Chương 54: Book 3 - Chapter 3 A

On the 16th, we flew out to Los Angeles. There were five of us: Matt and I, Grandpa, Mark Waring and Megan Stoop. We flew First Class, which was a first for all of us. As the plane leveled out, with Grandpa engrossed in a financial report, I leaned over to Matt and gestured to Mark and Megan, who were reviewing a stack of binders a few seats away.

"See Mark and Megan?" I asked.

"They're here for the Ambassador Hotel acquisition. Mark Waring is the President of Grand Lux Management and Megan Stoop is the Vice President of Training." Matt looked confused.

"Why does he need a separate company just for people?"

"Because Grandpa bought their company just to run his hotels," I explained.

"Grandpa is the CEO of the Grand Lux Hotel Group—he's at the top." I quickly sketched a simple organizational chart in my notebook.

"Then you have two main legs underneath him. My Dad runs Grand Lux Properties. That's the facilities side—all the maintenance, engineering, and renovation work. Megan and Mark handle Grand Lux Management. They staff and train every new hotel we buy, like this Ambassador. It's too big a job to hire everyone one-by-one."

"So your Dad does the physical stuff and Mark and Megan do the people stuff," Matt summarized.

"Exactly. It's a huge operation now, essential for all the properties he's picking up, like the Fort Worth Blackstone and now the LA Ambassador."

"So why tell me?" he asked.

"Don't let Megan think you're under her. She is a master at training people. She'll start trying to train you to observe protocol. You're my driver and my bodyguard. You're not a butler."

"I'm not a butler," he agreed with a laugh. I settled back into my large leather covered seat to enjoy the in-flight movie. I didn't tell him that he needed to stay away from Megan because she was attracted to him, it would have had the opposite effect. There was a different woman I was saving Matt for. One who would make him truly happy. Upon arrival a limo picked us up and took us to the property. It's huge—over 20 acres in the heart of LA—and it's clearly been worn by time. That was fine.

Grandpa had double sized plans for the property. But first, I had a little digging to do. After we checked in, the adults went off to do a tour of the hotel, meet the staff and assure everyone that things will go on and that grand renovations would be coming so the old gal would shine again. I unpacked my clothes, then, with my secret mission in mind, I took a garden trowel out of my bag.

"What is that for?" Matt asked, surprised to see me triumphantly holding a garden trowel above my head.

"I'm going to look for hidden treasure. Want to come?" I said, smiling.

"Another one of those adventures you like having?" he asked.

"Of course! Come on, it'll be fun!" I insisted. Shaking his head with a slight smile, he followed me out.

"Your Grandpa told me about Belle Star's treasure," Matt said as we walked out.

"Is this something like that?"

"Sure is. The story starts in Germany, April 1936. Mordecai Levi sees the antisemitism of the Nazi Party. He decides, with his family, to move their resources out of the country and to find a safe place for them to flee to," I told him, as we headed down the hallway at a brisk pace to the elevator. I continued as the elevator door shut.

"He liquidates much of their wealth and smuggles it out of the country into Switzerland. In Switzerland he converts everything he has into stocks of American companies. The shares are easily transportable and redeemable for cash." The elevator doors slid open and I paused the story as I walked out of the building. I continued once we were outside in the bright sun.

"Then he takes a boat to the United States. He travels across the country to California to purchase a home for his family to live in. It's as far from Germany as he can get." The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. I headed to the northeast corner of the property and Matt continued following. He was completely into the story I was telling.

"By now over a year has gone by and things in Germany are getting much worse. After purchasing a suitable home he puts the stocks in a bank safe-deposit box and comes here, to the Cocoanut Grove, to hear the music. He loves it and decides to stay an extra day but while he's here, he hears rumors about arrests in Germany.

"He leaves a note at the house he purchased describing where the stocks are and the code words to retrieve them and a map to where he's hidden the key. But first, he buries the key here at the Ambassador Hotel just in case." Matt, entranced by the tale watched as I step off twenty paces from the corner of the building.

"What happens then?" he asked, eagerly.

"He arrives back in Germany December 1938. He's warmly welcomed back, straight into a concentration camp. He and his entire family end up dead. The house sits vacant for a few years before vandals burn it. The city repossesses it for back taxes and the property gets sold, bulldozed and rebuilt." I'm standing in the rough grass. A glance confirms no one is around. I look down at my feet.

"The safe-deposit box key that he buried is still here. It's right under my foot. It's in a glass jar, which is inside a tin can. Want to dig it up?" Matt looked around to confirm no one seemed to be paying us any attention.

"Go ahead, I'll keep an eye out," he said. My shovel scraped against something hard about two feet down, making me stop and dig around it, eventually unearthing a metal container. I pulled it out of the ground and carefully removed the intact glass jar.

"Let's head back to the room," I told Matt. He looked at me and the dark brown jar. Then Matt kicked the dirt back into the hole. I gave him the rusted metal can and said, "Toss this in the trash on the way back." We got back to the room, and I carefully opened the sealed jar. The brass key slid out into my hand.

"It's in very good condition," Matt said, as I held the brass key up to show him.

"It is a very nice key," I agree.

"What happens if you don't use it?" he asks.

"It's a ninety-nine year prepaid lease on the safe-deposit box. Access to the box is by last name and code word. You would think it would be safe, but the bank closes in a few years, which means the box is eventually declared abandoned.

"They open the box but it is reported as assorted old documents and its contents are walked off with by a couple of bank employees."

"And what are we going to do?" he asked.

"Well, one of those names is Carpenter. I know the access password, and we have the key, so we are going to go open it up and take it."

"That easy?!" he exclaimed, a note of disbelief in his voice.

"I'll just have to tell Grandpa tonight," I said with a big grin.

"I'm looking forward to the look on his face. What do you want to do for the rest of the day?" Matt asked.

"I'm thinking of hitting the swimming pool till dinner time." Matt was right the look on Grandpa's face was hilarious. He looked faint as I told him the story. Finally he asked, "Was he really a relative of mine?"

"Actually he was Grandpa, a very, very distant cousin. Either you go collect it, or someone else will walk off with it."

"We will go in the morning!" he declared. It was that easy. On Friday morning The Farmers and Merchants Bank looked up the records, discovered the lease and stipulations, and verified Grandpa was a Carpenter with the password 'Cocoanut Grove' and the key. We were escorted to the vault, the bank unlocked their side, and once alone Grandpa opened his. The box was crammed with stacks of aged, brittle-looking papers, tied with a faded blue ribbon. I couldn't help but reach out and touch the papers.

The history and loss wrapped up in ribbon, and a story only I had known. We put them into Grandpa's briefcase and walked back out of the bank. We were back in plenty of time for lunch. After Grandpa secured his briefcase in the hotel safe we headed to the hotel coffee shop to eat.

"What are we going to do with the 'deposit?'" Grandpa asked.

"How about a quick flight to the Caymans?" I asked him.

"How quick?" he asked.

"Five hours," I said.

"That's not quick at all."

"It's twenty-five hundred miles but I bet Grandma would love to go. Her birthday is next month. It would be a nice treat after the grand reopening party," I suggested.

"That sounds like a good idea and it's closer from Tulsa too," Grandpa said.

"A thousand miles closer."

"Good, I can wait. Any idea of the value?" he asked.

"Consider what you paid for this place, and my estimate for its reconstruction. The 'deposit' is double that investment," I said, with perfect timing. Grandpa spewed coffee over the entire table. I blocked with a menu but Matt did not. When they finished cleaning up, they both glared murderously at me but I just laughed. That afternoon Matt drove me to the company in LA that would build our fire tornado machines. I gave them the design drawings and ordered a thousand small ones, and three large ones.

They promised to have the first batch sent to us as quickly as they could.