The Time Harvester by D.A.Sanford - HTML preview

Martha the accountant

I go over and meet the accountant. She is a no nonsense person. I walk in and she greets me. “Hello Steve, I’m Martha. You need to answer me one thing. Entering in to this you become in jeopardy of being on the wrong side of the law. Are you aware of this?”

“Yes I am.”

“Good, sit down. What business are you starting?”

I’m slow but not that slow. “I invent things and I want to start a business. These inventions will be big sellers.”

Martha stops me there. “You will have ten failures for every successful one. Each failure can be written off. Now , I will set up your business along with the bank account. Your contact will have the ability to deposit. Just notify me to watch for it. Those will be contracts, advance payments for product.”

Then she says, “As with your contact, I get fifteen percent. That is my retainer for full service. I can see concern on your face. That idiot did not tell you, the more he sells your gold and silver for, the more we all make. Don’t worry, Carmine will get you the best price.”

We sign some paperwork and part ways. I go home and tell Shela about all, then as the last information,

“Those twenty five coins, we should walk away with around one hundred grand after the two cuts”

In just a few days we hear from Carmine that the deal went through and the total sold for over two hundred thousand. That amounts to, after fees to a little over one hundred seventy six thousand being deposited in your account today. Please let your accountant know that I am depositing her portion to her account.

I immediately called Martha and she thanked me. She informed me that my company is now official and has received a contract for developing a product of confidential nature described in a secret courier package. Your account reads one hundred seventy six thousand one hundred seventy six.

She says I should look into home improvements. “Most are tax deductible.”

I told her that we are doing only modest renovations but now I need to rent a building for those inventions. She tells me that she knows of one vacant that could be bought at under seventy thousand. I ask her if she, as my accountant, would handle the purchase.

“That’s what you pay my retainer for. I’ll have it within a week.”

After I hung up, I told Shela that I was quitting my job and now I am in business for myself. I also suggested that she come to work for me.”

She is looking puzzled so I tell her of the deposit and the fact that I needed a building to start my inventing. “We have a research and development order already.” Then I explained that this was to cover the deposit into the business account.

I asked Martha to set up modest salaries for the both of us. She told me that it has already been set up.

What a morning. Time to start cutting down those trees. I cut down most of the trees on the lot. A local firewood dealer came and made me an offer for the fallen ones. He also said that for a modest fee, he would take all the ones closest to the house. I bargained with him and he agreed that he would take the house ones down in exchange for the already downed ones. I in turn would hire him to grind all the stumps at his going rate.

I informed Martha of the bartered end of our deal and that he would only be sending her the bill for stump grinding. She told me that it was a good deal but we needed a landscaper who would replant bushes and some fruit trees. Those would be deductible as “Green” improvements.

In the area that was going to be for the trailer, I had a number of those moving portable storage boxes and Shela and I emptied the house. The good stuff we put in storage. The rest was going to go into a dumpster but as we were bringing the first load out to dispose of it, Martha stopped by to give me the deed to the building. She saw what we were going to throw out and stopped us. She wanted to go through the stuff.

We showed her through the place and the things we packed. She is almost drooling. She nearly passed out when I told her that she could have all that was inside the storage units and anything we really had no use for, she could have as a courtesy.

“We just need to sort through the place to make sure that there isn’t something that we absolutely needed.”

She asks about the carriage house. I told her that we cleared the top floor for our living space. I take her to the two cars. She is frantically taking pictures and asks if these are for sale. I tell her at a fair price. She speed dials someone and sends the pictures.

“The person is coming down as we speak. He says that if they are as pictured he will bring cash. Don’t worry he talks big cash.” Martha waved any fees. She will pay for the storage units and whatever is left in the house that we do not want.

Shela shakes her hand and I tell her that we should declare the sale. She looks at me as if I was insane. “Private sales of automobiles are just that private. It does not have to be declared.”

As we are talking a car pulls up and behind the car is a pickup towing a very large covered trailer.

The man and what turns out to be his personal mechanic come up and wants to see the cars. I open the doors and he is delighted. The mechanic opens the cars looks through them and pronounces them to be completely original.

I don’t know cars. Stick the fob into your pocket and push the button on the dash. I am told that they are both Duesenberg’s on of them is a SJ model but the other is a 1929 model J Torpedo with the disappearing top. That one is extremely rare.

The man opens his case. There inside is a large gold bar and what he said was a hundred thousand in cash. The hundred thousand had me sold but he told me the bar was also mine. My accountant looked at me and could see that I was having trouble.

“You do know that this size bar is approximately 27 pounds. At today’s price for gold that’s a little over a million dollars in gold. I will liquidate it for you. Again without a fee.”

I take his hand and they back the trailer up. The mechanic loads them. As they drive off, she looks at me and said that I could have milked him for another bar. “Fully restored he will get ten times what he paid for them.”

Looking at her, “I don’t care, we are going to hire professionals to restore this wonderful home. I’ll finish tomorrow with looking through the house and the next day we will help pack it for you.”

“No need I have some boys that will do it for me. This lot will make me more than my fee would have been.”

We laugh as I tell her “One man’s trash. You are doing so much for us. Now I can set up that building and start inventing. I should, in a few month’s time get a very large contract. I’ll let you know but this first invention may not be what the client wants.”

With the cars sold, we had moved a few things into where the cars were but the rest of the house was cleaned out, the storage containers were picked up and delivered to the address my accountant gave them. I found out that she has a large warehouse and she told me that she made more than she figured.

Things in the business are going well. We have many coin folios filled now. Maybe the old jewelry could be auctioned off a little at a time and we have only gone through a few boxes. The biggest find was in a small trunk. It almost went unnoticed.

I opened it and found a weird looking device that can only be described as a not of this world lap top. There is also an old journal. I open and read.