Chapter 12

(Authors note: I know I made it sound like Bill Slagle knows about the watch ... he doesn't.)

The welcome home was enthusiastic ... satisfying and thorough. Changing the sheets for a dry spot and opening the windows on both ends of 'the attic' dissipated the 'freshly fucked' atmosphere. Our happy lovers showered and headed out to replenish depleted energy sources ... PIZZA!

Anyone watching the pair would never expect they were married ... married couples don't cuddle on one bench in a booth ... nor do they feed each other choice tidbits ... and they certainly never have to wash faces to remove the evidence. Mr. and Mrs. Slagle, Ph.D (plural) demonstrated they were high school kids on a date. If the management weren't aware, they would have been asked to 'keep it down.' As it was "get a room" was heard more than once.

"We have a room!"

Eventually, they ended up in a puppy pile in said room.

On the morrow, Andie decided she wasn't sufficiently funded.

So...

Using the watch...

She bet ten thousand dollars on Red Rum to win the 1973 Grand National and cleared eighty grand.

She bet with local bookies on high school baseball games, league games, the playoffs and the Series and cleared just under five million..."There's no sense in being greedy," she said.

She did her 'financial work' on the weekends. During the week she timed it to her local ancestry past. As a side hobby she bought (rescued) old cars using a 1919 REO flatbed with a car hauler trailer. Since the REO was NEW when she bought it, she didn't have many breakdowns ... besides ... we're talking about Andy ... and her tools. Up 'til 1933 she paid in gold, and after that she paid in silver.

The ancestral family fled to the Colonies in 1781 and settled around Charleston, Virginia. The family patriarch Freiherr Augustus Koenigsknecht, Knight of the King, fell out of favor when the House of Habsburg became extinct in the 18th century. The senior branch ended upon the death of Charles II of Spain in 1700 and was replaced by the House of Bourbon. The remaining branch went extinct in the male line in 1740 with the death of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI and completely in 1780 with the death of his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, and was succeeded by the Vaudemont branch of the House of Lorraine. The new successor house styled itself formally as House of Habsburg-Lorraine although it was often referred to as simply the House of Habsburg. The Vaudemonts held a remembered slight and the Koenigsknecht's fled the wrath ... and possibly the axe.