I had waited for Ed to arrive.

"Hey, Ed," I said, with a hearty smile, "What do you know about sign painters."

"Actually nobody really paints signs anymore. Some computer geek prints them or has his computer cut the letters out and he just assembles it."

"That's more than I needed to know. What I meant was, who should I call to have a sign made for the Minivan?"

"Michael Burke did my sign for me. I guess he did a good job, and if I remember right, the price was okay."

"Knowing you, Ed, the price was terrific. You haven't paid the full retail price for anything since I have shared this office with you."

"I'm careful," he said smiling.

"Okay, Michael Burke it is." I made the call. Burke was actually at his phone. He was the first person who I had found in on the Tuesday morning.

"Sure, I can swing by on my way to install a sign for the Plaza Center. I have to meet the electrician there at 11 AM. I can be at your place around 10:30, if that's okay?"

"That would be just fine. I need to get a little legal advice, but I would like to be sitting on dead ready when I have it."

"Good, see you then."

"So you are going to give the thug a run for his money. You have all my business and all my friends' business as well."

"Not so fast, let's make sure Lucas and I can do it first. I have a lot of things to get lined up."

"If you want to do it, you will do it. I know you, Max. Nothing stops you when you put your mind to it."

"Gee, I wish I was the person you all think I am." I smiled when I said. I paused a few minutes to think what I should do next. "Ed, what time does Lucas usually show up?"

"About anytime he wants. There wasn't much to do around here. He did carry your cell phone home with him, so he worked about whenever he wanted, or at least whenever he could."

"Okay, I'll keep an eye out for him. At least he left me the phone, so I'm back in business." I also found the note with three names attached to a stack of tri-folded, blue wrapped, sheets of papers. Anyone could tell by looking that they were lawyer's papers awaiting service. I took a look at the dates. The oldest was not quite a week old so they weren't too bad. On the note was written the dates of the attempts to serve and the results.

After the sign painter leaves, I will have to deal with these, I thought. In the meantime I just sat there in a stupor drinking coffee. I had other things to think about before Lucas and I could really begin to work. I began by making myself a shopping list. It wasn't for a pound of sugar though. The first item was plastic wire ties. Those were a poor man's handcuffs. Best of all you could buy them at Home Depot. Not so the taser that I needed for the kid, or even the pepper spray. Those I had to go at least into Tryon to purchase. There were two possibilities there, an army and navy store, and a gun shop. Both would carry the gas and maybe the stun gun type taser. I wasn't so sure about the taser gun, should I decide to go that route, I had no idea where to look. Even that wasn't the huge issue, because I had to have a couple of bulletproof vests and some radio equipment. Those were the major items.

Best I could tell, the vests were going to run about 3 bucks each. I needed two of them. Then there were the walkies. The actual size of the radio was immaterial. I needed to be sure there were blue tooth looking headsets available for them. Enough people had seen the telephones so that they might not to be intimidated by them. It would still allow instant communications between the two of us. Those were going to run at least a buck each, it appeared.

Then there were the beanbag firing shotguns for the really bad guys, loaded with beanbag rounds for the take down. I at least would carry a pocket full of buckshot, in case the situation became really intense. Those would run about two more each. It looked as though I was going to need to come up with a grand apiece for us. I had the money and I had already decided to do it, so it was just a matter of biting the bullet and writing the checks.

I had a rough plan made when Lucas showed up at the office. "Hello, Ms Stone," he said, as he approached my desk.

"Good morning, Lucas, you doing okay?" I asked.

"Yes Ma'am, I'm fine."

"Good, could you tell me about these papers you didn't get to serve?"

"Yes Ma'am. One of them the people doesn't live there and nobody knows where they are. The other two I could never seem to find, but I know they are still living here."

"I have a sign painter on the way, so why don't we try to find these three people while we wait?"

"Sure, what should we do first?"

"Let's start with where they work, if they do?" I reached into the stack and pulled one at random. "Lucille Everston, bad checks, your note says she never comes home according to the neighbors."

"Well, they said she doesn't come home for days at a time. I didn't figure it would do much good to wait around for her."