Chapter 69: Home

The flight home Tuesday morning was uneventful. We woke up and hustled to get our bags packed. Thanks to the efforts of Mrs. Wilkes, we had very little in the way of dirty clothes, so we just dumped that in one bag and packed the clean clothes in the others. We also had a bag of some souvenirs for Marilyn’s family, and a little steel drum to bang on for Charlie. He was a little young, but hey, all kids like to play the drums!

Jim and Samantha were flying us again in the Learjet. When Samantha asked if she should sit up front with Jim again, Marilyn turned a dozen shades of red and sputtered out an incoherent, “That won’t be necessary!” I just laughed until I turned red myself. My wife said, “I can’t believe the things you get me to do!”

First stop was at Raleigh-Durham, not Charlotte. For some reason Charlotte couldn’t handle our customs inspection. We made it to the terminal and waited a few minutes while we refueled for the customs officer to show up. We filled out our forms and when he asked, ‘Do you have anything to declare?’, our mutual response was, ‘We need a vacation from our vacation!’ He laughed, stamped our form, and waved us on our way.

While airborne on our next leg, I had Jim send a radio message ahead to have the terminal call the Lefleurs to let them know when we would land. This was to be a quick stop. We weren’t going to have a car waiting for us, and Marilyn’s family was supposed to drive out with Charlie and load him and all his gear onto the Learjet. I hoped to be out of there inside of an hour.

When we floated in for a real greaser landing, Marilyn looked out her window and squealed, “They’re here! I can see their car!” I looked over at her side, but the angle was wrong, and I couldn’t see anything. It felt good to be almost home. Marilyn was excited to be back. She turned to look at me with a big smile. “I really loved it, but I missed Charlie, too.”

“Next vacation, we’ll take him too. I think he’s a little young for Disney, though.”

“That’s not important. We’ll take him, too. Besides, I’ve never been there either,” she answered serenely.

I shrugged. “Just remember the deal. For every kid vacation, you and I take an adult vacation. Start making a list of places you want to go to.”

She simply smiled and shook her head. We pulled up to the terminal and shut down. We wouldn’t need to refuel for the quick trip down to Westminster. After the hatch was opened, we looked out to see Harriet and Big Bob staring at us. We climbed down, and I waved as Marilyn scurried over to her parents. I limped along slowly after her. My leg was still bothering me since the bar fight. I was going to have to get to a gym and a dojo that could work some strength and flexibility back into my knee.

It was a lot cooler in upstate New York than it was in the Bahamas. I was sorry I had left my jacket in the car in Westminster! I gamely hobbled over and shook Big Bob’s hand. “Welcome back!” he said.

“Thanks. It’s good to be home. How was Charlie?” I asked with a nod towards where Marilyn was cooing over our son. He had a big grin on his face, so he obviously still remembered Momma.

“Oh, pretty good. He’s a healthy eater, that’s for sure.” He looked back at the little jet. “This is for real? You really can charter a jet?”

“It’s for real,” I assured him. “Want to see what it’s like?”

He gaped at that, so I touched his elbow and urged him forward. He followed me along, and I let him climb inside. He looked around, and his first comment was, “There’s not a lot of headroom, is there?”

Well, no there wasn’t. “There’re bigger jets than this, but for this trip, this was big enough. Man, it really beats going through airports and sitting back in coach. Fast, too! We left Westminster at ten in the morning and landed in the Bahamas by noon. You spend that long just sitting around in the airport waiting for a regular plane to load. You can’t beat that!”

“Unbelievable!”

I grinned at him. “Next time you and Harriet want to take a vacation by yourselves, let Marilyn know. I’ll set it up for you.”

He stared at me when I said that, but I just smiled and shrugged. Why not, it would be good for family relations. I remembered a trip made a couple of years ago, when the entire family - kids, fiancées, girlfriends, etc. - less us (I was on ready cycle), 20 in all, drove from Utica down to Orlando in a five-car convoy. It took three days with that crowd. Wouldn’t that have been simpler if they had flown charter and then rented a couple of large vans while down there? Probably cheaper, too, when you figure in hotel rooms and meals on the trip down and back. I had been on that trip the first time through, and it was a fucking zoo!

“Well, this is really something, I have to say that!” he said.

“Trust these two to leave us with Charlie and all his gear!” groused Harriet from the bottom of the stairs.

Big Bob ignored the complaint and said, “Mother! You have to see this! Come on up here!”

Harriet grumbled and handed Charlie’s bags up the stairs to the pilot, and then lumbered up the stairs. She immediately began oohing and ahhing herself.

“Make way!” sounded from the bottom of the stairs. Marilyn came up carrying Charlie in his car seat. Samantha immediately moved through the press of people, and they figured out how to secure him on one of the seats. Marilyn told me I was being evicted from my seat for our son, and she would sit across the aisle from him, so that he could see her during the flight. It was a short flight, barely an hour, but better to see Mommy than spend the time screaming. Charlie was a good traveler from what I could see, but better to be safe than sorry. I was moved one row back.

Big Bob and I went back to his car to find anything else left behind, but Harriet and Marilyn had grabbed it all earlier. We shook hands and Marilyn kissed her parents good-bye, and then we went winging off to Westminster. Charlie was the best kind of traveler; he was sound asleep before we ever got to cruising altitude.

When we got back to the town house, Marilyn and I were thoroughly exhausted. Despite the private jet, we had still been on three flights through three airports, and it had taken the day. Charlie woke up as we landed and was pretty good, but he was hungry, so he squawked until Marilyn fed him and I had to handle the luggage myself. It was late in the day, and after we got into the town house, I was immediately sent back out with a grocery list. Add to that a very funky smell from the refrigerator, where we found a bottle of formula from a week ago. Ahhhh - Home Sweet Home!

Wednesday morning, I called John Steiner and asked him how the paperwork was going with the property purchase. He indicated that everything was fine, and that we should be able to close next Friday. Then he invited me to lunch, and I told him I’d meet him at noon in Timonium. He wanted to see me about something but didn’t want to get into it on the telephone.

I got to the steak house at twelve, just in time to find that I was following John into the parking lot. He got a spot near the door, but I had to go around to a different row, so we didn’t meet until I got to the front door. He smiled when he saw me. “Nice tan! Been down in the islands, have we?”

“How’d you know? Did we tell you?” I had to think about it. Marilyn and I hadn’t been secretive about the vacation, but we hadn’t specifically told anybody about it either.

“Yes and no. You told me you were going away, but not where. You did mention something to Missy, I think, or maybe Jake, about the Bahamas. I simply put two and two together.”

I nodded in understanding. We went inside and got to a table quickly, despite the lunch crowd arriving. We both ordered small steaks and salads, and ice teas. John said he was a working man and didn’t need a drink. I joked I wasn’t a working man and could have a drink if I wanted, but then ordered an iced tea anyway. No point in making my friend uncomfortable.

After the waitress left, he looked at me and asked, “How’s your arm?”

“My arm? My arms are fine. What are you talking about?”

“The cut on your arm and the stitches. That’s what I’m talking about.”

My eyes popped at that. “How do you know about that?” I asked.

He reached inside his suit coat and pulled out a folded-up page of the Tuesday edition of the Baltimore Sun, from the local section. ‘ Local Hero Foils Robbery, Catches Bahamas Killers’, was the headline for the piece. “What the hell?” I exclaimed quietly, looking up at John.

“That’s what I said!” he replied.

I looked back down at the paper. The Associated Press had picked up the piece from the Nassau Guardian and run it on the national wires. The Sun had, of course, picked up the piece. It was a no-brainer for them; local boy makes good and all. I ran through it quickly, and it was just a basic rehash of the original Monday morning piece.

I looked back up and just shook my head. “It really wasn’t like that.” I folded the paper up and passed it back.

John refused it. “No, you keep that one for your scrapbook. I have one all for my own.”

“You have a scrapbook?”

“Sure, I put in it all the news pieces about my clients who’ve been in bar fights and gone to jail.”

“Maybe you need to start one about lawyers who do stand-up comedy,” I replied.

John snorted at that. “Do you have life insurance? Should I be finding you a broker?”

I laughed. “Wow! Your wife feeding you Wheaties these days? You’re sure full of piss and vinegar for an old fart!”

“I just don’t want my billable hours being cut when you end up in the morgue!” We both laughed at that, then he asked, “So, tell me the truth, what really happened.”

I shrugged. “It wasn’t all that heroic. Marilyn and I were out barhopping on Saturday night - I mean, we were on vacation, right? - and we were in this one place, late. Nice joint, a little crazy, but not in a bad way. When I got up to go to the bathroom, there was this chick laying on the bar, with her boyfriend doing body shots out of her belly button.”

John rolled his eyes. “I don’t know if I should be jealous or disgusted. Please, please, don’t tell me you had Marilyn do that.”

I laughed. “No, but I think I’ll mention it the next time. Anyway, I head off to the can, and when I come out, now there’s two broads on the bar getting body shots...”

“Naked?”

“No, it wasn’t that crazy. So, I’m actually kind of watching them, when I hear Marilyn scream. I turn around and see this black guy running my way carrying a bunch of purses, including hers, so I stopped him...”

“By putting him in the hospital.”

I ignored this. “ ... and then his two buddies, who were also thieves, came after me, so I stopped them, too. I wasn’t trying to stop a crime wave. I just heard Marilyn scream. You’d have done the same thing.”

“Right, just as soon as I can get Helen into a bar to do body shots.”

I had to grin at that. I had met Helen Steiner any number of times, going back to when I was in Explorers with John and Alan, and while Helen was a lovely lady, she wasn’t exactly shaped for body shots. “I want photos when you do that!”

That got me a smile. “I’ll be needing a lawyer for that, a divorce lawyer!” He reached over and tapped the paper. “Your father called me.”

I sighed. That was an easy one to predict. As long as I had known my family, we had always gotten the Sun, and my father would have certainly read the local news. Hamilton, too, now that I thought about it. Mom and Suzie, not so much. I nodded but didn’t say anything.

“He asked about you, if I had talked to you lately.”

“And you said?”

He just shook his head. “He knows you’re one of my clients. Leaving aside any ethical issues about talking about my clients, I do not want to get into this with you two. You need to work it out on your own. I told him to call you and gave him your phone number.”

I just nodded sadly. “I know. Suzie has told us the same thing. She told me that Dad asks every once in a while but is afraid to say anything in front of Mom or Hamilton. She gave him the number also. What the hell am I supposed to do, John? He won’t even call me from his office. I think he’s afraid of what Mom will do if she finds out he still thinks he has two sons.”

“I don’t have any answers for you either, Carl.”

We let it go at that, and over lunch I told him about the trip down and where we stayed. He was very impressed with our dinner with the Who’s Who of Eleuthera, although I had to remind him it’s a very small place. Then we talked about the property and what we were going to build.

I asked him, “So, know any good home builders?”

“Like contractors?” I nodded as I chewed. He shook his head. “I think you need more than just a contractor. I think you need a professional outfit, one of the big builders. You’re going to need an architect, blueprints, permits, all that stuff. Your average contractor isn’t going to do that.”

I thought about that a second. Back when I was with Lefleur, we often had customers who wanted a package deal, a turnkey project. I had occasionally been forced to be the general contractor myself, and I’m just not cut out for it. I can do it, but I don’t enjoy it. “Okay. I’ll buy that. Know any good professional builders?”

He shrugged. “Nothing rings a bell, but I can’t say as I’ve ever looked. You can call that real estate agent and ask her if she knows any. Heck, on your drive home, just pull into one of the new developments along the way and find the sales office. Those are mostly run by a big outfit. Ask them. For what you want, you’ll want a big outfit.”

“Okay, maybe I’ll do both. If you think of anything, let me know.”

It was a long lunch, a working lunch in a lot of ways, and it was close to two when we left. On the way home, I thought about what John had said, and as I passed a development, saw a sign stating that it was part of Pulte Homes. That was a name that rang a bell. They were a big national outfit of home builders. They would certainly be capable of the job, but would they want to? I was a single house, and these guys thought in terms of hundreds and thousands of houses. Only one way to find out.

There was a young fellow in the sales office, a demo model of a split level. He seemed young, anyway, at least to me, although we were probably the same age. He simply seemed green, like he had just been hired the week before and didn’t know his product or his system or his company. Well, we all have to start somewhere. “Hello! Welcome to Maplewood Manor! How can I help you?” came rushing out, almost before the door was shut behind me.

“I’d like to talk to somebody about building a house,” I replied.

“Well, I’d be happy to help you! Please have a seat.” He waved me to a chair in front of him and picked up a clipboard with a questionnaire. “First things first. Can I have your name, please?”

“Carl Buckman.” I was really starting to figure that this kid wasn’t the fellow I wanted to speak with. For one thing, he hadn’t even introduced himself. Maybe I was supposed to simply read his name tag and leave it at that.

He asked me a few more standard questions, address, phone number, and such, and then asked, “And when would you like to move in?”

I held my hands up in a ‘time-out’ manner. “Hold up a moment ... Scott,” I said, reading his name tag. “I have a few questions first.” He looked at me blankly. “Do you build in other locations than this?”

“Well, Maplewood Manor is owned by the Pulte Group, which has developments all across America...” He started a spiel on the wonders of Pulte.

I stopped him again. “No, I mean, I own my own property already. Do you build on private property or only in a development?”

This really confused him. “You mean you don’t want to live in Maplewood Manor?”

“I am buying property already. Now I need to build a house on it.”

We were now off the charts completely for this poor guy. “I don’t know.”

“Is there somebody who would know?” No way was this kid going to last as a professional salesman. I should know, I had sold homes for over thirty years.

“Well, you could speak to Mister Marsbury,” he said after a few seconds contemplation.

“That would be fine.”

“He’s not here now.”

What a fucking moron! “Well, do you know when he’ll be back? Will it be today?”

He smiled and nodded. “Yes, probably in about fifteen minutes. Do you want to wait for him?”

No, I’m asking because I’m just checking up on you! I was rapidly losing patience. This kid was what we called in the Army a ‘soup sandwich.’ “Please. Do you have a demo unit I could go through while I wait?”

“Sure, we have one right across the street. You’ll be able to learn about living in Maplewood Manor.”

“I’m not moving into Maplewood Manor, remember? Listen, when he gets back, send him over to find me.”