Chapter 107

The morning after I was released from jail, I was back in the airplane. I rode the trike to the strip, then I towed the plane to a spot where I could take off into the prevailing wind currents. The little canary rolled out nice and got enough lift to take off in a very short distance.

After two hours in the air, I settled back on the ground as gently as a butterfly. It was a great experience flying the canary. I was getting to be a confident, if not really experienced pilot. Being able to use the plane in the business a little had made it a business expense, so I informed the bookkeeper of it's change in status. I expected to find other ways to use it so I felt like all the money I had spent on flying lessons, the field, and the canary should be deductible. Even the riding lawn mower and hanger should be included. Hey some things just lose money, but are still business expenses.

"Rita called to say she was leaving," Wilson said as he greeted me. "She said to keep in mind what she said about the hotel. What does that mean?"

"She wanted me to be careful not to invest more than I could get out of the hotel," I explained.

"I agree you should be careful, but I wouldn't make that the end all of your decision making," Wilson said and I agreed.

I was still letting the owner stew a couple of day later when I got the call came from Monument distributing company. "Miss Porter, I was wondering if you would meet me for coffee?" the CEO of the distribution company asked.

"Of course when and where?" I asked.

"I was a driver for 15years and I can't get a decent cup of coffee in this town. But I do have a wife, who can make a good cup. How about you come over to my house tonight at 7PM?" he asked.

"Sure, just give me the address and I'll be there," I said. After he hung up I realized I didn't get his name. I looked it up on the internet and found his name was Nathaniel Borgis. The names just kept getting more and more strange. The day past with me looking up things on the internet other than Nathaniel that is. I found out that a metal balcony for the Hotel would run several hundred dollars each. It was all probably a waste of time, since I didn't own that hotel yet.

"Sylvia Porter," I said extending my hand to the man who met me at the door.

"Nathaniel, but you can call me Nate," he said stepping away from the door so that I could enter. He and I went into the kitchen where it was cold with the air conditioner going full blast. He trophy wife came through and spoke to me. Well it was not really speaking to me she kind of acknowledged my existence with a nod of her head.

After she left the kitchen Nate poured me a coffee that should have tarnished the stainless spoon. "Wow that shit will put hair on your chest for sure. And I really don't need that. And no you can't have it back," I said taking another sip.

"Yeah, we make strong coffee here. The wife thinks it's very European therefore real classy. It's really what they serve in most truck stops across this country." he said.

"That's good to know," I said. I had about two more sips before he spoke again.

"The reason I call you Sylvia is someone told me you were a first class problem solver. Needless to say I have a problem," Nate confided in me.

"Well I hope I can help," I said.

"We have had trucks hijacked twice this month. The bad guys took them somewhere unloaded the merchandise then dumped the truck in a Motel parking lot in the watchtower section of town. They were different spots, but both were in Watchtower. I just got this email today." he said turning his laptop to me.

'Mr. Borgis due to your two large losses merchandise in such a short time, we will be forced to cancel your cargo insurance, should you have anymore losses. It is our desire that you stay a customer, but we can no longer afford to insure you.' "Without cargo insurance I will be ruined, if I have an uninsured loss."

"Tell me a few things about your operations. Have the hijackers taken expensive and easy to move merchandise, or has it been just random merchandise of no particular value?" I asked.

"One load was one of the new smart phone shipments. We run eighteen foot cube vans. We can get one heck of a lot of those phones in a truck. The second truck was filled with cans of caviar from Norway. That was also a very expensive load. Meantime plastic toys and baskets meant for the dollar store markets go through undisturbed," he informed me.

"You think the thieves have inside information," I asked.

"Yes I do," Nate said.

"Okay give me a list of all your employees and all the pertinent information on them also give me the date and locations of the thefts." I demanded. Nate passed me a large manila envelope. It contained all the personnel information.

I stood to leave as soon as I had the envelope. "Thanks for the coffee. It was really quite good. Next time come to my place. Mine isn't too bad either." I said as I headed to the door.

During the drive to the barge I thought about his problem. If he lost that insurance he could send a half million dollar truck load of game units out to be lost. Since that was the case he really was motivated to stop it.

Since the bad guys knew which were the valuable loads, they obviously had someone alerting them. My guess was the inside man called them in time to get to a point where they could intercept the truck. There was one thing I could do to improve the client's chances to avoid a repeat right now.