Eric Flint - 1635 - The Eastern Front

"Well… Figure you'd wind up with about two million dollars. Give or take."

Gretchen swallowed. "Two…?million?"

"About. But like I said, if you waited and sold the stocks on the Amsterdam market-and Venetian market, for that matter-and took your time about it-I think you'd wind up getting closer to two and a half million. But the truth is I don't recommend you sell most of these stocks. It's a good portfolio, Gretchen." His slender shoulders became a bit more square. "We did right by you guys, if I say so myself."

"That seems clear enough," Jeff said dryly. He moved from behind Gretchen's chair and pulled up a chair for himself from a nearby side table. The chair was on the rickety side. Gretchen's grandmother Veronica, Henry Dreeson's widow, used that table for her records and correspondence. She was not a large woman and the chair did fine for her. Under Jeff's weight, it creaked alarmingly. Most of the fat that Higgins had carried as a teenager was gone now. But, if anything, the twenty-three-year-old man who'd replaced that teenager was even bigger-and Jeff had been a big kid to start with.

He ignored the creaks. Whatever else, they could obviously afford to replace the chair now, even if it did collapse under him. And he needed to sit down. He was feeling a bit light-headed.

Two million dollars. Two and a half, if you wait.

The only numbers like that he'd ever dealt with, at least when it came to money, were associated with the role-playing games he and his friends had played in high school. So, trying to get a handle on them and turn the abstract into the concrete, he focused on the chair swaying beneath him.

Go ahead, sucker. Break. See if I care. You're kindling in the fireplace and I go out and buy something sturdier to replace you. Out of pocket change.

That thought steadied him some. He glanced at Gretchen, but saw that his wife was in a rare state of paralysis-an almost unheard of state, in her case. She was normally as uncertain as a calving glacier.

"Whether it's a smart move or not, we will need some cash pretty soon, David. I think you call it liquidity or something like that." Jeff nodded toward his sister-in-law, who was sitting next to David on the couch. The eighteen-year-old girl was studying the figures Bartley held in his hand as intently as a cat watching a mousehole. "Annalise needs to start college in the fall, and that scholarship she got won't be enough to cover the cost."

He lifted his hand and spun the forefinger in a little circle. "Not to mention this gaggle of kids we've got to support. Except for Baldy, anyway. He likes his apprenticeship at KSI, and he's even making enough to support himself."

"That's not a problem. What I recommend is that you sell your shares of Kelly Aviation. They're selling like hotcakes right now on account of the war coming, but I don't personally think that's going to last, so you may as well get out while the getting's good."

Feeling under some sort of vague compulsion to demonstrate his masculine mastery of financial matters in front of the womenfolk, Jeff took off his glasses and started cleaning them with a handkerchief. "You sure? I heard those are pretty good planes they make."

"Technically, yes. Bob Kelly knows his stuff when it comes to designing aircraft. In that respect, he's probably just as good as Hal Smith. The problem's on the other end. He's got the business sense of a jackrabbit and while Kay makes up for it some, she's also, well…" He looked uncomfortable. For all his financial acumen, David Bartley wasn't a cutthroat by temperament. He was quite a nice guy, actually, and not given to bad-mouthing others.

"Well," he repeated.

Jeff was less reticent. He'd run into Bob Kelly's wife on several occasions. "Yeah. If pissing people off was an Olympic event, she'd take the gold every time."

David nodded. "I figure you could get three hundred thousand dollars from those stocks. You could set aside twenty-five percent of that as a fund for Annalise, which ought to be plenty even as expensive as Quedlinburg's gotten to be."

Annalise spoke up, her tone a mix of defensiveness and belligerence. "It's the only really good college for women yet. In the USE, anyway. I wouldn't mind going to Prague but Gramma'd pitch a fit."

Jeff put his glasses back on. "That'd leave us with about two hundred and twenty-five thousand. Gretchen wants to move to Magdeburg as soon as possible, now that Ronnie's leaving town, and we'd need to get a house big enough for all the kids. We'd figured on renting, but…" He started doing the needed calculations.

Not surprisingly, David did the figuring faster than he did. "You could buy the kind of house you need for…?I figure about seventy-five thousand dollars. But then you'd own it free and clear and still have a hundred and fifty thousand to live on. Even with all your kids, that's way more than enough."

Gretchen frowned. "Seventy-five thousand? That seems much too high. We're not going to be looking for a home in the rich districts, you know."

"Yeah, sure. You pretty much have to stay in one of the working class areas where the CoCs are strong and can provide you with some protection. You've got a lot of enemies. But for the same reason, you'll need a really solid place. My own advice would be to buy a whole apartment building. Plenty of room for the kids-Ronnie, too, if she wants to move in with you-"

Jeff chuckled. "Not likely. She says she's had enough of babysitting our kids and we can damn well do it on our own from now on. I think she's planning to move in with the Simpsons. She and Mary get along real well, and with the admiral likely to be gone most of the time, Mary'd probably like the company."

Gretchen looked like she was on the verge of choking. "An apartment building? We don't have that many kids. Baldy will be staying here and so will Martha, who wants to finish school. That leaves us with only half a dozen who'll be coming to Magdeburg. And I can assure you that I have no intention of becoming a landlady!"

David made a face. Again, the youngster's nature made it hard for him to state the truth bluntly.

Jeff, on the other hand, had no such compunctions left. Being married to Gretchen for four years had pretty well rubbed off whatever delicate sensibilities he'd ever possessed. "Hon, we've got a lot of enemies. Well, you do, anyway. Most of them don't have much against me except they've got to get past me to put you in the ground."

Gretchen looked at him, a bit crossly. "So?"

"So figure it out for yourself. If we buy an apartment building-depending on the size, of course, but let's figure twelve units, which is pretty standard in the quarters we'd be looking in-then we can set aside half the space for CoC people."

"What do you mean, 'CoC' people-oh."

He grinned. "Yeah. As in 'CoC people handpicked by Gunther Achterhof.' Good luck, anyone's got it in for you getting through that crowd."

David nodded. "That's what I was figuring."

Gretchen looked back down at the sheet. "I still don't really understand how it happened. And without us even knowing about it!"

Bartley looked a bit defensive. "Hey, we told your grandmother what was happening."

Jeff barked a jeering laugh. "Oh, right! And I'm sure you used simple and straightforward language that made lots of sense to Ronnie."

"Well…"

Gretchen shook her head. "Explain it to us again. In simple and straightforward language, this time."

"Well…?Okay. This is simplifying a lot, you understand?"

"I can live with that," said Gretchen. "Whereas you may not, if you do otherwise."

Now, Bartley looked alarmed as well as defensive. "Hey, Gretchen! There's no call for that."

"Relax, David. She's joking." Jeff glanced at his wife. "I…?think. Do your best."

The young financier cleared his throat. "The gist of it is that, way back when, my grandmother gave you guys some stock in the sewing machine company by way of a belated wedding gift. On account of Jeff's father and my mother were first cousins, which makes me and Jeff second cousins." He rattled off the precise family relationships with the ease of any person raised in a small town. "You remember?"