Chapter 6: Either aTotal Lack of Education, or an Excess

Helen discovered, at their age of fourteen, Bob had no idea of even the concept of money. One could question what teenager really does, but between the ages nine to eighteen years, Bob was being paid a minimum of £A500 and up a hit, which at that time, in the mid to late '50s, was the going price of a three bedroom brick bungalow in the inner suburbia of the most expensive real estate city of the country. Mother Harrison in her heyday had him doing three to four hits a week. Bob simply tossed the bundle of notes to Harry and muttered, 'do something with this shit would you?' and then they went out to an after-hours licenced venue for a few quiet schooners and a meal fit for a couple of growing boys. Hotel closing hour in the earlier days was six o'clock, kotowing to the wowser element, which changed in 1955 to ten PM. They were a couple of Mother's Boys, and they were not only not questioned about their ages, most grown men would not look them in the eye.

Most people learn the value of money due to the hardships they experienced without it. At no time, from his puberty years on, was Bob anything but what most people would term as rich, with nothing much to do more than remove some poor sod to earn as much, or sometimes even more, than he could carry. Harry was never sure what Bob's finest talent was, murdering people without being a suspect or even a consideration in the crime, or making huge quantities of money without an inkling of what to do with it.

Which brings us to this present age, where Bob is the remarkable age of seventy-four; remarkable for a professional assassin and hit man that is. And at this age, Helen, in the guise of Bob, and Tilly were discussing what Bob should do with all his money. Bob, being Bob asked, "All what money, sibling?" Helen led Bob, that is, Bob made his way, to a mass of ledgers hidden under Helen's old run down two room shack he/she lived in just off the beach, and which Bob still owned according to Helen.

Helen had concreted into solid volcanic bedrock a large fireproof document safe, which of course Bob, in his normal manner of respecting Helen's privacy, had no idea even existed. Helen led Bob and Tilly page by page, through where each block of capital was invested, and all Bob became was very confused and even nodded off once while Helen kept the body in action. Tilly however saw the bottom line; and immediately lost all sensation in her lower limbs.

Helen, then known as Harry to everyone but Bob, had been investing Bob's money with his/hers, (and later Arnu's, which was made up mainly of CIA payments) under Bob's real/original surname of Pearson, who nobody else alive today has connected Bob Fischer with. Authorities are unsure where this R Pearson resided or what his nationality was as he was not on the electoral roles and his address was only a post office box in Sydney. Bob had two fully legal identities, both fully taxpaying. One identity is of R Pearson, no first name given but it was Robert, who is extremely wealthy, and the other of Fischer, who earns pocket money by selling lobsters locally with an occasional repayable loan off his friend Pearson, which Pearson usually writes off on his taxes as a loss on an unrepaid loan in a few years. The Taxation Department, years ago, tried to find some kind of personal contact between them and could not find anything in common between the individuals. All their pre Viet Nam and service records had simply disappeared in the pre-computer days, which was where the Fischer identity was born.

Before his latest dividend payments were announced, R Pearson was currently worth in the vicinity of eight hundred million dollars, plus or minus ten million. Bob farted, barely keeping control of his bowels, and almost swallowed his tongue. If one viewed the whole scene as a video, you would have seen Bob showing Tilly the books and explaining everything to her, and she knew for a fact, that her Uncle Bob had no idea what he was talking about. So what she had seen as her Uncle Bob's oncoming senility, possibly even Alzheimer disease, suddenly became rather ... eerie, she would best describe it. But she was so pleased to have her Uncle Helen back.

She began directly addressing the entity she knew from birth as Uncle Helen as she never would have discussed so many things with her beloved but naïve Uncle Bob. Bob's mouth said, "not naïve, just not willing to face the reality into which his little girl was rubbing his nose. Be kind to the only person you have left who is exclusively yours and totally loyal to a fault." She now could discuss and receive factual information from her Uncle Bob on her female problems, which were once always Uncle Helen's forte. Having Uncle Bob knowing about them, seemed a bit embarrassing to Tilly, but she can live with that. The only education that Bob had had on female problems is how to have sex and leaving any female partner exhausted but satisfied. He had never had a relationship longer than the ones he's now having with his two current lovers.

Most local people see Rachael as Bob's common law wife, where they consider each other as long term friends with benefits. As a growing lad his only experiences he had with females was either Mother, who was not altogether the best female role model, or his real mother who went under the surname of Galbraith, and rarely had less than two men at a time in her bed. His early relationships were mainly either freebies, from pros wanting to fuck an influential kid, or something akin to rape, for girls sucking up for his money but not willing to place their body on the line to get it. The name usually used was cockteasers, a very common commodity in the warped morality of the 1950s, but saying no, didn't carry much weight with our boy, as to him, they must pay their dues as he had no emotional tie to any of them. Or to most of anyone else, come to that.

Give him a word like menarche and he would need to get out a dictionary, and the only expression he had even heard of for menstruation was 'on the rags'. One has to remember his formal educational level, none, as he learned to read and write as an aid to helping him break into and rob houses and businesses. Seeing his mechanical aptitude and his list of inventions, this makes Bob close on a genius, into the realms of Alexander Graham Bell's ability.

Rachael was generally pleased to return to the mainland on Mondays for the rest and hoping that Jocelyn takes the edge off his libido before the next weekend. Jocelyn has kept the Café operating and brought a new young girl in as an assistant. Fourteen year old orphan, Emma Garrigeld spends regular nights at Jocelyn's island home, and Jocelyn is grateful for the relief but Emma can't hack it two nights in a row and sleeps in Tilly's room for a break. Bob reckons that Emma has a good tan, and being Arnu's half-sister's daughter she would, but has no ticker.

The discussion went aloud like this, between Bob and Helen, " ... yeah I gave Arnu and Emmeline, two million dollars when they said they were leaving; two million? Yeah two million, in US currency; why so much, why didn't they tell me they were leaving? Oh, that wasn't so much, as his bankroll was about fifteen million, fifteen million, my God. Of course they wouldn't tell you, you would have shit. No I wouldn't, but they coulda said someit. For someone worth well over eight hundred million; don't say that your making my stomach turn; yeah I am, aren't I. Really, be fair dinkum, none of yous blokes ever trusted me."

Tilly, "Would you stop that, you're giving me a headache."

Helen, "Oh, sorry Short Arse, " The worst that Bob has ever called his little angel, is ratbag, though she herself deems that as a fairly apt description.

"Uncle Helen, if I've told you once..." do you get the picture? They may have been able to finish each other's sentences but they each had their own fields of expertise, and money wasn't Bob's. On the subject of self-regulating floating proximity mines and tidal and ocean current generated energy, to Helen it was all Chinese.

Bob, using Helen's expertise, created a company, which he named Fischer Pisces and Power Research Incorporated, with the object of researching ecofriendly electrical production, able to survive independently, that is maintenance free, within the local North Queensland environment. Bob and Tilly with their assistant, Junior, who had asked to be known as Cecil when the kudos was distributed, were bankrolling the research under the research funding of Pearson Annuities, who are high risk venture capital providers, and employing labour as required, and it is himself, Bob Fischer as the main wellspring of invention and company employee with the able assistance of Tilly and Cecil.

Seeing this type of research is notable for its loss promotion for financiers, they had requested a research grant from the Feds and it was surprisingly, immediately granted by the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation), then refused by Pearson Ann., being the major financier, due to the amount of influence the CSIRO wanted within its minor donation. This caused an official investigation by ASIO and the AFP of Pearson Ann., as it's known, but it could only be found to be a private investment company with unknown limited shareholders and not publicly listed, something like sixty-five years old, without any other links to Fischer.

The company is known by the taxation department, to strangely, and regularly, lend money to Fischer, and to then write the loan off as a bad debt. At its earliest point it may have had shady roots, as it reportedly had links to the late Mother Harrison crime family, but the fund was still openly active after the family's total annihilation by unknown forces in the mid '90s. ASIO (spooks) and the AFP (Feds) wanted to become involved to delve their way into Fischer's organisation and to obtain dirt on him using the CSIRO as a legitimate front.

Bob had mentioned, seemingly to himself, "that seems to be a rather limiting area where this learnt knowledge, and all that money, can become useful," and then he seemingly answered himself, "Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Indian coastal and river, Pacific Ocean Atolls and Islands, Hawaii, perpetually flooded and bankrupt Bangladesh... I think you have made your point sibling. By limiting our area of research, and where we carry out our research, we keep our upcoming patents reasonably secret, remember Bonny. And just remember, it is our money to spend any way that we want."

Their current research assistant, a graduate from Brisbane U, was as a sideline a fully paid employee of ASIO. He started to become very confused when he heard these insane, one sided discussions, which Fischer seemed to have with himself. The one sided conversations would have been considered intelligent, commercial and scientifically competent, if it wasn't only one person having that conversation. The spy had even done a small search during these overheard discussions and had only ever found the man's self-confident and self-reliant niece who sometimes even joins in, in what appears, to then become a three way conversation. The animal-who-does-not-speak, if asked what is going on, only growls ominously.