Chapter 21: Tuesday

I woke up Tuesday, excited to start my day. I was finally well rested. Thankfully, nobody I knew had called me before a reasonable hour.

Some time during the early dawn hours, in between dreams, I decided I was going to trust Matt about Laura. Afterwards, I decided I was going to manipulate Matt and find out what he knew about Laura’s situation. Then, I decided, I didn’t know what to do and just went back to sleep.

While prepping for my appointment with Mr. Taylor the phone rang. “OH MY GAWD! YOU DID NOT TELL ME IT WAS THE MICHAEL TAYLOR.” Jet shrieked into the phone. I was pretty sure my right ear was permanently deaf.

“The Michael Taylor?” I mimicked.

“I can’t believe this. After all we’ve been through. It is the least you could have done.” He sounded genuinely hurt. I laughed at his flair for drama. I had known him fourteen days—though it seemed longer to me too.

I opted to go with logic. “Let’s back up. Who is The Michael Taylor and why should I know him?”

Jet answered me with some sort of sputter sound and I wondered if his coffee had just shot through his nose. “You know.” He started, “You need to come over to my office. If you really don’t know who The Michael Taylor is, well… you’ve been living in a box for too long.”

I assured him I would stop by as soon as I could. Because, now I too, was curious who The Michael Taylor was.

Jet’s office looked dustier than the last time I saw it. But, today Jet was dressed in business casual, complete with (of all things) loafers. “Fancy.” I said approvingly as surveyed him.

“Finally, you check me out.” He said throwing up his hands in mock frustration.

“Who’s The Michael Taylor?” I asked cutting to the chase.

Jet shot me a look of pity, as if I somehow had been living in a small Ubange Village in the African jungle for too long. He took an unnecessary breath, trying to contain his amazement and garner as much patience under the circumstances.

“Michael Taylor was the drummer for the Tangerine Electric Monkeys.”

I started at him, nonplussed.

Jet took this as a sign to continue. “He is my idol. I have TEM’s whole anthology. Michael Taylor is, the virtuoso. He can play, like, every instrument. Drums, guitar, piano, and of course my favorite. You should just hear him on the flugelhorn.” Jet gushed. “He is one of the most talented musicians of all time. Wait!” he ran out the room, calling me to follow.

In the back room, which consisted of the same ugly carpet and bare walls, there were several more filing cabinets and in the corner a huge safe. “I took the liberty,” he started, working the combination, “to back up my collection in different formats just in case.” He looked up at me solemnly he opened the safe with a grandiose gesture.

Popping his head into the safe, he pulled out a couple of CDs of what looked like 1980s music. “Look. I even put a CD player in here so if I can’t find a suitable format later in life, I will have a way to play these. Also,” he said with a conspiratorial tone, opening a shoe box, “I have digital versions as well and an MP3 player, flash drive, and more. I just want to make sure it is saved for my children’s enjoyment.”

He opened a CD case, showing me a grainy picture of the band. “That’s him.” He said, pointing to one of the five long-haired guys, all dressed in various shades of black, standing against some wall.

I shook my head in disbelief. “Um, not to rain on your parade or anything, but it seems to me—,” I wanted to be delicate here. This was a man’s prized collection we were talking about. “Well, Michael Taylor would be, um, kind of a common name.”

Jet’s eyes pierced me. “I talked to the guy yesterday.”

“Did he say he was part of the Orange Monkeys?”

He let out some air. “Tangerine Electric Monkeys. And, no. He did not.” He put up a palm, stopping me from the next obvious question. “He told me he was originally from Gadsden Alabama—When I take a loan application, I like to check social security numbers with the place where the person on the phone says they are born. You know, to make sure there isn’t any identity theft.”

I was impressed with Jet’s loan application procedure. The rest of what Jet was telling me sounded, well, shaky at the very least, but I was veering toward insane as a better description. “Well, again, couldn’t there be more than one Michael Taylor there?” I asked, hopefully sounding more innocent than skeptical.

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Look! There was this six-woman pro team from Gadsden—the Gad Flies. They were awesome. I mean just like, the best in their league. They were around about ten years ago.” Jet got a wistful look I had seen before when the subject of volleyball came up.

I failed to see where this was going. “Anyway, I started dating one of the Gad Flies while on tour. Her name was…” he looked up, in deep thought trying to pick her name from what I would guess would be the throes of women after Jet. A smile spread across his face and I was pretty sure not only he remembered her name, but her other vital statistics. “Her name was Mandy”

I couldn’t help myself, “Mandy? A nature name?”

“Man-dy, see. What is more natural than hu-mans?” Not waiting for a reaction, he went back to his story. “One time I told her about the Tangerine Electric Monkeys and how talented they were. And, anyway, Mandy” (the wistful smile spread across his face again) “told me her cousin was the drummer for the Tangerine Electric Monkeys—Michael Taylor.”

I uttered something hopefully sounding encouraging.

“She was going to set up a meeting for the two of us, but it never happened. I had my maximum required three dates with her before I had a chance to meet him.”

“Yes but, how does this mean—,”

“Everything fits. I talked to him yesterday to get the preliminary information for his loan. I mean, he is a music teacher—which would be something natural for him to do now that he is retired from his previous career, he is from Gadsden. And, he said he likes to fish.”

“Likes to fish?”

“Oh yea, after the Tangerine Electric Monkeys broke up, Michael Taylor—our Michael Taylor—became a Southern biathlete—and he was really good at it. He was able to take his love of bass fishing and turn it into another career.”

“Southern biathlete?”

“The Southern biathlon is held in Macon Georgia every autumn. It brings out the best of the best.”

I took a stab, “The best bass fishermen, perhaps?”

Jet, apparently pleased I finally caught on, nodded his head wildly. “Yea, and they also have the deer hunting event too. I followed Michael Taylor’s career pretty carefully for a while. Did you know he got an eighteen-point buck his last year competing? He went out with class. That’s for sure.”

It occurred to me, there was many unusual dimensions to Jet probably better left out of sight. This being one of them. At any rate, I was certainly not going to ask Mr. Taylor—who may or may not be of Tangerine Electric Monkey and Southern Biathalete fame—for his autograph.

I walked into the office at five minutes to eleven, checking to make sure my client hadn’t arrived and Wendy was also nowhere to be found. I breezed by Ira’s office with a quick wave.

With a few minutes to spare, I found my way into the powder room. While indisposed, Dee popped in, “Val buzzed back to the bullpen. Your buyer is here. I will go tell him you will be right with him.”

At ten fifty-eight, I arrived in the conference room to meet the possibly illustrious Mr. Michael Taylor. After Jet’s bizarre reaction this morning, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Mr. Taylor was blond, blue-eyed, with dimples that didn’t seem to match his age. I would guess he was at least somewhere twenty plus years my senior. Which was too bad, because he was quite easy on the eyes. His demeanor was quiet, unassuming and I was hard-pressed to imagine some rock and roll star, smashing guitars to smithereens, in front of me.

As I entered, Mr. Taylor (who insisted I call him Michael) stood and held out his hand as a greeting. “Miss Tina, it is a pleasure to meet you,” he said. Oh boy! A Southern drawl, great manners and dimples, I couldn’t help it. A silly giggle got out before I could stop.

As I was about to get started, already offering him a drink (“Why no thank you ma’am,” and I was mush) when Dee popped her head in.

“Tina, a word please?” She said in a crisp, business-like manner.

Bewildered at the interruption, I excused myself. Right outside the door Dee dragged me by my elbow a good ten feet away. She urgently started, “Tina, what will it take? I want your client.”

I stared, mortified. Where did this come from? “You can’t have him. He’s my buyer.”

“Look, I will give you the commission. Just let me work with him instead of you.”

“Why?”

Dee let out a hushed squeal, sounding like it belonged to a high school junior. “Look at him. He is so cute! Look, I just want to get to know him better.”

Relief spread through me. I was embarrassed to admit maybe Wendy had been right about competing agents. I realized I was more frightened of my friend Dee betraying me than actually loosing a buyer. Dee sensed this too. “You can have the buyer. Honey, I just want the man. Can I just come with you at least?” Her eyes pleading.

Great, I thought. First the It Guy loan officer and now the It Guy client.

As it turns out, Dee was invaluable. She came along under the guise of training me (which she pretty much was) and Michael was quite gracious about it. Telling us, in his smooth Southern drawl, he was from Alabama, a former musician and now a high school music teacher.

He had taken the job to be closer to his children, whose mother had remarried and relocated them to the Valley, a good seventeen hundred miles from home. He followed soon after. Michael regaled us with stories and photos of his kids. Dee hung on to every word. I was quite sure she was taking notes too.

On our sixth home, Michael walked in and I could tell from the expression on his face we had a winner. Walking around, Dee took the saleswoman job, flashing a smile every chance she got (and I noticed the top button on her blouse had been undone) and pointing out all of the extraneous things to him. However, I am pretty sure Michael could have figured out on his own the big appliance in the kitchen was a stove.

Finally, making our way back to the formal living room, he looked up. “I like the high ceiling.” He said.

“Oh, the vaulted ceilings,” Dee cooed. I was nauseous.

“Yes ma’am, that.” He said, looking around, a small smile on his face. No doubt Dee was waiting for the dimples. I knew I was.

“What do you like about it?” I asked, curious why this caught his eye over the others.

Color crept over Michael’s cheeks. “I have some mounted animal heads. I need room to hang them. My son shot his first buck last year on his birthday. I mounted it. I want to make sure is in the center,” He said using his thumbs and forefingers to frame the high wall. Turning to Dee, he said, “You know, I once shot an eighteen point buck?”

Dee was appropriately impressed. And, I decided never to let Jet know I knew this.

One of the areas where Dee was most valued was writing a contract. I had studied the purchase contract in great lengths over the past few weeks. But, it still was a relief for Dee to be there, assisting me. And, Michael seemed to think getting two agents at once was a great deal for him.

After the contract was written, Michael suggested he was hungry and did any of the rest of us wish to join him for lunch? I bowed out like a good friend, using the legitimate excuse about needing to get back to the office to present the contract before my next (pretend) meeting. Dee graciously accepted and off they went, but not before mouthing, “thank you!” to me. I waved and wished them a great meal.