My name is Ozzie Hanswatter and I am a forty one-year-old divorced male and the county assessor in my town of Little River, Idaho. As the last surviving Hanswatter, I had been summoned to a lawyer's office to hear the reading of my late Uncle Darby's will. Much to my surprise, he was very wealthy, but even more surprising was that he left it all to charity, gifting me only a small, blue radio. At least it seemed like a radio. However, when I turned it on, I discovered that it was something much more mystifying.
My uncle had written me a letter suggesting that the "radio" was part of a puzzle that he was confident I could solve. As I began to examine the little unit, I was surprised that the broadcasts coming from it were very unusual. They appeared to be about fictional situations and imaginary characters.
By the time I had returned home, I was determined to solve the puzzle my uncle had presented me and spent almost all night writing down what I heard from the various stations that I dialed in. It became evident that each station represented a different point in time; some as near as a few days while others were years in the future.
I was obsessed with finding out all I could about the device and dedicated myself to unraveling this mystery over the weekend. Additionally, I had to revise my opinion. The reports I was hearing were about real people. The question was, were they real situations?
In the meantime I interviewed a candidate for an opening in the county clerk's office. Her name was Leticia Darling and she was a strikingly beautiful woman as well as a highly qualified candidate. I'm the first to admit I was smitten by her and hoped that she would be the one chosen for the position. I would love to get the opportunity to know her better.
Part 2: The Puzzle and the Lady
I had a hard time concentrating on clearing my desk that Friday afternoon. Ms. Darling had caught my attention and currently was filling my thoughts. She was so appealing that I started plotting my strategy to approach her even though she hadn't yet been hired. I was that confident of her success.
When I arrived home from the office, I immediately began work on my weekend project: unraveling the mystery of the little blue "radio." I had made copious notes Wednesday night and Thursday. I intended to authenticate what I was hearing with two tests. One was to compare the Sunday baseball scores announced on the "radio" on Thursday to the actual results on the sports TV channel Sunday evening. It was the simplest test I could conceive and would be a starting point for my investigation.
My other test would be to take a number of the names I had been hearing on the various newscasts and Google them to see if I could confirm their existence. I began with the two baseball players mentioned on the very first broadcast, Tom Lumpkin and Mort Sidle. Sidle has been described as a "perennial all-star" and I suspected he might have been noticed much earlier.
My hunch was right. The Mort Sidle of 2007 was the Double A batting champion for the Fargo Flatlanders. At twenty-two, he was a can't-miss phenom drafted out of Dry Gulch State and was the property of the Kansas City Royals. So that checked out.
I typed in Tom Lumpkin and got very little right away. It took several pages of hunting in the minor leagues, but I finally found a Tom Lumpkin, toiling away with the Bay City Rollers in the Single A Midwest League. He was a young fireballer, or so the little blurb on him indicated. He had been signed right out of high school in Arkansas and was only twenty years old.
I was satisfied that the reports I had heard were about "real people" and not some fictional characters. It paralleled my information on Elijah Mellor. I was just getting their bios a bit before their fame.
I began to type in more names of individuals that I had never heard of who were featured on various news reports. I confined my search to events that I suspected were within ten to fifteen years in the future. All in all, I entered fourteen names and had nine "hits." I couldn't be sure that all the names I matched were indeed the same person, but if there was a commonality of occupation or interest, I suspected I was looking at their future.
I was now semi-confident that the information I was hearing was authentic, but was sometime in the future. While this was encouraging, it still didn't solve the puzzle. What was the purpose of this information and how could I use it to create wealth?
I had already discarded gambling on the outcome of sports or other events. It was too slow, too heavily regulated and I would soon become well enough known that I couldn't take advantage of my knowledge. One big hit on Powerball might get me started, but what then?
I thought about the stock market. It would be a much slower process, but I could invest large sums without attracting a great deal of attention. Perhaps that was the method I could use. I was well familiar with compounding profit and I knew that once I got the ball rolling, I could accumulate a great deal of money in a relatively short period of time. Relatively short being five years or so.
I sat back and thought about Uncle Darby again. He was a complete mystery to me. He was kind, thoughtful, good-natured and generous. When my father died, he made sure my mother and I spent a nice vacation every year in Paramount, his home.
Each summer, from the time I was ten until I left for college, I would join my mother and we would drive to Uncle Darby's home and spend a wonderful two weeks swimming in the nearby lake, hiking, fishing in the river, and generally just getting away from our everyday lives. I know it was just as important to Mom as it was to me.
There was never a hint that he was rich or that he possessed this magic "radio." Perhaps it all came to him later in life, but for now ... I was left to wonder.
Mom didn't struggle to put food on the table or pay the mortgage on our house. Dad had a personal insurance policy plus the one that he had from his employer. When he died on the job, both insurance policies were in force and Mom was looked after financially.
On the spur of the moment, I picked up the phone and called Felix Bindle, Uncle Darby's lawyer. I had a question for him. As luck would have it, he was in his office despite the fact that it was almost six on Friday afternoon.
"Mr. Bindle, its Ozzie Hanswatter calling."
"Yes Mr. Hanswatter. What can I do for you?" He didn't sound irritated that I had called him so late in the day.
"I was wondering what happened to Uncle Darby's home? I mean, was it sold or ... what?"
"Well, actually, your uncle didn't own that home. He rented it from a corporation. They maintain the ownership," he said carefully.
"Really! What is the name of the corporation?" I asked.
"I'm not sure your uncle wanted that to be public ... but ... since you are the sole surviving heir, it's called the DMH Foundation." He sounded reluctant to give much information out.
"DMH? Those are his initials. Is it his business?"
"Not exactly. You see, he set this foundation up to distribute ... uhhhh mmm ... funding to worthy causes."
"Who owns the foundation then?" I asked, now confused.
"No one. Or rather ... everyone. It's a public trust ... something like PBS, except it doesn't have fund drives. I suppose I should tell you that your uncle was much wealthier than you realized. Each year he gave hundreds of millions of dollars to worthy causes throughout the world. DMH was the vehicle to distribute that wealth. It is generating so much cash that it takes several staff just to manage the transactions.
"Your uncle was a very generous and socially conscious man. He had created enormous earnings and yet was determined that it all go to worthy causes. The thirty-seven million that he had in his estate was ... petty cash."
I was dumbfounded. I had never heard of such nonsense. My uncle? Rich beyond reason? I was struggling to form my next thought.
"Mr. Hanswatter," Bindle interrupted quietly.
"Yes?"
"I think it would be wise if you didn't discuss this with anyone. As you can appreciate, when sums of this dimension are involved, it attracts unwanted attention from nefarious types. I wouldn't want you to be ... pressured ... or perhaps threatened by anyone over money that they could never obtain," he suggested.
I was quiet for a moment. It was a lot to digest.
"I understand. Thank you for being so frank with me, Mr. Bindle. I may want to talk to you again about my uncle, but for now, I think I need to absorb what you have told me," I said slowly.
"Of course. Feel free to call me at any time. Your uncle has maintained a permanent retainer with our firm. I am at your disposal."
"Thank you, sir. I will probably call you again when I've had time to grasp all this."
"Of course. I'll look forward to it. Good day, Mr. Hanswatter."
I stared at the phone as I hung up.
A mystery on top of a puzzle on top of ... who knows what? This was reaching far beyond my comprehension. Enormous wealth in my uncle's hands and yet he lived a modest lifestyle with no hint of the power he held.
There was only one common denominator that kept coming up in my thinking; the radio. Somehow, someway, my uncle had used it to produce all this wealth. That he used it for good deeds to help others was irrelevant. To do that, first he had to create the financial underpinning. How had he done it and how long had it taken?
I felt overwhelmed. I didn't know where to start. Bindle had shared some sensitive information with me and now I wanted to know if he knew how Uncle Darby had made his fortune. His foundation was apparently self-sustaining, in spite of his death. That implied it was swimming in cash. How did it get to that state?
I heard my stomach growl and looking at the clock, I saw that I was an hour past my usual supper time. I stood from the chair and stretched, suddenly fatigued and not really interested in making a meal. I grabbed my car keys and left the house, heading for the nearby roadhouse; Dorsey Doe's Dance Hall. A little bit of Texas in northern Idaho.
A couple of beers and a burger later, I was feeling much better. The live band hadn't yet started but soon there would be the usual full house for a Friday night. I was sitting at the bar and scanning the crowd for familiar faces.
I was resigned to a night of watching the other participants in this "meat market" and trying to decide which one I would have been happiest to pick up. There were several fine looking young ladies on display, but somehow, I wasn't interested. My telephone conversation with Bindle had thrown me right off my game and then ... then there was Ms. Darling.
I was staring into my beer when the young woman who was tending my end of the bar approached.
"You ever been stalked before?" she asked with a grin.
"Huh? Stalked? Uh ... no ... not that I know of," I laughed.
"Well, there's a first time for everything," she said with a smirk. She was looking over my shoulder and I instinctively turned to see who she was referring to.
"Which one?" I asked, unable to focus on any one person.
"The babe in the blue satin blouse. She's been boring holes in your back for ten minutes."
I peered through the dimly lit, smoky haze and finally saw her. It took a couple of seconds before all the lights went on, but when they did, I was knocked silly. Sitting at a small table between two other attractive women was Leticia Darling, my wet dream interviewee from this morning.
I turned back to the bartender and mouthed, "I don't believe it."
"You know her?" she grinned again.
"Yeah ... sort of. I just met her this morning. I interviewed her for a job."
