The Three Berkshires
A Modern Telling of The Three Little Pigs
Tom Berkshire rode his battered Harley into the parking garage of the high-rise building and parked it as close to the elevator as he could. He slipped off his helmet and locked it to the sissy bar. Letting his long dark hair drop over his shoulders, he scanned the garage. He recognized his brothers’ cars. One was an older model red Corvette buffed to a perfect sheen taking up two parking stalls. The other was a black BMW parked alone. It looked impressive, but Tom knew that the odometer showed over three hundred thousand miles. Tom unzipped his leather jacket as he stepped into the elevator and punched the button. The elevator rose quickly and did not stop until it reached the twenty-third floor. The door slid open and the sign of Graham, Steadman, and Conklin, Attorneys at Law, appeared directly ahead of him. He pushed open the door and was greeted by an attractive blond woman. The placard on her desk identified her as Cassidy Adams, Legal Assistant.
“You must be Tom Berkshire,” she said as she stood and led him down the dark-paneled hallway. “Mr. Conklin and your brothers are waiting.” She opened the door to conference room two and showed Tom inside before closing the door behind him and retreating down the hall.
Mr. Conklin stood and shook Tom’s hands. His brothers, Harry and Jack nodded in his direction. Harry was dressed in a sports coat and jeans. His light blue shirt was open at the collar. Jack wore his usual dark three-piece suit, off-white shirt, and silk tie. He looked more like a lawyer than Mr. Conklin. Conklin motioned Tom to a chair. He sat at the opposite end of the table from his brothers. Mr. Conklin sat down and opened a folder that lay in front of him. “We are here to read the will of your Grandfather, Gordon Berkshire,” Conklin began, and he proceeded to read. Several legal terms went over the men’s heads, but the point was that their grandfather left each of them a quarter of a million dollars with the stipulation that it be used for each of them to develop their own business. When Conklin finished, he asked, “Do you have any questions?”
“When do we get the money?” Jack asked.
Mr. Conklin picked up the phone and pushed a button, “Miss Adams, please come in and bring the checks.”
A few seconds later the door opened, and the attractive blond stepped into the room. She walked around the table and placed a check in front of each brother. Jack snapped up the check, placed it in his pocketbook, and walked out of the conference room. Harry reached out and brushed the back of Miss Adams’ hand as she set the check in front of him. He smiled at her. She smiled back. His eyes followed her as she placed the check in front of Tom and left the room. Tom picked up the check, studied the numbers on its face, folded it three times, and stuffed it into the pocket of his leather jacket. By the time Tom shook Mr. Conklin’s hand and left the conference room, Harry was already standing at Cassidy’s desk making a date.
Jack jumped into his BMW and jerked it into drive. Holding his cell phone to his ear as he raced down the ramp from the parking garage, he shouted, “Hold tee time for me!” The BMW’s tire screeched as he roared toward the country club. Quickly changing from his suit to his golfing clothes, he sprinted to the golf course arriving in time to tee off with his regular foursome. While playing the front nine he talked to his friends about the idea of creating an investment firm. One of the players knew a man that was looking for investment opportunities. He handed Jack a card that read, “Benjamin Bernard Wolfe, Financier.” Jack was eager and the back nine took forever to play through. As soon as he reached the clubhouse, he placed a call to Mr. Wolfe. Wolfe was interested and the next day they signed an agreement loaning Jack three million dollars to get his investment firm up and running, using his quarter million gift from his grandfather as earnest money.
In the parking garage, Tom straddled his bike, pulled on his helmet, and roared onto the street. He weaved in and out of the late afternoon traffic and was soon outside the city. At Exit 83, he swung off the freeway and dropped onto Rancho Drive which soon gave way to a two-lane county road. After following the road for several miles, he entered a small town. Just past the only stop light, he turned right into the parking lot of the Grafton Bank. Pushing open the door, he strode to Mr. Wallers desk.
“What can I do for you, Tom?” Mr. Waller asked.
“I have come to pay off the mortgage on the farm,” Tom said.
“Take a seat.”
Tom sat down and pulled the check from his pocket and unfolded it. Placing it on Mr. Waller’s desk, he said, “I think this should cover it.”
Waller picked up the check and looked it over. “Let me pull up your file.” After punching some buttons on the keyboard and clicking the mouse several times, he peered at his computer screen. “Yes, that looks like it will cover it.” He turned the screen so that Tom could see the numbers. “I just need to have you endorse the check and I’ll get the bank vice president to okay it, and everything should be good to go.”
Tom left the bank and rode his Harley three miles up the road to his farm and swung through the gate in front of a red brick farmhouse. He pulled into the garage and went into the house where he changed into jeans and a tee-shirt before heading out to the barn to feed the livestock.
On Friday, Harry drove his Corvette out to the luxury resort under construction at the edge of the lake. He wandered around the construction site and climbed to the top of one of the condominiums under construction. In the distance, a tree-covered island in the middle of the lake caught his eye. Closer in, the docks were under construction. Living here would be a dream, but more importantly, he wanted to invest. A huge profit was certain. He strode across the yard and stepped into the business office identified by the sign, “B. B. Wolfe, Investments.” Along with his inheritance, he borrowed all he could to become a junior partner.
One evening, several months later, Tom was feeding the cattle when he heard car tires crunching on the gravel driveway. He looked out the barn door and saw Jack’s black BMW. Jack jumped out of the car. He was not wearing his suit coat, his vest was undone, and his tie was loose. Circles of sweat ringed the armpits of his shirt. “Have you seen Harry?” he asked as soon as Tom walked out of the barn.
“No, why do you ask?”
“It looks like we have a problem. I thought he might come here.” No sooner were the words out of Jack’s mouth than a red sports car careened down the driveway and slid to a stop.
Harry bailed out of the car. “Do you know, Mr. Wolfe?” he asked before the dust even settled.
“Oh, yes, old B. B. Wolfe, Benjamin Bernard, isn’t it?” Tom said. “He held the mortgage on the farm before I paid it off.”
“Yeah, that’s him. Anyway, I invested in those luxury condominiums out by the lake and moved into one of the model units. Well, I got a visit from Mr. Wolfe. I don’t know how he did it, but he has managed to defraud me, and he is throwing me out. I don’t have a place to live.”
“I see your problem,” said Tom turning to Jack. “Now what about you?”
“I needed more money to get the investment firm up and running. I took out a loan from the only place I could get it, and I am a little bit behind on paying it back?”
“Let me guess, you borrowed it from our Mr. Wolfe. How much are you behind?”
“A lot. I signed over all my assets to him, even the little bungalow on the river. Everything is gone and I’ve no place to go.”
Tom looked at his brothers and shook his head. “I’ve put every cent into this farm so I can’t help you with money, but I can let you work here and stay in the bunkhouse. There is no pay, but you can get three square meals a day.”
“Gee’s, I haven’t done farm work in years,” said Jack looking at his soft white hands. “Let me stay here tonight and I’ll think about it.”
Harry got back into his Corvette and drove away.
In the morning when Tom got up to feed the cattle he found Jack, wearing an old denim jacket over his off-white shirt and a worn pair of chore gloves, wrestling bales of hay onto the flatbed pickup truck. With two men working the chores were soon done and they walked up to the house just as Harry’s red sports car zoomed up the driveway.
Harry opened the door and stepped out. He was sporting a new cowboy hat and a pair of boots to go with his jeans. He reached into the back seat of the car, “You better try some different clothes if you are going to be a farmhand,” Harry said as he handed Jack a bag with the local feed store logo on it. Jack peeked inside the bag and smiled. Tom put his arms around his brothers and the three of them walked to the house.
As Tom fixed breakfast, Jack and Harry called their accountants. As soon as breakfast was over, Tom placed a call to Mr. Conklin and laid out the situation. Conklin had heard of Wolfe. He had a reputation for being involved in several shady deals. One of the most troubling involved a young woman and her grandmother. The FBI was investigating him. Tom made a few more phone calls.
The next afternoon the brothers were working in the barn when a white limousine pulled into the driveway. The chauffeur stepped around the car and opened the door. A tall thin man with a graying goatee stepped out of the car. The creases in his dark suit pants were crisp, his white shirt was starched, and his necktie was perfectly straight. He strode toward the house and knocked on the door, but no one answered. He pounded on the door with his walking stick and shouted, “I know you Berkshire brothers are here. You better let me in!”
The brothers watched from the barn as two black SUVs with US Government tags pulled in behind the limo and four agents got out. “Mr. Benjamin Bernard Wolfe, you are under arrest for embezzlement, fraud, and racketeering,” said an agent as he slipped handcuffs onto Mr. Wolfe’s wrists and read him his rights before he led him back to one of the SUVs.
The three brothers watched the SUVs drive away. “How would you guys like to move up to the farmhouse until you get back on your feet?” Tom asked, and they went in for dinner.
